983 War and Peace

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HerrSchreck
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#51 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:37 pm

Better advice: don't buy anything at the moment, as a new restoration is being done, and Kino (thru RusCiCo of course) has announced a new release "late 2008" from HD telecine wherein PAL/NTSC issues shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully RusCiCo will begin regularly providing elements as strong as the recent HD-sourced Paradzhanovs released thru Kino... wondeful releases and promising owing to the lack of conversion issues thru HiDef transfers.

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Person
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#52 Post by Person » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:52 am

I won't be buying again until Blu-Ray, as I bought the R1 Image edition and currently own the Artificial Eye edition. A laborious 6 or 8K digital restoration of the best elements ought to be undertaken - funded at least partially by the Russian government, as the initial production of the film was over forty years ago.

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#53 Post by jsteffe » Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:24 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Better advice: don't buy anything at the moment, as a new restoration is being done, and Kino (thru RusCiCo of course) has announced a new release "late 2008" from HD telecine wherein PAL/NTSC issues shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully RusCiCo will begin regularly providing elements as strong as the recent HD-sourced Paradzhanovs released thru Kino... wondeful releases and promising owing to the lack of conversion issues thru HiDef transfers.
Thanks for the reminder--I was going to buy the Ruscico PAL release of WAR AND PEACE, but I've decided to wait to see how Kino's future release turns out.

What's your source for the information that Ruscico's Paradjanov DVDs are from HD telecines? I haven't been able to find any literature on any websites suggesting that's the case. At any rate, they look to me like ordinary, reasonably good quality digital video transfers but not necessarily HD.

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HerrSchreck
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#54 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:38 pm

Well, since the preceding Parazhanovs are HD sourced... and the restored prints of the Bondarchuk only came out in 08... only a suicidal company would invest all that money into a photochemical/video resto of 70mm only to destroy it by reaching back to NON status quo representation on home vid (leading to folks not investing in it), as HD is now. In this Blu age, non HD sourcing for a SD dvd would be absurd suicide.

The announcement was in the 2008 Kino catalog, I mentioned it a page or two back.

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Darth Lavender
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#55 Post by Darth Lavender » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:44 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:only a suicidal company would invest all that money into a photochemical/video resto of 70mm
Isn't the current restoration still only from Russia's 35mm prints?
I thought the 70mm was still stuck in Ukraine?

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HerrSchreck
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#56 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:54 pm

Perhaps it was a hasty assumption-- do we know that this resto was done without the elements being unraveled? Be sort of silly.. but sillier things were done.

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#57 Post by jsteffe » Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:26 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Well, since the preceding Parazhanovs are HD sourced... and the restored prints of the Bondarchuk only came out in 08... only a suicidal company would invest all that money into a photochemical/video resto of 70mm only to destroy it by reaching back to NON status quo representation on home vid (leading to folks not investing in it), as HD is now. In this Blu age, non HD sourcing for a SD dvd would be absurd suicide.

The announcement was in the 2008 Kino catalog, I mentioned it a page or two back.
What I meant was, what is your actual evidence that the Paradjanov films are HD sourced? I may be wrong on this, but I believe that when Kino says "remastered" for ASHIK KERIB and THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, they simply mean "newer and better transfers than what we released earlier." I haven't come across any Kino or Ruscico press releases or product descriptions indicating that the Paradjanov films were transferred in high definition.

Remember that Ruscico, who licensed the transfers to Kino, released their own versions of LEGEND and ASHIK back in 2003. I've owned those Ruscico discs all these years. It's just that Kino didn't license the titles from Ruscico until now. As far as I can tell, they're simply standard-definition, PAL digital transfers with the usual 4% speedup. The same is likely true of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, which Ruscico just released this year, and which has the same 4% speedup.

In fact, this weekend I'll post screen caps of the old Ruscico and the new Kino discs of THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS and ASHIK KERIB on the comparisons thread here so we can collectively determine whether there's any visible difference between the transfers.

edit 7/11/08: Mosfilm, the studio that released WAR AND PEACE, does in fact have a Spirit Datacine. HerrSchreck is probably correct that this film will be mastered in HD for any future DVD release. And on a side note, in the cases I've observed, the Krunpyi Plan/Mosfilm discs for Russian domestic release have newer and better-looking transfers from superior film elements compared to the same titles released by Ruscico for the international market. See DVD Beaver's comparison of their transfer of Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR with the MK2/Ruscico version. (Beaver says the Russian DVD is from Lizard, but if you look carefully at the cover art it's Krupnyi Plan.) It would not surprise me one bit if the currently available Krunpyi Plan release of WAR AND PEACE also looked better than the Ruscico set. All the newer KP discs I own say simply that Gosfilmofond made digital transfers from new prints made on Kodak stock, with digital restoration of the image by NIKFI (the Cinema and Photo Research Institute)--nothing about high definition specifically, though they may well be downconverted from HD masters.

P.S. That still doesn't answer the question as to whether Ruscsico mastered the Paradjanov films in high definition, since we're talking about two entirely different companies (Ruscico and Mosfilm) with different resources and different practices. The best way to find out would be to ask Kino or Ruscico directly.
Last edited by jsteffe on Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

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bunuelian
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#58 Post by bunuelian » Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:51 am

I've just finished reading the novel and would enjoy watching this version, just so long as it doesn't descend into 45 minute long diatribes about historical determinism.

Natasha! Oh . . .

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HerrSchreck
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#59 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:48 am

jsteffe wrote:What I meant was, what is your actual evidence that the Paradjanov films are HD sourced? I may be wrong on this, but I believe that when Kino says "remastered" for ASHIK KERIB and THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, they simply mean "newer and better transfers than what we released earlier." I haven't come across any Kino or Ruscico press releases or product descriptions indicating that the Paradjanov films were transferred in high definition.

Remember that Ruscico, who licensed the transfers to Kino, released their own versions of LEGEND and ASHIK back in 2003. I've owned those Ruscico discs all these years. It's just that Kino didn't license the titles from Ruscico until now. As far as I can tell, they're simply standard-definition, PAL digital transfers with the usual 4% speedup. The same is likely true of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, which Ruscico just released this year, and which has the same 4% speedup.

In fact, this weekend I'll post screen caps of the old Ruscico and the new Kino discs of THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS and ASHIK KERIB on the comparisons thread here so we can collectively determine whether there's any visible difference between the transfers.

On the other hand, it's possible that Mosfilm or some other entity has indeed invested in a new HD telecine of WAR AND PEACE since it's one of that studio's most valuable titles, but I'm unsure that HD telecines have become standard practice yet in Russia. And on a side note, in the cases I've observed, the Krunpyi Plan/Mosfilm discs for Russian domestic release have newer and better-looking transfers from superior film elements compared to the same titles released by Ruscico for the international market. See DVD Beaver's comparison of their transfer of Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR with the MK2/Ruscico version. (Beaver says the Russian DVD is from Lizard, but if you look carefully at the cover art it's Krupnyi Plan.) It would not surprise me one bit if the currently available Krunpyi Plan release of WAR AND PEACE also looked better than the Ruscico set. However, all the newer KP discs I own say simply that Gosfilmofond made digital transfers from new prints made on Kodak stock, with digital restoration of the image by NIKFI (the Cinema and Photo Research Institute)--nothing about high definition specifically.

P.S.: Mosfilm's website (www.mosfilm.ru) is down at the moment, but they do have an English version that gives information on the work they do. I suspect it would be a good place to find out about restoration projects such as WAR AND PEACE and ANDREI RUBLEV.
That's a lot of info you've tossed out there, and I can say the only Paradzhanov I picked up from the new Kino bunch is Ancestors, which although interlaced, looks very much like an HD sourced dvd.

But I wasn't stating these SP films as any sort of "proof"-- don't take me to court on this stuff for heavens sakes! What I was saying is that given the time frame that these new transfers are being done I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that it'll be HD sourced (I mean if they wanted to throw an old SD transfer of the Bondarchuk at us there'd be no reason to wait more than a year past the announcement of the late 08 disc, which came around 11/07 on the heels of the touring of a new photochemical preparation of the film) given that most of Kino's titles from approx Nosferatu forward, are so transfered. If they're insuring HD titles on stuff like the Engels (Little Fugitive, Lovers & Lollipops, etc) I don't anticipate the "new last word" on W&P will be crap-sourced.

After all, HD tranfers are old news, at least as far as most studios are concerned.. they've been common for years. The good news is that finally the Blu/HD war has settled so we're getting our status quo for full HD presentation.

But for such a long and expensive-to-restore-and-transfer "national epic" like W&P to undergo a restoration and then an SD transfer, thus insuring that another expensive HD transfer will be neccessary when they want to release a Blu product (for which there is already a demand), would be financially, utterly absurd.
jsteffe wrote:[As far as I can tell, they're simply standard-definition, PAL digital transfers with the usual 4% speedup. The same is likely true of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, which Ruscico just released this year, and which has the same 4% speedup.
The speedup is going to be there regardless of the picture resolution. The speedup is not proof of one thing or another. For example, CC recieved HD masters of Berlin Alexanderplatz which originally was shot in PAL standard, and to have the film run at the proper frame rate for NTSC players, it resulted in the slowdown and thus lengthening the film. HD does not remove the speed-up/slowdown issue... it just potentially removes the PQ repercussions of encoding from one standard to another.

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#60 Post by jsteffe » Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:58 am

HerrSchreck wrote:After all, HD tranfers are old news, at least as far as most studios are concerned.. they've been common for years. The good news is that finally the Blu/HD war has settled so we're getting our status quo for full HD presentation.
That's true for the U.S., but I wonder whether that's true across the board for Russia, which is still slower at adopting new video technology than the U.S. It's quite likely that Mosfilm is doing all their new transfers in HD (see my amended message above), but Ruscico is a smaller company and may not have access to the same level of equipment. Certainly their discs tend not to look as good as the remastered Krupnyi Plan/Mosfilm titles, which are consistently impressive. The best way to verify what standards they're using for their transfers would be to ask Ruscico directly.

BTW: I did a quick check on the major Russian online store Ozon.ru, and they list only some 20 Blu-ray titles, all of which are new releases, mostly American productions. Mosfilm hasn't started releasing their back catalog on Blu-ray yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't mastering their them in HD now.

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Darth Lavender
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#61 Post by Darth Lavender » Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:00 am

Just been doing a bit of reading online (partly with the aid of google translator) and found this Russian site which, interestingly, lists two different companies as distributing the DVD in Russia. "Ruscico" and "Крупный план" (translated as 'Major Plan') anyone know anything about this other company?

btw, what exactly do we know about the upcoming Kino rerelease? Were was this actually announced?
HerrSchreck wrote:The speedup is going to be there regardless of the picture resolution. The speedup is not proof of one thing or another. For example, CC recieved HD masters of Berlin Alexanderplatz which originally was shot in PAL standard, and to have the film run at the proper frame rate for NTSC players, it resulted in the slowdown and thus lengthening the film. HD does not remove the speed-up/slowdown issue... it just potentially removes the PQ repercussions of encoding from one standard to another.

Not quite. I've never been quite sure why it works like this, but when a PAL DVD is directly transfered into NTSC (as Ruscico does) then the PAL speed-up remains. When a HD transfer is transfered to DVDs, the PAL will be 4% fast, and the NTSC will be the proper speed (actually, NTSC is something like 0.00001% slower than 24fps film, but who's counting?)

Incidentally, it looks like the cinema rerelease was definitely done with 35mm materials
Last edited by Darth Lavender on Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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HerrSchreck
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#62 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:42 am

Darth Lavender wrote:
HerrSchreck wrote:The speedup is going to be there regardless of the picture resolution. The speedup is not proof of one thing or another. For example, CC recieved HD masters of Berlin Alexanderplatz which originally was shot in PAL standard, and to have the film run at the proper frame rate for NTSC players, it resulted in the slowdown and thus lengthening the film. HD does not remove the speed-up/slowdown issue... it just potentially removes the PQ repercussions of encoding from one standard to another.

Not quite. I've never been quite sure why it works like this, but when a PAL DVD is directly transfered into NTSC (as Ruscico does) then the PAL speed-up remains.
From, for example, the beev review of BA:
Distribution

Criterion Collection - Spine #411 - Region 1 - NTSC Runtime Approx 15.5 hours (4% PAL slowdown)

Second Sight - Region 2 - PAL
Approx 15 hours

Video 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 6.63 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 4.99 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

1) The Criterion is coded for region 1 in the NTSC standard. The Second Sight is coded for region 2 in the PAL standard. Both are progressive. Shot on 16mm - 25fps cameras - the Criterion NTSC is sped down 4% (slower), like "28 Days Later" (Thanks ManicSounds!) - see Criterion blog HERE (Thanks Jason!).
Darth Lavender wrote:btw, what exactly do we know about the upcoming Kino rerelease? Were was this actually announced?

This keeps getting asked over and over. Read the thread-- that's been answered a bunch of times.

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#63 Post by videozor » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:24 pm

Darth Lavender wrote:two different companies as distributing the DVD in Russia. "Ruscico" and "Крупный план" (translated as 'Major Plan') anyone know anything about this other company?
"Крупный план" (the correct translation is Close-Up) is almost a monopoly in Russia, as far as you can judge by their catalog.

They make 2 lines: expensive - on DVD9s with some extras, packed in super jewel cases, and an inexpensive one - on DVD5s with no extras, packed in keep cases.

Where their catalog overlaps with RUSCICO's titles - transfer usually is better on "Крупный план"s DVDs, but extras are more interesting on RUSCICO's

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#64 Post by jsteffe » Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:46 pm

My understanding is that for the Mosfilm studio titles such as WAR AND PEACE, Krupnyi Plan/Lizard releases them domestically, whereas Ruscico releases whatever titles it wants overseas. Krupnyi Plan has different levels of quality depending on the line. Some of their older, lower-profile titles still use older video transfers. Their newer, high-profile titles are getting released in new transfers with "full restoration of image and sound," as the cover indicates in those cases. I have some of these, and they look excellent by any standard; their new transfer of Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR is the best I've seen yet. But even in the case of THE MIRROR, there are 2 versions, dual-layer and single layer of the same film using the same transfer. The main attraction of the single-layer disc is that it's cheaper.

Ruscico's transfers of the same films are typically from older, unrestored prints and the telecine is good, but perhaps not of the same outstanding quality. While they look pretty decent, they're not up to the same standard, by and large.

Ruscico has special agreements with Gorky Studio and the Georgia Film Studio, so they are the exclusive distributor of those titles in Russia (either on their own or through Grand Records) or abroad.

I haven't seen the new Krupnyi Plan edition of WAR AND PEACE, but it's quite possibly superior to the Ruscico, and it could be superior in a big way, though Bondarchuk's film apparently poses special preservation problems.

My advice would be to hold out for the Kino edition of WAR AND PEACE. With any luck, it will be from a newer and better transfer than the Ruscico. It it turns out to be the same, then you still haven't lost anything by waiting a little longer. In that case, you can just get one of the PAL versions to avoid the PAL-NTSC transfer issues.


Now as for RussianDVD.com: They sell unsubtitled Krupnyi Plan discs, but beware since these are NTSC versions specifically for the Russian-American market. I say beware, because the few I've seen use a conversion method that creates jerky movement. To my eyes, it's more irritating than whatever ghosting you might see on one of Ruscico's PAL-NTSC conversions, even if it's a superior transfer. I always make a point of trying to track down Krupnyi Plan's PAL discs instead.

BTW: The new Krupnyi Plan disc of CHAPAYEV is subtitled in English, unlike most of their titles. This is one to snatch up if you're into Soviet cinema, and it looks very good considering it's a Soviet film from the early Thirties.

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Darth Lavender
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#65 Post by Darth Lavender » Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:44 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:
Darth Lavender wrote:what exactly do we know about the upcoming Kino rerelease? Were was this actually announced?

This keeps getting asked over and over. Read the thread-- that's been answered a bunch of times.
Firstly, this HAS been asked a few times (about the Kino source) and since this thread is three pages long, and nobody will bother answering the question, I've done a text search for 'kino' and discovered that the source seems to be Kino's most recent catalogue.
HerrSchreck wrote:I wonder if this is going to be the source for the discs that Kino announced for late 08 ("as of presstime 08 is doable" or something like that) in their brand new catalog.
Now, getting back to the PAL/NTSC runtime thing; the 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' just illustrates (in an unusual way) exactly what I'm talking about.

HD>NTSC (or Film>NTSC) creates the effect of 24fps.
HD>PAL (of Film>PAL) creates the effect of 25fps.
In the case of B.A., the film is, unusually, supposed to be at 25fps, hence the NTSC being 'slower'

On to conversions;

Film>PAL>NTSC creates the effect of 25fps (hence, all the Ruscico NTSC abominations having 'PAL' runtimes)
Film>NTSC>PAL creates the effect of 24fps.

I'm not sure exactly what creates that effect, but it's something I've found pretty useful in identifying PAL>NTSC or NTSC>PAL transfers before buying (after consulting exact runtimes at places like BBFC.co.uk)

Silent film is a little different. For reasons which, again, I don't quite understand the mechanics of, interlacing can be used to modify a films speed to something obscure like 20fps or 16fps, which is why silent movies will always be same length in PAL and NTSC (although, usually, there's PAL>NTSC or NTSC>PAL conversion involved, too) Similarly, some silent dvds taken from film or HD will specifically introduce ghosting or duplicate frames to get the timing right. (And example being Milestone's excellent 'Phantom of the Opera' which was mistakenly accused of being a PAL>NTSC conversion, because of the unusual techniques used to create the transfer (in this case, the whole restoration was done on NTSC, in the 90s, so there was no way to 'undo' the interlacing)

As to Kino's upcoming release, it looks like Ruscico is still intent on using PAL>NTSC conversions (see the recent Paradjanovs. Which I haven't viewed myself, but heard they still contain ghosting) Also, 2008 being three quarters over, shouldn't we have heard something further?

These 'Closer Look' DVDs sound interesting, and I wonder if anyone knows a reliable online store that sells the PAL versions. As for the 'jerkiness' of the NTSCs, that sounds like a phenomen I've seen on older NTSC DVDs, played on my older but moderately high-end DVD player. (Anchor Bay's Fitzcarraldo and Criterion's (definitely native NTSC) "Henry V" come to mind as exhibiting the phenomenon. If it's the same phenomenon, I think it might have something to do with primarily 'PAL' players not handling the older NTSC disks very well. Although, Russian being a primarily PAL nation, I'd lean towards PAL releases unless someone can find the running-time for some of Closer Look's NTSC disks and compare to the PAL.

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#66 Post by tryavna » Thu Aug 07, 2008 12:10 pm

jsteffe wrote:BTW: The new Krupnyi Plan disc of CHAPAYEV is subtitled in English, unlike most of their titles. This is one to snatch up if you're into Soviet cinema, and it looks very good considering it's a Soviet film from the early Thirties.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but where can one order/find this disc, Jsteffe? Chapayev has always interested me, but I've never gotten around to seeing it or ordering it in any format.

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HerrSchreck
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#67 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:50 pm

Darth I don't know what your point was-- on PAL / NTSC I was answering the specific point that a properly preconverted NTSC transfer of a film shot in PAL standard (i e 25fps) WILL slow down and be lengthened when running in NTSC. I proved my point using Berlin ALex as an example. If a film is not properly converted (an issue arising innumerable times on Kino silents sourced from european masters, and v versa i e the older Eurekas taken from Blackhawk NTSC masters), then the runtime will be the same from standard to standard. If properly converted and film is running viz a proper transfer for its standard, my understanding that it should speed-up or slowdown (this is wildly OT) regardless whether or not it is silent-- look at the time specs for FAUST for example on the Export Version, where the transfers in NTSC (by SHepard) were true NTSC, and where MOC did a proper preconversion of their master. There is a 4% speedup of the runtime. Whether or not a film has sound has nothing to do with the speedup or slowdown. At least the way I understand it. Runtime is runtime, speedup & slowdown are " & ".

The Milestone Phantom of the Opera was taken from the UK Brownlow/Davis transfer-- it was a PAL transfer, not a native NTSC... just like many other Milestone transfers taken from the Brownlow Channel 4 Thames SIlents... La Terre, The Chess PLayer, Mad Love, etc. Like many Kino's, they are european masters encoded straight to NTSC without preconversion.

As for "adding duplicate frames" I dont think that's done. To get the film to spool off at the speed required, they simply make the film play slower or faster.. by spreading each film frame over the correspondingly required number of vidframes for the standard involved during the encoding process to get the film to mathematically spool off at the right speed.

On the Kino War & Peace, yes it HAS been asked and it HAS been answered-- I was the guy who originally announced it in this thread, and originally elsewhere in this forum, that Kino put in their November full catalog the fact that the new transfer was going to be made available at the end of 08. Every few posts someone would ask "where did we hear about this new release and when did we hear it?" and I've reanswered multiple times. This is why I said "read the thread". Because the question keeps popping up again. I've already answered the question twice over the past four weeks. So stay cool, and read the thread.

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Darth Lavender
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#68 Post by Darth Lavender » Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:08 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Darth I don't know what your point was-- on PAL / NTSC I was answering the specific point that a properly preconverted NTSC transfer of a film shot in PAL standard (i e 25fps) WILL slow down and be lengthened when running in NTSC. I proved my point using Berlin ALex as an example. If a film is not properly converted (an issue arising innumerable times on Kino silents sourced from european masters, and v versa i e the older Eurekas taken from Blackhawk NTSC masters), then the runtime will be the same from standard to standard. If properly converted and film is running viz a proper transfer for its standard, my understanding that it should speed-up or slowdown (this is wildly OT) regardless whether or not it is silent-- look at the time specs for FAUST for example on the Export Version, where the transfers in NTSC (by SHepard) were true NTSC, and where MOC did a proper preconversion of their master. There is a 4% speedup of the runtime. Whether or not a film has sound has nothing to do with the speedup or slowdown.
Ah. Looks like we were arguing the same point, then, without me knowing it. :?

Regarding silent film runtimes, you're right in that it has nothing to do with sound. I only said "silent film" that almost every film with an unusual speed (16fps, 18fps, etc.) tends to be in that category (there might also be certain contemporary animation and experimental film)

The Milestone Phantom of the Opera is news to me (about being PAL>NTSC) although, while that explains some of the artefacts, I did read in an interview with one of the DVDs producers that at least some of that interlacing was the result of an older method for adjusting film speed.

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#69 Post by Rufus T. Firefly » Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:12 am

The UK Alexanderplatz is 903 minutes, while the Criterion is 941 minutes, which is 25fps slowed to 23.996fps, proving Schreck's point.

This is getting off topic, but this is an explanation by Bob Birchard of what might have happened with the Milestone Phantom:
This is speculation on my part, but what the fringing in "Phantom" looks like to me is the sort of artifact you get when you transfer a video tape with 3:2 pulldown into an Avid digital editing machine in a 24 (or in this case 25) frame per second project without pulling the image in on a proper "A" Frame.

The Avid tricks itself into creating a 24 frame project by taking selected fields, of the two-field video frames.

The result is that when the proper 3:2 cadence is broken, the Avid captures a field from one video frame and another field from a second video frame--creating the effect of two frames being visible at once.

I believe Kevin and Patrick were working in Pal, and I'm not entirely certain how Pal works in this regard, but the principal is the same.

I don't believe the fringing was due to vari-speeding--it does not look like a vari-speed issue on screen.

The bottom line is that because the video appears to have been captured in the wrong cadence, the artifacts are impossible to remove.

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jsteffe
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#70 Post by jsteffe » Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:27 pm

tryavna wrote:Sorry to go off on a tangent, but where can one order/find this disc, Jsteffe? Chapayev has always interested me, but I've never gotten around to seeing it or ordering it in any format.
You can order the NTSC version of Krupnyi Plan's subtitled CHAPAYEV from RussianDVD.com. Here is the direct link. You can select an English viewing option for the website if you need it. Of course the video encoding has some mild problems arising from PAL-NTSC conversion, but I think it's more than watchable, and it blows the pants off all the crappy old VHS tapes that have been floating around all these years. This film looms large enough in the Russian popular imagination that you really owe it to yourself to see it if you have even a casual interest in Russian cinema.

I know most of this is restating what has already been said in different ways on this thread, but the technology is complicated, so I'm throwing in my own 2 cents. I apologize in advance for the duplication.

The PAL/NTSC transfer and projection speed issue can get fairly tangled. Regarding the example of BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, it's very unusual because the film was actually *shot* at 25 fps, as HerrSchreck noted. This was because it was made for television. Therefore, when the film is transferred into PAL (25 fps), it retains its correct running time. This is unlike most 35mm sound feature films, which are shot for projection at 24 fps but transferred into PAL at 25 fps, hence the 4% speedup you find on PAL DVDs.

For NTSC transfers, the films are transferred at their normal 24 fps projection speed, but the 2:3 pulldown mentioned above (sometimes called 3:2 pulldown) results in 29.97 fps video. Criterion decided to transfer BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ at the more common projection speed of 24 fps instead of its original 25 fps to ensure the best quality NTSC transfer. That's why the longer running time for the Criterion DVD.

PAL-NTSC and NTSC-PAL video conversions necessarily come after the film-to-video telecine and thus are a separate issue altogether. They normally do not result in a change of running time in the conversion process. Certainly, that is the case with tape-to-tape conversions.

Silent films shot and projected at speeds other than 24 fps are also unaffected by the difference in fps between PAL (25 fps) and NTSC (24fps) originated telecines--but they have an entirely different set of issues to contend with, including more complicated pulldown techniques. For example, a film projected at 18 fps will necessarily be interlaced regardless of whether the resulting video transfer is PAL or NTSC, and both the PAL and NTSC versions will necessarily have the same running time.

So in other words, using the more common conversion methods, taking an existing PAL video transfer and converting it to NTSC or vice versa, will not result in a change in running time. For example, Kino's NTSC conversions of PAL video transfers supplied to them will still have the same 4% PAL speedup that resulted from the 25 fps PAL telecine. The Kino silents acquired from Europe and converted into NTSC from the original PAL telecine will likewise have the same running time, which reflects whatever projection speed was originally used for the telecine.

Some technicians working on a computer with digital video files will run special algorithms to remove frames introduced via the pulldown method when doing PAL-NTSC video conversions. That's only possible because the original process of creating 29.97 fps NTSC video out of 24 fps film (i.e., 2:3 pulldown) introduced extra video fields to begin with.

High definition video can be both transferred and played back at the original 24 fps. But if I'm not mistaken, in countries were PAL is the dominant video standard, hi-def telecines are still commonly being done at 25 fps to ensure the best quality image when they're downconverted for PAL standard-def playback equipment, which is by far what most people are still using there. If I'm not mistaken, trying to convert a 24 fps-originated telecine into 25 fps standard definition video would require a complicated pulldown method and introduce judder that PAL telecines are usually lucky enough to avoid. Does anyone have any additional information on this?

With the Kino's forthcoming WAR AND PEACE DVD, it's a safe bet that unless they have a separate transfer done specifically for the US market in NTSC using a 24fps telecine (which will be extremely expensive!), they'll be getting an existing, but newer, 25 fps PAL telecine and converting it to NTSC. I believe this will be true even if it's a high-definition transfer. So it will probably have 4% speedup.

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tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#71 Post by tryavna » Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:48 pm

jsteffe wrote:
tryavna wrote:Sorry to go off on a tangent, but where can one order/find this disc, Jsteffe? Chapayev has always interested me, but I've never gotten around to seeing it or ordering it in any format.
You can order the NTSC version of Krupnyi Plan's subtitled CHAPAYEV from RussianDVD.com. Here is the direct link. You can select an English viewing option for the website if you need it. Of course the video encoding has some mild problems arising from PAL-NTSC conversion, but I think it's more than watchable, and it blows the pants off all the crappy old VHS tapes that have been floating around all these years. This film looms large enough in the Russian popular imagination that you really owe it to yourself to see it if you have even a casual interest in Russian cinema.
Many thanks, Jsteffe. Will place an order as soon as I have available funds.

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jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

#72 Post by jsteffe » Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:20 pm

tryavna wrote:Many thanks, Jsteffe. Will place an order as soon as I have available funds.
Isn't that really the big issue these days? Believe me, I know what you mean!

BradStevens
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:39 pm
Location: UK

#73 Post by BradStevens » Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:27 am

Just picked up the UK disc of THEY FOUGHT FOR THEIR MOTHERLAND (£8 at FOP). Can anyone confirm that the 4:3 ratio is correct? The IMDB claim that the original ratio was 2.20:1. Bondarchuk certainly seems to have preferred widescreen ratios.

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jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

#74 Post by jsteffe » Sat Aug 16, 2008 4:01 pm

BradStevens wrote:Just picked up the UK disc of THEY FOUGHT FOR THEIR MOTHERLAND (£8 at FOP). Can anyone confirm that the 4:3 ratio is correct? The IMDB claim that the original ratio was 2.20:1. Bondarchuk certainly seems to have preferred widescreen ratios.
Hmm... this is not at all clear. The Ruscico disc appears to be full frame. I checked a Russian-language reference book, and it says it's widescreen. However, I checked the Gosfilmofond online catalog, and it only lists standard (flat) format. It's always possible they neglected to catalog the widescren version. Or... something happened and the widescreen version no longer exists or isn't usable.

I do know it was fairly common practice in the Soviet Union to issue "flat" (i.e., cropped) versions of anamorphic widescreen films, especially for non-theatrical distribution (film clubs, etc.), and the Godsfilmofond catalog does list alternate flat versions of some films alongside the standard widescreen or "wide format" (70mm) versions.

I wonder if any reviews at the time--say, from Variety--list this as a widescreen film?

At any rate, it looks as if the 4X3 version is your only option at this point.

FilmFan9673

#75 Post by FilmFan9673 » Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:21 pm

Interesting thread this is, and yes this is my first time first post here as I like Criterion's DVD catalog.

At the moment, I have the Image's Russian Cinema Council version, all 4 discs {Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4} with the 5 disc being Bonuses, in it's original 2.35 aspect ratio in NTSC format - All Regions. I got it in '03 when it was with its distributor, Image - I'm so glad I got it. I have seen and had bought the Kultur's pan-and-scan version of W&P years ago English dubbed as that wasn't as good as what I have with Image. So, they're planning to bring in another DVD transfer in '08?

Honestly, I wish that Criterion would pick this up just like they did Berlin Alexanderplatz -- again, only a wish.

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