Do you find movies with "ghosting" unwatchable?

[Sandpalm79]

So im the type of shaw watcher that watches Chang Cheh and Liu Chia Liang movies exclusively ( with the occasional roar of the lion and slice of death thrown in ) but i recently decided to try Shaolin Handlock. It was also my first funimation movie. I find the ghosting to be quite unwatchable at times. I turned it off and even considered selling it to a second hand store. But i gave it another try and it wasnt as bad. ( there is ghosting in every movement really) i guess it depends on my mood but curious what your guys take on this is. im watching on standard TV so its prob even worse on HD...

Im a lil disheartened that funimation will be releasing the R1 release of invincible shaloin, which is one of my faves. do you think we can petition them to do the transfers right?

[spannick]

avoidable and annoying, but not unwatchable to me.

[OldPangYau]

I think their first two releases (Shaolin Handlock and 14 Amazons) were a couple of flukes as Hong Kong Godfather turned out perfect with no ghosting issues whatsoever and a solid 24p transfer.

[kaleyboy]

I think life is too short to worry too much about such things.

[Jack J]

I think life is too short to worry too much about such things.

My words exactly! (and this is coming from someone who has watched his share of pixelating, pan & scan, fullscreen VCDs from Malaysia, all in Indonesian without subs. ).

[Stuntman Jules]

Not great, but cult cinema is a very "beggars can't be choosers" kind of thing. A lot of rare films are only available via bootlegs that are sourced from old VHS tapes and very few of those are even "unwatchable" to me. In fact, sometime a crummy VHS tape from a 16mm print has a certain nostalgia to it above watching the film in DVD or Bluray's crystal clarity. A few really bad VCDs are borderline unwatchable, digital artifacts are yucky to look at.

The ghosting and interlacing problems of the Celestial Shaw discs are annoying, especially since those movies are filled with kinetic camerawork and martial arts, and I've voiced my criticisms for the remastering process but they look pretty good picture-wise, even compared to a lot of DVDs. Celestial's VCDs are also the best VCDs I've ever seen.

[Killer Meteor]

I find I can make allowances for old tape transfers, but modern day flaws such as the ghosting mean no sale. Doesn't stop me trading for them though!

[kungfusamurai]

What I'm wondering is, can you un-ghost something? I mean, without using expensive software with complicated algorithms? Can it be fixed just by adjusting the frame rate or is it irreversible?

I hate it. That's why I avoided getting the US version of Invincible Armor. I saw how much ghosting there was, I looked for a boot of the UK, which was out of print at the time.

KFS

[OldPangYau]

What I'm wondering is, can you un-ghost something? I mean, without using expensive software with complicated algorithms? Can it be fixed just by adjusting the frame rate or is it irreversible?

I hate it. That's why I avoided getting the US version of Invincible Armor. I saw how much ghosting there was, I looked for a boot of the UK, which was out of print at the time.

KFS

It depends on a variety of factors. In the rare event of 14 Amazons and Shaolin Handlock, the ghosting was pretty much stuck, as the transfers were being read as 24p, but the speed was obviously PAL sourced (the higher pitched ShawScope fanfare gives it away) and the frames were permanently blended. With all of the DVD experience I've had, I still can't figure that one out.

Now, as crappy as a PAL to NTSC interlaced transfer can be, it's not impossible to convert it back to 25 frames per second PAL... it's just VERY complicated. In fact, that's what I did with the Soul Brothers of Kung Fu "New School Remix" video on YouTube. I took the video, which was PAL-to-NTSC interlaced, did a TON of tweaking and rendered it as a 25fps progressive PAL file in TMPGenc, then slowed the video down to 24fps in Sony Vegas. It's really just easier to either have a 24fps film speed master, or slow down a 25fps master to 24 fps.

[bratty]

A little ghosting I can stand .. but any more than that and I don't think so. I've seen some DVDs where the actor's faces look like a big blurry mess because of the poorly authored disc (see R1 Bad Biology). Then there's say .. the Mondo Macabro (who do much better work these days) disc of Diabolical Dr Z .. everytime the camera moves the whole screen loses all detail .. just a wHOOSH. sucks. I am surprised to hear those Funimation discs have problems. I have most of them on my want list.

[Morgoth Bauglir]

I went back to the store and sold that Shaolin Handlock DVD the day I got it. If it was a movie I really liked, I don't know if I would have sold it. I didn't find it completely unwatchable, but it was a major distraction for me. Like you said Sandpalm79 it blurs/ghosts every time there is movement on screen. Luckily HK Godfather isn't like that. Maybe they actually decided to check the DVD for problems before they released it. Smart thinking:angel:

[lillippa328]

wats ghosting?

[Morgoth Bauglir]

I think it's like a blending/blurring of frames. I've seen ghosting mentioned a lot for the IMage DVDs. I never had this problem with the Image DVDs, but I noticed it from frame 1 on Shaolin Handlock. Oldpangyau may be able to give you some links where he talks about this stuff. I remember him going into detail on a lot of threads.

[kungfusamurai]

Another description of ghosting is an echo of the image. If someone is standing still, everything looks fine. But when they start walking, their main image is moving, but for a split second, you see a fainter 'ghost' of them still standing in place. Every point when they move, the image of them a frame or so earlier is also still seen, just fainter.

KFS

[kungfusamurai]

It depends on a variety of factors. In the rare event of 14 Amazons and Shaolin Handlock, the ghosting was pretty much stuck, as the transfers were being read as 24p, but the speed was obviously PAL sourced (the higher pitched ShawScope fanfare gives it away) and the frames were permanently blended. With all of the DVD experience I've had, I still can't figure that one out.

Now, as crappy as a PAL to NTSC interlaced transfer can be, it's not impossible to convert it back to 25 frames per second PAL... it's just VERY complicated. In fact, that's what I did with the Soul Brothers of Kung Fu "New School Remix" video on YouTube. I took the video, which was PAL-to-NTSC interlaced, did a TON of tweaking and rendered it as a 25fps progressive PAL file in TMPGenc, then slowed the video down to 24fps in Sony Vegas. It's really just easier to either have a 24fps film speed master, or slow down a 25fps master to 24 fps.

It sounds like something that's probably best corrected at the DVD mastering end. Too bad 'ghosting' isn't something a lot of people pick up on, unlike widescreen vs pan & scan, or english language vs chinese language. Those are things that you usually see commented on in reviews, not 'ghosting'.

KFS

[OldPangYau]

Once in a long while, there will be a vague "blurring" comment or a mention of interlacing, but not really describing what's causing it. Like I said, the incident with Funimation's first two DVDs was very bizarre, as that was a kind of blending I had never seen before. It was basically permanently "burned" into the image, not just an interlacing issues. Thankfully this stopped before Hong Kong Godfather.