Hard Boiled :: R0HK vs R1US vs R2DE vs R2FR vs R0UK vs R2NO

[thelostdragon]

Thanks! Added to the front page.

[bradavon]

Frenchie still wins but best English friendly is the Tartan CE.

[chenlung]

Here is the R0 Long Shong Taiwan DVD (Taiwanese version):

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2767 ... ng1bn1.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4998 ... ng2rr0.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/8869 ... ng3ap7.jpg
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4026 ... ng4lt2.jpg
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8254 ... ng5cn0.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/534/ ... ng6dy6.jpg
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3893 ... ng7fy4.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4200 ... ng8as3.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3839 ... ng9uh3.jpg

Here is a replacement cap for the UK Tartan DVD (it's not in the same frame):

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5276/tartaniz5.jpg

[DangerousLeeHandsome]

Quick question: how are the 5.1 remixes for the Mei Ah remastered and Tartan CE releases? I'm deciding which one to buy based soley on the sound because I love loud guns and explosions. Who doesn't right?

[Xenon]

First four screens from the new Japanese Blu-ray:

http://i.imgur.com/S1vbpgI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8bHaygU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DziBEnT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vq9uO8u.jpg

[Markgway]

Ewww!

[Xenon]

Ewww!

What?

[Markgway]

I think they look horrible.

[Xenon]

And you are absolutely wrong. While the brightness/contrast may be a little higher than it should be, this is the best this movie has ever looked and most probably WILL ever look.

[Markgway]

OK. So maybe 'ewww' was an exaggeration.... but I'm not impressed really.

Look at the victim's hair in Cap #3; the white noise (not grain) is almost as bad as Arrow's Tenebrae BD.

Also the black levels are poor; see Chow Yun Fat's hair and gun handle in Cap #4, which are now brownish-grey.

I don't see much more detail in the image either, although it's hard to tell comparing caps of differing sizes.

[Xenon]

Look at the victim's hair in Cap #3; the white noise (not grain) is almost as bad as Arrow's Tenebrae BD.

The frame was not static and was in motion, but now that you mention it... They should have used a BD50 instead of BD25 as those look like compression artefacts.

Also the black levels are poor; see Chow Yun Fat's hair and gun handle in Cap #4, which are now brownish-grey.

Hard to argue with that. They brightened it up a little too much, but it's sill better than the crushed blacks in Dragon Dynasty release.

I don't see much more detail in the image either, although it's hard to tell comparing caps of differing sizes.

I'll resize and repost them when I get back from work. Believe me - this is so far the best print of it and makes every previous DVD version absolete (video wise). If this ever gets released with English subs I'm buying it day one.

[Markgway]

It's all a matter of opinion, right?

It'll be interesting to hear from others.

I own the Tartan Remastered DVD myself, which is very good (apart from the oddly windowboxed credits).

[luckystars]

Whoever gets the rights to an English friendly HD release needs to make sure the song is subtitled!

There's a showing in London next month. Any bullets members going?

[Markgway]

I saw it in London in 1996.

[Shingster]

The filesizes are absurdly small, the fact those screengrabs are 1920x1080 jpegs compressed to less than 200KB might account for some of the "blockiness". Contrast and brightness looks OK in the grabs (not sure what Mark's going on about with the black levels tbh), but the grabs do look soft with a rather fuzzy grain texture, but then it's hard to really tell when the grain is rendered so poorly by the compression.

[Markgway]

Contrast and brightness looks OK in the grabs (not sure what Mark's going on about with the black levels tbh)

The Tartan (see cap below) may lose a little shadow detail but the blacks look black.

but the grabs do look soft with a rather fuzzy grain texture, but then it's hard to really tell when the grain is rendered so poorly by the compression.

I believe the term used by some critics is 'machine noise'.

This is what I was referring to with Tenebrae:



http://www.kentaiblog.com/2011/06/mania ... 16a8e8e12c

[Shingster]

I got what you meant with the machine noise comment, in the case of Tenebrae it is clearly artificial grain added after the fact. The grain we're seeing in the Hard Boiled BD grabs looks "in camera" in all but the third grab, but you can also clearly see macroblocking ruining the ordinary definition of the grain, so it's very possible in the case of the third grab that the compression noise is distorting the original grain & making it look "sharper" and more artificial. It's possible some artifical noise has been added, but I'd like to see more, better quality grabs before making a judgement on that.

Regarding black levels, the Tartan DVD is clearly darker than the BD, doesn't mean it's more accurate, the fact is that in a well lit scene objects like hair and synthetic materials painted black (like a gun handle) won't appear as "true black". I think Chow's hair looks fine in the final grab, as does the gun, but this is something that's best judged in motion.

[Markgway]

I got what you meant with the machine noise comment, in the case of Tenebrae it is clearly artificial grain added after the fact. The grain we're seeing in the Hard Boiled BD grabs looks "in camera" in all but the third grab, but you can also clearly see macroblocking ruining the ordinary definition of the grain, so it's very possible in the case of the third grab that the compression noise is distorting the original grain & making it look "sharper" and more artificial. It's possible some artifical noise has been added, but I'd like to see more, better quality grabs before making a judgement on that.

Is macroblocking the same as compression or caused by...? (I'm not too 'up' on some terms). After Tenebrae anytime I see white dots I think the worst.

Regarding black levels, the Tartan DVD is clearly darker than the BD, doesn't mean it's more accurate, the fact is that in a well lit scene objects like hair and synthetic materials painted black (like a gun handle) won't appear as "true black". I think Chow's hair looks fine in the final grab, as does the gun, but this is something that's best judged in motion.

Is there any way to tell which is more accurate? I guess I just like the darker look in that cap, but maybe it is too dark?

[Xenon]

The filesizes are absurdly small, the fact those screengrabs are 1920x1080 jpegs compressed to less than 200KB might account for some of the "blockiness". Contrast and brightness looks OK in the grabs (not sure what Mark's going on about with the black levels tbh), but the grabs do look soft with a rather fuzzy grain texture, but then it's hard to really tell when the grain is rendered so poorly by the compression.

Goddamnit - those were PNGs that I posted. Imgur must have converted them to jpg =/ Will make new screenies when I get back from work.

[Shingster]

Goddamnit - those were PNGs that I posted. Imgur must have converted them to jpg =/ Will make new screenies when I get back from work.

It's probably best to just zip up the PNG files and upload the zip file to a filesharing site like Sendspace. That way we can download the uncompressed grabs directly.

Is macroblocking the same as compression or caused by...? (I'm not too 'up' on some terms). After Tenebrae anytime I see white dots I think the worst.

It's usually a result of overzealous compression, or just poor compression. I've cropped out a section of the third grab (from the "grainy" segment of Chow's hair) and zoomed in by a factor of about 2.5 and I think you can see from this picture that the "grain" here is actually just a series of macroblocks that are jumbling up and blurring the actual detail of the frame (at least, that's what I think it looks like):

Is there any way to tell which is more accurate? I guess I just like the darker look in that cap, but maybe it is too dark?

For a film like this with all its various iterations on home video and general lack of any major restoration work it's gonna be very hard to tell. The third grab does look quite bright to me in relation to the Tartan DVDs, so it's possible the Blu-ray is a little bright, but I don't think we have enough to go on either way tbh, at the very least you'd need to sit and watch the Blu-ray to get a better sense. On surface value though, I see nothing in screenshot 4 that flashes any warning signs with regard to contrast & brightness (but then I'm viewing that shot out of context).

[Xenon]

Redid the old screenies and took some new ones:

http://imageshack.us/a/img822/4311/inde ... 000028.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img62/3418/index ... 000827.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/1081/inde ... 001551.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img805/8670/inde ... 004125.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img689/2333/inde ... 005708.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img441/4268/inde ... 005832.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img839/644/index ... 005949.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img705/5702/inde ... 020248.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img713/4166/inde ... 011334.png

Yes gentlemen, this is the best Hard Boiled has ever looked, yet the quality quite inconsistent at times especially when it comes to grain and contrast (see the last screenie). Still - I'm gonna be loving it (can't wait to get my hands on a custom release with adjusted contrast, re-edited Tartan subs and LaserDisc audio - just thinking about that makes me horny ).

[Lourdes]

It only has an SD level of detail (downscale then scale back up to see this) and all that noise comes from sort of weird DNR/sharpening effort like Tenebre. Grain is larger and better defined.

[Xenon]

It only has an SD level of detail (downscale then scale back up to see this)

Yeah... no.

[Lourdes]

It only has an SD level of detail (downscale then scale back up to see this)

Yeah... no.

Did you do what I said to see this?

[Shingster]

As Lourdes says, the Hard Boiled transfer does seem like it only has SD levels of detail, but the new grabs you've posted Xenon don't look too terrible, looking at 005708.png, 005949.png, and 020248.png they look maybe just about sharp enough that you could give the transfer a pass and say "not an upscale", but likewise I wouldn't really argue with someone who's confident that it is an upscale.

We really need someone like a Criterion or Masters of Cinema to do a proper job on one of these 80s/early 90s action films so we can get a better idea of how they are supposed to look in HD. As it stands, we have no real template and it's very easy in these cases to see how soft these transfers are and immediately assume they're an upscale. I strongly suspect that there's not a tremendous amount of detail to be found in the negatives of films like Police Story and Hard Boiled though.