Protector and Crime Story coming to Blu Ray

[David Rees]

Another review from Blu ray.com, just confirms what we thought anyway...what a shame...

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Jackie-Chan-Double-Feature-Blu-ray/56991/#Review

[Killer Meteor]

Shout denied these were upscales prior to release. I think they've been duped...like every other company that deals with Fortune Star.

[tenebre]

Sadly you cant really fault them.. I mean even at FS even if they had the original film negatives fed in with a crappy film scanner at 1080p... it would still look crap.

But if FS gave 1080p masters to SF.. then they cant say they are upscales because as far as they legally know.. they arent ... :-(

[Killer Meteor]

Sadly you cant really fault them.. I mean even at FS even if they had the original film negatives fed in with a crappy film scanner at 1080p... it would still look crap.

BuQUOTE]

That's true. Many an Italian horror film has suffered at the hands of crappy out-dated scanners.

[Guest Markgway]

Shout denied these were upscales prior to release. I think they've been duped...like every other company that deals with Fortune Star.

They have eyes, don't they?

[Killer Meteor]

They have eyes, don't they?

FS basically has a take it or leave it attitude.

[tenebre]

FS basically has a take it or leave it attitude.

My wonder is ... do they even have access to anything better? I am thinking they only have certain masters laying around.

So i worked for a video company.. in around 97 they fed in a bunch of old movies to the Avid at.... 480 and then some at 720...

Man in charge says.. now we dont need that storage.. destroy the tapes.. we have backups of the hard disks..

So now the BEST version in existence is.. well crap. I can understand why they wouldnt want to 4K scan and restore everything. But if they HAD the source i see no reason why they wouldnt just rescan it in 1080 at least. I wish every movie could get the "Dr. No" treatment..but it wont ever happen sadly. II mean Death Wish 2 came out on blu ray and they still released the censored version.. video companies are a bit insane

[newgen2005]

My copy was despatched from Amazon yesterday!

[newgen2005]

My wonder is ... do they even have access to anything better? I am thinking they only have certain masters laying around.

So i worked for a video company.. in around 97 they fed in a bunch of old movies to the Avid at.... 480 and then some at 720...

Man in charge says.. now we dont need that storage.. destroy the tapes.. we have backups of the hard disks..

So now the BEST version in existence is.. well crap. I can understand why they wouldnt want to 4K scan and restore everything. But if they HAD the source i see no reason why they wouldnt just rescan it in 1080 at least. I wish every movie could get the "Dr. No" treatment..but it wont ever happen sadly. II mean Death Wish 2 came out on blu ray and they still released the censored version.. video companies are a bit insane

Thanks for the info, I never knew they scanned the movies! So are the actual film rolls scanned?

[tenebre]

Thanks for the info, I never knew they scanned the movies! So are the actual film rolls scanned?

Yes. Depending on the source available. If the film is actually available and print is not too damaged you scan in the film just like you would still film negatives/proofs and it just scans each frame into a digital feed (new scanners do it in 4k resolution).

Problem is MOST companies never kept the original films or at least not the majority of them. So all they have left is say the Master tapes.. this is the major problem. Sure these are not VHS tapes but they still oxodize to some extent and tape grade 4etc comes into play ... and of course they are not on the level of film or 4k or even 1080.. The really good tapes support 1080.. but that depends on what the editing system was set at for the dump. In the 90s storage was EXPENSIVE! so most used 480 or 720 .. 1080 was not really used. So in essence the "new" master is a sub par format and the original film master is .. who knows where.

This is also why we see such quality variance in other territories where the company had a different master stored by different people and different company.

[Killer Meteor]

Do these even have the GENUINE mono tracks?

[newgen2005]

Yes. Depending on the source available. If the film is actually available and print is not too damaged you scan in the film just like you would still film negatives/proofs and it just scans each frame into a digital feed (new scanners do it in 4k resolution).

Problem is MOST companies never kept the original films or at least not the majority of them. So all they have left is say the Master tapes.. this is the major problem. Sure these are not VHS tapes but they still oxodize to some extent and tape grade 4etc comes into play ... and of course they are not on the level of film or 4k or even 1080.. The really good tapes support 1080.. but that depends on what the editing system was set at for the dump. In the 90s storage was EXPENSIVE! so most used 480 or 720 .. 1080 was not really used. So in essence the "new" master is a sub par format and the original film master is .. who knows where.

This is also why we see such quality variance in other territories where the company had a different master stored by different people and different company.

Thanks again, very interesting read!

Such a shame that some companies ditched the film reels! I guess this is why we end up with these bad releases! I wonder if the original reels still exist or is this the best Fortune Star has? Who would own the original reels for lets say the GH Bruce Lee films, is it FS or GH?

[Killer Meteor]

I have this eerie fear a lot of the old Angela Mao and Jimmy Wang Yu flicks only officially exist now as those blurry tapes used for the HK DVDs

[tenebre]

Thanks again, very interesting read!

Such a shame that some companies ditched the film reels! I guess this is why we end up with these bad releases! I wonder if the original reels still exist or is this the best Fortune Star has? Who would own the original reels for lets say the GH Bruce Lee films, is it FS or GH?

Good question! more than likely its one person who may or may not be associated with a film company. There would be an excellent copy a Finnish collector purchased for his 35mm collection somewhere... thats the ticket.. finding some awesome wacko who preserved these films in a good format.

Also China went through a film destroying period in the 60s/70s where lots of the old flicks were lost forever unless they had been shipped somewhere else

[muppetdanny]

found another review, this time from dvdactive.com:

http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/crime-storythe-protector-double-feature.html

[tenebre]

What's sad is that... they will take teh low sales of this disc and assume "no one wants to buy HK films in HD" instead of saying.. "wow we released a shit transfer so no one bought it" :-(

[Jinha]

very true. however i do believe Shout is open to input from fans. I know they reapond to emails and in their forums. So and email or posting in their forums or both from a few knowledgeable people from here could get their attention.

[David Rees]

A few people have put there concerns on Shout Factory's Facebook page but no-one has bothered to answer so far.

[spannick]

so that review above says the US Edit for PROTECTOR is in MONO (for a Dolby Stereo Movie!) and in 5.1 (with added Effects Nonsense). this is so embarassing for ANY Company to release such a piece of crap... so sad that it's somehow no longer with Warner in the USA

[HAZ]

To be honest, the video looks fine and the audio sounds fine, but the blu ray has dubtitles

[Guest Markgway]

To be honest, the video looks fine

:ooh:

[HAZ]

I have a 35mm print of Crime Story. This is way more convinent to watch. I can see the pores on Kent Cheng's face. The blacks are rich, the print is very clean. I'd say this way better than any DVD release. I'm very skeptical about what I read online. People never list the equipment they are using, never say if they saw the film originally on 35mm. People watch stuff on their computer and through audio set ups that are not ideal. Some people have old computers or a bad media player. I wish people would list their set ups or what they are watching a disc with. I watched this on a top of the line HP envy with a 3D monitor and Cyberlink power DVD software. I also put this on an Oppo BDP-95 with a Panasonic TC-P55VT50 television, Harmon Kardon reciever and B&W speakers. Two movies for 14 bucks and it looks much better than the DVD's I have of these films. I'm not mad at this.

[Sheng]

I'm very skeptical about what I read online. People never list the equipment they are using, never say if they saw the film originally on 35mm. People watch stuff on their computer and through audio set ups that are not ideal. Some people have old computers or a bad media player. I wish people would list their set ups or what they are watching a disc with. I watched this on a top of the line HP envy with a 3D monitor and Cyberlink power DVD software. I also put this on an Oppo BDP-95 with a Panasonic TC-P55VT50 television, Harmon Kardon reciever and B&W speakers.

Couldn't agree more! I myself have learned to be extremely cautious about the endless bitching rituals that oftentimes accompany new BD or DVD releases since I realized on what kind of equipment a lot of people actually watch their films. You're right, a lot of people take in stuff on old computers with 15 inch (or sometimes even less) screens using VLC or KM players. Or they still use totally outdated TV's. I'm mistrustful of a lot of folks screencaps, too. Wouldn't base my decision to buy or not to buy a disc on those. Numerous times I have heard people claiming that there's no discernible difference in PQ quality between the BD and the DVD issue of a movie, yet when I stick it into my Oppo BDP-95 and watch it on a 54 inch LD screen the difference between them is glaring! Like you said, it would be desireable if people would specify what equipment they use when they're discussing picture or audio quality issues of BD's and DVD's.

[Jay Stone]

Just picked the disc up from Best Buy. I took advantage of their deal where you can trade in any DVD and get $5 off any blu ray over $10. The disc was priced at $15.99 so I paid $10.99

Going to watch it tonight.

[John]

I have a 35mm print of Crime Story. This is way more convinent to watch. I can see the pores on Kent Cheng's face. The blacks are rich, the print is very clean. I'd say this way better than any DVD release. I'm very skeptical about what I read online. People never list the equipment they are using, never say if they saw the film originally on 35mm. People watch stuff on their computer and through audio set ups that are not ideal. Some people have old computers or a bad media player. I wish people would list their set ups or what they are watching a disc with. I watched this on a top of the line HP envy with a 3D monitor and Cyberlink power DVD software. I also put this on an Oppo BDP-95 with a Panasonic TC-P55VT50 television, Harmon Kardon reciever and B&W speakers. Two movies for 14 bucks and it looks much better than the DVD's I have of these films. I'm not mad at this.

Fair enough. I'm skeptical of someone who uses pores and rich blacks as particular criteria for image quality. I mean, for all I know they boosted the blacks, and pores aren't exactly a revelation exclusive to HD formats. You're rocking some serious hardware, but you don't list your settings, how or if you calibrated it, and what the parameters of your viewing environment are; maybe you're just a high-roller who waltzes into Best Buy and grabs the latest/greatest. Neither should I take it at face value that you have a photographic memory that can intimately recall the particulars of a print you purport to own. Odd that you would write a laundry list of anecdotal ambiguity after admonishing the thing...

I like lossless PNG; it's what they use at caps-a-holic. With properly taken screencaps it's possible to support or debunk certain claims about content (i.e. upscaling, artefacing, the big things).

As for audio, I'm at a lossy.