Cool News
Ghostbusters DVD
Glen here...
CARDINAL MIKE sent in this message about the forthcoming DVD issue of GHOSTBUSTERS. His words kind of speak for themselves (and I have something of a headache), so I’ll spare you a nauseatingly verbose, wacky introduction and cut right to the chase with this one.
Personally, I can’t wait to check-out those Richard Edlund visual effects on DVD. Should be a blast frame-by-framing the subtle lightening gathering on the ground, reaching up to meet that he-chick’s foot as she / it (huh huh - if you put those last two words together it makes an obscenity!) is about to touch down after flipping through the air…checking-out the minute details on those cool energy beams the Ghostbusters use…gonna be fun.
Here’s what Cardinal Mike had to say about GHOSTBUSTERS on DVD.
There will be a DVD will be coming out Summer
1999.
It will contain retrospective interviews
(definitely text, maybe video) with the people who
worked on the movie.
If they can swing it, they'd like
to run the interviews, anecdotes, etc. while the movie
runs (alternate audio tracks), putting the comments
in specific context.
will be the trailer, the teaser, deleted scenes, some
recently found footage that wasn't used, the alternate
TV takes ("wally wick" instead of "Mr. Pecker", etc.),
the alternate, improvised takes Murray and cast were
notorious for, and if they can swing the rights, the
Ray Parker Jr. music video.
Seems that late June might be a good guess as to the street date, but I’m told nothing is set in stone at this time.
There have been a lot of wild rumors flying around about this DVD title, I wanted to help set the record straight.
-Cardinal Mike
-
+ Expand All
-
It'll be released Summer of 98? Heck, I'd better get down to the store!
Boy howdy, this is one of the movies I've been waiting for. If I could also get the Raiders trilogy and the Back to the Future Trilogy on DVD, I'd be happy. -
Glen here...I've adjusted the typing mistake. Obviously, it was meant to indicate Summer 1999 ;-) **Glen**
-
Hey Glen and Ben. I too would love to see GB on DVD. I would not put much stock in Paramount or Fox getting out material quickly though. Like everyone else with a DVD player I longly await the Indy Trilogy, and of course, Star Wars. Star Trek would be nice too, and The X-Files, and Babylon 5...and...
Indy
The REAL Indy -
Aside from the Criterion Collection edition of Ghostbusters, is there a laserdisc coming in concurrence with the DVD? Universal does this sort of dual release all the time, so I was wondering if anyone heard about this. Also... any word on that letterbox release of "The Black Hole"?
-
Hi,
No offense, but with the advent of DVD, doesn't LD fall into the same category as the LP? Is it going to be worth it for studios to produce both?
Just my two cents. -
but very close...
I don't think we will see the end of LD until we start seeing at least ONE disney animated classic on DVD. (Direct 2 Video Movies such as Beauty&Beast Xmas, do not count). With the recent release of the incredibly sharp widescreen Lady & The Tramp, I think I'll hang onto my LD player a bit longer. :) Sorry if this got a bit off-topic. -
Hey folks. LD won't be totally more or less gone for quite a bit. Until Fox and Paramount starts slinging large portions of their catalogs...I wouldn't expect TOO much of a decline. A lot of people (myself included) have both. There are some DVDs better than LDs of the same title, and vice versa (IE the Highlander LD being better than the DVD, and the T2 DVD being better than the LD etc).
Indy
The REAL Indy -
Sorry guys, but DVD's MPEG compression still has a little maturing to do before it can compete with LaserDisc. Does DVD sometimes look better than LD. Sometimes, but never consistently. Being an owner of both formats, I have been using the following litmus test to determine whether I'm going to buy a title on DVD or LD (assuming there's both available): If I "loved" the movie, I buy the LD; if I thought the movie was worthy of my collection for various reasons, then I buy the DVD. Bottom line, the DVD compression artifacts and color banding is absolutely aweful. The curious thing is, I've seen DVDs mastered with superior quality to anything I've seen in the consumer world. Why are the releases being compressed so high that the artifacts jump right at you and say "HI, I'M COMPRESSED AND LOOK DIGITIZED!"? Economics, I'm sure. Premature MPEG algorithm's? Experimenting engineers? Why doesn't THX have a handle on this? Sorry about the rant. DVD pisses me off!
-
Ld isn't dead. And it probably never will (completly) die out (heck Beta still exists) for a number of reasons.
First of all there is the issue of artifacting (mentioned in a previous Talk Back). For those that don't know, artifacting is the production of "artificial" variations to either a video or audio piece. They are caused, in DVD, by the Mpeg2 compression algorithim. It should also be noted that this algorithim has been around for many years and is not "new" and doesn't have "bugs". This is as good as it gets. It's the same technique used in DSS. What happens in Mpeg is (roughly) the compressor takes an image or series of images and instead of saying, "pixel 1 = red, pixel 2=blue, etc, etc" it says "pixels 23,21,26,654,23 and surrounding are approximately this color". Note this is a VERY loose and overly simplistic example. Mpeg also looks for changes of pixel color between frames and averages them in order to save space further.
Mpeg audio compression works in a similar manner only averaging the peaks and valleys in the waveform.
The end result can have variations from the original (in fact it ALWAYS will, any compression degrades the video quality to a degree) that are known as artifacts. These artifacts show up most often in scenes with large gradients of a single color. For example: a Ridley Scott film where large amounts of fog can almost always be seen. There you will see "blocks" of color that don't fade organically into the rest of the mass of fog. They stand out oddly because of their rectangular shape. These are artifacts in video.
In audio it can be even more noticable. Especially in anything with lots of vocals and/or harmony (in other words; music). Electronic or synthesized sounds will remain largely unaffected (or if affected you won't notice do to the vibrato inherent in most electronic sounds), but classical pieces and heavily harmonized vocals, like those of the band Queen, will sound horribly wrong with nasty "caps" on high notes and an odd vibration to the overall tonal quality.
So my LD copy of the collectors edition of "Amadeus" will always sound infinitly superior to DVD. One (of many) reasons why DVD is so much smaller than LD is that LD uses Red Book Audio (quite literally the same audio format of your regular CD's) while DVD's is Mpeg compressed.
Also of note, while LD's CLV compression standard is nearly two full decades older then DVD's Mpeg2 (LD's came out BEFORE the VHS, but were not marketed to the average consumer, because who would ever want to buy a non-recordable format? Let alone actually pay to own a movie!) the loss is often far less evident then the artifacting in Mpeg2. Which is why LD's are twice the diameter and still need to do a side flip to play a whole film. As for CAV, no DVD will reach CAV quality (though DVD has 25 more lines vertial resolution and will play at higher resolutions to a DTV, you can buy a line doubler for the LD player and acheive even higher quality), CAV is simply gorgeous, and extremely UNcompressed (30minutes per 12inch side!).
And while none of this is relevant to the general consumer audience (the one that still thinks Cerwin Vega, Bose, and Sony make the best home audio equipment) this should be relevant to you fellow geeks. Support LD! DVD is a poorly conceived standard (it should have been Magneto Optical not CD based) that's being rammed down people's throats, and until something better truly does come along, LD should be THE home theater video format.
No matter how you look at it LD is the better (though through sheer marketing might it will be crushed by DVD) and while it will fade, it will never completely disappear. And true videophiles and collectors will chereish their LD's above their DVD's. -
One phrase...LOAD OF BS. But not totally. Having done dozens of comparisons (expecially the Highlander DVD vs the Highlander LD), yes, there are cases where the LD is better. I personally love both formats; they both have their plus' and minus'. I do agree with you on the Amadeus standpoint...expecially the soundtrack. However, on my system I would have to say that the sound and image quality are better than LD "in general". I am not saying it blows them away, but there it is. You can agree or disagree with me, but maybe it is just my system. Maybe it's just those of us with extremely high end equipment that see the diff. I don't know. I have noticed subtle things on other systems though, so I can't be totally paranoid. As far as artifacts, that for the most part is a load of sh*t. I have maybe 1 disk out of every 50 (DVD) that shows noticible compression aritfacts. On LD, which DOES have artifacts (ie Aliens:SE...one of the worst LDs I have ever seen in terms of quality in general...I've seen four diff disks and only one had a decent transfer). I bet you a million bucks Fox, when ALiens is released on DVD (hopefully the SE version) will be remastered and whipe the LD from the face of the Earth. JC will see to that. He hates inferior/poor transfers. He makes this well known. In short, don't count LD OR DVD out. LD will wane to DVD eventually, but it will never die. use both formats...I do, and it works fine.
Indy -
Hey there. Well, I can't say I agree with your hostility towards DVD. DVD, in my opinion, has more potential and in some cases has proven itself in general just as good and in some cases better than LD. In regards to compression artifacts, please refer to my last messege. I have hundreds of LDs and thousands of LDs...I love em all, but in general, with a few exceptions such as Amadeus and Highlander, DVD smokes LD. If every other DVD that you watch looks like it has a lot of artifacts, either you are the unluckiest SOB in the world, or you have hardware problems. It could be that you just need to clean your player. As I said in the other post, in my experience only about one in 50 DVDs I have recieved have had noticible artifacts or other problems. SO those who wish to peruse DVD, go for it. I'm glad I did.
Indy -
Yo Fickle,
If you were a true JC fan (just kidding, don't kill me :) then you'd know that the "artifacts" in the Special Edition of Aliens have nothing to do with artifacting at all. What Cameron wanted was a "grainy" or "gritty" look to the film to accentuate the dark and militaristic lean of the script. In fact he was disappointed with the "clean" look of the original release and PURPOSEFULLY dirtied up the LD special edition. No LD artifacting there. The only thing that really bothered me (and JC apparently) about the grainy look; was that Cameron was unable to get it to look uniform across the whole print. Otherwise a nice effect. When you know it was done on purpose.
As for the whole LD vs DVD thing, I feel I explained my stance earlier, but I'll simplify it for those that only remember the last paragraph.
DVD has more vertical lines. MPEG audio compression creates HIGHLY noticeable artifacting. MPEG video creates BARELY noticeable artifacting. CLV looks as good as DVD. CAV looks better than DVD. LD tends to be more muted in color (which is more true to the theatrical presentation then common video). DVD has more cool extras (subtitles, etc). Overall LD is a better COLLECTORS media. DVD is definately the better CONSUMER media.
I'm not saying DVD totally sucks (hell in another couple of years I'll be forced to buy one so I might as well start liking them now), just that as a collector of films I prefer the plusses of LD over DVD. Besides what equipment have you compared LD to DVD with? Is the projector/TV you are using color corrected to within 80% accuracy? Are the interconnect cables the same? Are you comparing a top of the line DVD player to a top of the line LD player? If so I'd be interested in more detailed comparisons then "the sound and video quality are better in general". As for "high-end systems" what are you running? I've watched both DVD and LD's playing on high-end Marantz LD and DVD players through a 90% color correct Marantz Projection TV (no I'm not a total Marantz only fan...just happened to be where I was at the time...though I do own a Marantz LD Player) and I liked the LD better. No real noticeable artifacting on either format. Nicer colors on the LD though. Oh and before you ask...the TV was color adjusted for the DVD player. Of course in the end this is entirely a subjective thing. Their will always be those of us that love or LD's, however, and it saddens me to see them tossed to the wayside by a format that makes much smaller strides forward (and several steps back in other areas) then it should have. Curses to the Studio execs for whom copy protection was everything. DVD would rule if it was an easily recordable format (MO damnit MO, it should have been Magneto Optical). As it is DVD is a missmanaged side-step....In My Humble Opinion of course.
-Lightbringer -
Until Paramount, Fox, and Buena Vista stop shoveling shit DVDs, LD is still here. Just check out Paramount's recent VHS quality DVD transfer of Hunt for Red October. Total shit. And no, widescreen picture and menus are not "special features."
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 273 total posts 271 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 92 total posts 92 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 160 total posts 69 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 151 total posts 63 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 67 total posts 59 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 60 total posts 57 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 484 total posts 49 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 69 total posts 42 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 120 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 183 total posts 24 posts