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Topic: I have bought Gran Torino

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-10-2009 02:45 PM

And all I can say is the transfer looks like crap. The gamma seems to be amuck here as there is absolutely NO detail in the blacks what so ever. I don't remember it looking this way in theaters. I may even take this copy back to the store and ask for a refund... It IS that bad!

Mark

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 06-10-2009 03:09 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I don't remember it looking this way in theaters.

It did if you watched in DIGITAL like I did!

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 06-10-2009 03:19 PM

After reading your comments, I went to Hi Def Digest to read their review of the Blu Ray release of Gran Torino and unlike you, they said the image was almost reference quality. I bought Gran Torino based on their favorable review as well as others and found it very interesting how your opinion differs from them.

-Claude

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Damien Taylor
Master Film Handler

Posts: 493
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2007

posted 06-10-2009 07:00 PM

What was it shot on?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-10-2009 08:54 PM

Sounds to me like Gran Torino may be yet another trademark Warner Bros. DNR "smoothie" video transfer.

Blu-ray.com gave Gran Torino a 4 out 5 on the video rating, but even that number sounds a little high based on the criticism. And then here's what DVD Beaver said about it:

quote: Leonard Norwitz, DVD Beaver

Image 5/8
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale. The second number places this image along the full range of DVD and Blu-ray discs.

For a while there I worried there was something wrong with my projector: the oddly filtered image (I admit icky green is my least favorite color), which doesn't lack for sharpness, seems thin, flat, soulless – as if the life had been sucked out of it. Blacks are sometimes crushed; shadows often lack detail. For a while I half expected life to emerge as Eastwood’s character becomes more neighborly, but, alas, not. I can't say if this is representative of how the movie looked in the theatre but I thought it gave the impression of being amateurish.

To answer the question, "what was it shot on," the answer is 35mm film. Panavision cameras with anamorphic lenses. Don't konw if there is any problem with the original source photography. A digital intermediate was used -likely so the color saturation sliders could be drawn down next to nothing.

WB tends to be at the center of controversy regarding the use of "DNR" -a fancy acronym for noise or grain reduction. The problem with using noticeable levels of DNR is the filters act just like the despeckle filter does in Photoshop: it literally removes detail out of the image, takes away some of the three dimensional "pop" and gives you soft-ish looking image quality. Some DNR overuse is done on purpose to minimize video bit rates.

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Victor Liorentas
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: london ontario canada
Registered: May 2009

posted 06-10-2009 09:37 PM

Widescreen Review gives the blu-ray picture quality a 3.5 out of 5 and says it looks dull, i remember it looking sharp on film and i hate losing detail to grain removal or low bit rate.

I find T-2 to be a bit soft on the new Blu-ray but the studio denies having used grain removal?

Enter the Dragon has video artifacts on both HD DVD and Blu-ray , i wonder if it is because of too many hours of special features on one disc?

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-11-2009 09:19 AM

quote: Victor Liorentas
Widescreen Review gives the blu-ray picture quality a 3.5 out of 5 and says it looks dull

I'll post some screen shots off my Sammysung later today. If I were reviewing it I'd give it two stars out of four for transfer quality. The image isn't softish looking or dull by any menas. Sharp as a tack in fact. To me it looks like someone lowered the gamma a couple of clicks from it's normal setting and partially crushed all the blacks. Not dull looking but overly contrasty.

In theaters on both film and digital I don't remember loosing all the detail in people's hair and other dark areas. The problem's not in my system either. Other Blue Rays look great and the regular DVD doesn't look quite as contrasty as the Blue Ray does.

Mark

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 06-11-2009 01:38 PM

Getting off topic, for top notch Blu Ray picture quality THE INTERNATIONAL" is awesome! So is the movie.

Getting back to topic,

I never saw GRAN TORINO in a theatre but after watching a few selected scenes from the BD disc last night, it was not contrasty as some had reported. The picture and color looked subdued but it appears to be done on purpose to achieve a certain kind of visual effect and I liked it. The picture appears to be nice and sharp and I look forward to enjoying it very much when I see it in it's entirety tonight.

-Claude

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 06-11-2009 09:55 PM

When we had multiple prints of that movie, I don't remember there being "subdued color" though I don't have a BD player or HDTV to use as a comparison.

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 06-12-2009 11:49 AM

I just reviewed the Blu-ray version of Gran Torino and I didn't notice any problems with the darker scenes.

I thought the image overall looked pretty good, but I'm not as sensitive to the noise reduction artifacts as others seem to be.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 06-12-2009 01:29 PM

I watched my Blu Ray copy of GRAN TORINO last and with the exception of the subdued color I mentioned yesterday, I found nothing wrong with the picture. You can actually see the color in the feature was altered if you watch the way how the film was shot when everything is shown with normal color and contrast. Unlike "THE INTERNATIONAL" I watched the night before on BD, Clint Eastwood's picture quality is no way as eye popping in Blu Ray as the financially themed thriller but it was still very good and I was pleased with it. I did not see GRAN TORINO in a theatre and have no idea what the picture looked like but I suspect it was the same.

As far as the movie is concerned, I consider it among the best he had created and it was very entertaining. The story was very good and I had no problem with the way the Asians played their parts.

-Claude

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-12-2009 03:01 PM

Claude,
It looks like it was done using bleach bypass... this is a common way to get that subdued color and high contrast. It has a similar look to Payback which very definately was done bleach bypass. I watched the BR all the way through as well last night and I still feel that it's much contrastier then it was in the theater release. It was interesting to note that as contrasty and dark as it is none of the time was Clint Eastwood's face EVER out of the light like some of the other characters in fact I'd say he was proposly kept in the light as an efferct of some sort. As for grain, that part of the film seemed to be intact.. grain was evedent on my screen in quite a nmber of scenes. Is this how it looks on your set Claude?

Here are a few examples of what I mean by no detail...

Mark

"Not you again Padre" Notice how the padre's hair and jacket are featureless...

"you goin a let him call you Bro? I don't remember NOT seeing his face in the theater...

"What are you shines up to?" Note the lack of any face on the guy in the upper left and the guy in the center has absolutely NO detail...

"You should look at the brochures" Note the gal on the left's hair or lack there of... It's just a black glob. Clint's face on the other hand is brightly lit as it is in almost every scene.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 06-12-2009 03:39 PM

Mark,

If my GRAN TORINO BD looked like the examples you had posted, I would have promptly taken the disc back to Costco where I bought it and asked for a refund. Is the GRAN TORINO BD the only one looking bad on you display? If the others in your collection look normal and GT look terrible, I do not know what to say because all of the Blu-Ray discs in my collection look great including GRAN TORINO. It might not be a bad idea to take the disc back to where you bought it and if they have a Bly-Ray set up, why not play it on their machine and see how it looks. If it look the same as on your screen, the disc is bad. The disc you have might not have been pressed correctly and need to be replaced by the store.

-Claude

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-12-2009 06:41 PM

Why would bleach bypass techniques need to be used at all when the movie imagery was ultimately put through a 2K resolution digital intermediate?

When DI is used there is no need at all for any photo-chemical colorizing steps. Just scan the original camera negative properly and then apply the contrast and desaturation effects attained through bleach bypass in the digital realm.

Bleach bypass, use of color filters and other old school color timing effects have two fundamental weaknesses. First, the effects can only be applied on a "global" basis across the entire image. Second, generational loss is a cost. It would be extremely risky to apply such effects on the original camera negative.

Depending on time/budget constraints a digital intermediate can be made as precise as the filmmaker and producer will allow. Think of Photoshop in motion. You can mask and protect certain areas while applying destructive effects to other areas of the image. Don't like how a certain applied idea looks now that you can see it on the monitor? Hit the undo button. You can't undo bleach bypass being applied to film.

The more I think about it the more I suspect overuse of DNR and other file-size conserving techniques are why Gran Torino doesn't possibly look as good as it should.

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Ian Parfrey
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1049
From: Imbil Australia 26 deg 27' 42.66" S 152 deg 42' 23.40" E
Registered: Feb 2009

posted 06-12-2009 08:31 PM

Cant wait to see the end of 2K intermediates. [thumbsdown]

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