39 Steps

[IAN P]

Anyone who was looking forward to this, which imo is the best film version, are going to be disappointed. A very bad picture by all accounts. Maybe like the guy said he got a duff disc.

Review here.

Blu-ray.com - The 39 Steps Blu-ray Review

[williamtassone]

cancelled mine

[pRot3us]

I do hope not

I'll wait till a proper site reviews it first though.

[Pecker]

That's a great shame.

I hope it's just a mistake.

Steve W

[Paku]

To be honest I was quite surprised, and I don't know if I should really trust the review. Certainly this is no Casablanca, but 1.5? That seems particularly harsh since this reviewer has been giving out 4.5 and 5's left and right.

Pictures can obviously not tell the whole story, but just looking at them it doesn't seem any worse than the Movietone version of Sunrise (see the last five captures here) and that got a 5 for video. The score was perhaps mostly for the version from the Czech print, but the reviewer raved about the Movietone version as well.

[richard_t]

Was looking forward to this too. Thankfully I'd not ordered it online anywhere but was just planning on picking it up from a shop on release day.

Fingers crossed.

[richard_t]

DVDBeaver review here...

The 39 Steps - Blu-ray

Not as good as it should have been but the best version out there apparently. That's good enough for me...will pick up a copy on the way home.

[irascian]

Very disappointed with this. The sort of disc that encourages those silly "There's no point in putting old films on Blu-Ray posts". This is NOTHING like "Casablanca" or "Brief Encounter" on Blu-Ray. More like putting a VHS on Blu-Ray.

I honestly can't see why they bothered with putting this title out on an HD format other than to rip off gullible fans. Dreadful contrast. Lots of debris. Awful soft image. Dreadful distorted sound. If you have the DVD just watch that. If you don't - buy that instead - it's MUCH cheaper and the experience won't be any different.

[IAN P]

Doesn't look good on the Beaver site does it? Shame.


I'll wait until a hits a fiver.

[richard_t]

Serious question, but what were people actually expecting from this?

It's a 1080p transfer of a 75 year old film. Regardless of any restoration, it was never going to sell more than a couple of thousand copies and a good proportion of those sales will be to people who buy it on the cheap sometime later. Did you really expect ITV to plow whatever it would cost into a full restoration and lose themselves a boat load of money for their trouble.

The fact is that we've got what's considered by the most reliable comparison site out there, to be the best home version of the film. Had it been no better than the DVD or worse the fair enough I wouldn't have bought it, but it's better.

ITV have done some absolutely sterling work when it comes to releasing classic films and so if they or Criterion can't provide a better print then I'm happy that this is probably going to be as good as it gets. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself from owning the best available version of the film especially since I've got no idea if it can be bettered in the future. On the off chance that a better version does come along then I'll buy that for the collection too, just like I would with any title that I'm interested in. It's only £15 and I was never under the impression that this film collecting lark could be done on the cheap.

[John Hodson]

Originally Posted by richard_t

Serious question, but what were people actually expecting from this?

It's a 1080p transfer of a 75 year old film. Regardless of any restoration, it was never going to sell more than a couple of thousand copies and a good proportion of those sales will be to people who buy it on the cheap sometime later. Did you really expect ITV to plow whatever it would cost into a full restoration and lose themselves a boat load of money for their trouble.

The fact is that we've got what's considered by the most reliable comparison site out there, to be the best home version of the film. Had it been no better than the DVD or worse the fair enough I wouldn't have bought it, but it's better.

ITV have done some absolutely sterling work when it comes to releasing classic films and so if they or Criterion can't provide a better print then I'm happy that this is probably going to be as good as it gets. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself from owning the best available version of the film especially since I've got no idea if it can be bettered in the future. On the off chance that a better version does come along then I'll buy that for the collection too, just like I would with any title that I'm interested in. It's only £15 and I was never under the impression that this film collecting lark could be done on the cheap.

Hear, hear...

I do know for a fact that restoration work - removing dust and debris, tramlines etc., - was in fact carried out (despite claims to the contrary), but you can argue until the cows come home about how much work was carried out (it's never enough), and the quality thereof. I think simple economies of scale kept ITV Global from going that extra mile, just has it always has basically (with a handful of honourable exceptions). I was quite angry with the first iteration of the Blu-ray.com review, and the spurious (subsequently corrected) claim that this was an SD upscale. It seemed to me, not only incorrect, but irresponsible.

Criterion will no doubt better this at some point, but you know what materials they'll use as a start point? The same that ITV, as owners of the Rank/Gaumont catalogue, have...

BTW, these screencaps give a better picture I think; click on them to view them full size.

[irascian]

Originally Posted by richard_t

Serious question, but what were people actually expecting from this?

It's a 1080p transfer of a 75 year old film. Regardless of any restoration, it was never going to sell more than a couple of thousand copies and a good proportion of those sales will be to people who buy it on the cheap sometime later. Did you really expect ITV to plow whatever it would cost into a full restoration and lose themselves a boat load of money for their trouble.

The fact is that we've got what's considered by the most reliable comparison site out there, to be the best home version of the film. Had it been no better than the DVD or worse the fair enough I wouldn't have bought it, but it's better.

ITV have done some absolutely sterling work when it comes to releasing classic films and so if they or Criterion can't provide a better print then I'm happy that this is probably going to be as good as it gets. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself from owning the best available version of the film especially since I've got no idea if it can be bettered in the future. On the off chance that a better version does come along then I'll buy that for the collection too, just like I would with any title that I'm interested in. It's only £15 and I was never under the impression that this film collecting lark could be done on the cheap.

What do I expect? If the BFI can put out titles (4 or 5 a month!) with FAR less popularity than a Hitchcock classic and do so with pristine restoration then I expect the same sort of quality and attention when they have a genuine classic to release.

The fact is they've done nothing to clean up the print, nothing to correct the appaling contrast. They've just cashed in on the reputation of earlier titles where they did put out titles that justified the HD title.

The reality is this title should not have been released on an HD format. It's a cheap attempt to cash in on the gullible public. Rather like the early days of CD where one or two rip-off companies released a title and actually hear a needle being put on the vinyl recording used as the master!

[John Hodson]

You've watched your copy? Have you compared yours to an earlier SD transfer to actually ascertain that they've done 'nothing to clean up the print'?

Genuine question; I'm interested in a 'real world' view.

[irascian]

I actually only saw the film for the first time a few months ago - on standard DVD, but as a rental from LoveFilm. I gave up on the Blu-Ray after about half an hour because I didn't want to watch the thing all over again with such bad quality.

So, alas there's no side-by-side comparison (doesn't the DVD Beaver site give you that?). All I CAN say is that the picture on so-called HD Blu-Ray was as disappointing to me as the original DVD had been and my initial thought was "Christ. They haven't even taken the dust off the print". It's soft, the contrast is dreadful and there's crap all over the film.

I've not been this disappointed since the "special edition" of "The Killing Fields" which boasted a "digital restoration" that comprised leaving all the crap and debris on the film.

I come back to my original point: If the BFI can clean minor, obscure stuff up so that it looks like it was shot yesterday I don't understand how/why the bigger companies can't do the same. And to claim they've undertaken some sort of restoration, or that a poor quality master is somehow worth rushing onto HD when the evidence is all to the contrary is, at best "misleading" and at worst "deliberate attempt to extort money from gullible punters".

[John Hodson]

Originally Posted by irascian

I come back to my original point: If the BFI can clean minor, obscure stuff up so that it looks like it was shot yesterday I don't understand how/why the bigger companies can't do the same. And to claim they've undertaken some sort of restoration, or that a poor quality master is somehow worth rushing onto HD when the evidence is all to the contrary is, at best "misleading" and at worst "deliberate attempt to extort money from gullible punters".

I can't tell you why it looks as it does, I can only guess, and whilst I make absolutely no attempt to condone what is apparently a cut-price, ham-fisted and quite slap dash attempt, I can tell you with that 'some sort of restoration' was indeed undertaken. It might be ****-poor - I haven't got this disc, and the evidence as I see it suggests hanging on for a better version - but I know that for a fact. Certainly I'm misleading no-one here, or have I misread your - with the deepest respect - slightly hysterical accusation?

ITV DVD has turned out a disc which is better than their previous attempts, better than the plethora of PD abominations out there, but poorer in many respects to the now quite aging SD transfer from Criterion, based on the very same quite tired materials. Those, it seems, are further facts.

Comparing ITV DVD to the BFI, or indeed Criterion - and, as good as they have been of late, not everything the BFI has turned out has been wonderful - is a non-argument. They are different organisations with vastly different priorities.