2 Blue Underground dissapointments [Archive]

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Fart Lighter

11-23-2003, 05:21 PM

IN the last few weeks I've had DEAD & BURIED LE and Q-THE WINGED SERPENT.

Both films I really like, and was expecting good DVDs of.
DEAD & BURIED had a horrible transfer. Dark and murkey, with criss-crossing faint lines in places. It also was rather flickery on darker patches.
Q turned up and had some audio synch problems in places as well as frames missing here and there. I had a compatibility problem or a defective disk as well, as in a couple of places it froze for a few seconds.

...And it also flickered on darker parts of the image, which I find very very annoying.

I can put most of the probelms down to prints (although I think BU should have done a better job sourcing them), but 2 in a row, both recent releases, with the same flickering probelm makes me wonder if it's a BU telecine problem. Are any of their other recent releases suffering from flcikering? It really does spoil my enjoyment of these films.

dwatts

11-23-2003, 05:25 PM

I have Q, and I have not noticed the flickering. But people fall over themselves defending BU, so you'll likely get no sympathy here. I have not bothered with Dead & Buried at this point, mainly because of the price.

Fart Lighter

11-23-2003, 05:32 PM

I checked the other recent purchases of mine to ensure that it's not my player (before anybody suggests that), and everything else is fine.
I am bothered about this as there's a lot of BU I want at the moment, and I'm very put off at the moment.

I also had three Anchor bay releases recently, and wheras I'm ahppy with the mastering, there are some rather annoying and odd problems with them too. Somehow, inside the shrinkwrap (which was fine, with no marks), all the boxes were badly scratched. And what's more, two of the disks were as well. Thankfully they still played fine, so save me the agro of sending them back. AB's packaging plant needs a real seeing to!

Fart Lighter

11-23-2003, 05:34 PM

people fall over themselves defending BU, so you'll likely get no sympathy here.

I've noticed. They've gotten that Anchor bay/Criterion ass-kissing thing going on. Still they are better than Shriek Show so far.

mutleyhyde

11-23-2003, 05:34 PM

You people need to relax already. Why we put these companies up on pedestals only to tear them down is beyond me. Elite, Anchor Bay, Synapse, Blue Underground... they've all been extremely good to the horror fanbase, but because they all have certain drawbacks from time to time, they get shat on big time. Watts, the only reason BU hasn't been shat on so much is because they haven't been around as long... give it time, and I'm sure you'll see BU hataz comin' out of the woodwork.

Fucking breathe, people.

mutleyhyde

11-23-2003, 05:37 PM

And Lighter, I don't mean to criticize you for being pissed about your favorite titles being fucked up. I'm not saying, in any way whatsoever, that we should just suckle up and be happy with what we're given, I'm just saying that we need to realize that fuck ups happen, but that for the majority of the time, we get good product from these guys... that's all.

Fart Lighter

11-23-2003, 05:47 PM

I believe in strong criscism, good or bad. If they (any company) get it right, then let them know so they keep the effort up. And just as much if they fuck up, let them know. It's the only way to get some of them to often realise there's problems or do anything about it. Early AB is a fantastic example, when they were using GTM New Media to author their disks with terrible results every time. The endless slagging off forced them to change, and things have been a lot better since. But that still doesn't excuse things like the Day Of The Dead audio issues. If they're going to do something, they should do it right, and other good releases doesn't excuse the bad ones.
Judge a disk on it's own merits is my way, not by any company's other releases.

etale

11-23-2003, 05:57 PM

dwatts

11-23-2003, 06:28 PM

Oh please, no-one has sounded remotely annoyed or angry in this thread other than you, mutleyhyde. So you can spare me your indignation. I simply made a statement which you're free to disagree with. BU are not new, they have existed for a long time. Sure they label on the front of the box says Anchor Bay, but much of the content was BU.

marioscido

11-23-2003, 06:41 PM

DEAD & BURIED had a horrible transfer. Dark and murkey, with criss-crossing faint lines in places. It also was rather flickery on darker patches.

I have to disagree with this statement. I saw 'D&B' in its original release and I’ve seen it several times in rep houses. I fact, I saw it a year ago at a midnight screening at Halloween. It was a lousy print, but it was much better than most of the video transfers out there. One of the reasons I loved (and many people loved) 'D&B' when it was originally released was precisely because of its grainy, soft-focus look, which gave the night scenes a weird dark murkiness. If you’ve seen the brilliant 'Raw Meat' you will know that Gary Sherman is all about visual textures. And 'B&D' is no exception to this style. The film’s textured look is unparalleled in the horror of its day and the BU transfer is a good attempt (not perfect by any means) at preserving this. I suspect Lustig saw the film in its original release and wanted to re-create the look he experienced back then.

This brings up the question of digital transfers and the question of "grain correction." This is happening much too often these days depriving beautifully grainy films from the look and feel of their original releases and altering the visual intent of filmmakers. We need to start a campaign for a new endangered species: save film grain. Celluloid is grainy folks, it is not video!! Read this from a reviewer at dvdtalk:

“For this review, I compared the Blue Underground version of Dead & Buried to a German import from Dragon Film. The Dragon DVD shows far less grain, but it's clear that noise reduction was used to achieve this effect, resulting in an image that looks "digitized" and shows a great deal of pixellation. But, but dark scenes are easier to make out in the Dragon version.” [http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=]

To my mind, this kind of transfer is a disgrace. I applaud Blue Underground for giving me the change to re-experience 'D&B' the way I experienced it over 20 years ago.

Deaddevilman

11-23-2003, 07:18 PM

Anyone who bought Q deserves what they get:)

mutleyhyde

11-23-2003, 07:41 PM

dwatts

11-23-2003, 08:36 PM

Of one thing you can be certain - I'll always find time for a breath or two.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

X-human

11-23-2003, 09:06 PM

This brings up the question of digital transfers and the question of "grain correction." This is happening much too often these days depriving beautifully grainy films from the look and feel of their original releases and altering the visual intent of filmmakers. We need to start a campaign for a new endangered species: save film grain. Celluloid is grainy folks, it is not video!! Read this from a reviewer at dvdtalk:

This is a problem I've noticed as well, a lot of people seem to forget that many film makers like grain and often times used grain to their advantage. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a good example. Most of the special effects look much worse after the digital clean up, and the people still carrying Kubrick's torch are considering doing another transfer which retains the grain in order to achieve the look Kubrick wanted.

Which is also my concern about HD TCM, it seems like they're working to make it too pretty.

KR~!

11-23-2003, 09:13 PM

Some movies are suppose to look grainy and dirty.
Good example are the dogme95 flims.

http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm

Werner Von Wallenrod

11-23-2003, 10:34 PM

I thought the Q & Dead & Buried transfers were great (and far exceeded the transfers they'd received on previous releases).
I also have noticed no flickering.

etale

11-23-2003, 10:52 PM

This is a problem I've noticed as well, a lot of people seem to forget that many film makers like grain and often times used grain to their advantage. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a good example. Most of the special effects look much worse after the digital clean up, and the people still carrying Kubrick's torch are considering doing another transfer which retains the grain in order to achieve the look Kubrick wanted.

Which is also my concern about HD TCM, it seems like they're working to make it too pretty.

My only problem to my copy of 2001 is the shimmering stars.
I have the MGM edition.

onebyone

11-23-2003, 11:42 PM

I am not going after Blue Underground, but I too thought Dead & Buried's transfer was pretty bad. Of course, I have no idea if it was still better than every other transfer the movie has ever had as this was the first copy I ever saw, but it was way too dark and murky. I had to turn my television's brightness up to maximum to see anything at all. It was that bad.

etale

11-23-2003, 11:43 PM

I am not going after Blue Underground, but I too thought Dead & Buried's transfer was pretty bad. Of course, I have no idea if it was still better than every other transfer the movie has ever had as this was the first copy I ever saw, but it was way too dark and murky. II had to turn my television's brightness up to maximum to see anything at all. It was that bad.

To say nothing od shortening the lifespan of your TV set.

JW77

11-24-2003, 12:55 AM

I have D&B buried and will admit that the transfer is a bit on the soft side, with dull colors.

I assumed that this was either the intent of the film-makers, or due to poor source materials. A DVD can only look as good as the source materials.

And film grain isn't a bad thing. It's the nature of film. Removing grain from films is like removing brushstrokes from a painting.

That said, so far the biggest thing about BU that irks me is that they're pulling that "limited edition" shit Anchor Bay was pulling. D&B was numbered and limited to 50K copies, the Christopher Lee boxed set has an exclusive movie not available seperately. Bleh. I hate to see them start going down that road.

betterdan

11-24-2003, 01:07 AM

I also hate the Limited Edition bullshit. if I don't have the money at the time I'll probably miss out on getting it.

mgfred

11-24-2003, 03:36 AM

I have the Dragon "Dead and Buried" too. I think what Blue Underground has given us is the best we are gonna get unless somebody finds a better print. The sound also is far superior on the BU version as well.

Grim

11-24-2003, 03:45 AM

I think almost all of BU's transfers and extras have been great, but their catalog of titles hasn't been so great. I only liked a couple titles of their's.

Cujo108

11-24-2003, 04:12 AM

Personally, I have liked several of the titles BU has put out. There are a few I could care less about, but they've still put out a lot of stuff I've been wanting, especially Dead and Buried, which is one of my all time favorites.

hell ya!

11-24-2003, 04:20 AM

I have no complaints about BU at all. I've liked pretty much all of their titles they've released. Especially the Romero and Cohen titles. :banana:

KR~!

11-24-2003, 04:41 AM

Blue Underground rocks, I have their Mondo Cane box set and it's so sweet. Blue Underground is like Criterion's sleazier sister :D

Andrew

11-24-2003, 05:00 AM

I have also enjoyed much of what BU has put out. I absolutely loved CONTRABAND, THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN COLLECTION DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, EMANUELLE IN AMERICA, THE PROWLER, and AFRICA ADDIO, and really enjoyed all of their other releases, save THE CRAZIES and DEAD & BURIED (which I both found to be letdowns).

Damin J. Toell

11-24-2003, 07:49 AM

Both films I really like, and was expecting good DVDs of.
DEAD & BURIED had a horrible transfer. Dark and murkey, with criss-crossing faint lines in places. It also was rather flickery on darker patches.

That faint criss-crossing is a part of the film as a result of a diffusion net used (improperly) during shooting. I've seen the film projected on the big screen (from a print not nearly as nice as the DVD), and the pattern is very obvious. The DVD's transfer was also color-corrected by the film's director of photography, Steve Poster (recently the DP on Donnie Darko). Mr. Poster discusses the criss-crossing pattern in his commentary on the disc.

Having personally spoken to director Gary Sherman about the quality of the disc, I can assure you that the DVD looks exactly as it should. Any problems you're noticing are inherent to film itself.

DJ

y2doublet

11-24-2003, 10:02 AM

If you thought BU's transfer of D&B was bad you should've seen the low budget DVD of it making the rounds in Europe and Australia. That was baaad.

Rockmjd

11-24-2003, 06:07 PM

the snuff dvd is horrible, but then again so is the movie. uncut emanuelle in america is pretty nice.

wago70

11-25-2003, 12:13 AM

DEAD AND BURIED has always looked that way. I saw it in the theater after seeing it on Showtime back in '82 and it always had that grainy/foggy look to it. I think the DVD authoring process has a hard time with fog.
As for Q - well...I saw it in the theater in 2001 here in SF with a new-ish print and it looked very much like my Anchor Bay DVD. I think the BU DVD looks pretty good - the flight scenes come across a lot better.
I don't know if they can make those films look as good as BRAIN DAMAGE (as an example)...but I know they've done wonders with other titles.

Fart Lighter

11-26-2003, 12:39 PM

That faint criss-crossing is a part of the film as a result of a diffusion net used (improperly) during shooting. I've seen the film projected on the big screen (from a print not nearly as nice as the DVD), and the pattern is very obvious. The DVD's transfer was also color-corrected by the film's director of photography, Steve Poster (recently the DP on Donnie Darko). Mr. Poster discusses the criss-crossing pattern in his commentary on the disc.

Having personally spoken to director Gary Sherman about the quality of the disc, I can assure you that the DVD looks exactly as it should. Any problems you're noticing are inherent to film itself.

DJ

Thanks! This was roughly the kind of answer I was looking for, I just wanted to know if the problems were in the print(s) or if BU were having some authoring problems. This may be the best the transfer can be, but it's a real shame, as it is unpleasant watch in this quality.

As for Q, the problems in it aren't present on my VHS version, so if it is the print, I can't help thinking they should have tried sourcing a better one.

I'll chalk this up to two films with print issues and give the other new releases a go. i'm happy with my other older BU releases.

For the record, I'm exceptionally pissed off with Limited Editions, the D&B bonus disk wasn't worth it for a sstart. Recently I've had LEs of BRAIN DAMAGE and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. This month it's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, THE AMICUS COLLECTION and three of the new WALT DISNEY TREASURES. LE's are getting out of hand, there's too many of them, and they seem so pointless.

Why do Synapse go to all the time, expense and effort of doing a new improved version of BRAIN DAMAGE only to limit it's run? It's silly.

Damin J. Toell

11-26-2003, 05:19 PM

and three of the new WALT DISNEY TREASURES.

These have been postponed until Spring of 2004, btw, and will probably not be limited edition (or, if they are, they will be available in much higher quantities).

Why do Synapse go to all the time, expense and effort of doing a new improved version of BRAIN DAMAGE only to limit it's run? It's silly.

Because their license to the film expires at the end of the year. They didn't just arbitrarily decide to make a limited edition of the disc. Instead, with the license set to expire, they gave the film one last go with a high-quality remaster.

DJ

Fart Lighter

11-26-2003, 07:55 PM

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by Fart Lighter
and three of the new WALT DISNEY TREASURES.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These have been postponed until Spring of 2004, btw, and will probably not be limited edition (or, if they are, they will be available in much higher quantities).

***
Where did you read this? I've not heard about it before. If you're source is correct, I'm very pleased about it, it'll make christmas easier. I'll probably be able to afford the fourth one as well:)

Damin J. Toell

11-27-2003, 06:52 AM

Where did you read this? I've not heard about it before. If you're source is correct, I'm very pleased about it, it'll make christmas easier. I'll probably be able to afford the fourth one as well:)

It's been reported in a few places, and you can see it mentioned on the front page of UltimateDisney.com (http://www.ultimatedisney.com/).

DJ