Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[peerpee]

Whenever I had to deal directly with telecine and transfer houses, I'd typically be anal to the point of making Viz's Mr Logic seem casually lackadaisical in terms of specifying exactly what I wanted the end result to look like. Not least because if I had to ask them to do it again, I'd have written evidence that they didn't follow my original instructions.

Yes, leaving a papertrail is a very necessary part of the job!

Annoyingly, sometimes I'd find mistakes that I hadn't anticipated - for instance, I really should have flagged up in advance that Cottage to Let has a flash of red, because the telecine house presumably thought that since it was a black and white film, they'd set everything to greyscale from the start. Unsurprisingly, they weren't prepared to do it again for the sake of a single frame - at least not at their expense - so I had to wait until BFI DVD Publishing remastered it properly for DVD and then borrow their master.

Desaturating an encode for a b+w film is quite a diligent thing to do - shame it backfired in this instance! (Really unlucky though).

[TMDaines]

Yep - I do wonder if Artificial Eye should be slightly less rigorous with their pricing, anybody who's vaguely money conscious waits.

Exactly. If there's one label whose prices you can't grumble over its Artificial Eye. I've paid less than £7 for all of theirs that I have. I just picked up Angels of Evil last week for example after it fell after being at above £10 since release. All you have to do is wait 6 months and as sure as the sun will rise, their prices fall.

[Michael Kerpan]

the turquoise colour from the AE banner on the label has leaked right through the disc, causing it to freeze....

Can you actually see this on the playing side? If so, wow....

[manicsounds]

Considering I paid £29 for the Mizoguchi set, which comes to less than £8 per title, it's still a bargain. The DVD set is just priced way too cheap, that's all.

[Jonathan S]

the turquoise colour from the AE banner on the label has leaked right through the disc, causing it to freeze....

Can you actually see this on the playing side? If so, wow....

Yes - not the whole banner, but there's a blue blob on the playing side, exactly on the other side of where the banner appears on the label. (This feeds into my general concerns about long-term deterioration from label ink - I've already had DVDs go bad due to contact with packaging ink.)

With the manufacturing scratches on other discs too, it looks to me like a sloppy factory job, and I wouldn't be surprised if more sets are affected. I think I'll just get a refund and maybe get the Blu-rays if they come down to the same price (though I find Blu-rays inconvenient to watch on my current equipment). Of course, the disc that freezes (Utamaro) is the one film I don't already own and have never seen!

[Peacock]

I'm surprised so many people are waiting for the Blu-ray's to fall in price... you're getting 4 Mizo films in HD, two of which have no english subbed releases (and one of those is often called his masterpiece) for £35. Normally I too would wait for the price to drop but still around £9 per disk is pretty good considering the films we are talking about!

[triodelover]

I'm surprised so many people are waiting for the Blu-ray's to fall in price... you're getting 4 Mizo films in HD, two of which have no english subbed releases (and one of those is often called his masterpiece) for £35. Normally I too would wait for the price to drop but still around £9 per disk is pretty good considering the films we are talking about!

Less that 30 quid if you're outside the EU. That's less that US$11.50 per film and they don't have the formatting issues. I admit it. I'm a spoiled child who thrives on instant gratification. My set is in transit.

[matrixschmatrix]

I've got a kevyip hundreds of titles long, if there's going to be a price drop I can wait for it. Besides, I want to see if anyone else has Mizo blus planned before I buy any.

[MichaelB]

Yes, my own kevyip is the reason I'm not in any hurry. And now that I can play Region A, I might as well check out the competition - though I ended up favouring Artificial Eye's Certified Copy in the end. (I know the Criterion has a bonus feature, but you pay through the nose for it).

[Jonathan S]

I'm surprised so many people are waiting for the Blu-ray's to fall in price... you're getting 4 Mizo films in HD, two of which have no english subbed releases (and one of those is often called his masterpiece) for £35. Normally I too would wait for the price to drop but still around £9 per disk is pretty good considering the films we are talking about!

In my case it's only because it will probably be several years before I can watch them in HD, and at this point would have preferred the DVDs anyway as I find them more convenient. Plus I already have three of them in English-subbed editions, though Story of the Late Chrysanthemums is from a UK TV broadcast.

[Calvin]

I would normally wait until it drops in price (though I'm not certain this will) but I kind I feel that I have to buy it around the time of release. I don't see many companies putting out Blu-Rays for this type of material and in order to make sure they'll release more, it makes sense to buy it at the current price.

[peerpee]

I would normally wait until it drops in price (though I'm not certain this will) but I kind I feel that I have to buy it around the time of release. I don't see many companies putting out Blu-Rays for this type of material and in order to make sure they'll release more, it makes sense to buy it at the current price.

You're absolutely right, Calvin. These edgy Blu-ray releases need all of our support from the off, if we want to see more (and I know I do!) -- Future Blu-ray titles are being planned NOW based on sales of this set.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

My Blu set dropped through the box today and a preliminary gander revealed no quality issues. Tonight Sushi, Sapporo and Last Chrysanths.

[RossyG]

I would normally wait until it drops in price (though I'm not certain this will) but I kind I feel that I have to buy it around the time of release. I don't see many companies putting out Blu-Rays for this type of material and in order to make sure they'll release more, it makes sense to buy it at the current price.

Yes, I've started pre-ordering Artificial Eye blu-rays, rather than play my usual waiting game, for those very reasons. I do the same with BFI, Masters of Cinema and now Studio Canal Hammer Films, although their price drops are never as spectacular.

[feckless boy]

Some screencaps of the blu-ray edition of The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (The Mizoguchi Collection).

First a comparison of the MK2 dvd and the AE BD (the latter resized of course)



Some random grabs resized to 720p.






In motion the blu-ray is a significant improvement over the French dvd.

Link to a zip-file with the grabs in full HD.
(Software used: AnyDVD HD, DGDecNV and XnView)

[Peacock]

Nice caps.


For those waiting to see if a US release will come and improve on these... I really wouldn't count on it. The first two titles are tied up in an Eclipse and the other two no doubt will end up in another Eclipse set. Criterion own the rights to all (or most) surviving Mizoguchi titles so anything which they put in the mainline will have to survive in decent quality... (even then Street of Shame has been Eclipse'd).. so if they're working on Oharu like several of us believe... and perhaps Chikamatsu and very likely 47 Ronin... well I can't see much else getting a mainline. So basically this isn't a case like Certified Copy as that film is new, in great condition, has a well known cast and badly wanted by some American cinephiles.

I sadly doubt if Peter Becker had said "The Straits of Love and Hate is minor Mizoguchi" that there would be more than 10 of us who would complain.

[AidanKing]

I also e-mailed Artificial Eye and received the following reply:

Thank you for your email regarding the aspect ratio presented on the Mizoguchi Collection DVD. Unfortunately the HD masters for these films were supplied as 16x9 pillarboxed from the Japanese studio where the transfer was overseen. Our distribution agreement prevented us from removing the bars or altering the masters in anyway and so had to be released in the format provided. I apologize if this has spoilt your enjoyment of these films. If the image format is too unacceptable, i advise you to return the set from wherever purchased, stating your unhappiness, for a full refund.

Best Wishes,

Richard Mortiboys

I suppose it's better to have these films released in this way than not at all and it seems as if Artificial Eye won't be applying this formatting to future discs as a matter of course.

[Finch]

(comments relate to the Blu) Just to second Calvin's and Nick's assertion that this is one of those releases you really ought to support from Day One instead of waiting for the eventual price reduction: I gave Last Chrysanthemums a spin just now and was really happy with the A/V, with a mostly very stable image and fine grain and detail especially in the interior shots (noticed a couple of frames missing in the train sequence and contrast fluctuations in a few nighttime shots but nothing too distracting). Subtitles are concise and thankfully with no spelling mistakes. I'd never seen Chrysanthemums before and it was quite a revelation: by film's end, I was moved to tears. Mizoguchi's compassion for his characters and his exquisite camera movements never cease to amaze and stir me. Looking forward to my first viewing of Utomaro and revisiting Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion. With this set and the 2 Mizoguchi upgrades from MoC next month, it's a wonderful time to be a Mizoguchi worshipper.

(Nick, I hope Ugetsu and Sansho sell well enough to make BR upgrades of Chikamatsu Monogatari and Streets of Shame financially feasible).

[Michael Kerpan]

The Mizoguchi DVDs seem to work (and look) fine on my system. The Tale of Late Chrysanthemums looks the best I've ever seen.

[peerpee]

That's a valiant attempt by Richard to say their hands were tied - but I find it very hard to believe that any distribution agreement has ever stipulated that a 1.33:1 film presented as 1.33:1 within a 16:9 HD master has to be rendered on DVD as an anamorphic 16:9 encode. It's not altering the film in any way to render it 1.33:1 non-anamorphic on DVD.

If anything, it's a lazy authoring house balls-up that's just too subtle to be fatal. My guess is that the afflicted StudioCanal Ealing DVDs were the same sort of thing too.

Michael, how large is your display - and do you wear glasses? -- I've just started wearing glasses (thanks to Blu-rays making me squint to see better detail) and I find that folk who can't see the difference between DVD and Blu-ray are either watching a 32" or need glasses! (Blu-rays really start to cook on a 40", and obviously look better the larger you go)

[Michael Kerpan]

peerpee --

50 inch plasma (Samsung) -- and I wear glasses but they no longer fully correct my vision (and nothing can be done about it). ;~{

[Oedipax]

Won't people who own 4x3 sets see the films in the center section of a letterboxed 16x9 frame? That's just silly.

[MichaelB]

Won't people who own 4x3 sets see the films in the center section of a letterboxed 16x9 frame? That's just silly.

Yes - I watched Optimum's withdrawn Napoléon on a 43" 4:3 rear-projection television that couldn't zoom the picture. It wasn't a pretty sight.

[TMDaines]

Michael, how large is your display - and do you wear glasses? -- I've just started wearing glasses (thanks to Blu-rays making me squint to see better detail) and I find that folk who can't see the difference between DVD and Blu-ray are either watching a 32" or need glasses! (Blu-rays really start to cook on a 40", and obviously look better the larger you go)

Are we referring to this title in particular? You must have pretty bad eyesight if you can't see the difference until a 32"! My monitor at uni is only a paltry 22" and it's still extremely noticeable in general.

[Calvin]

I was one of the few hundred of us from this place whose paid the 35 quid etc.

If you paid £35 for the DVD then you got ripped off!