The Ultimate Hitchcock DVD & Blu-Ray Thread

[Celtic]

thats truly disgraceful...spelling mistakes on a digital remaster ??? Someone needs their jotters !

[chris21]

One of the things that's annoying here is that we'll end up getting some blus and sticking with the DVDs for the films that are botched, splitting the collection over two formats for us.

Either make them all perfect or **** the lot up I say

[TheDot]

Such a shame to see this happen, was a definite buy for me til now

[Dxfatass]

Absolutely inexcusable to make mistakes like the ones highlighted on Frenzy - beyond belief.

[new]

Originally Posted by Richie

Pics of the redone 'Frenzy' opening titles complete with spelling and grammatical errors:
http://enthusiasm.org/post/31104514441

As disappointing as this is, it’s clearly been re-done as the original can’t be re-mastered.
Being dyslexic (Im sure who ever come up with that word for the condition is taking the ****, as anyone who has it has no chance of spelling the bloody thing without looking it up!) the spelling is not something that is going to stop me getting the best transfer that’s ever been available for a home viewing that’s for sure (the way some have been reporting it I thought that they spelt bloody Frenzy wrong!).

Sometimes people are way to anal about Blu Transfers IMO. At the end of the day a lot of its down to cost. Do they putt out something that is far and away the bets its ever been for home viewing at a reasonable price, or do they spend a lot more time and money on making something mind blowing that would cost a lot more to buy (unfortunaly there is not a magic button that the press for remastering).

And anyone who moans (and this is not directed at anyone on this thead, more to others on different sites) who harp on about all stops should be put out to make things as they were originally meant to been seen, should not be watching any film on a TV screen anyway, and just at a cinema screen, and even then each screen will have differences!

[chris21]

I have North by Northwest and Psycho already, just want Vertigo on Blu now.

Will stick with my dvds of Rope, Frenzy, Strangers on a Train, The Birds and Rebecca.

[Richie]

Originally Posted by new

As disappointing as this is, it’s clearly been re-done as the original can’t be re-mastered.
Being dyslexic (Im sure who ever come up with that word for the condition is taking the ****, as anyone who has it has no chance of spelling the bloody thing without looking it up!) the spelling is not something that is going to stop me getting the best transfer that’s ever been available for a home viewing that’s for sure (the way some have been reporting it I thought that they spelt bloody Frenzy wrong!).

Sometimes people are way to anal about Blu Transfers IMO. At the end of the day a lot of its down to cost. Do they putt out something that is far and away the bets its ever been for home viewing at a reasonable price, or do they spend a lot more time and money on making something mind blowing that would cost a lot more to buy (unfortunaly there is not a magic button that the press for remastering).

And anyone who moans (and this is not directed at anyone on this thead, more to others on different sites) who harp on about all stops should be put out to make things as they were originally meant to been seen, should not be watching any film on a TV screen anyway, and just at a cinema screen, and even then each screen will have differences!

Thing is, it's looking like this won't be anywhere near "the best transfer that’s ever been available for a home viewing" as it's been royally ****** by over use of digital noise reduction! Had they done less tinkering and knob twiddling there probably wouldn't be reports like this:
http://enthusiasm.org/post/31285985246

If 'Vertigo' was PERFECT (i.e. original audio, all correct colours and transitions - and yes I EXPECT perfection for that film as should everyone) I'd buy the whole set anyway as that alone is worth Ł100 to me but it's looking like the set will be a mix of some very good transfers, good transfers marred by sloppy technical work, some okay and some really bad (which shouldn't be making it to market). For arguably Universal's biggest release of the year, this is not good enough.
It's been reported on other forums that the botched 'Frenzy' is already airing on US HD movie channels, so if that version becomes the de facto master with wide distribution for the foreseeable future, it's a travesty.

I'm looking forward to full reviews from multiple sources on both sides of the Atlantic but at the moment my inclination is to wait for individual releases of the best presented films (and keep my fingers crossed that the US 'Vertigo' disc includes the original mono, otherwise I WILL cry). I really don't feel like spending any money on subpar products as it gives distributors the idea that it's okay to be slapdash.

Am I expecting too much? Am I too anal about it all? Is all this actually MY problem and how dare I want an expensive set of a great filmmaker's work to be excellent across the board? Should I be more forgiving of huge billion dollar multinationals that want me to buy their product again and again?
Maybe.
But Universal surely must know that this release in particular would come in for scrutiny by Cineastes and "geeks". It's mother****ing Hitchcock FFS!



So, following Nick Wrigley's tweets and posts it seems that so far 'Frenzy', 'Family Plot' and 'Marnie' are digital disasters. 3 out of 14 (so far) titles being this bad is not an acceptable tally. That's 21% of this set!

[Guest 3003]

Making myself feel a bit better about this awful news by watching the R1 SD of Frenzy on my blu-ray player tonight.

Luckily, it's a perfectly good transfer 'cos it'll have to suffice! No way am I ever purchasing that BD.

[Guest 18933]

Originally Posted by new

As disappointing as this is, it’s clearly been re-done as the original can’t be re-mastered.

I'm not so sure, as the 2007 HD transfer that's been used for HD broadcasts of the film has the original credits and looks pristine. Assuming there really is a valid reason for re-rendering the opening sequence, it's inexcusable that they've introduced errors in names

Going by the images Nick has posted on Twitter, the transfers used on some of the new Blu-rays (e.g. Marnie) are visibly worse than the 2007 HD transfers used for TV broadcasts.

From what I can gather, Lowry Digital and Universal's BluWave Audio handled restoration of the films back in 2005 for the US "Masterpiece" DVD box set and I think it's a safe bet that Lowry did HD transfers for that restoration.

My memory of the 2007 HD transfers is that they looked fairly good (with only Family Plot having OTT grain, which presumably is down to the film stock used?) and pretty much matched the US "Masterpiece" DVD set.

By the sounds of it, someone at Universal has decided that the grainier films (e.g. The Birds onwards) needed heavy DNR for the Blu-ray release

[Gizmo]

The opening sequence was re-rendered with new titles as they found a better bit of footage for it.

They should have left it be, the grim look to the opening footage sets up the old City well.

In any case, proof-reading your work doesn't take long, surely?

[Guest 18933]

The shipping date for the UK releases has now been pushed back to 5th November, although I've set to see an official annoucement from Universal UK. Hopefully they're planning to do something about the heavy DNR on some of the transfers, as well as fixing the Frenzy titles.

[Richie]

The "regular" set is Ł69.95 at zavvi right now. Assuming they fix the issues before release, this is a decent price!

[Graham Smith]

It's tempting at that price. What's of concern is if Universal don't sort out the DNR issues and just fix the Frenzy credits then will these films ever receive a decent hi-def release or will this be as good as it gets?

[Guest 18933]

Thought some of you might be interested in the new "The Lodger" UK Blu-ray from Network. I've added some full-size screen grabs to the Hitchcock Wiki (click on the images to view full-sized). I'll update the page with the technical specs of the disc later on today.

As with the previous DVD release from Network, the transfer is tinted although the tint is more pronounced than I've seen on other releases. There's a nice level of grain with no sign (to my eyes, at least) of DNR interfering with it, and only occasional signs of print damage.

The portions of the new soundtrack (composed by Nitin Sawhney and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra) that I've listened to seem sympathetic to the film.

It's not a region free disc and is locked to region B.

Finally, being able to see the film in HD means that we can end the rumour that Hitchcock had a second cameo scene in the crowd near the end of the film, as it's clearly not him (Charles Barr in "English Hitchcock" had also previously stated that it wasn't Hitch).

[KeyserSoze]

Have they confirmed whether Vertigo will contain a lossless mono track?

Do zavvi charge on order or dispatch?

[dunkrag]

Originally Posted by KeyserSoze

Have they confirmed whether Vertigo will contain a lossless mono track?

I doesn't. But bloody hell does it look incredible.

My set arrived on Friday.
AMAZING. I'm really going to enjoy watching all these classics again.

I forgot to cancel my order with amazon for the bigger packaging and it's just shipped. I know I'm going to be temped to keep it now and send the smaller packaging version back....

[Mark Orme]

I'm not up-to-date with these. In the end, did they sort out all the problems before release?

[Guest 23929]

I think so. I picked one up anyway and couldnt do a lot of research because I was away from the Interweb mostly for the last two weeks or so. I think they fixed the spelling mistakes at least!