CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[WanMan]

I like the movie. I bought the DVD years ago and enjoyed it. This movie kind of introduced me to Guy Ritchie movies. So, I had no problems buying it on BD recently, but I need to learn to sometimes trust other peoples' technical reviews.

but Universal's 1080p/VC-1 transfer is an unrepentant mess. Yes, compared to its decidedly dated DVD counterpart, colors are more stable and vibrant, black levels are much deeper, and detail is more refined and revealing. Unfortunately, overzealous artificial sharpening results in a number of issues. Frequent aliasing, ringing, serrated edges, and aggressive bursts of razor-sharp grain undermine the integrity of the transfer, cursing the presentation with an unnatural, digitized haze that robs the image of what could presumably be a convincing filmic appearance. It doesn't help that smudged textures and softness are more pronounced, specks and scratches pepper the proceedings, and contrast is pushed to such an extreme that clarity, skintones, and delineation take significant hits. As for the proficiency of the transfer itself, crush is a consistent issue, but artifacting and banding are kept to a minimum; grain spikes and lulls as it always has, but obvious smearing leaves me to believe DNR has been used on many sequences

There are times one thinks that not only is this a bad BD transfer, but worse than the DVD itself. Several scenes look like they were filmed and left exposed to the sun before processing, and then exposed again after developing for further deterioration.

Sure, I spent <$10, but even for a $10 BD the video quality might be a 2 out of 5 starts, but that is a big 'maybe'. I'm going to watch Snatch on BD this week and see if it is any better. I did watch RocknRolla and it is much better. No reference, but could be compared to the sh*t offered to us in this good example of a Darwin Award winner of a bad transfer.

DO NOT BUY I give it

[MikeEby]

Interesting...I thought the bad color was just the way they shot it...I had never seen the DVD...Snatch had a simular look leaned towards blue instead of the brown if my memory serves me correct.

Sherlock Holmes also had yucky color...I think it's one of Guy Ritchie's trademarks.


Mike

[WanMan]

My concern wasn't any perceived bad color, but more of the loss of resolution. It appeared that the transfer seem over exposed by a nuclear detonation. In fact, it looked sub-VGA (cry from DVD, a far cry from HD). Imagine taking your CRT and making it bloom like a mofo while crushing the blacks like a blind man.

I am use to the colorations.

[Phil Smith]

Early Guy Ritchie movies rock. His big budget stuff--not so much.

[WanMan]

I'll break out the DVD and compare them, but I have a hard time believing it was a condition of the original movie.