Warner Brothers DVDs

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Rob P
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Warner Brothers DVDs

Postby Rob P » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:50 am

This article discusses Warner Brothers's stunning reissues of classic movies, and the technical aspects of bringing them to DVD. I own the DVD versions of Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood, and they look and sound incredible.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2114143/

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Postby Ess Ay Cee Dee » Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:52 am

Thanks for the link. The Warner Bros. DVD version of Citizen Kane is one of the most impressive classic-film reissues I've ever seen. The damn thing looks like it could have been filmed last week.

Still waiting for The Magnificent Ambersons, though.

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Postby Rob P » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:00 pm

Citizen Kane is a must see on my list. I've seen other versions on VHS, and they were okay, but nothing like you've described it. Another WB reissue people have raved about is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

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Postby lukpac » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:14 pm

Wasn't there some controversy over Gone With The Wind - oversaturated colors or something? I seem to remember an Onion AV Club interview a few years ago mentioning this. I think it was with the guy(s) who did some Hitchcock restorations.

Nevermind, here it is:

http://www.theavclub.com/feature/index. ... e=3607&f=1

RH: We feel this is the first restoration to use it successfully and properly. It was used on Gone With The Wind, but you couldn't focus it, which was a minor problem. [Laughs.]

O: What did you think of the Gone With The Wind restoration?

RH: Let's change the subject.

O: Oh, that good?

RH: I watched two reels and left because I had a headache.

O: Colors were too pronounced?

RH: Colors were wrong, and they couldn't focus, and it was out of registration, and it was contrast-y. Beyond that, it was beautiful. It's a lovely film.

O: What sort of discoveries do you make about a film when you look at it that closely?

RH: Well, how badly it cuts together when they change the lighting and change the camera angles—how things don't match. Remember, this is very early Eastmancolor, and it might have looked better in 1953 and '54, but now it's all faded. Part of the trick is making it all look like it cuts together and making a new cohesive film.
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:28 pm

Robert Harris is the ultimate film restoration guru, IMHO.

He's very big on the process that WB/Lowry has been using for "video restoration," but he takes pains to point out that it has nothing to do with restoring the actual *film*. He's been very happy with the results of their recent efforts just as DVDs, though.

There's been a new edition of GWTW released since that interview (a four-disc set from I think last year) that I believe has met with substantially better reviews.

If you're into gauzy apologetics for the Old Slave-Ownin' South, that is. :twisted:

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Postby lukpac » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:33 pm

Ahh, ok. I was wondering if his comments were in regards to a DVD or a theatre re-release.

Has anyone seen those Hitchcock DVDs? He notes that for Vertigo they re-did all of the audio effects. I'm wondering if that sounds "authentic" or not.

O: With Vertigo, you completely overhauled the foley work, correct?

RH: We had to, yeah. All the foley and the effects were totally redone. We had the same problem with the Vertigo track [as we did with the Rear Window track]. All that survived were used 35mm prints. We had no mag material, except for the music, which we found in the Paramount vaults. These weren't even the cut music takes; these were the original floor recordings that we found in three-track stereo. So, once we found those and they sounded so extraordinary, we discussed it with a number of critics we respect and Herbert Coleman, who was Hitchcock's producer, and Pat Hitchcock [the director's daughter], and a few other people. We said, "What do we do? Do we try and make the mono track, which is dirty and has holes in it, sound as good as we can make it sound? Or do we take the original music, which is stereo and which many people feel is [composer] Bernard Herrman's finest work, and redo the tracks?" And everyone, to an individual, said, "We want to hear it in stereo." The caveat, of course, was that we would have to re-foley and re-effect the entire picture.

O: That must have been a fearful thing to do.

RH: Not really, because we preserved what existed. Actually, on the DVD, we wanted the studio to put what was left of the original mono track optical on one track and run the stereo on the other. But they didn't want to do that, because it wasn't on the laserdisc. Anyway, the music sounded so extraordinary and the recordings were so well done, but there were problems. Put yourself back in 1958. You're putting film on a projector. How old do you think that projector was in 1958? Where do you think it came from? It's probably out of the mid-'30s, with a tube sound system and speakers out of the '30s. So all of the warts that are in that soundtrack would not come through on the speakers, which smooth everything out—lop off the high end, lop off the low end. But if you take that track and you run it on a new system today, you hear everything, including lots of holes where they would just cut in dead film—no room tone, nothing. So when we would add a foghorn, a couple of birds at the bridge, some wind rustling through the tower at the end of the film... Those were to cover holes. We had no room tone. We had to create everything.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Rob P » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:37 pm

I think it was 2001 when Warner Brothers turned a corner and started doing some of their best restoration work. Before that, it was hit-or-miss.

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Postby Ess Ay Cee Dee » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:37 pm

I'm not happy with the restored audio on Vertigo. I don't see why they couldn't include a remastered version of the original mono soundtrack as a bonus. Re-recording the foley tracks and the score is fine and dandy, but only if the original soundtrack is made available.

I think the new Vertigo soundtrack is a bit too "modern." Many of the sound effects just seem exaggerated to me. It wouldn't bother me too much to watch a 40-year-old film without a booming LFE track.

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Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:39 pm

Ahh, ok. I was wondering if his comments were in regards to a DVD or a theatre re-release.


I presume those GWTW comments refer to a theatrical re-release from 1999, though I'm not 100% sure.

The Vertigo DVD looks and sounds great to me. However, the fact that it isn't anamorphic is intolerable in this day and age. It was excusable when it was released in 1997 (it was more of an LD port than anything else, as RH alludes to above), but not in 2005.

Speaking of Hitchcock, North by Northwest was done with the WB/Lowry process referred to in the thread starter and is eye-meltingly lovely on DVD.

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Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:40 pm

Ess Ay Cee Dee wrote:I'm not happy with the restored audio on Vertigo. I don't see why they couldn't include a remastered version of the original mono soundtrack as a bonus. Re-recording the foley tracks and the score is fine and dandy, but only if the original soundtrack is made available.

I think the new Vertigo soundtrack is a bit too "modern." Many of the sound effects just seem exaggerated to me. It wouldn't bother me too much to watch a 40-year-old film without a booming LFE track.


I want a new special edition with anamorphic video, the 5.1 track, and the mono track. Then all will be well with the world.

Ryan
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Postby lukpac » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:47 pm

Ess Ay Cee Dee wrote:I'm not happy with the restored audio on Vertigo. I don't see why they couldn't include a remastered version of the original mono soundtrack as a bonus.


Blame the studio, I guess - Harris notes that he wanted to include it too.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Ess Ay Cee Dee » Tue Mar 01, 2005 1:58 pm

Rspaight wrote:Speaking of Hitchcock, North by Northwest was done with the WB/Lowry process referred to in the thread starter and is eye-meltingly lovely on DVD.


That's a reference-quality DVD, one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful I've ever seen.

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Postby dcooper » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:49 pm

The forum appears to be unanimous on NxNW ... as for Vertigo, I don't mind the audio on the current DVD, but would definitely dump my current copy and repurchase if Ryan's wishlist were fulfilled.

I also have Psycho and Rear Window and am happy with the audio & video of both of them.

About the non-anamorphic state of Vertigo, does anyone know why these days a movie, particularly one as historically relevant as Vertigo, would NOT receive an anamorphic transfer?
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:59 pm

About the non-anamorphic state of Vertigo, does anyone know why these days a movie, particularly one as historically relevant as Vertigo, would NOT receive an anamorphic transfer?


If the DVD were being released today it would have one, no question. When the current disc was first released eight years ago, though, no one knew if this new-fangled DVD thing was going to succeed or not. Universal had just done an expensive (non-anamorphic) transfer of their expensive new film restoration of Vertigo to laserdisc a year or two before, and there was no business case for spending big bucks on doing *another* transfer (anamorphic this time) for the tiny segment of the tiny DVD market that cared about anamorphic.

Lots of discs ended up like this at the time -- the Criterion Brazil box is another good example of exactly the same phenomenon.

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Postby dudelsack » Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:03 pm

Most of the early Criterions, if, in fact, I recall correctly.