DAM and MEGALON News from Media Blasters

[MouthForWar]

[kiryugoji04]

[John Schuermann]

[John Schuermann]

[Joseph Goodman]

The claim that "it looks soft because it's an old low budget movie" is nonsense, hogwash, poppycock, and perhaps even balderdash.

I think that there's more to it than the washed out black levels... it's soft because Toho had the 2008 remasters done a Cintel telecine (this was stated on the Nihon-Eiga page about their HD broadcasts), an older technology that can't really resolve the detail in the film that newer devices can resolve, and also one that adds a lot of video noise on top of the grain inherent in the film, which then must be filtered out, softening the image. You can see this noise in some of the unfiltered Cintel-based transfers released on Blu-Ray by Blue Underground, such as "City Of The Living Dead", "New York Ripper", "House By The Cemetery", etc. I can see traces of the same noise pattern in DAM caps posted in the thread that I linked to, and some of the press around Toho's HD remasters did refer to noise reduction being performed.

If they had done the transfer on a more state-of-the art device, such as the newer Spirit 2K/4K devices, or even something like a Northlight or Imagica XE, there'd be no complaints about "softness" (unless they filtered the bejeebers out of it anyway). For example, here's a shot from Criterion's Blu-Ray of "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" (1964):



That transfer was done from an interpositive (like Toho's remasters, as stated on the Nihon-Eiga site) on a Spirit 4k. Even though this low-budget film was shot in the Techniscope format, which created a widescreen image by exposing an image half the height of a normal anamorphic 35mm frame (and therefore having less overall resolution), this image looks sharper to me than what I've seen from Toho's HD remasters.

A further example of what can be done with a 60's scope film is Sony's new disc of "The Guns Of Navarone". Not a low budget film*, but with a camera negative that was ruined by the lab at the time of the film's first release, the film has huge chunks of it's running time consisting of quite substandard dupes, yet the Blu still looks fantastic, as Sony spent the effort (and money) to scan what they had in 4k. I imagine that a full 4k restoration of KKvsG would look somewhat like that disc, if Toho ever wanted to spend the money! (The best captures from this disc are on Blu-Ray.com's review, which you need to register at to view full size).

*By the way, unless we're talking about something with "Manos" sized low budget, most "low budget" films were, and are, shot with the same kinds of rented lenses and film stock as the higher budgeted films.

For a further, purer example of what late 60's 35mm shot on a rushed schedule, and relatively low budget can look like, check out these frames from classic Trek in the link below:



These are full 4k scans (the post linked says 2k, but the actual size images match the pixel dimensions of sound aperture 35mm scanned at 4k), done in the mid 90's, no less.

In summary: it's soft because it's a soft transfer, not because "it's an old low budget movie".

[kiryugoji04]

That said (and that's all VERY informative, thank you!), I still think it looks pretty nice. I'm sold.

[jellydonut25]

[John Schuermann]

[Joseph Goodman]

[Joseph Goodman]

[John Schuermann]

[canofhumdingers]

[MouthForWar]

[kpa]

[SeaHawk]

[KaiserGhidorah]

[John Schuermann]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[MouthForWar]

[king_ghidorah]

[Legion]

[gila-monster]

[kpa]

The FYE chain (which includes Suncoast, Wherehouse, and Sam Goody) is now carrying the DAM DVD in their stores. If there's a store in your area I'd recommend calling ahead to make sure they have it in stock.

[RyanClark]

[emeGoji]