2 Blue Underground dissapointments

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]

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.

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!

Originally Posted by dwatts

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]

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]

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.

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.

Originally Posted by mutleyhyde

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.

Don't forget that they are all independent and don't have access to the best material.
I think they do quite well with the material at hand.

[dwatts]

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]

Originally Posted by Fart Lighter

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.

Anyone who bought Q deserves what they get

[mutleyhyde]

Originally Posted by dwatts

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.

Don't take it so personal watts... I wasn't solely referring to this thread alone or to any one poster.

Again, breathe.

[dwatts]

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

[X-human]

Originally Posted by marioscido

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~!]

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

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