443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de...

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casac
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#451 Post by casac » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:23 pm

Hello all. I am new here and just recently watched my blu-ray of Madame De... and am wondering if the issue is not with the transfer itself, but with poor television settings? Having never seen this film before I have no other transfer to compare it to, so if I am off here, please let me know. But while watching it I changed my television settings from the cinema setting to the standard setting, and the quality of picture changed drastically. On the standard setting, which is what I use to watch television, the picture was horrible. Switching my TV back to the cinema setting was an instant improvement. This also happens with the Criterion blu-ray of "Howards End". The first time I had watched "Howards End" was with the Standard setting and I was shocked at how horrible the transfer looked. I almost returned my disc because I thought it was defective. However, I did some research and found that I was not the only one who had this problem with the "Howards End" disc and decided to play around with my television settings. My TV has several settings pre-installed and when I chose the cinema setting "Howards End" looked great. And the same thing is true of "Madame De...", at least on my television.

I have looked at the numerous screen captures and I have to say that I don't really see what all the fuss is about. I would be most appreciative if someone could please break down how the blu-ray transfer is a let down, and also if changing your television settings helps to improve the picture quality or not. Thank you for your time.

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MichaelB
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#452 Post by MichaelB » Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:28 am

casac wrote:Hello all. I am new here and just recently watched my blu-ray of Madame De... and am wondering if the issue is not with the transfer itself, but with poor television settings?
Some of the people complaining about it have properly calibrated systems, so that's wildly unlikely to be the issue.

And if it was as simple as that, then why has Gaumont withdrawn their planned release indefinitely?

Granted, I haven't seen the transfer myself yet, but it's obvious just from the framegrabs (which have nothing to do with "poor television settings") that it's a disaster - there's none of the detail that you'd expect from a 35mm-sourced Blu-ray transfer.

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jindianajonz
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#453 Post by jindianajonz » Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:08 am

casac wrote:I would be most appreciative if someone could please break down how the blu-ray transfer is a let down
I don't have a very experienced eye for some of these things, but there was some stuff that definitely stood out for me:
(I'm gonna be posting links to Blu-ray caps from DVDBeaver, you'll have to go to their site to see the DVD comparisons.)
1) In this shot notice how smooth her face looks, especially when you flip back and forth between the DVD and Blu. Also notice that the net over her face almost seems to be fading away...

2) ...until you get to this shot, where the net is almost gone. Granted, the net is very tough to see in the DVD, but there is no reason for a "restored" blu to have less clarity on this than the old DVD. Also look at the books and wall on the far left side of the screen- I don't know how to explain it, but they almost look like a painting to me (i've seen the phrase "paint by numbers" bandied about). In the DVD the books look soft, but these almost look... smeared? I'm not quite sure what word to use.

3) One thing that threw me off when trying to compare versions is shots like this, which obviously look like crap, but the DVD equivalents don't look much better. But they don't look much worse either, in which case, what was the point of this grand restoration? And I do think the railing on the wallpaper in the background does look a little bit flatter and more "painted" than the DVD version did.

4) Alright, now for some of the more obvious ones: If you thought the live action looked like a painting, wait until you see what an actual painting looks like! You can hardly tell what the painting is supposed to be of, whereas in the DVD version you get a very good sense that it is a bunch of men on horses.

5)And finally, check out the trees here- the leaves here and in other outdoor scenes were the places where i was first able to notice the problems with this transfer- they really do look like a painting.

6)Also, it takes a while to load, butthis shot from caps-a-holic was enlightening. Notice the detail on the wooden railings on the second floor, and how it quite literally disappears on the blu-ray version, as well as detail on the chandelier and the statue on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

That's what I saw, but I'm sure others with better eyes for this than me will have more to add.

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#454 Post by tenia » Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:28 pm

To make it simple: it should have much more details than what the new BD has. And that's because the restoration people have used to many filters, which has "softened" and smoothed the picture to the point details have disappeared.

I understood that it's bad to the point where upscaling Criterion's DVD gives better results.

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#455 Post by cdnchris » Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:51 pm

tenia wrote: I understood that it's bad to the point where upscaling Criterion's DVD gives better results.
It does as you can make out that veil a bit better than you can on the Blu-ray.

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#456 Post by tenia » Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:33 pm

But you would still improve upon the DVD compression, though ?

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#457 Post by cdnchris » Sun Aug 25, 2013 2:51 pm

That's about one of the only advantages of the Blu-ray: the fact that the DVDs compression is absent. The new transfer has also removed a lot of the print damage visible in the DVD, though how much of that is related to the filtering directly I can't say. Still, the DVD does deliver better textures and details in a lot of cases.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#458 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Sep 03, 2013 5:51 pm

Latest from Gaumont. En bref, they're starting again and the new model will hit the streets 1st QTR 2014.
Shame Pathe don't have the same balls.

shaky
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#459 Post by shaky » Tue Sep 03, 2013 6:12 pm

Glorious news

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vsski
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#460 Post by vsski » Tue Sep 03, 2013 6:18 pm

I think a big thank you is due to Chris and David Hare from this site here, as well as Dr. Svet and whoever was the person on DVD Classik - sometimes a few people can make a difference :D .
And if the result will be indeed as good as we hope, it may put some pressure on CC to at least make a comment, if not jump into action (not that I'm holding my breath).

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#461 Post by rwaits » Tue Sep 03, 2013 7:45 pm

I really didn't expect to see this happen. Absolutely amazing news!

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jsteffe
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#462 Post by jsteffe » Tue Sep 03, 2013 8:17 pm

Thank you, Gaumont!

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swo17
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#463 Post by swo17 » Tue Sep 03, 2013 8:23 pm

Yes, though how often do Gaumont's releases have English subs? Either way, I hope Criterion considers redoing their release.

EDIT: I say "either way" because regardless of whether a superior alternative becomes available, the CC will presumably still be the way that a lot of people end up seeing this.
Last edited by swo17 on Tue Sep 03, 2013 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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zedz
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#464 Post by zedz » Tue Sep 03, 2013 9:34 pm

It's like they were playing 'pass the parcel' with a lump of dogshit and two seconds after the music stopped Criterion was the only person left in the room. Still, they had the opportunity of turning down the transfer.

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#465 Post by tenia » Wed Sep 04, 2013 1:28 am

zedz wrote:Still, they had the opportunity of turning down the transfer.
Actually, it's still something I don't understand. Worse even : they could have not only turned down the transfer, but alarm Gaumont that something was wrong with the restoration, and all this disaster would have been detected 4 months ago.

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domino harvey
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#466 Post by domino harvey » Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:11 pm

david hare wrote:This concerns me not one bit but it is totally clear to me Gary no longer actually watches the discs he's supposed to be reviewing.
For what it's worth, I've suspected this for years. The fact that his captures all appear at or near chapter stops now doesn't make the argument any harder either! I think the reason there's so little nudity in the screencaps any more is that Gary's stopped watching the film long enough to know where they're at!

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Matt
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#467 Post by Matt » Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:37 pm

david hare wrote:Why has Rupert Pupkin's long and crucial post disappeared? Did he request its erasure personally? Were the mods ordered to remove it for legal reasons?
As far as I can tell, he edited it himself. I deleted a recent post of his in this thread yesterday morning that just said ".../..." just like another post of his on the previous page.

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#468 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:03 am

yes I did edit my post with ".../..." since the delete button is not available in this forum.
I did regret to have post on dvdclassik the comparison between the iTunes (and i'm sorry I should have credited david hare from criterionforum for the iTunes caps :oops: but at that time I didn't want to make a direct connection with a US forum) which have upscaled with AKVIS on my Mac (using a bit of grain and everything) at 1920x1080 blu-ray resolution in order to show to Mister Gaumont that even with a 720p source upscaled there was more details than on their new Gaumont restauration by Studio Eclair (we can still see some foliage in the background, Danielle Darrieux's face and clothing texture are still there, and the horse has still an eye which doesn't look like the shark in Jaws)

for the rest of my post, let's say that I prefer to stay "quiet"... All I can say is that I'm very sad and bitter.
I think david hare read my original post and points about Studio Eclair and my concern goes for the next outputs of Criterion...

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tenia
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#469 Post by tenia » Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:26 am

domino harvey wrote:
david hare wrote:This concerns me not one bit but it is totally clear to me Gary no longer actually watches the discs he's supposed to be reviewing.
For what it's worth, I've suspected this for years. The fact that his captures all appear at or near chapter stops now doesn't make the argument any harder either!
Which is pretty lazy, because since you need to be on a computer to do the caps, you can very well just use the time bar, and screen the whole movie without needing to hit once the "next chapter" button. I usually watch the movie once normally on my HT, and then hit the computer for a disc scan, so I already know about when they are nice scenes for captures. I still takes me less than 10 minutes to do captures over the whole movie and upload the caps.

Anyway.

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Finch
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#470 Post by Finch » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:24 pm

Gaumont have produced some great discs before so hopefully the redone Madame de release will be among them. I have learned my lesson though and will hold on to the Criterion DVD for the booklet and the extras. Crit's total silence regarding their BD just makes that decision to put it out all the more infuriating. If it hadn't been for that disc, I would have said they had a great 2013. Question is: will they dare to reissue Madame de as it's meant to be in 2014? Don't think they'll have the balls to do it.

PS.: If you know the films he's reviewing, I always thought it totally obvious that Tooze mostly takes screencaps from the beginning or end of the corresponding chapter. Add to that the cut and paste jobs from previous reviews (to be fair, Svet does it with certain phrases in his reviews as well) and it's clear to me, he doesn't spend as much time with the disc as other reviewers do. Not to mention his questionable method of obtaining the screen grabs.

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jindianajonz
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#471 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:50 pm

How did Criterion handle the switch from a non-anamorphic version of the Brazil 3 discer to the anamorphic version? Was it something they announced, or did they just quietly start selling the newer version in place of the old? If it's the latter, I wouldn't be surprised if they took the same approach with Madame de....

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#472 Post by swo17 » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:52 pm

jindianajonz wrote:How did Criterion handle the switch from a non-anamorphic version of the Brazil 3 discer to the anamorphic version? Was it something they announced, or did they just quietly start selling the newer version in place of the old?
Officially announced seven years later

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#473 Post by lefeufollet » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:56 pm

jindianajonz wrote:How did Criterion handle the switch from a non-anamorphic version of the Brazil 3 discer to the anamorphic version? Was it something they announced, or did they just quietly start selling the newer version in place of the old? If it's the latter, I wouldn't be surprised if they took the same approach with Madame de....
The Brazil reissue was announced in their newsletter:
We’re happy to rerelease one of our all-time most popular titles in a gorgeous new transfer, supervised and wholeheartedly approved by Terry Gilliam—the only existing masters of the dystopian epic Brazil made with his participation. The new high-definition transfer was struck from a brand-new 35mm preservation interpositive of the original European version of the film; the quality of this disc, now in anamorphic, surpasses our old transfer. Significant digital cleanup not possible last time around has now been done, as well as extra work on some of the optical effects. Also, for the first time, Brazil will be available as a single-disc release. However, our ultimate, three-disc special edition box set (which now features the new transfer as the main feature) is still available.
Given the circumstances of the Madame debacle, I would expect any potential reissue to be handled in a different manner.

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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#474 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:00 pm

as I mentioned a couple of times elsewhere Pathe have allegedly amended Le Samourai and done just that..slipped it out under cover of darkness. I haven't tracked down a reappraisal however. Perhaps tenia , if he's listening, knows of one?

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andyli
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Re: 443-445 La ronde, Le plaisir, The Earrings of Madame de.

#475 Post by andyli » Thu Sep 05, 2013 2:32 pm

This one I found a few days ago:
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleic ... 78#auswahl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The new version is not without problems to be honest.

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