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Author Topic: The BD of RAN is terrible! Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-17-2010 04:27 PM                        I was very happy when Criterion had announced they were releasing RAN on Blu-Ray and was looking forward to buying it but they suddenly cancelled it and I was very disappointed. Although it was not going to be from Criterion, I was very happy when Lionsgate had announced they were releasing it through their Studio Canal series. Although I had bought substandard Lionsgate Blu Ray discs, they were bought at bargain basis prices and they included titles such as DIRTY DANCING, RED TIDE and a few other titles but I was expecting something much better with RAN. In fact, Because Criterion had planned to release this movie on BD, I was expecting Lionsgate to mach Criterion's disc quality with their new Studio Canal series. I WAS WRONG! the quality of the disc is soooooooo bad, I had to convince Best Buy to take it back and give me a refund because it was unwatchable. I had no problem with the sound but the picture was awful. I knew it was bad from the very beginning when I saw an image that looked like a color transparency that was a little over a stop over exposed. The image was very flat with no contrast and on the bright side that made reading the English subtitles extremely difficult. I have the movie on a Japanese imported laserdisc with no subtitles as well as a American release. I had the DVD once but sold it because I was not happy with the quality. On a scale of one to ten, the DVD was about a six. The Blu-Ray was about 3. If the picture quality was much better than the DVD, I would not have a problem with it but it is much worse!! I love the cinematography of RAN and consider it among the best I have ever seen and that is the reason I want to have a perfect copy of it in my collection. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Michael Barry Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 584 From: Sydney, NSW, Australia Registered: Nov 1999 posted 03-17-2010 06:04 PM                     That's very disappointing to hear, Claude, because not only is RAN a masterpiece but as you say the cinematography is also sumptuous. I don't blame you for taking it back. Hopefully this transfer will get fixed, but you have to wonder how it got past QC. Perhaps another company will release it in Japan with better quality.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-17-2010 10:12 PM                        I took the disc back to Best Buy and the girl at Customer Service refused to take back the disc and give me a refund no matter how hard I tried to explain the disc's picture quality was unacceptable. It did not matter that I am a Silver Rewards Zone member and a loyal customer. She said it it is a federal crime for the store to return a opened copy of a DVD or Blu-Ray disc through the mail or with Fed Express & UPS. She said it was a violation of the federal copy Right laws. At that point I became very upset because it was bad enough that they would not take the disc back and give me a refund but to lie to me was worse. What is wrong with stores not taking care of their loyal customers? Target refused to honor the special they had advertised in the newspaper and I told them to 'shove it' it and walked out never to return again and now this. I kept my cool this time because I like to buy my movies in a store as much as possible rather than shopping online and I cannot burn any more bridges. If I did, I will only have Walmart and the 'bandits' at Sam Goody who charge almost full list for their DVDs and Blu Rays. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mike Heenan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1896 From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 03-17-2010 10:33 PM                     She didn't lie to you, it is most, if not all stores policy to not accept opened DVD's/CD's/BluRays etc, because if they did, people could simply copy them and return them. It's not the stores fault that the company gave the film a crappy transfer.  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 03-17-2010 11:13 PM                     She didn't out and out lie, but what she said was not the truth. It is not a federal crime. It's simply against store policy. This happens in theatres all the time too. I cringe every time I hear a box cashier or a door person deny entry to an R rated feature because it is "against the law." It simply is not. Some manager found that it was a convenient excuse to give customers for a common complaint. Now every clerk thinks they are a mini cop. I have unfortunately already opened my copy of RAN, but have not popped it in yet. I'll report back my findings.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-18-2010 01:44 AM                        Being in the CD and DVD biz, I can tell you that manufacturers and distributors absolutely hate to take product back. Some labels' product is not returnable at all, and with others, there is a hefty "restocking fee" to make returns. Most "defects" aren't returnable either, because the manufacturers don't think they make any defects. Back in the '80s there was a "price reduction," somewhere in the neighborhood of 1%, that was supposed to cover the very few defects that slipped into the hands of retailers. Claude, your situation was caused by the general behavior of people. Unfortunately there are too many who would do exactly as has been noted above: Take the disk home, make a copy, then take the disk back for credit (and probably uploading the disk to the internet in the process). That's why most stores will only give you another copy of the same title. You can't blame the store; they are only protecting themselves.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-18-2010 01:00 PM                     I usually read reviews on new Blu-ray releases before buying. Very often if there is a problem with the disc someone at Home Theater Forum, Blu-ray.com, DVD Beaver, The Digital Bits and perhaps a few other web sites will warn potential customers about it. I avoided buying Gladiator on Blu-ray over that issue. Now Universal Studios is planning to release a new 10th anniversary edition on Blu-ray this fall with a new (and corrected) video transfer. Lionsgate's BD release of Ran hasn't received good reviews for its video quality. Blu-ray.com gave it a mediocre 3 out of 5 stars, which is really a worse rating than it seems. The site usually gives slightly more generous 3.5 out of 5 stars to movies with so so video quality. Anything under 3 stars and the video quality will likely be crap comparatively speaking to other top notch Blu-ray releases. I don't know why Ran was seemingly botched in its Blu-ray debut. It could be a bad encode job. The disc reportedly has a rather small 17Mb/s average bit rate, which is significantly lower than the bandwidth used by most other Blu-ray releases. The source print could have had issues or errors may have been committed during the datacine/telecine process. It's too bad Criterion wasn't able to manage the BD release of Ran. Criterion generally does good work. Their upcoming release of Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven is getting outstanding advance reviews. Robert Harris gave the disc his highest recommendation and Blu-ray.com gave it a 5 out of 5 score on image quality. Not bad for a movie made in 1978.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 03-18-2010 03:06 PM                        I checked the screenshots for the BD at blu-ray.com and there is a lot of artificial sharpening going on, lots of halos.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-18-2010 09:03 PM                     Which movie? Ran?  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-18-2010 11:07 PM                        I had some free time this afternoon and spent it looking at the RAN Blu-Ray disc Best Buy had refused to take back and found it not as bad as I had originally reported. Compared to all of the great BDs in my collection, it is far from perfect but I can live with it until the day Criterion is allowed to release it. For some reason, the contrast looks much better and because of that, the subtitles are much easier to read. I cannot understand what had happened because I made no adjustment to my set. Do you suppose there is something internally going on with my HDTV? I had the set for almost a year now and I have been happy with it so far. The 1080p picture quality is very stunning when I play BDs like THE WIZARD OF OZ & THE PRINCESS & THE FROG. I bought it from Costco and I believe I have a two year extended warranty on it so I am not too concerned. I have a 26 inch Samsung and if I have to replace it, I will get a larger model. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 03-18-2010 11:47 PM                        Just thinking out loud here Claude - did your viewing area lighting conditions change between your first and second looks at this disc? Like daytime versus nighttime viewing? Does your set have dynamic picture settings available and enabled? Many HD sets have ambient lighting sensors and can adjust the brightness and contrast levels in an attempt to compensate. Also, many sets look at the incoming video signal itself and adjust contrast and brightness on the fly in an attempt to maintain a fairly constant overall picture level. Or possibly did your set change your selected preset levels? Any of these things could cause the differences you're reporting. Personally, I don't like any of these automatic picture adjusting features on consumer sets. I go through and disable all of them. But then again, I tend to keep the room lighting more or less the same when I'm watching something I want to be critical about (closing the window shutters in the daytime, and having certain room lights on at night). I too was looking forward to seeing Ran on Blu-ray. Thank you for the "heads up" on this one. Fortunately due to lack of $$$ I won't be buying any BDs for a long time, hopefully long enough for a proper remaster to become available. I hate having to "double dip" a title purchase, especially for reasons like this.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 03-19-2010 01:38 AM                        quote: Bobby Henderson Which movie? Ran? Yep, the one this thread is about.  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Weigel Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1062 From: Edmond, OK, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 03-19-2010 01:56 AM                     quote: Claude S. Ayakawa I had to convince Best Buy to take it back and give me a refund because it was unwatchable. quote: Claude S. Ayakawa I took the disc back to Best Buy and the girl at Customer Service refused to take back the disc and give me a refund no matter how hard I tried to explain the disc's picture quality was unacceptable. Did you call them the first time and they said they would take it back and then when you showed up refused?  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-19-2010 04:16 AM                        Yes, Jeremy As it turned out, I am glad I still have the disc because I watched a few more scenes and they looked very good. Not perfect but good. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 03-20-2010 12:40 AM                     Sorry to drift off topic a bit, but I'm curious (and too lazy at the moment to read any of the reviews)... quote: Bobby Henderson Criterion generally does good work. Their upcoming release of Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven is getting outstanding advance reviews. Robert Harris gave the disc his highest recommendation and Blu-ray.com gave it a 5 out of 5 score on image quality. Not bad for a movie made in 1978. Has the "Days Of Heaven" Blu-ray been transferred in its 35mm 1.85:1 aspect ratio or in its 2.00:1 70mm blow-up ratio?  |  IP: Logged

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