Godzilla BLURAY Expectations

[junkerde]

Visited Kyoto this year and my friend there is also a huge godzilla fan. He told me about some HD remastered airings that appeared some years ago and luckily he recorded all 28 1080 resolution streams. He gave me the copies of the movies and I put it in my hard drive (10-15 gigs each movie).

I recently bought some godzilla blurays that toho released (1984, destoroyah, king ghidorah) and I compared the pictures side by side on my computer for each movie. I was suprised there was little to no difference in the airings and the Blurays, actually you can even say there was no difference.

I just thought I would upload some images from some movies on my deviantart to show what to expect if Toho decides to ever release the rest. Ill keep uploading, and now that i found out how to capture the full 1080 hd images ill upload those soon as well. cheers!

http://junkerde.deviantart.com/gallery/

[Rockzilla]

Ahh Toho's glorious "HD" transfers. I love how the Mechagodzilla and Hedorah screencaps are barely on par with Sony's dvd quality.

[junkerde]

dont get me wrong, I mean the quality of the blurays I got were good, but I was just dissapointed they were the exact thing as the airings, basically nothing was done with the films when releasing on Bluray. I do take into account that they are old films so I shouldnt be expecting superb crystal clear imaging.

[Tamura]

I do take into account that they are old films so I shouldnt be expecting superb crystal clear imaging.

This is not true. Says our pal Joseph Goodman in a posting on Club Tokyo concerning Media Blaster's Blu-ray of DAM:

The claim that "it looks soft because it's an old low budget movie" is nonsense, hogwash, poppycock, and perhaps even balderdash.

I think that there's more to it than the washed out black levels... it's soft because Toho had the 2008 remasters done a Cintel telecine (this was stated on the Nihon-Eiga page about their HD broadcasts), an older technology that can't really resolve the detail in the film that newer devices can resolve, and also one that adds a lot of video noise on top of the grain inherent in the film, which then must be filtered out, softening the image. You can see this noise in some of the unfiltered Cintel-based transfers released on Blu-Ray by Blue Underground, such as "City Of The Living Dead", "New York Ripper", "House By The Cemetery", etc. I can see traces of the same noise pattern in DAM caps posted in the thread that I linked to, and some of the press around Toho's HD remasters did refer to noise reduction being performed.

If they had done the transfer on a more state-of-the art device, such as the newer Spirit 2K/4K devices, or even something like a Northlight or Imagica XE, there'd be no complaints about "softness" (unless they filtered the bejeebers out of it anyway). For example, here's a shot from Criterion's Blu-Ray of "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" (1964):

http://wtf-film.com/site/wp-content/upl ... 02/001.jpg (Link doesn't work anymore, sorry!)

That transfer was done from an interpositive (like Toho's remasters, as stated on the Nihon-Eiga site) on a Spirit 4k. Even though this low-budget film was shot in the Techniscope format, which created a widescreen image by exposing an image half the height of a normal anamorphic 35mm frame (and therefore having less overall resolution), this image looks sharper to me than what I've seen from Toho's HD remasters.

A further example of what can be done with a 60's scope film is Sony's new disc of "The Guns Of Navarone". Not a low budget film*, but with a camera negative that was ruined by the lab at the time of the film's first release, the film has huge chunks of it's running time consisting of quite substandard dupes, yet the Blu still looks fantastic, as Sony spent the effort (and money) to scan what they had in 4k. I imagine that a full 4k restoration of KKvsG would look somewhat like that disc, if Toho ever wanted to spend the money! (The best captures from this disc are on Blu-Ray.com's review, which you need to register at to view full size).

*By the way, unless we're talking about something with "Manos" sized low budget, most "low budget" films were, and are, shot with the same kinds of rented lenses and film stock as the higher budgeted films.

For a further, purer example of what late 60's 35mm shot on a rushed schedule, and relatively low budget can look like, check out these frames from classic Trek in the link below:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2010/12/ ... j-squared/

These are full 4k scans (the post linked says 2k, but the actual size images match the pixel dimensions of sound aperture 35mm scanned at 4k), done in the mid 90's, no less.

In summary: it's soft because it's a soft transfer, not because "it's an old low budget movie".

[junkerde]

wow thanks for that, those star trek images are superb! "one that adds a lot of video noise on top of the grain inherent in the film, which then must be filtered out, softening the image." yeah that right there, explains ALL of the Godzilla HD transfers and how it looks. and the images from the quote do work, you have to click them from the site: http://wtf-film.com/site/2011/02/02/rob ... e-on-mars/

[Rockzilla]

I really hate that people assume that old low budget films will never look good. Check out the original Evil Dead on Blu-ray. That movie looks f*ckin amazing considering the budget. The New 25th anniversary Blu-ray of Evil Dead 2 is also amazing. The new 25th anniversary blu-ray is a massive improvement over that Toho esque upscale released by Anchor Bay.

Toho's "hd" transfers just suck. There is no reason that the Godzilla movies can't look as good as Daiei's Gamera Blu-rays.

[JVM]

Give it time, I'm sure eventually Toho will get their heads out of the ground on this. It's not like Godzilla's a hot property right now anyway - when things heat up again, or when Blu-Ray takes over DVD, I think then we can expect better results.

[Malchik]

Give it time, I'm sure eventually Toho will get their heads out of the ground on this.

Toho never invests a decent budget into anything they do, that's their problem.

[Mr. Xeno]

Toho never invests a decent budget into anything they do, that's their problem.

Except for Godzilla: Final Wars.

[Malchik]

Toho never invests a decent budget into anything they do, that's their problem.

Except for Godzilla: Final Wars.

That was a complete lapse of logic on their part.

[Tamura]

When Toho stops using ancient technology, overcompensating for the difference in color on Japanese monitors and intentionally blurring detail in the films, we'll see decent transfers.

[RyanClark]

I just thought I would upload some images from some movies on my deviantart to show what to expect if Toho decides to ever release the rest. Ill keep uploading, and now that i found out how to capture the full 1080 hd images ill upload those soon as well. cheers!

DeviantArt is not an image hosting site, don't abuse it. But then again they like to remove my artwork, so f*** them. It's just the principle that bugs me.

[junkerde]

I just thought I would upload some images from some movies on my deviantart to show what to expect if Toho decides to ever release the rest. Ill keep uploading, and now that i found out how to capture the full 1080 hd images ill upload those soon as well. cheers!

DeviantArt is not an image hosting site, don't abuse it. But then again they like to remove my artwork, so f*** them. It's just the principle that bugs me.

well i'll upload whatever i want there, like you said, "f*** them".