The official Tartan Asian Films thread!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 May 2005, 11:17

Thanks I missed that one.

I'm all but bored of these style of films though. "A Tale of Two Sisters" arrived yesterday (£7.99 from Play) and I'll get PA's "The Grudge" but that will probably be it.

I've waited so long for a decent "The Eye" DVD I no longer want it. The R4 looks pretty decent but when it's released I'll have gone off the idea.

p.s - Tartan's ATOTS DVD is fantastic. I can't fault it. Digi-pack would be the icing on the cake but I can hardly complain about the lack of that.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 May 2005, 01:30

OMG JSA is 2 discs not 1 as thought before. This suddenly makes it much better than the R4. Check out the cover art (it didn't say 2 discs originally):

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=56423

The documentary on the Korean DVD is something like 180 mins long. Maybe it will have this.

p.s - You can win it here:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=57146

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 22 May 2005, 01:45

http://compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCo ... y-area.htm

Why are Tartan and EE incapable of decent transfers? Every other company makes the effort.

memetic · Post by **memetic** » 22 May 2005, 02:17

Lourdes wrote:http://compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCo ... y-area.htm

Why are Tartan and EE incapable of decent transfers? Every other company makes the effort.

I don't get it. The review in your link seems to applaud the Tartan transfer. What's the problem?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 22 May 2005, 07:39

What's the problem?

Ghosting and combing due to poor NTSC-PAL conversion. :shock:
Those f*cked-up Tartan dvds look like crap when you watch them on big screens.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 May 2005, 13:26

I don't see the EE mentioned Lourdes??? That DVD Beaver comparison is an odd one it's like comparing a Skoda with a Subaru Impreza. I'd prefer to see a Tartan vs. EE comparison and/or a Tartan/EE vs. Mangpong Thai DVD comparison.

The Modern Audio HK DVD isn't even anamorphic. Some people are never happy. That comparison mentions the issues with the Tartan DVD but then goes on to say it's still very sharp etc . . . Going by the caps it looks fantastic. I'd love to see how it compares with the EE.

Clearly the HK DVD must be superior as I've never read people moan about it. So go on buy it. Sorry but I'm getting fed up of people bashing the likes of Tartan and HKL when the alternatives are far inferior. Why has no one moaned about the HK DVD??? Sorry Lourdes but that comparison makes the Tartan looks tops in comparison which you neglect to mention.

Besides Tartan are far from the only companies who release questionably sub-par DVDs. Mei Ah, Megastar, Tai Seng to name a few. Tartan and EE urinate all over Tai Seng who can't even be bothered with anamorphic DVDs. I never read people moaning about these companies!

If you don't like their DVDs don't buy them it's not a difficult decision and let everyone who does like them buy them. Tartan's ATOTS is flawless IMO: it has wonderful AV, decent subs, stacks of extras, decent cover art, decent menus. I can't fault it.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 May 2005, 13:27

According to DVD Beaver the extras are:

• The JSA Story (36:47 / 4:3)
• Making the film (14:38 / 4:3)
• Behind the Scenes montage (3:59 / 4:3)
• A Letter from a private - music video (4:52 / 4:3)
• Profile Clips (6:39 / Text)
• Theatrical Trailer (2:13 / 4:3)
• Japanese Trailer (2:31 / 4:3)
• TV Spot (0:32 / 4:3)
• 4-page booklet with notes by Erika Franklin

That's pretty short for a 2 disc release and also pretty short for most recent Tartan 2 disc releases. That's about the same length as the 60 mins of extras on the EE R4.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 22 May 2005, 15:23

bradavon wrote:I don't see the EE mentioned Lourdes??? That DVD Beaver comparison is an odd one it's like comparing a Skoda with a Subaru Impreza. I'd prefer to see a Tartan vs. EE comparison and/or a Tartan/EE vs. Mangpong Thai DVD comparison.

The Modern Audio HK DVD isn't even anamorphic. Some people are never happy. That comparison mentions the issues with the Tartan DVD but then goes on to say it's still very sharp etc . . . Going by the caps it looks fantastic. I'd love to see how it compares with the EE.

Clearly the HK DVD must be superior as I've never read people moan about it. So go on buy it. Sorry but I'm getting fed up of people bashing the likes of Tartan and HKL when the alternatives are far inferior. Why has no one moaned about the HK DVD??? Sorry Lourdes but that comparison makes the Tartan looks tops in comparison which you neglect to mention.

Besides Tartan are far from the only companies who release questionably sub-par DVDs. Mei Ah, Megastar, Tai Seng to name a few. Tartan and EE urinate all over Tai Seng who can't even be bothered with anamorphic DVDs. I never read people moaning about these companies!

If you don't like their DVDs don't buy them it's not a difficult decision and let everyone who does like them buy them. Tartan's ATOTS is flawless IMO: it has wonderful AV, decent subs, stacks of extras, decent cover art, decent menus. I can't fault it.

I made a general comment about EE and Tartan. And you're forgetting the Korean release of JSA which looks better than all other releases, except perhaps the R2J which I've not seen but may get at some point.

The HK DVD is bad, that's a given, the Tartan looking better is meaningless. And incidentally I've read about how bad the HK release is in many places. Likewise people are always complaining about the poor quality of HK DVD releases! I can't believe you've never seen this! Hence why I only own HK DVD's if a flm isn't availiable elsewhere or if it's a port. Though I do have 2 or 3 that I got because the price was disposable and I haven't gotten around to selling them.

Tartan releasing a few decent releases doesn't make a difference to anything. Lets see their last releases since and including AToTS.

A Tale of Two Sisters - R2J AV is [slightly] better, best overall release.
Ozu: Volume One

Infernal Affairs II - R3HK/K AV is [somewhat] better. Could go either way.
Days of Being Wild

Phone

As Tears Go By

Sympathy For Mr Vengeance

Oldboy - R3K AV [VERY slightly] better, best overall release (not seen R2J but it probably uses the same master).
Chaos

Save the Green Planet

Into The Mirror

When the Last Sword is Drawn

The Isle

JSA

So of 14 releases 3 aren't pants, and of those 3 only 2 are real winners and both of those are compromises based on extras. The other 12 releases I may rent to check out the extras if the films interest me. Incidentally Tartan have a habit of announcing extras that never make it into the final release or skipping extra availiable on the foreign release. That I find to be a real shame and I might actually buy more Tartan releases if they made more of an effort there.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 May 2005, 16:09

Lourdes please give examples of extras being announced but not materialising? I've not seen this happening.

I should clarify which goes against what I said earlier to some extent. Yes I have seen people complain about HK DVDs but it's usually not very severe and easily forgiven. With Tartan DVDs people seem to go all out mainly based on the NTSC to PAL issue when otherwise the DVD is fantastic.

Take JSA for example it has the usual NTSC to PAL issue but is otherwise very good AV wise. I disagree the Tartan DVD looking better is of very much importance otherwise how do you decide which to buy?

Like I said before I'd like to see a comparison between the Tartan and EE but I can't see the EE being much better and the Tartan has DTS on top but it is much more expensive so I'd probably go with the EE (the extras are about the same).

The Korean DVD may look better but how much better is questionable and besides it has unsubtitled extras which is a big one for me. I generally go with the HK DVD as most HK anamorphic HK DVDs of recent films are very good IMO and I don't see the point paying a tenner plus unsubtitled extras for fancy packaging. The HK DVDs are almost always very good value for money.

Korean DVDs are only bettered by Japanese DVDs for me and both are at the bottom of the pile, for what you get extra neither are worth the extra cost.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 22 May 2005, 16:36

Lourdes please give examples of extras being announced but not materialising? I've not seen this happening.

Hey you must have had your eyes shut

I have seen many announcments by Tartan of 2 dvd sets and such which when the final dvd comes out it has no extras, or very little and may even not be a 2 dvd set as it was downgraded to 1 dvd!

The most recent one was When the Last Sword is Drawn, annonced as a 2 dvd set, came out with none and it was crap as well

so they do it all the time, ussually on the films I have wanted sadly

so no way I am ever getting any Tartan dvds thats for sure.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 May 2005, 21:50

I didn't mean 2 discs to 1 disc sets. I meant the odd extra going missing.

Oh yeah I didn't notice WTLSID is only 1 disc. Having said that all the extras are still there (that were said to be there in the PR) so what's the big deal? I thought you'd still get WTLSID though as it still has lots of subtitled extras.

In the case of JSA it looks like DVD beaver have a copy.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 22 May 2005, 22:39

Twighlight Samurai another set with NO EXTRAS at all (thats acctually the dvd I was thinking of before, but wrote WTLSID) it was advertised with tonnes of extras and they were all dropped in the end.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 23 May 2005, 14:13

Someone at DVDTimes expressed this really well recently. People are so bothered by failings with Tartan releases because they WANT to buy them. Nobody cares about crap HK discs, we all kow they're rubbish. But Tartan releases look so good, they have DTS tracks, they have subtitled extras but Tartan screw up the most fundamental and important aspect of a DVD release. They screw up the video. If they produced proper PAL transfers from film then of those 14 releases I listed I would own 10 as opposed to 2. A poor video transfer undermines everything.

Re: Missing extras
Well you had two great examples above. I've noticed it with others, SFMV in particular. No improved subtitles, no short film and IIRC they were meant to be some more extras as well. Yet they still call it a CE and give it a RRP of £19.99. Not to mention that they had a second chance to get the transfer right, at the same time a French company manages a proper PAL transfer.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 May 2005, 17:47

Fairy muff to both.

I'm mostly happen with Tartan

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 25 May 2005, 17:56

Hey,
According to Play, Tartan "Infernal Affairs 3" will now be released on August 1.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 25 May 2005, 19:57

Wasn't it late July? So not much of a delay. I've no idea why they've delayed it so much IA2 was out before Christmas.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 Jun 2005, 00:45

Just another stab at Tartan, they don't even need Film Masters or materials to produce a PAL transfer. All the NTSC masters they get access to are progressive unless the Koreans go out of their way to screw them up. As one would assume they are the same the Koreans used for their DVD's. This means that all they have to do is apply 3:2 pulldown just like a PC or progressive player does and voila! A source with 24 full frames per second, film. So they have NO excuse at all, I can perform this process myself ffs. Even if there are some issues with the master there are ways to sort them out, and again I know how to do this.
Muppets.

memetic · Post by **memetic** » 05 Jun 2005, 10:19

Surely 3:2 pulldown is solely used in NTSC make a 23.976 fps video to result in a 29.97 fps display. I don't know how you would apply this technique to PAL. The MPEG on a NTSC DVD would already be 23.976 fps, so they wouldn't have to do anything to get 24 fps. You could convert by increasing the speed of the video in software encoding from 23.976 to 25 fps. That would work fine but then you would have to speed up the audio as well - creating loss in audio. Is that what you mean?

Y'know 3:2 pulldown isn't perfect either. It bugs me how people fixate over NTSC-PAL transfers when it's only one aspect out of many qualities that contribute towards an video transfer.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 Jun 2005, 12:19

It was late, but you get the idea. I was getting things the wrong way round.

If they have a progressive NTSC master they should be sorted. Like you say, just speed things up by 4%. I had a play just now with a clip from the R3K of "Save the Green Planet." Made a nice little 25FPS version with no trouble at all. Perhaps I'm missing something? Tartan transfers would be fine if they sorted that out.

An NTSC>PAL transfer isn't a contributing factor, if a transfer is a NTSC>PAL conversion or PAL>NTSC then there's no redemption at all. There are few ther factors that can manage that, even in extreme instances.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Jun 2005, 12:32

memetic wrote:It bugs me how people fixate over NTSC-PAL transfers when it's only one aspect out of many qualities that contribute...

I fixate over NTSC-PAL ghosting because it is the only flaw that I can notice in EVERY SINGLE SHOT of a movie.

-Low bitrate I can live with.
-Film artefacts I can live with.
-Minor cropping I can forgive.
-Edge Enhancement doesn't bother me.

However those bad NTSC-PAL conversion problems make the picture unwatchable for me.

memetic · Post by **memetic** » 05 Jun 2005, 12:44

I guess the keyword is "bad" NTSC-PAL transfer as they can be done well. I bet most people don't even notice a good conversion. It's crappy motion search and bit-rate that leads to the really annoying results. (Anyone seen the smearing artefacts on Tartan's "One Take Only"?)

I find there are a lot of other factors that can contribute to a poor transfer. Personally I don't mind edge enhancement so much either if it's minimal, but I'm surprised you mind NTSC-PAL ghosting over low bit-rate. Just out of interest Tom, what type of equipment do you view your DVDs on?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Jun 2005, 13:22

Just out of interest Tom, what type of equipment do you view your DVDs on?

Pioneer DV-470 DVD Player (YUV Progressive Scan PAL and NTSC).
Optoma H30 DLP Video-Projector.
99" (250cm) screen.

I don't mind low bitrates because when you have a HUGE screen you can see compression problems even with Superbit titles.

I'm sure however that NTSC-PAL ghosting is invisible on an interlaced TV display.
This is why I completely understand that some people don't see the problem.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Jun 2005, 13:35

Here:

The following picture is perfect to make you understand the problem.

On top is the first UK PAL Edition of Battle Royale (R0 Tartan).
At bottom is the first french PAL Edition of Battle Royale (R2 M6).

The french picture sucks. It suffers from low bitrate, has edge-enhancement, is slightly cropped, has the wrong color filters, etc...

The Tartan picture would be perfect if it weren't for this f**king NTSC-PAL ghosting that makes it unwatchable.

but I'm surprised you mind NTSC-PAL ghosting over low bit-rate.

Are you still surprised now ?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Jun 2005, 13:56

The thing is Tom and my interlaced TV could be hiding this. I've yet to notice what you show in those caps when actually watching a film. I've seen that ghosting effect many times in screen caps but never pay much attention to it as I'll not notice in when watching the film.

But then again I'm thankfully far from a AV purist (I listen to music in WMA @ 96Kbps!).

Interestingly how often do NTSC countries have to put up with a shoddy NTSC DVD from a PAL master?

p.s - I'm sure I've read some/many Korean DVDs aren't progressive, no?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Jun 2005, 14:08

my interlaced TV could be hiding this

That's exactly what it is.

Your TV displays half a frame every 50th of a second. The ghosting is always present but always hidden. I can however confirm that on big interlaced TVs (36"+) the problem becomes visible.

My projector has to project 1 full frame every 25th of a second. The ghosting is only visible on a full frame.

Don't get me wrong. I don't consider myself a purist (I still watch VHS tapes !) but I think I have the right to complain when a movie that I paid 25€+ for looks like the screenshot that I posted above.

I'm sure I've read some/many Korean DVDs aren't progressive, no?

Most Korean DVDs aren't progressive.
Most HK DVDs aren't progressive either.
However, non-progressive NTSC looks better than a screwed-up PAL conversion.

BTW:
Here's a second (and last, I promise) comparison for Battle Royale.
This is to show that the Tartan picture looks quite good when the ghosting problem disappears (when there is no movement between the first half and the second half of the frame).

I promise, if they fix this, I won't complain about Tartan ever again !