Night of the Living Dead: R1 Elite ME vs. R1 Dimension

captainjoe · Post by **captainjoe** » 16 Jun 2008, 01:52

Night of the Living Dead

Top: Elite Millennium Edition
Bottom: Dimension Restored

Old Pang Yau · Post by **Old Pang Yau** » 16 Jun 2008, 03:38

Figures, new one looks sharper, but cropped to all hell in the second half of the comparison pics. The first group of Dimension pics look only slightly cropped, but seem to get progressively more and more cropped as they continue.

captainjoe · Post by **captainjoe** » 16 Jun 2008, 06:22

Don May Jr. who was hired to restore the new HD print for Dimension, had this to say over at HTF:

"OK, I am reading this thread and I have to jump in. When I did the original Elite version of NOTLD, just to set the record straight, the entire IMAGE TEN team (including Romero) was involved in every step of the LaserDisc release, including the transfer.

Romero wasn't available to be there during the transfer process of the Elite version personally, but Karl Hardman, John Russo and Russ Streiner were all there over the week we spent on it and supervised what it looked like and the way it was composed. Romero DID look at it before we finalized and finished the transfer.

The new NOTLD transfer from Dimension was done at some point without my (or Romero's) supervision. But, the end result seems to have made Romero extremely happy and, cropping aside, me too. I am very proud of the quality of the image on the new version and feel it is the best of all the versions of NOTLD on the market.

Romero readily admits he didn't know what he was doing when he directed NOTLD... and, from the looks of the original negative (which I have analyzed personally), there is plenty of, ahem, "dead space" on all four sides of the image he photographed. The cropping certainly isn't ideal in my opinion, but it doesn't really hurt the action of the film because most of the photography is indeed central to the frame. Maybe, one of these days, I'll again get to tackle a new transfer myself and see what happens. I doubt that'll happen, though, unless we can raise about $350K, which is what it would maybe take for me to do it the way I want."

Old Pang Yau · Post by **Old Pang Yau** » 16 Jun 2008, 07:11

Oh well, guess that's what happens when your film is public domain. What I don't get is that it seems to get progressively more and more cropped, like it's VERY slowly being zoomed in over the course of the film. But, it does look sharper, especially in the shot of Duane Jones' close-up near the end.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 16 Jun 2008, 10:52

The Weinsteins fail to disappoint once again.

Killer Meteor · Post by **Killer Meteor** » 16 Jun 2008, 13:12

Funnily enough, the same cropping pattern was on the Fox/Legends Film colourising job

captainjoe · Post by **captainjoe** » 16 Jun 2008, 18:49

exactly so there must be many prints that have this sort of cropping. It's quite odd though at one scene it works perfectly because it removes a boom mic from the shot.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 16 Jun 2008, 19:41

Clearly the Dimension looks the best but that cropping is so extreme I'd still get the Elite ME.

DangerousLeeHandsome · Post by **DangerousLeeHandsome** » 18 Jun 2008, 00:28

I think I like Dimension's transfer a little better. More cleaner and brighter.

Killer Meteor · Post by **Killer Meteor** » 18 Jun 2008, 14:15

Elite is a rather dated transfer, with too much DVNR and even some frozen frames to hide splices, but it's much better framed.

DangerousLeeHandsome · Post by **DangerousLeeHandsome** » 19 Jun 2008, 00:36

Its funny how the back of the Dimension R1 states "Widecreen Version presented in the original 1:33 format." Always these silly mistakes on Weinstein/Genius DVDs.

captainjoe · Post by **captainjoe** » 19 Jun 2008, 18:42

Yeah I saw that too. Kind of an odd mistake but whatever.