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Author Topic: THE CAIN MUTINY BD image quality question Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-19-2011 02:56 PM                        I bought THE CAIN MUTINY on DVD many years ago and have enjoyed it with it's gorgeous three strip Technicolor photography and was very happy to learn it was released in Blu Ray not too long ago and I promptly purchased it. I decided to double dip on this title because I was expecting a more vibrant picture than the already excellent picture quality on the DVD plus the fact that the BD was in Stereo. I do not know how many of you know it but TCM theatrical version had a stereo soundtrack but all video release of the movie so far has been in mono only. The sound on the BD is excellent in stereo but the picture quality on my set does not look too good. Although the color is excellent, the picture is washed out and look like a color transparency image that has been about one 'f' stop overexposed. Robert harris and all the Blue Ray reviews of the film I had read had all stated that the picture quality of TCM on BD is excellent. I find it very strange why my copy does not look good on my set while other BDs look fantastic. Is there something wrong with my set or do I have a problem with my copy of TCM? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-19-2011 03:27 PM                       Herman Cain is staging a mutiny? It's Caine Mutiny I think.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-19-2011 04:39 PM                        quote: Sam D. Chavez Herman Cain is staging a mutiny? His ex-girlfriend appears to be organising a courtroom drama for him (though of a somewhat different kind to Humphrey Bogart's), but that's the only connection I can think of! Could the desaturated image be a deliberate effect, with the colourist for the earlier DVD release not having been aware of it and timing the transfer based on what (s)he thought three-strip ought to look like? That sort of thing has happened before. To my shame I can't recall ever having seen this one, though having just finished reading Dmytryk's memoir of the blacklist, I'd be intrigued to - must remember to buy a copy of this BD on my next visit to the US. Incidentally, according to this site, Caine Mutiny was the second to last Hollywood film shot using the three-strip camera (with a completely forgettable B-movie Western, Foxfire, being the last, the following year). IIRC, the two cameras and the IB lab based in London continued in use for a bit longer, with The Ladykillers being the final British feature to be shot using the system.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-19-2011 04:53 PM                        Hello Leo THE CAINE MUTINY's image on Blue Ray does not have saturation problem. What it looks like as I said in my original thread as a washed out image with no detail in the highlight of people faces and the overall image is very bright. I am planing to go to my brother's house and play the disc on his BD player and see how it looks on his screen. If it looks the same as how it looks on my set, I will return the disc at the Barnes & Noble store where I bought it and get a refund. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-19-2011 05:25 PM                     Here are some screen shots from DVDBeaver site. DVDBeaver  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-19-2011 06:13 PM                        Thanks Bill for the screen shots. Strange, DVD Beaver was the first place I checked about the image quality of my TCM BD but I must have overlooked it at the site. What I am seeing on my screen does not look like the screenshots at the Beaver site. The screenshots looks like my DVD copy of the movie but the image on my BD is totally washed out and unwatchable. I want this movie on Blu ray and if my copy looks washed out on my brother's set, the disc is defective . If the image quality on my brother's set look good, why does it not look the same on my set? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-19-2011 06:20 PM                       At least is wasn't Borders. As to audio, I'm assuming it was originally a mono release or at best, 3 or 4 track Magnetic. I don't know how much there would be to work with for Stereo, except to clean up pops and brighten the tracks.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-19-2011 08:40 PM                        The Disc was purchased from Barnes & Noble and if I can show proof the disc is defective, I am sure I can get a refund or store credit in the original amount I had paid for it. THE CAINE MUTINY did have a stereo track and probably played in that format in New York and Los Angeles in 1954. All other cities might have only played it in mono. I first saw TCM at the Waipahu Theatre when it first came out and it was mono because the theatre got stereo later that year with THE ROBE in CinemaScope. -Claude  |  IP: Logged John Wilson Film God Posts: 5438 From: Sydney, Australia. Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-21-2011 06:55 PM                     As much as I hate it that some of the grain has been removed for the Blu, there's still no denying which one is the winner. DVD: BluRay:  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-22-2011 07:02 AM                        I'm going to try to get hold of a copy when I'm in California over the new year, and if successful will look at it on two PC graphics card/monitor combinations (one VGA and one DVI) plus the 1080p DLP projector in our theatre at work. Comparing other BDs I've found the projector to have a bit higher contrast (on default settings, at least) - more vivid blacks and whites, but less detail in the midtones.  |  IP: Logged Paul H. Rayton Expert Film Handler Posts: 210 From: Los Angeles, CA , USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 01-25-2012 03:27 PM                    I've viewed this disc (BD version) and can concur with Claude -- there are some occasional scenes that appear somewhat "overexposed", to phrase it another way from saying "washed out". For the most part, exposure and focus is spot on, but there are the occasional bits that seem a bit "off" from what might be ideal. So, FWIW, I don't think Claude's disc is defective -- it's just that the transfer may have had "issues", either something in the source that was compromised (or they didn't want to spend the money to fix), or ... someone not paying full attention to the final QC playout before mastering. My playback is nothing fancy -- standard (Samsung) BD player and a normal HD TV, connected by HDMI. Other materials played through this system look fine, so, again, I'd say the disc is just not up to our expectations.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 01-25-2012 04:48 PM                        I am glad you agree with me, Paul. I stumbled on my DVD of THE CAINE MUTINY last week and watched a few scenes and they were gorgeous. After I did that, I watched the same scenes from the Blu Ray, and the image was too bright and look like over exposed color transparency film almost a full f stop. I have a Panasonic BD player and a Samsung HD set and was wondering if there is something about my system that makes the picture look washed out. All other BD in my collection look fantastic such as STAR WARS Episode 111. I never had the opportunity to go to my brother's house and see what the disc look like on his almost top of the line Sony 52 inch set but I plan to do so soon. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Jeff Taylor Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 601 From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY Registered: Apr 2000 posted 02-03-2012 09:31 AM                     FWIW, I have a very nice 16mm IB print of this title, and while the color is very nice it does not have the "over the top" color saturation of many Technicolor prints of that era--many washed out greyish skies and muted colors. Many of the skin tones have the typical Technicolor tans, but it sounds like the BluRay may be somewhat faithful of how the original looked.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-05-2012 11:33 AM                        I've now seen this BD on a theatre screen (Sanyo PDG-DHT1000L projector fed via HDMI on a screen about 12 feet by 7) and selected scenes again on my PC (NVivia GEForce 9500 graphics card connected by DVI to a Hannspree 27" LCD monitor), and agree with Claude and Paul. Some shots have a misregistered three-strip look to me, as if they were transferred from seps that had shrunk differentially. Others looked incredibly sharp and saturated. As for the film, I found it a bit uncomfortable to watch, knowing that Bogart was in an advanced stage of drinking himself to death and that it basically represented a last-ditch attempt to relaunch his career. His portrayal of Queeg seemed to have a lot of parallels with what was actually going on in his real life: it was certainly a very different Bogart from the one we're familiar with in Casablanca, The Big Sleep and Dark Passage. According to Dmytryk's autobiography, a lot of sub-plots in the Herman Wouk novel on which the film is based were cut out entirely (which led to battles between Dmytryk and his producer, who insisted on the film being under two hours), including ones about Queeg's career before the war and the Fred MacMurray character having a long history of having a problem with authority. The book is in the library of the university where I work (though intriguingly, it's currently out and there is a waiting list of seven for it!), and I'm looking forward to reading it. Maybe my imagination is running away with me, but I'm wondering if there's a HUAC/blacklist metaphor in there, as well - the scene in the wardroom in which Queeg asks for help but is met by silence and contempt, cf. the studio moguls cutting blacklist victims loose? Incidentally, kudos to Sony for including the original mono audio mix on the BD, as well as the now familiar 5.1 reconstitution.  |  IP: Logged

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