Topic: The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 8, June 1

[xraffle]

OT - What software do you use for syncing?

Ulead VideoStudio. Like I said, it's a cheapo software, so it doesn't support AC3 audio. So you won't be able to sync anything from these sets. That software only supports MPEG and PCM audio.

[HELLOLARRY]

Please folks don't tell me how lucky I am to have the DVD's to begin with. Sony takes our money for the product, we have the right to expect something simple like the audio matching the video. Anything less is unprofessional even if unintended on their part.

You are lucky to have the DVDs (I asked you not to tell me that)

All kidding aside, I did notice that too but it honestly does not make that much of a difference for me. Weeks / months ago Sony was awesome for putting these things out, now they stink because it's out of synch (did Johnnie Cochrane just post here?)  From my perspective, I've been copying, recopying, buying and rebuying these damn things for years in one configuration or another, I'm done!!  Do they have a glitch here and there? Sure.  However, overall I am very happy with the job they've done. This is the end of the line for me and I'm glad all 190 films are finally sitting on my shelf.

[Bud_Jamison]

Any high end receiver has stream adjustments for this type of problem.  (Sony ES Series).  I am also done buying these, unless or until they do the set on Blu-ray which is how the films were remastered in the first place. 

In which case one of my nephews will be the owner of an 8 volume Standard definition transfer.  You guys do know that there will be HD Blu-Ray of these shorts?  Right??

[xraffle]

Overall, I'm happy with these sets too. And I'm done as well. But compared to Sony's other non-stooge releases, I can tell that the quality control done on these sets is lacking. I know the issues such as music clippings and lip-syncing are minor, but still. Good quality control should catch those simple things. I've been collecting many other sets and these stooge volumes are the only sets I've encountered where I'm seeing such minor problems.

[Curly4444]

Got the set today and checked "Husbands Beware". Mine was alright!!   Everything thing seemed to sync up. I thought i saw something in the first few minutes, but after a zillion replying of the same scene didnt find one. Their mouths & punches seemed to match up. Like when she was singing, it matched up. When you sing your mouth moves a little slower, so it was easier to tell it matched up. I rewind-ed lots of scenes, but could find any beyond a reasonable doubt.  If there were any, its too fast for me to tell. So the short is ok to me.

[Curly4444]

You guys do know that there will be HD Blu-Ray of these shorts?  Right??

Yeah, but these shorts weren't filmed in HD, so it doesn't matter. All the Blu-ray ones do is up convert them to 1080p. Which you can do with a up-converting DVD player to these sets. If something isnt filmed in HD, you wont notice a significant change in quality. These sets up-converted will look as good as the blu-ray ones. 

Take for example terminator. It was shot before stuff was filmed in HD. When i saw it on blu-ray it still wasn't up to par with a movie like transformers.

[Bud_Jamison]

Curly4444,

NO, my friend!  These shorts were scanned at full HD from 35MM and down converted for our present sets.  The future Blu-Ray's will blow these away.  have a look at Casablanca on Blu and you will get an idea.  No joke.

[Curly4444]

Ok, your right if they do it like that, hell yeah youll notice the quality difference. Its just most studios don't take the time to re-master stuff at that level. Too costly i guess. Terminator sure didn't get this royal treatment. I guess its reserved for classics like, Casablanca, Wizard of OZ, and the stooges. 


They probably would blow me away, but ive watched tons of stuff up-converted on a HD 1080p TV, and the quality is more than fine. So i don't think ill be paying blu-ray prices, and buy the sets all over again.

Hmm, now if they were only like $20 maybe, but i don't see that happening.

[moglia]

Curly4444,

NO, my friend!  These shorts were scanned at full HD from 35MM and down converted for our present sets.  The future Blu-Ray's will blow these away.  have a look at Casablanca on Blu and you will get an idea.  No joke.

Terminator may not be the best example as it was shot on the cheap. The important thing to remember is that even blu-ray can not contain all the information held on 35mm film.   Blu-Ray of Casablanca looks very unnatural to me as they hit it with DNR and EE.  All film has grain it is an inherent part of that physical medium, it is supposed and must be there. To remove it through technology is amateurish to say the least. It should not be done anymore than using technology to change the colors on Van Gogh's Flowers.  I want my movie's that were shot of film to look like they were at the Movie Theaters not like a youtube film.  Of course anything shot digitally sadly won't have grain as is does not exist in that physical medium although in 300 it was added in via computers - go figure.

[moglia]

Got the set today and checked "Husbands Beware". Mine was alright!!   Everything thing seemed to sync up. I thought i saw something in the first few minutes, but after a zillion replying of the same scene didnt find one. Their mouths & punches seemed to match up. Like when she was singing, it matched up. When you sing your mouth moves a little slower, so it was easier to tell it matched up. I rewind-ed lots of scenes, but could find any beyond a reasonable doubt.  If there were any, its too fast for me to tell. So the short is ok to me.

The issue is on all of them. Syncing problems do not stem from the physical pressing it come from the master that is sent to the plant. I though all was ok after a brief look but then I sat down and really watched it was rather noticeable. When you FF and Rewinding, your mind can get thrown off spatially so best to watch from beginning to end.

Folks this is why Sony will never fix issues like these as they will believe the few who for whatever reason don't see an issue. Same as if you ask 100 people if the Sun is warm 96 will tell you yes and 4 will tell no. Sony will side with the 4 whom say no. It's much cheaper that way. For those few who are unable to see the issue - how about staying out of this and let the other 95% of us at least have a the tiniest of chances at a replacement....

[HELLOLARRY]

I've heard this about blu-ray and older movies.  A friend of mine saw an older movie on blu-ray and described the same thing; the 'unnatural' appearance of the film.  I for one think you can make an old movie only look so good before you start taking away some of its basic visual elements that give the film it's charm to begin with.  I have no intention of going blu-ray until perhaps the system I have now breaks and blu-ray may be the only thing left to buy. IMO, I think blu-ray lends itself to the new Hollywood blockbusters (Transformers / Iron-Man etc.) but those aren't my flims of choice so it isn't an attractive format for me.

[Bud_Jamison]

Hi Mogila,

I agree, keep the grain!

[moglia]

Any high end receiver has stream adjustments for this type of problem. 

Both my receiver and transports have that option but it is total pain for a 16-18 minute short to do so.

I thought anything that is perceived at high end (even if it isn't) was frowned up on this forum. I caught a bunch of slack in another thread cause I have an Oppo (which is not high-end, not even close)

[moglia]

I've heard this about blu-ray and older movies.  A friend of mine saw an older movie on blu-ray and described the same thing; the 'unnatural' appearance of the film.  I for one think you can make an old movie only look so good before you start taking away some of its basic visual elements that give the film it's charm to begin with.  I have no intention of going blu-ray until perhaps the system I have now breaks and blu-ray may be the only thing left to buy. IMO, I think blu-ray lends itself to the new Hollywood blockbusters (Transformers / Iron-Man etc.) but those aren't my flims of choice so it isn't an attractive format for me.

If the "older" movie film is restored physically decently then transferred for Blu-Ray it will look almost as good as it original did in the theaters. Which is a boatload than DVD can offer in almost all cases and as much as can be asked for.  Older films IMHO look like crap when there is little or no restoration then they are DNR'd and EE'd.  Restoration costs money and has to be done by trained experienced Professionals while DNR and EE can be done by a College of High School intern using a PC.

                                                                         

[xraffle]

Oh, goodness gracious. Here we go with the Blu-ray debate again! 

[Curly4444]

The issue is on all of them. Syncing problems do not stem from the physical pressing it come from the master that is sent to the plant. I though all was ok after a brief look but then I sat down and really watched it was rather noticeable. When you FF and Rewinding, your mind can get thrown off spatially so best to watch from beginning to end.

I did watch it from beginning to end, and didnt really notice anything. If its there its too mi-nute for me to really notice. As i said before i ran into this problem before with farscape. With that episode I noticed the problem after just a few seconds. It was very distinct. I just really didn't notice anything with this short. My DVD player has a video delay, so i could set it to like 4 or 5 milliseconds and see if I notice a difference.

[HELLOLARRY]

If the "older" movie film is restored physically decently then transferred for Blu-Ray it will look almost as good as it original did in the theaters. Which is a boatload than DVD can offer in almost all cases and as much as can be asked for.  Older films IMHO look like crap when there is little or no restoration then they are DNR'd and EE'd.  Restoration costs money and has to be done by trained experienced Professionals while DNR and EE can be done by a College of High School intern using a PC.

Well seeing as I wasn't around when the Stooges shorts or Casablanca for that matter were released in theaters I'll have to take your word for it.  

The films look fine to me and as I said in a previous post, I'm done re-'whatevering' these films (not to mention other old films in my collection which have had a similiar recording and purchasing history). 

I can't fairly debate, nor would I waste my time, on Blu-Ray vs. Standard as I don't have the qualified eye or experience with the format as some of you on this thread seem to. I remember the films as grainy and beat up when I watched them as a kid. How they look now is light years better for the most part to these young and innocent eyes while still retaining some of their imperfections, that is good enough for me.

[Curly4444]

Well said.

[moglia]

grain is not an imperfection - removing it however is one, as it is part of the physical celluloid medium itself.

[moglia]

Oh, goodness gracious. Here we go with the Blu-ray debate again! 

I don't get why it's even a debate just look at caps from the same film on both - it's night and day. The main issue is those who don't want to spend money on new medium state are the ones who are argumentative.  Hey if you don't care to spend the time, money or effort that is cool- but don't distort the truth by saying it looks exactly the same. It just foolish and shows a glaring lack of actual knowledge. In fact why expend any effort just don't say anything.

[Curly4444]

I bet the stooges would look good on blu-ray, but maybe too good. I grew up with the stooges looking a little grainy and with imperfections. If you make it look too good, it will ruin the nostalgia. Its like colorizing the stooges, just dont look right. So if the stooges on blu-ray looked like a new movie, i wouldnt buy them.

[locoboymakesgood]

Aside from all this Blu-ray BS.. has anyone contacted Mike S at Sony and informed him of the problem? Maybe if it's brought to someone's attention they can at least look in to it. It doesn't hurt.

[xraffle]

I don't get why it's even a debate just look at caps from the same film on both - it's night and day. The main issue is those who don't want to spend money on new medium state are the ones who are argumentative.  Hey if you don't care to spend the time, money or effort that is cool- but don't distort the truth by saying it looks exactly the same. It just foolish and shows a glaring lack of actual knowledge. In fact why expend any effort just don't say anything.

It looks exactly the same. 

[xraffle]

Just finished watching the entire set. Aside from the "Husbands Beware" problem, everything else seems to be ok. I must say, I enjoyed the Besser shorts more than the Shemp ones because it was really depressing watching all those reused footages. It's ridiculous that they did that. And watching all 16 Besser shorts in order wasn't that bad of an experience. He actually isn't that bad of a stooge. His style of comedy was very different from Curly and Shemp, so that's why he wasn't liked as much. But overall, I think Besser was a pretty good stooge. "Sweet & Hot" was the worst short to watch. Surprisingly, "Horsing Around" wasn't too bad because it had some funny moments here and there that made up for the corny plot.

[Curly4444]

Just finished watching the entire set. Aside from the "Husbands Beware" problem, everything else seems to be ok. I must say, I enjoyed the Besser shorts more than the Shemp ones because it was really depressing watching all those reused footages. It's ridiculous that they did that. And watching all 16 Besser shorts in order wasn't that bad of an experience. He actually isn't that bad of a stooge. His style of comedy was very different from Curly and Shemp, so that's why he wasn't liked as much. But overall, I think Besser was a pretty good stooge. "Sweet & Hot" was the worse short to watch. Surprisingly, "Horsing Around" wasn't too bad because it had some funny moments here and there that made up for the corny plot.

Finally were back on topic. 

Haven't watched them all yet, glad to hear the rest looked ok.