Le DVNR et la compression December 20, 2006
Posted by Michael Mackenzie in : Technobabble, Movie Watching , trackbackMy copy of Studio Canal’s recently released HD DVD of Basic Instinct arrived from Amazon.fr this morning.
Unfortunately, the transfer, while clearly in a different league compared to standard definition, is artefact-ridden in a way that I’ve never seen on an HD DVD until now. Daylight scenes generally look fine, but those taking place at night or in subdued interior lighting conditions (which accounts for a considerable portion of the film’s duration) look smeared and defocused. Grain patterns stick to the walls and actors’ faces during panning shots, making it pretty clear that some intensive DVNR has been applied. And why? The film isn’t even 15 years old, and the compressionists have 30 GB of data to play with (and no extras, barring a trailer for other Studio Canal titles and some test patterns). I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that this is the least impressive HD DVD I’ve seen so far (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and An American Werewolf in London are contending for that crown), but it’s definitely underwhelming and not the sort of thing I’d show to someone to sell them on the delights of high definition.
I just hope this isn’t indicative of what we can expect from Studio Canal as a whole. Certainly their trailer reel, which showcases everything from The Elephant Man to Rambo to Ran, looks rather mixed in terms of quality, with some material looking absolutely excellent (the grain in Rambo looks phenomenal, and their version of Million Dollar Baby looks more impressive than Warner’s), but some not so impressive (Ran is marred by giant edge enhancement halos).
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