[quote=“Sundance, post:160, topic:327”]Well if I play it like it is meant to be played… meaning it is a progressive transfer where every frame, and the fields in it, represent a single point in time… then it looks like this on my computer:
paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg[/url]
There are interlacing artifacts even though it is not supposed to be interlaced.
So… I can then deinterlace it (which never really produces good results but is the only thing you can do with interlaced material [even though this isn’t supposed to be!] on progressive displays) and it will look like this:
[url=http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_deinterlaced.jpg]paramount_fafdm_deinterlaced.jpg[url]http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg[/url][/quote]
wow, that’s awful!
I can’t remember if this was the case for the FAFDM DVD (I’m not at home right now to check), but as regards the German MNIN disc from the same people, I remember having similar problems when my HDTV was set to 1080p. What I did was change it to 1080i (i.e. interlaced) and this gave me a beautiful fluid image. Seeing as 1080p is basically “full HD” for which you would need a Blu-Ray version, I assume that 1080i is the max you can get from a regular DVD via interlacing of a full HD image (or am I mistaken here?).
I’m not too knowledgeable on such technical issues, but if you can switch your TV to 1080i then you may be pleasantly surprised.
I think the missing ‘flag’, mentioned by Sundance, refers to the fact that the disc does not tell my TV to automatically switch to 1080i from 1080p as it should do.
Moving off topic, I wonder if I’m the only one here who still uses an old cathode ray tube television? It certainly makes image quality less of an issue. Pixilization or what not that would look terrible on a huge tv is often unnoticable at the old standard. Also, there’s no way I can afford one of those things.
Yes I own a CRT HD TV and it’s not old they still make them for people who don’t want the plasma, LCD, etc to burn out in 2 years. It is awesome but weighs about 100 pounds. no joke. How much do you think they cost Mortimer? I paid about $900 for it 4 years ago and it has been very good to me.
I paid $200 for my 21 inch CRT TV around 20 years ago and it still looks as good as it did when I first brought it home.
I’ve walked through electronics shops and seen prices over $3,000.00 and also heard about having to pay several hundred dollars to get the thing professionally mounted to the wall. Maybe the prices are much lower now.
My 21 inch seemed huge when I bought it. When I was a kid we had a little b&w TV and later had one of those huge 19 inch console TVs which was pretty much the standard at the time.
My dad has a large screen TV and the few times I’ve watched it with him I thought non-HD stuff looked awful on it. Looked like peoples noses were dripping off their faces, lots of huge pixels. My fear is this is representative of how these things look in real use.
Sorry to have strayed so far off topic. I understand other people love their widescreen TVs.
Only got a colour T.V in 1993. Black and White suited me fine. Even to this day I have very little colour in my T.V and tend to have it a little on the darker side as have bad eyes and colour blind in certain colours.
Alternatively, maybe it is because the refresh rate on my TV is only 60Hz so the 1080i compensates for this. However, I had thought that the difference between 60 and 120Hz was barely noticeable even on the most image intense blu-ray discs. Quite frankly I’m not hugely savvy when it comes to such technical issues as this.
I just tried out my FAFDM DVD and maybe it was slightly more jerky on 1080p than 1080i but it wasn’t that noticeable. On some scenes of MNIN it is very noticeable however.
I tried my copy of the German FAFDM disc on 2 different DVD players and 2 different TV’s—and it looked perfect.
However, if I play it on my PC, there is some very slight jerky movement noticeable; but, not as much as I have seen with some other discs I have attempted to play via my PC (and not as much as is seen in the screencaps shown here).
I guess it is a good thing, in this case, that I don’t like to watch movies on my PC!
Not quite. The disc is actually progressive (I haven’t verified this but according to others) to achieve the best possible quality. So it should show the full frame in progressive screens like computer monitors (and all the new HD TVs?) and interlaced screens should be able to play it fine as well (not quite as fine but almost… because of the way they work they split the image in two fields that very slightly follow each other). But they didn’t include the flag that tells the player that the material is progressive… so the player doesn’t know how to play it and as a result might play it however it feels like… in your case as interlaced and so you need your screen in interlaced mode.
So with your HD TV in 1080p it should look flawless, but it doesn’t because of either the TV or player (I’m not actually sure anymore which it is… perhaps it is a combination of both… the player doesn’t know how to play it and acts like it were interlaced and since the screen is progressive it doesn’t work well…). I suppose changing into interlaced mode solves it (don’t know if all new TVs have this option, perhaps they have) but the best looking image would be progressive on progressive which may not be possible at all with this disc? I wonder how most players out there choose to play the disc… because I guess they could choose interlaced (which it isn’t supposed to be) but it works with most because their TVs are old enough.
Anyways, I’ll admit I have lots of other titles that look at least almost as bad, because they are in fact interlaced. But that is basically what I expected of them and there apparently was nothing the companies releasing those could do. But these Paramount discs were supposed to look great and they could have fixed this issue at least after it came up with the Nobody discs, but they did not. I suppose to minority was too minor to care about.
[quote=“Sundance, post:174, topic:327”]Not quite. The disc is actually progressive (I haven’t verified this but according to others) to achieve the best possible quality. So it should show the full frame in progressive screens like computer monitors (and all the new HD TVs?) and interlaced screens should be able to play it fine as well (not quite as fine but almost… because of the way they work they split the image in two fields that very slightly follow each other). But they didn’t include the flag that tells the player that the material is progressive… so the player doesn’t know how to play it and as a result might play it however it feels like… in your case as interlaced and so you need your screen in interlaced mode.
So with your HD TV in 1080p it should look flawless, but it doesn’t because of either the TV or player (I’m not actually sure anymore which it is… perhaps it is a combination of both… the player doesn’t know how to play it and acts like it were interlaced and since the screen is progressive it doesn’t work well…). I suppose changing into interlaced mode solves it (don’t know if all new TVs have this option, perhaps they have) but the best looking image would be progressive on progressive which may not be possible at all with this disc? I wonder how most players out there choose to play the disc… because I guess they could choose interlaced (which it isn’t supposed to be) but it works with most because their TVs are old enough.
Anyways, I’ll admit I have lots of other titles that look at least almost as bad, because they are in fact interlaced. But that is basically what I expected of them and there apparently was nothing the companies releasing those could do. But these Paramount discs were supposed to look great and they could have fixed this issue at least after it came up with the Nobody discs, but they did not. I suppose to minority was too minor to care about.[/quote]
Ah, makes sense. Well I’m pretty happy with the lovely image I get for both on my TV so I guess I’m one of the lucky ones (actually I noticed the 1080p and 1080i settings are on the DVD player rather than the TV itself and with FAFDM it made little difference to an already good picture - both play perfectly on my laptop too which has a beyond HD resolution of 1920x1200 and was bought in October 2004 if you can believe that!)
[Edit: I think this was due to poor PAL - NTSC conversion by my player than anything wrong with the disc per se]
So what do you think of Alex Cox’s weird interpetation about the flashbacks? That it is actually LVC himself who is having incestic relationship with his sister and got shot by Volonte but survives afterwards to avenge. Cox justifies it with the fact that they both share same flashback which would not be possible if LVC was not around at the time.
[quote=“Col. Douglas Mortimer, post:179, topic:327”]Would seem like a plausible interpretation if only Peter Lee Lawrence actually looked like a young Van Cleef.[/quote]That’s what i think too. Cox says that in movies there’s a “rule” that flashback must have a connection with the person in question but I’m not that sure, maybe it’s more like movies evolved to that direction. For example, I just watched Forgotten Pistolero where Peter Martell’s character tells Leonard Mann about the past in flashback sequence but in that sequence Martell’s character is hardly seen.
I think it just a way of making movie, both characters have a history with the chiming watch but it’s more effective to see the same flashback than see two points of view about the same story.
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