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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:45 pm
by Kyle
drfsupercenter wrote:Kyle, was it on ABC HD? Or was this before they had HD over-the-air broadcasts?
Because I want to kick myself for not recording it... LOL
Yep. but it wasn't recently or anything. I'm not when it aired though as I downloaded it off bittorrent. Color pallet aside, it looks great in HD I must say. Its too bad my pc's processor is so old, I cant really play it smoothly. I might try to convert it to play on the ps3 though. if anyone interested in some HD screens just let me know. keep in mind is hard for me to point point a shot since as I mentioned my pc really stutters when trying to play it.

Anyway, I might have to take back my comment on the colors not being that pink. I just looked at the video I mentioned and it does indeed look pinkish. not quite That pink but still noticeably different from the laserdisk. I think I thought was the VLC player before, but apparently not.

I would appreciate those lossless caps though. I don't even need that many, just give me a couple of the ballroom and I'll be set. [/i]

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:50 pm
by Rudy Matt
Plus, why would they need to restore a CAPS film? That just says "phony" to me... if it was truly the original coloring they would just take the data from CAPS and stick it on a disc. Like they did with Mulan.
Okay, this is where you all take a giant step back and say..."oh. Sorry."

The 1992 VHS and Laserdisc releases were not struck from the CAPS files. The transfer was struck from a film interpositive (i.e. a print of the film), using technology current at the time, and then this master was used to produce the laserdisc and VHS release versions with adjustments made for home video viewing.

In no way should such a transfer be used to accurately state what the original colors were on that IP, and anyone who thanks otherwise needs a good schooling on video transfers in the 80's and early 90's.

Now, the DVD Platinum release WAS struck from the CAPS files, as was Mulan SE, Pocahontas SE, Aladdin PE, Tarzan CE, Treasure Planet, The Lion King PE, Emperor's New Groove CE, Atlantis CE and Dinosaur CE. Can't speak for Brother Bear and Home on the Range, because they're so bad I haven't been able to bring myself to purchase them.

We're still waiting on CAPS transfers of The Rescuers Down Under, Hunchback and Hercules.

But if anything, the PE for Beauty and the Beast is more accurate to what was scanned into the CAPS files in 1991 because it was a direct to digital transfer...again, with tweaking for home video, just like the 1992 release.

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:51 pm
by drfsupercenter
Oh... Well if anyone knows of Beauty and the Beast airing on TV again let me know, so I can record the HD stream! (I have no way of recording Disney Channel HD at this time, though, so don't ask)

VLC is what I use to take screenshots... at least in PNG format. It shouldn't mess with your colors... after all, it uses its own rendering engine, unlike most other players that use your default codec package.

Though I suppose I could save some in bitmaps... I have a feeling they'll be the same though. (As it occurred to me - mpeg-2 files have some weird frame format so either PNG or BMP won't be the actual unconverted frame... though both are "lossless" so to speak.)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:00 pm
by filmmusic
SpringHeelJack wrote:
drfsupercenter wrote:People who bought it in 1992 likely didn't go "Aw, look how horrible these colors look?"
Yeah, but how do we know? It's not like they were on the internet widely registering their complaint. All of this is so incredibly subjective anyhow.
For starters, thank you all for the screenshots comparison.
Secondly:
How old are all of you that say don't know how it was in theaters etc. etc.?
I'm 30 years old, and when i got the VHS , after seeing it in theaters, i didn't go "Oh my God, what did they do with the colors?", But i said it when i bought the DVD.
Even if there was a difference in the VHS than the theater (the image felt washed out etc.), the change would be very small and not detected by anyone.
Here in the DVD we're talking about complete radical change of colors!! NOT restoration of a washed out picture!

and I'm saying AGAIN!
The same colors - as the ones in the left screenshots of the comparison - exist in the documentary of the time, and photos of that time etc.
what does this mean?
that in all the media (TV, magazines etc.) the image was washed out and in the same level? :D
Let's get not crazy..

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:10 pm
by Rudy Matt
filmmusic wrote:For starters, thank you all for the screenshots comparison.
Secondly:
How old are all of you that say don't know how it was in theaters etc. etc.?
I'm 30 years old, and when i got the VHS , after seeing it in theaters, i didn't go "Oh my God, what did they do with the colors?", But i said it when i bought the DVD.
Even if there was a difference in the VHS than the theater (the image felt washed out etc.), the change would be very small and not detected by anyone.
Here in the DVD we're talking about complete radical change of colors!! NOT restoration of a washed out picture!

and I'm saying AGAIN!
The same colors - as the ones in the left screenshots of the comparison - exist in the documentary of the time, and photos of that time etc.
what does this mean?
that in all the media (TV, magazines etc.) the image was washed out and in the same level? :D
Let's get not crazy..
Because all the videos were using the same transfer? My photos of Belle at that time show BROWN RED hair, not BLACK Hair.

Come on, this is beneath grade school logic.

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:14 pm
by filmmusic
Marky_198 wrote: Image
Image
Ok Rudy MAtt, it's time to learn the colors. Let's go: ;-)

First picture: hair= dark brown. NOT black!!
second picture: hair=brownish red.

Let's go again. one step at a time:
(Slowly speaking) dark brown - brownish red, dark brown-brownish red.
We'll learn about black in the next lesson. Ok?

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:23 pm
by Rudy Matt
LOL...

Image


Believe what you want, reactionary.

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:27 pm
by drfsupercenter
Well again, those pictures are so small they might not be entirely accurate anyway.

Plus, I think part of the issue is with analog sources... the colors partly depend on your player and recorder. While the colors are *encoded* into the laserdisc one way or another... your player could brighten or darken them a bit just by nature, as well as your DVD recorder do similar.

I'll see if I can find some of those images from mine, though.

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:07 pm
by ajmrowland
Witnesses of a crime are often wrong, mainly because their memory of what said suspicious character looked like is subject to change based on new evidence, or a fresh suspect. Even if the evidence is false, you mention "black" or "asian" or even "bearded" in a courtroom, and all of a sudden, 90% of the witnesses interviewed will forget that they who they saw was really white, clean-shaven, and will likely replace the faded-yet-accurate memory with one based entirely on suggestion.

Apply that to DVD, and more appropriately to the film in question, the old VHS and LD. Now, imagine a new release of a film, by some improbability, ended up with a DVD/BD transfer in which the colors were not accurate, but not entirely different(pink for blue). Assuming you saw the movie only once in the cinema a while back, you'd just think that these colors were the ones that appeared in the film when you first saw it. Add to that the fact that BatB was originally transferred to video from a roll of film, which could fade from use, and you get the similarities between the two situations.

This happens to everyone.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:30 am
by 2099net
A few points have been raised throughout this thread, so to address a few:

Why is Beauty and the Beast (and indeed, the Lion King) called a "restoration" when other CAPS films are not? CAPS is digital so no restoration should be required.

Because Disney is not using the word in the correct term. In this case "restoration" is used to indicate "improvements" for IMAX, not to "restore" to it's original state. This is especially clear if you even glance at the Lion King book which came in the Lion King Gift Pack.

Why Does Beauty and the Beast have such different colours?

I can't really answer this, but what I will say is the colours on the DVD seem to be approved by the directing team, and were possibly chosen for the IMAX re-release. Beauty and the Beast was the second film to be made with CAPS and I guess its possible the director's weren't happy with how the film looked when it was released, not understanding how the digital colouring would look when transferred to normal film.

Conversely, Beauty and the Beast was one of the first CAPS films to be transferred to DVD digitally, but even then I find it hard to believe it was a "mistake". They took time to rework most of the artwork for IMAX, add new sequences etc. I doubt they would have spat out copy with colours not to their liking and just shrugged it off after spending time and effort on reworking the film.

Looking at the comparison shots, and I know this will be controversial, I actually think the "original" colours look wrong - especially the darker shots which look too dark. The trailers on the DVD look almost ludicrously dark in places. I'm not convinced the "original" colours are any more right than the "new" colours.

You know for all the complaints of colours being changed on modern DVDs, colours can be changed on old VHSs (or even film prints - remember "colour timing" is a skill that has been recognised since the late 1940's) and not quite what was intended either.

I'll acknowledge it is possible the colours could have been changed for home viewing. Again, going back to just how dark some of those scenes on the "original" film are. How many times have you viewed a film on your TV set in the dark, and the actors and detail on the screen just shows a barely visible - even if you draw the curtains and dim or turn off the lighting? What "works" in a darkened cinema, when projected onto a special reflective screen doesn't always "work" when viewed on different equipment at home, especially if the intended audience are children, unlikely to be watching in the dark.

I personally doubt the theatrical showing ever looked quite like those LD captures did. But I also doubt that it did look quite like the DVD capture either. But I'm not sure its right to say one looks more correct than the other - for all we know, the DVD could look "more" correct.

Looking at DVDBeaver, changes in colours between different DVDs, be they different distributors, restorations or formats (PAL/NTSC) are quite common. I guess this is because all transfers and/or encodes require some manual colour calibration at some point. Going back, to my original point, the Beauty and the Beast DVD certainly seems to have directorial approval - be it "correct", "closer to the intended" or simply because the directors have changed their minds.

Why aren't other CAPS films affected?

Well again, this is the big question. To my knowledge, no one has complained about the colours on Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Hunchback, Pocahontas or others.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:01 am
by Marky_198
It's not only about colors actually.

It's about changing "alive" and "depth" tot "flat", "cartoonish" and "dead".
Taking the feeling out in every possible way.

I can't really put my finger on what exactly causes this flatness.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:28 am
by drfsupercenter
Because Disney is not using the word in the correct term. In this case "restoration" is used to indicate "improvements" for IMAX, not to "restore" to it's original state. This is especially clear if you even glance at the Lion King book which came in the Lion King Gift Pack.
Whether or not the people at Disney thought this was an "improvement"... it's still modifying the OTV! That's a general no-no for films of this caliber!

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:32 am
by Rudy Matt
drfsupercenter wrote:
Because Disney is not using the word in the correct term. In this case "restoration" is used to indicate "improvements" for IMAX, not to "restore" to it's original state. This is especially clear if you even glance at the Lion King book which came in the Lion King Gift Pack.
Whether or not the people at Disney thought this was an "improvement"... it's still modifying the OTV! That's a general no-no for films of this caliber!
I'm not convinced that presenting a direct to digital transfer of a digital negative is "modifying the original theatrical version" -- and if any film needs to be modified (i.e. fixed), its Beauty and the Beast. There are moments of animation in the film so bad they're embarassing, especially those awful townspeople, and Belle going off model everytime she's drawn by someone other than James Baxter.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:38 am
by 2099net
drfsupercenter wrote:
Because Disney is not using the word in the correct term. In this case "restoration" is used to indicate "improvements" for IMAX, not to "restore" to it's original state. This is especially clear if you even glance at the Lion King book which came in the Lion King Gift Pack.
Whether or not the people at Disney thought this was an "improvement"... it's still modifying the OTV! That's a general no-no for films of this caliber!
Hey, I never said I approved. But it explains why films such as Hunchback for example aren't advertised as "restored". And yes, in my mind, Disney are breaking the advertising code by calling it "restored".

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:42 am
by Marky_198
Rudy Matt wrote:
I'm not convinced that presenting a direct to digital transfer of a digital negative is "modifying the original theatrical version" -- and if any film needs to be modified (i.e. fixed), its Beauty and the Beast. There are moments of animation in the film so bad they're embarassing, especially those awful townspeople, and Belle going off model everytime she's drawn by someone other than James Baxter.
I completely disagree with this whole "they can modify more things because I didn't like them anyway" attitude......
But is does show how much you respect the original versions of the classics, and explains a lot about your vision.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:50 am
by Jules
Marky_198 wrote:I completely disagree with this whole "they can modify more things because I didn't like them anyway" attitude......
Hello? They're the filmmakers! It's their film, not yours. I don't think Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise need permission from you to edit their film. :wink: :P

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:00 am
by Rudy Matt
Marky_198 wrote:I completely disagree with this whole "they can modify more things because I didn't like them anyway" attitude......
But is does show how much you respect the original versions of the classics, and explains a lot about your vision.
Pfft. No one in this thread has demonstrated a single shred of proof that the direct to digital CAPS files are not the intended look of the film by the people who made the movie. Until you do so, I suggest you table such presuppositions about my "vision".

And yeah, I wish to God Kirk and Gary could raise the money to fix the film, because Eisner certainly didn't give them the money -- and for so many years, people who don't a thing about animation have loudly trumpeted this movie to be the best film ever made at the Disney studios, and it has shots with animation on the level of a DuckTales episode. I think it would be fantastic if Kirk and Gary could get the money to revise those scenes that are so painful to witness today. Then the movie might actually deserve its reputation.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:06 am
by Marky_198
Julian Carter wrote:
Hello? They're the filmmakers! It's their film, not yours. I don't think Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise need permission from you to edit their film. :wink: :P
When they decide to release the finished product, it's not entirely their film anymore. From that moment it's also the audience's film.

Imagine Whitney Houston re-recording all her hits with her recent voice and all the original versions are banned from all the stores and will never be available anymore. She might like the new versions herself, and some people might like it too, but if they will be big hits is a totally different thing.

People have loved the songs (the film) they know for years and it became a part of their lives. You can't just change that.
And if people feel the need to change it, they should make BOTH versions available.

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:12 am
by SpringHeelJack
It may well be an audience's film, but the creative team certainly reserves the right to alter it. Why the hell shouldn't they?

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:17 am
by Marky_198
Rudy Matt wrote:
Pfft. No one in this thread has demonstrated a single shred of proof that the direct to digital CAPS files are not the intended look of the film by the people who made the movie. Until you do so, I suggest you table such presuppositions about my "vision".

And yeah, I wish to God Kirk and Gary could raise the money to fix the film, because Eisner certainly didn't give them the money -- and for so many years, people who don't a thing about animation have loudly trumpeted this movie to be the best film ever made at the Disney studios, and it has shots with animation on the level of a DuckTales episode. I think it would be fantastic if Kirk and Gary could get the money to revise those scenes that are so painful to witness today. Then the movie might actually deserve its reputation.
No-one has EVER said 1 thing about the difference of how it looked in theatres and the first laserdisc release. All the official books, media things and promotional shots directly from the studio looked like that.
If no one ever noticed the difference between the theatrical version and the first release on laserdisc/vhs, we can assume it didn't change much.

The dvd version however, is COMPLETELY different.
It's strange, to say the least, that no existing books, promotional things, etc, etc, actually NOTHING from that time looks even a little bit like the dvd version.

And about changing all the things you're talking about, that's nice and it might even look good, but it's not the film that was so succesful. It's not the same film. If they would do that, they should call it "Beauty and the Beast 3, altered version". Order now, Beauty and the beast 1, 2 and 3 for a good price! 3 completely different, but enchanting films!