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Topic: The DCP for American Beauty was dreadful

Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-28-2013 12:01 AM

I just saw it as part of the Cinemark Classics series. The thing looked like an edge enhanced and sharpened Blu-ray that was blown up with a very weak audio mix. I saw this in 35mm a couple times in the same cinema (well one house over but roughly the same size) and it was glorious as I remember it, including the sound.

Anyone else catch this or have you run the DCP? It was great to see this again with an audience but wow, it was also very disappointing to see it with such a dreadful transfer.

It really did feel like video and not film. Too bad.

AJG

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 03-28-2013 02:31 AM

Sadly, some of these repertory DCPs are sourced from the master used for the blu-ray. You can probably chalk up the poor audio to one of those spectacular near-field mixes too. [Razz]

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-28-2013 08:26 AM

American Beauty is one of those movies that had a noticeably flawed video transfer on Blu-ray -one bad enough to warrant a re-do like Dreamworks did with the Gladiator Blu-ray. Unfortunately American Beauty wasn't as big a hit as Gladiator so a re-do of the Blu-ray may never end up being done. It's a shame too. Any movie that wins an Oscar for cinematography ought to have a top tier transfer.

IIRC, Dreamworks also did a 2nd pressing of the Saving Private Ryan Blu-ray to solve an audio problem.

IMHO, movie studios should not be using video encodes for Blu-ray disc as a source for repertory DCPs. At least I hope that's not what they're doing. The DCI spec has some pretty important rules in how JPEG 2000 DCPs should be encoded. Video streams in AVC and VC1 break many of those rules in order to reduce file sizes. If you take a video stream from an already compressed video encode for Blu-ray and re-encode that again for JPEG 2000 DCP format the end result may actually end up looking worse than the Blu-ray. And the American Beauty Blu-ray is already compromised on its own.

DCPs should only be encoded from the highest quality master available. For Hollywood movies that's usually going to be a 2K or 4K uncompressed video master.

If the tech guys doing the video master go nuts with artificial sharpening and noise reduction it won't matter if the master is uncompressed and the DCP is running at a high bit rate. The end results are still going to look bad.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-28-2013 10:16 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Video streams in AVC and VC1 break many of those rules in order to reduce file sizes.

From my notes on 2001: A Space Odyssey DCP

quote:
77GB total for both parts

It didn't look nearly as good as it could have. Rumor is this was a glorified Bluray.

2001 DCP - General discussion thread

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-28-2013 11:52 AM

I popped the Blu-ray in when I got home. Yup. I'd say it was the same transfer. Let's hope Paramount had a great DCP for the Godfather in 2 weeks. I'd guess they will: the Blu-ray is stunning.

The Sound of Music DCP on this series was also a sight to behold.

AJG

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-28-2013 01:04 PM

77GB is pretty small compared to most DCPs, especially for any movies that are well over 2 hours in duration. But 77GB wouldn't fit on a BD-50 disc. Warner Bros. is known for making DCPs much smaller in file size compared to other studios. The video encodes on their Blu-ray discs are often comparably smaller than movies of similar length from other studios. WB just loves compressing the hell out of everything, even when they have more than enough disc capacity to avoid doing so. IIRC the Blu-ray of 2001 has basically the same VC-1 video encode used on the 30GB HD-DVD.

quote: Aaron Garman
Let's hope Paramount had a great DCP for the Godfather in 2 weeks. I'd guess they will: the Blu-ray is stunning.

Didn't The Godfather trilogy get a 4K treatment in its digital restoration? Is the DCP 4K?

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-28-2013 03:51 PM

I hope it's a 4K DCP. I saw a print from that restoration that was absolutely amazing.

AJG

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Jock Blakley
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 218
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Oct 2011

posted 03-28-2013 10:19 PM

Paramount won't let us have the restored print of THE GODFATHER now they've got a DCP. From memory it is 4K, but I never saw it on screen.

I've lost count of the bad Blu-Ray masters that we've received as DCPs. JURRASSIC PARK was pretty poor, as was THE BLUES BROTHERS - especially considering that was 1920x1080 and only had L/R sound... that drifted in and out of sync.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-28-2013 11:14 PM

quote: Jock Blakley
THE BLUES BROTHERS - especially considering that was 1920x1080 and only had L/R sound... that drifted in and out of sync.

But F said the studios REALLY CARE!

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-29-2013 09:46 AM

Y'know, this "DCP from a bad Blu-ray master" thing has me a little confused. What are the properties of the "master" source from which the bad DCP is derived?

Is the bad DCP source an uncompressed 2K video master? Modern movies have their DCPs and Blu-ray encodes sourced from the same master files produced from the digital intermediate. In the case of a repertory movie that pre-dated DI use, such as American Beauty, the HD video master could be something originally intended for DVD authoring. An older HD master with some telecine wobble, dust, specks and other issues was a good enough source for anamorphic DVD and low bit rate HD on cable. Such masters are not good enough for Blu-ray and big monitors with native HD resolution. And they're sure as hell not good enough for d-cinema. A modern film scan and digital intermediate treatment process is required.

Is the bad DCP source an already compressed AVC/VC1 1080p/24 video stream trans-coded over into JPEG 2000 format and slightly blown up to 2K? If this is the case someone just needs to hook up a Blu-ray player to the d-cinema system and play the damned Blu-ray disc. I really hope this scenario is not happening at all. Converting an already compressed video stream into another compressed video stream is only going to be stupid. Because you know what you get when you pile some shit on top of some other shit? You get even more shit. This scenario reminds me of the idiots who send me low resolution JPEG images for large format printing jobs and then artificially up-rez it in Photoshop (and save it as JPEG again) when I ask for something better. Just playing the Blu-ray disc would reduce the shit quotient down to a more modest level.

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Bajsic Bojan
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 190
From: Ljubljana, Si, Eu
Registered: Aug 2008

posted 03-29-2013 11:57 AM

Sadly, i would say that is the most common practice. Same source for Bluray, which they make worse (some claim it is better after the 1920->2048 conversion) by reencoding again (sometimes reencoding in 1920x1080).

When we get bluray (i dont like the format that much, the media is crap, the players also), i will if possible, rip it, demux, repack to mpeg mxf without reencoding. A server version is still much more reliable than a flimsy dust specked disk. (or just use a 100$ media player to do the job if in a hurry)

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-29-2013 12:44 PM

So, the industry was lying to us when they said digital will be an improved viewing experience? [evil]

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-29-2013 02:58 PM

quote: Bajsic Bojan
Sadly, i would say that is the most common practice. Same source for Bluray, which they make worse (some claim it is better after the 1920->2048 conversion) by reencoding again (sometimes reencoding in 1920x1080).

That's not really answering the question. If the DCP is only using the same uncompressed HD master source that was also used to encode video for Blu-ray then that doesn't make the DCP a "bad Blu-ray DCP." The Blu-ray format wouldn't have anything to do with it. The fault of the DCP being bad would either point to the uncompressed video master itself being faulty and/or the way the DCP was encoded being faulty. Blu-ray wouldn't have anything to do with it.

The only way Blu-ray would figure into the equation is if someone took the especially stupid leap of copying an already severely lossy compressed AVC/VC1 format video file made specifically for Blu-ray disc and then transcoded that compressed video file into JPEG 2000 for DCP use. Turning a Blu-ray video file into a DCP video file would gain absolutely nothing and actually make the resulting faked DCP look even worse than the Blu-ray. It's taking an already severely compressed video stream and compressing it again. Like I said, if this shit is happening it would be far better to play the retail Blu-ray disc than the even worse quality DCP that was derived directly from it. It doesn't matter how big you make the bit rate of that DCP. The extra bits won't restore any native imagery lost in the initial lossy encode step creating video files for Blu-ray. The combination of how the JPEG2000 format works and DCI rules on DCP authoring would greatly limit what could be done with encoding that Blu-ray derived DCP from hiding compression flaws. There are plenty of tools at the disposal of video authors to make 1080p/24 video in AVC and VC1 look good at low bit rates. There is not nearly as much latitude when making a JPEG2000 DCP.

I wouldn't put it past someone to commit such an act of digital stupidity. I see it all the damn time in graphics work. People will take a lower resolution JPEG image and try to fake it into being a high-res image. Oh you prefer lossless compressed TIFFs or Photoshop images? Well I'll just uprez this JPEG to a bigger size and save it as a TIFF or PSD!.

I would be appalled if this same kind of shit was happening on the movie distribution level. If it is some people need to be fired over it. It's bush league, bottom of the barrel quality standards of practice. Not professional at all.

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Bajsic Bojan
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 190
From: Ljubljana, Si, Eu
Registered: Aug 2008

posted 03-29-2013 05:02 PM

A) That is what i am saying. It happens that the DCP is a direct rip of the already encoded mpeg2 or similarly lossy file. Isn't that great [Smile]

And yes, the resulting 'DCP' then looks worse than the 'original' bluray file as it is aditionally resized and reencoded.

B) There are no "DCI Authoring rules" on video standards, so free for all. You can make a REAL DCP from a VHS source.

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Jock Blakley
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 218
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Oct 2011

posted 03-29-2013 07:19 PM

quote: Bajsic Bojan
There are no "DCI Authoring rules" on video standards, so free for all. You can make a REAL DCP from a VHS source.

Or you could even scour YouTube to find somebody's fan-made trailer to a film you're re-releasing, complete with their website's URL at the end, then you could download it at 320p, then you can make a DCP of it and send it out!

A distributor actually did that to us last week.

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