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Originally Posted by springjack  To put context in the history of the American releases, the difference between the Grindhouse Releasing and the Anchor Bay is that the Grindhouse version has more compression artifacts due to the new extra that´s included in the package... |
While you're partially right, there's other factors at work, too; the Anchor Bay DVD had edge-enhancement, while the Grindhouse DVD did not. Yes, EE is a bad thing that increases noise and can harm small details by caking them in ringing, but it also gives those high-contrast details a bit more "oomph", which in turn means they're easier to see after being compressed. That's why studios tend to use it in the first place.
The Grindhouse encode used (more?) vertical filtering, too - that's basically the opposite of EE, and tends to blur the image spatially, but leaves motion largely unaffected. Applying this means there's less grain, and less grain means you can encode at a lower bitrate without obvious compression artifacts. Virtually
all DVD encodes use this sort of filtering to some degree, though, so I'm not singling out Grindhouse for it, just stating what it looks like they used to squeeze the bitrate down a bit.
The difference between the AB transfer and the Grindhouse transfer is 6.53 Mbps versus 5.77 Mbps. Neither are anywhere
close to DVD's maximum bitrate (9.8 Mb), and
both transfers would have looked even better with a higher bitrate and moved more of the bonus features to a second disc... but hey, if I had a nickel for every time I've had to say that!
So while the lower bitrate was certainly a factor in the Grindhouse disc being softer, compression's much more involved than that. I'm not trying to argue with you on the subject, it's just one I deal with on a pretty regular basis, and it just drives me nuts when I see transfers of films I love using tricks like EE or vertical filtering when all they really have to do is
kick up the stinkin' bitrate...
As for all of the hooplah concerning the transfer:
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"GRINDHOUSE RELEASING HAS SPARED NO EXPENSE IN DIGITALLY REMASTERING THE BEYOND AND CANNIBAL FEROX FROM ORIGINAL NEGATIVE AND SOUND ELEMENTS NEWLY RESTORED BY TECHNICOLOR LAB IN ROME. TO ENSURE UTMOST PICTURE QUALITY, THE COLOR TIMING OF THE BEYOND WAS PERSONALLY SUPERVISED BY SERGIO SALVATI, THE ORIGINAL DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF THIS TERROR CLASSIC."
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Technicolor Rome, huh? Those same guys who did those much loved restorations for SUSPIRIA and SALO? Well, at least we've got no reason to assume anything
they do is a mess...
I'd be curious if Mr. Salvati would be as enthused with his transfer of THE BEYOND as much now as he was over a decade ago. Technology improves, after all, and it's entirely possible that some aspects of the Grindhouse transfer were a compromise for the SDTV's which would have been the norm at the time.
Think of it this way; Sam Raimi approved both the Elite DVD transfer and the Anchor Bay Blu-ray transfer for THE EVIL DEAD (
Caps-A-Holic comparison), which look quite a bit different in terms of overall contrast and color timing. Was Raimi "wrong" back in 1999? Is he "wrong" now? Or was the Elite transfer simply the best the film could look using now antiquated technology, while the Blu-ray is the best the film can look using contemporary techniques? My vote goes for each being a perfectly valid presentation for the era and the format they were made on - but those formats change pretty dramatically over the space of just a decade.
The best thing to do would be to get Mr. Salvati involved and have him go over the HD materials, since there's probably a world of difference between what a post house could do today and what they would have done back in 2000... but, I can already imagine a multitude of reasons why that may not happen. So unless he
does get involved, at least there's no reason to assume the Grindhouse materials aren't at least reasonably close to how the film "should" look...
