Great news, I thought I'd heard that it would be out on Blu by year's end. Now I need to check and see if Warner's book packaging will fit into my Warner Hitchcock box so I can just replace my current SD-DVD version - I'm betting the books are too wide though.

Saw the new restoration earlier tonight; it looks great.

SD or Blu-ray?

I'm assuming he saw it in 4k. It premiered in Hollywood last night. Jameson is in the industry and probably got invited.

Yes, I saw the 4K projected.

According to the rep from Warners, the biggest challenge about the restoration was that the blue layer of the Eastmancolor original neg had faded severely. For most of the film they were able to go to the yellow record of the separations to correct the problem. They did run into some difficulty because one short reel of the seps was missing, and the seps contained non-final opticals, but they were able to come with workarounds.

Do the opticals look "poppy" as a result of this? The Red Shoes resto (from three strip) also seems to go a little soft on the big optical shots and sequences, particularly in the ballet. It's not major but just noticeable.

The opticals aren't perfect, but they look quite good and are not very "poppy."

I couldn't not order this.

Is everyone pleased with the cover art? It's probably not everyone's taste, but I think the packaging looks gorgeous with a capital GORGE:

It's fine. A little busy, but they could package it in a ketchup-stained Wendy's bag and I'd still buy it.

Review at the Beaver of the Blu-ray does not look like the stunning new resto + high def transfer that I expected. Really underwhelming.

Dent is this another case of the grabs vs the BD image , and "wait until we see the disc"?

I've put up a post on the Beaver listserv in which I mentioned in passing Warner's atrocious Blu/HD of Rio bravo which is a muddy, brown dark noisy mess - in short a miscalculation by the telecine people compared to the OK older (Eastman sourced) SD. But this is from an 8k fucking master. I am anxious to see it for myself.

I presume you've read the reviews of the ITV 39 Steps at Bluray com? Despite being a former adversary during the seomwhat heated HD/BD format war shriekfest her last year, I am frankly grateful to Mr Atanasov for such a bluntly negative review which cheerfully let me cancel my order and save 14 quid. That sort of rehashed inferior couldnt-givea-fuck product is real rubbish.

I don't really see the issue with it. Particularly the "crane" shot of the miniature set-piece - it looks much more grounded than the Willy Wonka-ish transfer on the current DVDs. More color saturation isn't necessarily a good thing.

This doesn't look right at all. The colors are muted, the contrast appears to have been wonked with, and the clarity difference is negligible.

I wonder how much this is inherent in the caps, and how much of it is far greater gamma in the source? I admit I am worried it might look anything like the atrocious Rio Bravo BD, but that seems highly unlikely...

Anyhow I've asked Gary to do a couple more grabs from the BD to display red - notably a shot from the rear seat cab scene with Grant and secretary sitting on the burgundy colored upholstery, and a grab from the wide shots of Saint, Mason and Landau at the auction, to display Eva's red and black dress.

I gather this has alreadys started shipping from dvd Pacific at least. Does anyone have a copy?

DVD Beaver review was updated with comments from the ListServ, the general consensus being that it actually looks more accurate than the previous DVD.

I have to agree with the comments on the DVDBeaver review. I saw a crisp 1.66:1 open matte print of the film at the County Theater in Doylestown, PA about a year ago, and I can anecdotally attest to the image of the Blu-Ray being far more accurate than the old DVD. I don't ever once recall the image being as saccharine as it was on that DVD - the film was far more centered around blues and steely greys than reds and oranges. It seems like Warner finally did the original color tones of the negative some justice.

The reduced resolution caps on DVD Beaver aren't doing the BD transfer any favors. Click on them and view them full size and you'll see they're pretty impressive. You can practically read the whole front page of The Evening Star (home delivery of the Daily and Sunday editions only $1.95 per month).

This may have been mentioned elsewhere but I love that Gary includes the screen cap where EMS is pointing the gun at CG, with the boy at the table, after one take too many, stuffing his ears before the gun goes off. My favorite film flub.

It may be a minor but I think an important point; you've read the review since he retracted his initial assertion that it *was* an upscaled SD transfer? I haven't seen the disc myself (and I'm always wary until I have), but others, while being critical, don't give it quite such a kicking.

Apologies for the OT comment.

EDIT: Screenshot comparison between the new The 39 Steps BD (top) and the Criterion SD (bottom) here; click on each image to view full size. No, it's not perfect (far from it) - but it appears to be a damn sight better than any SD version I've seen.

Now that I have the disc, I'm reluctantly going to label it a disappointment. A VistaVision film in full 1080p HD should look astounding, but this does not. In fact, it's nearly as much of a disappointment as The Searchers, Warner Bros. other available HD VistaVision transfer. Now, I'm not talking about the colors, which is simply a matter of balance. The crispness and clarity is simply not there in these transfers. Paramount's HD transfer of John Sturges' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a film shot one year after The Searchers and two years before N by NW, looks incredible, as if you could walk right into the picture (and I'm basing this on a recent 1080i HDNet Movies broadcast).

Though I am a fan of film grain, there is far too much of it visible on the two WB VistaVision transfers, and the way it is dealt with makes it look more like noise in some shots than film grain. WB claims that they went back to the VistaVision elements (and scanned them in 8K) to make these transfers, but the results look like they used 35mm reduction elements.

There is a slight fog over the image in N by NW (reminiscent of the 1970s technique of "flashing" the negative) which I doubt was a stylistic cinematographic choice, and it affects the saturation of color and the overall sharpness and contrast of the image. This is without a doubt the best available home video version of N by NW, and the image displays a lot of previously-unseen detail (poor Cary Grant shows every one of his 55 years, and maybe a few more), but I really think it could have been much better.

Interesting comments Matt. By their nature 35mm reduction prints should look even sharper than 6 perf horizontal Vistavision exposure. My copy only shipped last Monday so I have a few days to wait before I can blow it through the PJ, but I am worried by a tendency in some Warner titles to rebalance over to blue against red. The Searchers issue was entirely, as you say a matter of color balance with Ned Price et al being confronted with a dead yellow layer and the need to re color time and make judgment calls on palette. Whatever feelings I have about the color (and again I far prefer the original SD) the image is otherwise meticulously detailed and sharp and clean.

I always thought the Lowry SD of NBNW was a knockout, and I can testify to seeing this movie in 35mm IB literally dozens of times - my first screening in 1962. It always - ALWAYS - looked a knockout. The only issues of softness should arise from some of the Grant/Eva M-S CUs (like the first train compartment scene) in which Burks seems to have used filters for soft lighting effect. Otherwise the landscapes etc should be razor sharp.

This arrived last night.

I think it's appropriate to begin with a metaphor from bread baking. When the dough is overworked the bread falls flat.

That's pretty well how I feel about this Blu Ray. It's been worked and worked and worked over to the point where it no longer looks like Technicolor, nor does it look anything like Vistavision. In the process of "fixing" the blue layer problem on the negative the new master seems to have taken on a thick gray undercoat and the image has absolutely no pop, or snap. Colors simply exist within a field of gray scale. Worse still gamma and/or contrast are now so levelled that the image has absolutely no depth, there is no sense of distinction between background and foreground, and even Robert Burks' frequently filtered shots of Grant, or Grant and Saint together appear no more or less distinct than the rest of the picture. The Auction Room sequence is a perfect demsontration piece for the problems that bury this disc - the meticulous lighting of the set is indistinct, there's no feeling of forergound let alone the near three dimensionality that Vistavision could deliver, and the beautiful silk red and Black dress worn by Saint in this scene, which should jump out and grab you from the screen has absolutely no vibrancy whatsoever. As I chapter hopped and watched more and more the depressing realization fell upon me that this is what the people at Warners now think is good, this is what they thnk people want.

The image is frankly so unattractive I will never watch the disc again. Keep your old SDs and revel in the Lowry "version" - Lowry obviously worked from an IB answer print and his telecine is one of the first and still one of the best representations of Technicolor and Vistavision, which was the Rolls Royce of high rez screen formats - ever. For more very fine Vistavision titles - Paramount's Martin and Lewis titles in that format, L'il Abner, Funny face, To Catch a Thief in which Grant wears the same ultra amber tan makeup as NbNW but in which it looks like a Technicolor tan. Not the gray-brown pallor it takes on here. During the sequence in hospital in which Cary is incarcerated by Leo G Carroll after his fake "shooting, his face takes on the pallid, dark appearance of somone who just died. Which is pretty well how I was feeling at this point of the viewing.

The Blu Ray version is rubbish.

And I was beginning to wonder why just about every one else was raving about this turd... Nail on the head. Very disappointing (even on my teeny 60" screen).

Well you, Matt and I seem to be lone voices on this.

It really is depressing.