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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Blu Ray

   
Author Topic: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Blu Ray
Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

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


 - posted 11-13-2012 03:53 PM      Profile for Claude S. Ayakawa   Author's Homepage   Email Claude S. Ayakawa   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I just picked up the special edition of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in Blu Ray from Costco and it is in a very sturdy and impressive twelve by twelve inch box. In the box is 88 page coffee table book, a numbered 70mm mounted film frame and three Blu ray discs containing the movie and special features all in a standard bd case. Also included is a cd of the motion picture soundtrack with two never released tracks. The container is very massive and it reminds me of a multi disc long play record or laserdisc set. It is also very heavy.

I have waited a long time for the BD of LOA to be realeased. It would have come out sooner but Sony felt the elements they had at the time was not good enough so they did a massive restoration with the materials Robert Harris created when he restored the movie about fifteen years ago. I was busy when the movie played for only one day earlier this month in a 4k digital presentation but everyone who had seen it said it was excellent . I will finally have the opportunity to see it at home tonight and I cannot wait.

-Claude

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Thomas Hauerslev
Master Film Handler

Posts: 451
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Registered: Aug 2000


 - posted 11-14-2012 04:21 AM      Profile for Thomas Hauerslev   Author's Homepage   Email Thomas Hauerslev   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Sounds good - the 4K presentation looked very good in the cinema. Only a bit confusing to see it in digital for the first time, because of the missing change over marks / reel change. When you know the film well, you know the changeovers every 15-18 minutes, and suddenly they are gone ;-)

LOA was restored nearly 25 years ago

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2008/lawrence/index.htm

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000


 - posted 11-14-2012 09:39 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Is this new 8K scan/4K DI version based on the materials that Robert Harris worked from, or a scan of the preservation master element that was the final output of his restoration project? In other words, is it a whole new restoration, or simply a digitising of the Harris version?

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

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


 - posted 11-14-2012 11:22 AM      Profile for Claude S. Ayakawa   Author's Homepage   Email Claude S. Ayakawa   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It is an entirely new restoration from the 65mm film elements, Leo. I plan to watch LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in it's entirety this weekend but I did watch bits and pieces of the film last night and all of disc 3 that is exclusive to the deluxe set that has a lot of special features about the movie itself and the restoration. From what I saw, the restoration job done to the film was fantastic. On a side note, it is unfortunate my Japanese speaking father is deceased because if he was still living, I would have loved to let him watch the movie in Japanese. In additional to the usual other language such as French, Spanish and one or two others, the Blu Ray of LOA has a 5.1 Japanese soundtrack and subtitles and it is very good. If you love the movie like I do, the deluxe set is the way to go because the exclusive disc in Blu ray as well as the book ,the soundtrack CD and a mounted 70mm film frame plus the movie makes it all worth while.

-Claude

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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


 - posted 11-14-2012 01:24 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I read Robert Harris' "a few words about" review of the new LOA Blu-ray release at Home Theater Forum.

From the start Sony felt the existing 2K master created a decade ago for the 2-disc DVD release was not suitable as a source for Blu-ray. Robert Harris advised the company to use the first 65mm IP his team created for the 1989 restoration as a scanning source. It would get them to the 95th percentile in terms of image quality. Sony wanted to get closer to 100%. Despite the huge amount of problems and cost above doing things good enough Sony chose to scan the original 65mm camera negatives. They did this out of the interest of asset protection. The O-Neg was in bad shape. LOA is one of the most important titles in the Columbia Pictures catalog. They needed it looking great for many years into the future.

In going back to the original camera negatives the restoration team basically had to start over. At 8K the 65mm O-Neg yielded a great amount image detail along with a far more daunting image clean-up job. This is one of the reasons why it has taken so long for LOA to make it onto Blu-ray. Just scanning the O-Neg alone was a very risky thing. It might not have made it through the film scanner without incurring serious damage.

I haven't bought a copy of LOA yet, but am very tempted to order the deluxe box set as opposed to spending less than $20 on the standard Blu-ray.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

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


 - posted 11-14-2012 03:37 PM      Profile for Claude S. Ayakawa   Author's Homepage   Email Claude S. Ayakawa   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
When you do Bobby, get it from Costco. They have it priced at $56.95. As far as I know, this is the best price. If Amazon or any other online retailer price for LOA is cheaper, it will not be by very much.

-Claude

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000


 - posted 11-14-2012 03:54 PM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Bobby Henderson
In going back to the original camera negatives the restoration team basically had to start over. At 8K the 65mm O-Neg yielded a great amount image detail along with a far more daunting image clean-up job. This is one of the reasons why it has taken so long for LOA to make it onto Blu-ray. Just scanning the O-Neg alone was a very risky thing. It might not have made it through the film scanner without incurring serious damage.
Many thanks Bobby.

I'm not that well up on 65/70 scanners, but there are 4K scanners for 35mm and smaller on the market that are totally sprocketless: the film is simply pulled through the mechanism by the take-up reel and a laser detects the position of each perforation to determine the frame area to scan (e.g. on the Kinetta and the MWA Vario). Assuming you keep the film path clean and lace them up correctly, it really is impossible to damage even severely shrunk and brittle acetate in one of these scanners. Either this technology isn't available in any 8K large format machines as yet, and/or the camera negs must be very badly shrunk and brittle.

Apologies in advance for the heresy, But LoA isn't one of my all time favourites - the extent to which it f***s about with history (and in particular, portraying Allenby as a Blimpish stereotype, when all the evidence is that he was a very shrewd invidivual) is something I find irritating enough to get in the way of it telling a good story. Yes, it's visually stunning, and I'd always be happy to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon at a 70mm (or 4K) matinee screening ... but $60 for the BD? That having been said, I'll probably give in to the temptation ... [Smile]

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Jeff Kane
Film Handler

Posts: 74
From: corpus christi, tx
Registered: Jun 2011


 - posted 11-21-2012 01:11 AM      Profile for Jeff Kane   Email Jeff Kane   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
IMO skip the collector's edition and just get the standard Blu-Ray when it comes out. Aside from the fancy box, the book, and the 70mm frame, you get one 'exclusive' disc with a short deleted scene and some ancillary interviews. All the really good stuff is on discs 1 and 2. $17.99 from Amazon and worth every penny IMO. LoA looks and sounds incredible.

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Robert Harris
Film Handler

Posts: 95
From: Bedford Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2003


 - posted 01-03-2013 01:57 PM      Profile for Robert Harris   Email Robert Harris   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
The 8k scan was derived from the final 65mm A & B rolls we created in 1988.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004


 - posted 02-11-2014 05:06 PM      Profile for System Notices         Edit/Delete Post 

It has been 404 days since the last post.


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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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


 - posted 02-11-2014 05:06 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I finally got around to buying the Lawrence of Arabia Fiftieth Anniversary Limited Edition Blu-ray box set. Amazon has had it on sale for $44.99 over this past week. That's the lowest price it has run in its price history on Amazon. I got another $19 knocked off the price by using the available cash back bonus from my Discover Card. So I ended up paying about 25% of the list price for this box set.

This is a huge box set. Like Claude said, the case measures 12" X 12" and is 1 1/2" deep. I've grown more accustomed to the "digi-book" Blu-ray packages, such as the ones for 300, Seven, The Matrix, etc. This box set dwarfs those things. Obviously this big case won't fit in neatly with a collection of other Blu-ray discs. However the 3 BDs and 1 CD are packaged in a standard sized Blu-ray case that will fit properly on a shelf with other BDs.

The hardcover book is pretty nice. It has a lot of huge images from the production, including some 2 page spreads. I like the collection of movie poster art and photos of theater marquees from the film's release.

These box sets have a mounted 70mm film frame. The box I received had frame #21837, an image of Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn); I think it's the scene where he is sitting at a council table in Damascus arguing with other Arab tribal leaders. I like the clean look of the package, but I kind of wish it was mounted in such a manner where you could see the entire film strip, including the perfs.

Obviously, the image quality of this Blu-ray disc is excellent. It's not the same as watching the movie in 70mm on a big screen, but it's very impressive for all the fine detail in many shots. It would be great demo material for an electronics store selling big screen TV sets.

I've seen comments in other threads complaining about the image quality of the DCP version of Lawrence of Arabia. I'm not sure how that would relate to this Blu-ray.

Anyway, if anyone has been sitting on the fence about buying this box set think fast. That $44.99 price will likely go up into the $60 or $70 range again shortly.

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