The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

Discuss releases by the BFI and the films on them.

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feckless boy
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#76 Post by feckless boy » Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:59 am

peerpee wrote:Because they did all the work progressively, we have individual frames captured as individual frames, and it's super-useful for Blu-ray. Slowing the 25p master down to 24p (like Kino did), instead of removing the repeat frames and getting to 24p more elegantly, didn't really show a very good understanding of the technical side of what's gone on. I'm really glad the BFI sound to have nailed it (haven't seen the disc yet).
The Scandinavian blu from 2009 is 25fps interlaced and has a runtime of 68 min 46 sec - Deutsche Kinematek logo, and original intertitles. What would the runtime be if the repeat frames were removed? (Not even sure if this is a valid question, so go easy on the noob!)

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MichaelB
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#77 Post by MichaelB » Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:21 am

feckless boy wrote:The Scandinavian blu from 2009 is 25fps interlaced and has a runtime of 68 min 46 sec - Deutsche Kinematek logo, and original intertitles. What would the runtime be if the repeat frames were removed?
Technically, it would be fractionally over 66 minutes, but that's based on removing the single repeat frame per second designed to get the film to run at 18fps within 25fps, while still retaining the playback speed of 25fps. And I think that would be a bit pointless - after all, if you're going to go to that trouble, surely you'd also adjust the playback speed to 24fps as a by-product of the same process? Otherwise you'd end up with the film running slightly fast, thus defeating the purpose of removing the frames in the first place.

From what you say, the Scandinavian disc runs at the same core 18fps playback speed, but within 25fps - which is why the running times more or less match the BFI disc (give or take a few seconds). But the problem (aside from the interlaced transfer) is that because 18fps doesn't go into 25fps in the same way that 18 into 24 does (since they're both multiples of 3), they've presumably had to insert an extra frame per second to compensate, so playback won't be as smooth.

Anyway, since yesterday's discussion started I've had a chat with the technical supervisor of the BFI disc, who has confirmed that it does indeed run at a core speed of 18fps, simulated within 24fps by means of repeating single frames at regular intervals (this won't be noticeable in motion), thus permitting a genuinely progressive 1080p transfer and smooth playback. So it sounds as though they've done exactly what they should have done.

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feckless boy
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#78 Post by feckless boy » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:58 am

Thank you for that thorough answer, the BFI release now moved into the "must have category".

peerpee
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#79 Post by peerpee » Fri Oct 19, 2012 10:19 am

All because the Blu-ray format doesn't support different framerates. If, like Quicktime, an 18fps encode could be displayed natively at 18fps, (and 20fps at 20fps, etc) – we'd all be laughing!

The great thing about doing HD restorations of silent films progressively (and not interlaced) is that you can always go back and strip out repeated frames if need be. One day we'll have a format that can play any framerate rate natively.

Calvin
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#80 Post by Calvin » Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:42 pm

HMV have sent my copy so it should hopefully be with me tomorrow. Has anyone here seen the documentary Hitchcock on Grierson? I sent STV an e-mail regarding it as they appear to have it up on YouTube but the video is, sadly, private.



Calvin
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#83 Post by Calvin » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:30 pm

My copy finally arrived today and I'm very pleased with it. Having only seen Potemkin in sped up versions, having it at its original frame rate is an eye opener. As much as I would have liked some on-disc extras focused on the films in the set - there are a few documentaries on Grierson out there and Tracing Battleship Potemkin could have been taken from the Kino - it's hard to complain when the films are presented in such an impressive manner.

Also, Michael, I've noticed that in your piece on Potemkin (page 15) there is a '1' that should be superscript. Perhaps the BFI could correct this for future pressings.

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antnield
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#84 Post by antnield » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:31 pm


Kris
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#85 Post by Kris » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:15 pm

Hi everyone,

I just registered here because I hope to get the most competent reassurence: Is it just me or is there something wrong with my Potemkin Blu-ray?

Yesterday my disc arrived, I just checked it and could not believe what I saw when starting Potemkin: Pixels (not sure if it's the correct term).

Prominent, clearly visible, distracting, annoying. The TV settings have, as always, all picture "enhancers" disabled. Strangely, the films by Grierson look fine.

I took a few pictures with my digicam (I don't have any other way), about 20 cm away from the TV screen:

Image (that's in the Odessa-chapter)
Image
Image

I don't remember seeing this on the Kino Blu-ray, which I don't have any more, having expected my final package from the BFI. Is the film supposed to look that way?

Thanks in advance,

Kris

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Ozu Teapot
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#86 Post by Ozu Teapot » Thu Nov 08, 2012 6:02 am

All I can tell you is that my disc looks nothing like the pictures you posted! It looks great as I've come to expect from the BFI. I even checked the DVD as I thought there was a very slim chance that you'd put that in by mistake, but that looks fine too.

I'm afraid I'm no expert on technical issues so I don't know what the problem is, but hopefully someone here can help you.

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RossyG
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#87 Post by RossyG » Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:35 am

Just checked mine. A few jaggies on the title cards but the picture seems fine. I'm no expert, though, and I've just flicked through it.

Kris
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#88 Post by Kris » Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:12 pm

This is most unfortunate. I tried both of my players with the same result (I made sure I really used the Blu-ray). It just looks like a badly encoded mpg-File, especially with those halos around the word "часть" - and its easily visible from a 3 to 4 meters distance.

Well, I'll just have to wait for some in-depth reviews on the internet, if they find nothing, I'll contact the BFI and see what they can do about it (for the record, I'm a huge fan of the 6 or 7 BFI-releases I own so far, which makes the present case even more painful).

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feckless boy
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#89 Post by feckless boy » Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:24 pm

Must be something with your set-up, no specks or pixels here.
Image

edit: New grab
Last edited by feckless boy on Sun Nov 11, 2012 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Finch
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#90 Post by Finch » Sat Nov 10, 2012 4:51 pm

FWIW, my copy looks absolutely fine as well.

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andyli
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#91 Post by andyli » Sat Nov 10, 2012 7:10 pm

That picture feckless boy posted looks awful, full of jaggies... What happened?

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Ozu Teapot
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#92 Post by Ozu Teapot » Sat Nov 10, 2012 7:44 pm

andyli wrote:That picture feckless boy posted looks awful, full of jaggies... What happened?
Don't you mean Kris's picture? He seems to be having some issues between the disc, his player and his TV.

Feckless boy's looks OK to me - just the sort of film quality you'd expect for a restored film from 1925.

Kris
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#93 Post by Kris » Sun Nov 11, 2012 6:47 am

Thanks feckless boy, your picture demonstrates exactly what I mean. I enlarged an area of your screenshot:

Image

This terrible digitized look is absolutely not acceptable, especially with the US Kino Blu-ray on the market (which runs, if I remember correctly, at a speed of 17 fps, and thus clearly is an alternative).

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RossyG
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#94 Post by RossyG » Sun Nov 11, 2012 8:17 am

Yes, definitely jaggies on feckless boy's image. Very annoying. As I said, I saw them on the caption cards on a cursory look. I'll have another flick through the disc tonight and see what's what.

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Ozu Teapot
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#95 Post by Ozu Teapot » Sun Nov 11, 2012 8:51 am

OK, I can see "jaggies" in that blown up clipping from feckless's still image but I'm really not seeing any problem when watching the film on the TV.

The pictures Kris originally posted look awful compared to what I'm experiencing when I watch the film.

naersjoen
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#96 Post by naersjoen » Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:20 am

For comparison, this is the same frame on the Kino Blu-ray (the BFI shows slightly more information on the left and right side of the frame):

Image
(cropped to 1440x1080, saved as JPEG 80%)

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feckless boy
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#97 Post by feckless boy » Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:34 am

Maybe the jaggies has something to do with my capturing software: DGAVCIndex. Here is one grabbed with VLC.
Image

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Ozu Teapot
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#98 Post by Ozu Teapot » Sun Nov 11, 2012 11:17 am

But if you magnify that image and screen-cap it there are what appear to be "jaggies" again!

Like I said earlier I'm really no kind of an expert about matters like this - but surely if one takes a screenshot on a PC and then converts it to a jpg and then blows up part of the image there are going to be pixels and whatnot visible that aren't "there" when you watch a film in motion direct from your player to your screen.

I'm dubious that blown-up sections of feckless's images are really a confirmation of the same problem Kris is experiencing.

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tenia
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#99 Post by tenia » Sun Nov 11, 2012 12:33 pm

Les Yeux Sans Visage wrote:But if you magnify that image and screen-cap it there are what appear to be "jaggies" again!

Like I said earlier I'm really no kind of an expert about matters like this - but surely if one takes a screenshot on a PC and then converts it to a jpg and then blows up part of the image there are going to be pixels and whatnot visible that aren't "there" when you watch a film in motion direct from your player to your screen.
There sometimes has nothing to do with this, but really a PC trick to do in order to set up everything correctly.
I've seen for examples people having to re-do a complete set of caps because their previous set up was completely blurring the caps.

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Saturnome
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Re: The Soviet Influence: Battleship Potemkin/Drifters

#100 Post by Saturnome » Sun Nov 11, 2012 5:08 pm

You don't even need to blow-up the pics to see the pixels, there's a huge difference between the Kino and BFI screencaps I see here and I think Kris is right. I guess it's not too apparent in motion though, just a small loss in resolution.

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