BD 49 The Blue Angel

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
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peerpee
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Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:41 pm

Re: BD 49 The Blue Angel

#51 Post by peerpee » Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:12 pm

There are a shit ton of issues here. Firstly, the MoC Series didn't exist in 2003, so when Moshrom's video says "Masters of Cinema DVD (2003)" presumably this is referring to the Eureka DVD from around that time? I didn't produce either the Eureka DVD or the later MoC Blu – so I have no idea what's gone on here.

Most of the time, labels are at the mercy of the licensor and whatever their internal or external restoration house presents them with. It's typically up to the producer of the disc to spot any discrepancies with the quality of the audio, but it's probably not something that gets much attention – there's a whole area of responsibility to deal with elsewhere in a very short timeframe. The sound is either present or it's not, it's either in sync or it's not. That's about as far as the typical producer will go. They're not all sat there with their heads inbetween massive studio monitors performing A-B tests on previous versions. That's the job of the restoration house, and it's assumed it's already been done. If, as a fledgling DVD producer in 2004, I had gone back to the licensor complaining about frequencies over 8kHz being missing, nothing would have happened. They'd finished that restoration, closed it down, and moved on to something else.

The best QCer is the producer of the disc. He/she who knows everything about the project from start to finish. I generally don't trust *anyone* to QC, unless they're an established professional producer type, who can be relied upon (ie. there's not many of them).

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tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: BD 49 The Blue Angel

#52 Post by tenia » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:18 pm

peerpee wrote:That's the job of the restoration house, and it's assumed it's already been done.
But even if it hasn't been done, or not properly, the label wouldn't be able to get the restoration corrected or re-performed, or would it ?
peerpee wrote:If, as a fledgling DVD producer in 2004, I had gone back to the licensor complaining about frequencies over 8kHz being missing, nothing would have happened. They'd finished that restoration, closed it down, and moved on to something else.
And 13 years later, it basically still hasn't changed, or by so little...

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: BD 49 The Blue Angel

#53 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:55 pm

Ugh, massively disappointing. Too bad MoC didn't (or couldn't?) use the audio track from the 2003 DVD.

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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BD 49 The Blue Angel

#54 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 16, 2017 2:04 pm

peerpee wrote:The best QCer is the producer of the disc. He/she who knows everything about the project from start to finish. I generally don't trust *anyone* to QC, unless they're an established professional producer type, who can be relied upon (ie. there's not many of them).
With hardly any exceptions*, I always, always personally QC my own stuff, including both formats where applicable. In virtually all cases someone else is doing the job as well, whether it be Arrow's full-time QC manager Nora Mehenni or her equivalents at authoring houses like IBF, so the discs get at least two pairs of eyes on them, but this is part of the job that I can never shirk. After all, it's the final product.

And also, the producer is much more likely to have access to - and most likely have already watched in full - the ProRes masters, so can quickly investigate any apparent encoding problems. They're also more likely to have other releases to hand for comparison purposes - for instance, on Three Brothers IBF's QC flagged up a number of apparent technical glitches that all turned out to be inherent in the original material. In one case, you can spot a crew member crouching in the background (we debated cropping him out, but he occupies too much of the frame, and he's in every other version that I checked), and in another, there were what appeared to be sound inconsistencies in a scene where Philippe Noiret's judge is taking part in a lively political debate - but in that case it seemed to be a bodge job by Francesco Rosi himself, whereby he could include as much live sound as possible while still having to dub Noiret into Italian (so the ambience changes noticeably whenever he's speaking - but just at those moments). There was also an almost imperceptible jump cut in the scene with the tank that seems to have been a crude but nonetheless clearly deliberate attempt at shortening a shot: we assume Rosi didn't have any decent cutaway material. Every other version of the film that I could get my hands on (including an off-air BBC-sourced recording) had those issues, and since all of those would have come from a different master I'm very sure indeed that they were equally present at the film's world premiere in 35mm. (And when I watched both discs in Arrow's US release recently, I found that I hadn't changed my mind!).

(*The Human Condition is the only one that springs to mind, where we had to tag-team the final QC because it takes twenty hours to get through the whole dual-format package.)

Moshrom
Joined: Mon May 27, 2013 2:53 am
Location: Canada

Re: BD 49 The Blue Angel

#55 Post by Moshrom » Thu Mar 16, 2017 3:33 pm

swo17 wrote:Isn't the issue that some degree of digital tinkering is a must for all projects, but it's an art, and some people go too far with it? Like the best CGI in movies, if people are doing their jobs right, you won't notice they're doing anything.
Good question... For the most part, yes, there's nothing wrong with using digital tools conservatively to restore audio.

The problem arises from how people define audio restoration. The average consumer (and basically every reviewer) seems to think that the hiss in older films' soundtracks is something that has intensified over time, which is completely false. I don't support the application of any amount of hiss reduction to an entire movie because removing it without also removing high-frequency detail is simply impossible. CD collectors figured this decades ago, but for some reason everyone thinks these tools can be used for film without any destructive effect.

But I'm no hiss fetishist (as absurd as it sounds, they do exist), and high-frequency noise can easily be the result of a source element's inherent dupiness, too. It's exactly like grain in that way -- it multiplies with each additional analogue generation, and any attempts to tame it should be undertaken with extreme caution.

When it comes to audio restoration, I believe things like pops, clicks, and flutter should absolutely be removed where possible. But hiss, EQ, and dynamics should be left alone.
peerpee wrote:Firstly, the MoC Series didn't exist in 2003, so when Moshrom's video says "Masters of Cinema DVD (2003)" presumably this is referring to the Eureka DVD from around that time? I didn't produce either the Eureka DVD or the later MoC Blu – so I have no idea what's gone on here.
Thanks, this has been corrected.

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