MovieChat Forums > Fire and Ice (1983) Discussion > Blue Undergrounds Transfer

Blue Undergrounds Transfer

posted 19 years ago by viddywell_78
19 replies | jump to latest

I finally recieved this DVD with baited breath last week.Blue Underground always do a stellar job with their DVD releases...Usually!! Whilst i thought the Packaging,The Extras and the DTS 6.1 soundtrack were more then anyone could ask for,I was quite let down by the quality of the picture transfer.I would honestly have to say that i haven't seen so many picture artifacts present in a DVD before.It was the first time this issue has almost singlehandedly distracted me from watching a film.The local No-name release here in Australia that has been available for the last three years for under $10 i am sorry to say was a much better rendition.

Whilst of course i will be keeping this in my collection,I just wanted to ask any others if they also wondered why the transfer was not up to ordinary Blue Underground's Standards?.Source material issues and age of prints does not come into factor here in relevance to my previous statement regarding my local release..

Any feedback??

[–] videohouse 19 years ago

I have to say that I agree with you!

After Bill Lustig of Blue Underground mentioned the hold up was due to removing the dirt and scratches from the print and cels, I was looking forward to a very good transfer.

After being spoilt with those found on Rock & Rule and even Starchaser (a steller transfer!), I was expecting much better from this Blue Underground release, given the reasons for the delay from late 2004 to summer 2005 and their usual reputation.

Bit of a big let down this time around - I'm tempted to look into the Australian edition for a better image, though one can't complain on Blue Underground's extras package - just a real shame about the movie!

[–] mattereaterlad 19 years ago

I disagree. It's fine. I believe most of it comes from Bakshi's dirty cels, which would be present in any print. Remember, it's shots of celluloid on celluloid. And it's Bakshi. It wasn't the cleansest of studios, I'm sure.

[–] viddywell_78 19 years ago

As i stated in another post,the australian budget release had far less visual flaws then this release so i dont think dirty cels and cleanliness?is the issue.Is that what you are stating?How do you associate that with Bakshi?? hmmm...

[–] kyjoe 19 years ago

Could it be that the Australian release used an already available transfer, but the BU release tried to clean up the original negative? If the negative was in bad shape (and they cleaned that up) that could account for some of the issues with the transfer.

[–] TromaFreak64 19 years ago

n fact that is exactly the reason for the difference

[–] ericmcclain 19 years ago

I agree. The tranfer for the Blue Underground DVD release was most likely from an Interpositve Print made from the original neg. (studios rarely release the "original neg" to anybody). This probably has more visible defects that the Australian release which was most likely from a print release which can appear to be cleaner but in fact just has less detail. The new transfer could probably have used more dirt fixing but I prefer to see as much of the orginal photography as possible (defects included).

[–] CoolestNameEver 19 years ago

I have no complaints.

Film recommendation >>>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] smenick-1 19 years ago

I'd have to say that I thought the transfer seemed very good. All the colors were vibrant and the lines were crisp. I would imagine watching it on a flatscreen HD TV would make the problems stand out more so, but in truth I didn't see and artifacts.

I'll have to watch more carefullly net time.

[–] halfelven84 19 years ago

I sure can't complain much. The only other way I owned this DVD was a previous copy of a copy of a copy that I bought at a comic book store. Compared to other transfers, this one was pretty good. If you want a transfer to complain about, wait till Sept 12th rolls around and Lucas releases the original three star wars movies unaltered...they're taking them from early 90's laserdisc versions and not cleaning up the transfers.... argh

~And Shepards We Shall Be~

[–] rapidfox-1 18 years ago

Is the Special Edition meant to be such low resolution? It looks terrible though a PC.

[–] halfelven84 18 years ago

Watch it on a regular screen, it looks fine. it's old film, remember that. not much was done to keep it healthy.

Fear attracts the fearful. The strong. The weak. The innocent. The corrupt. Fear. Fear is my ally.

[–] rapidfox-1 18 years ago

To me it looks like it was transferred onto digital at a low res, if you know what I mean. I don't think there's anything wrong with the quality, but even on a TV it looks like a low res movie shown on a big screen.

[–] rams_lakers 18 years ago

Old film? More likely a half-hearted attempt to transfer it. It's 2 years newer than Heavy Metal, which came out fine to DVD. Old film! There's no such thing as an old film excuse, especially if it's from the 80s, and certainly not with today's technology in cleaning up stuff that is much older!

And that dirty Bakshi studio excuse in the other post made me laugh.

Glaring stupidity, it runs rampant throughout the IMDB boards.

[–] halfelven84 18 years ago

If there were no attempts at preserving it and it just sat on a shelf somewhere, it can start to loose it's quailty. I certainly don't disagree about the half-hearted attempt, though. It could have been cleaned up much better.

I've dated girls uglier than you for breakfast.

[–] Raylathotep 18 years ago

sounds like there are different copies available... can anyone list them all and tell us about their quality? I'm looking to buy a copy of this and want the best one.

[–] halfelven84 18 years ago

The one that you can buy anywhere right now is the best available right now. It's not as bad as we've made it out to be, but they didn't do much to clean it up. Def. better than any boot-legs you will find. It has some nice special features as well. There was a dvd called "Painting with fire" that is a doc and released a year or so before about Frank. It is included with the Fir and Ice dvd set. Get that one. I got it at Bestbuy for $20 or so.

I've dated girls uglier than you for breakfast.

[–] Raylathotep 18 years ago

that painting with fire documentary is what lead me here. (recently saw it on cable)

btw, I'm a BIG RPG/D&D geek, so I don't know how I've missed this movie for so long... unless I have seen it and just don't remember.

[–] JCPadmore 12 years ago

Why not rip both releases, extract the better version of the soundtrack from one and merge it with the crisper picture version of the other? Problem solved (and really easy to do!).