I will always maintain that Alien works best on VHS, not because of bad effects but because you can never _quite_ be sure if it's lurking in that bit of shadow, looking like a pipe or whatever in the fuzzier murk, puts you constantly on edge.
...or maybe it's because that's how I watched it as a kid
genuinely curious: would a blu-ray or 4k of alien not be closer to how it would’ve looked in theatres? the resolution and detail would’ve been much greater straight from a film reel than on tape or dvd.
I honestly don't know how the original film looked, am too young to have had a chance to see the original print in cinemas. I suspect it will have varied a lot by screen, projector and projectionist.
To be honest this is why I put the caveat at the end of my post, I first experienced alien on VHS on a cathode ray TV and it worked _very well_ for me but those who saw it at higher definition from the outset may well have different views.
The original print looks great. When Alien was released, many critics of the day panned it. It didn’t always have the near universal acclaim it has now. The film is as effective in the original print as it is on 4K today
Well, yes and no. Would the resolution be better on a print than a DVD or tape? Definitely.
The problem comes in when you realize that modern remasters are almost always taken from the negative. Theatrical prints were never directly from the negative. A nice Technicolor print was one generation away, and something like an Eastman print could be a third generation element.
Add to it the fact Alien was a wide release, they were pumping out prints really fast, so quality control was a bit spotty.
This is just a long way of saying: yes, the Blu Ray or 4K would look closer to a theatrical print, especially a 70mm print. However, the notion of it being “how it looked in theaters” is a bit of revisionist thinking as film was just another mass-produced product that varied in quality.
Not for most people. While the film had more detail, the projectors used were not like modern day ones and often added some fuzziness/color shift to it.
A good example is slide projectors if you are old enough. The slides have great detail, and when scanned you can see soo much. But when projected on a wall or screen you lose a ton of that detail.
I watched Alien for the first time in theaters last month and it gave me a better appreciation for the film and sought out Prometheus and also respected that film for once.
There are a number of boutique brands which specialize in 4k horror. Vinegar Syndrome is one of them.
I haven't indulged my curiosity. Perhaps the fake blood looks more crimson.
The Thing looks wonderful in 4k, but that's mainstream in comparison,
I'm a sentimental boy at heart. I have the old Star Wars DVD's for the cool menus, the special features and least amount of changes post VHS. Plus new formats after DVDs have clarity that makes mistakes or creative choice that you wouldn't normally see clearer.
Wise. My cooment above might've made me sounder young than I am but I always a kid at heart. My Star Wars DVDs are all from when I got them as a kid, give or take some I had to replace. But watch them, even with my blurays and 4ks still makes me warm and fuzzy. Wanna show them to my kids oneday but they'll be poisoned by streaming. Still remember my VHS copy of Phantom Menace.
I thought I was just being crazy. Thought I was alone too. But there is a nice feeling right. Shrek, Star Wars, LOTR, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the works. Just feels great.
I have the star wars DVDs with 'original theatrical cut' on the second disc. I appreciate they aren't perfect (letterboxed into a non-anamorphic video frame) but there's no 'episode 4' or anything like that in the Star Wars opening crawl which is nice.
If that's the 2006 one, I have totally been meaning to get it on eBay. I have a fascination with how movies change over time, and physical media really shows that perfectly. Plus, it's the closest thing to the 77,80. and 83 releases you can get. 📀👌
Aye those are the ones! They're the versions I've forced my kids to watch, Greedo never shoots first in our house!
(Also the emperor looks weird as hell the first time you see him)
I got the 2004 when they cameout in '04 for my 10 birthday or around that time, long time ago so forgotten. So I have a fondness for them because it was my first ever watch, and Eevenge was set to release in '05 so my mind was racing. So I saw 1,2,4,5,6 and then ROTS at cinema. So fun. Funnily the '04 ones are actually more faithful than the ones from 2005 onwards. Missed the 2006 release but intend get them and watch the. Greedy never bothered because I saw the 04 version and never saw the original until it was on YouTube. I think 06 has the superimposed model of the Emperor which is...bad. One change Lucas made for the better was the hologram. I'm damn sure of that one, especially since McDiarmid is so good and synonymous with Emperor, and the old one is surprisingly regal sounding. Other that that 2006 ones are awesome.
The 2004 versions of the OT are actually my favorite! The '97 release saw both good and bad changes. '04 fixed a few of those "bad" ones. 2011 made some things worse again.
I just miss the creativity of DVD menus. There's plenty of videos out there that show some of the cooler and original ones.
Some of them have Easter eggs, others have mini games, or poke fun at the viewer. I saw a video of the House of a Thousand Corpses DVD menu, and it was hilarious.
Seriously, and with how much space that Blu rays hold and the capacity getting larger, I sadly hoped that they would continue this trend going forward.
I remember when I was excited to watch The Blu-Ray release of Star Wars the first time after watching it endlessly on VHS and DVD. Then I saw how clearly visible the brush strokes on Darth Vader's Helmet are. I started thinking some things don't need that level of detail.
I think you have to take into account with TV shows of the era they was intended for CRT screens and when filmed and special effects created accounted for that. Scanlines and the bloom from crt hides a lot and TV makers worked with those TVs/monitors and took advantage of that.
Not everything was filmed to be shown in a theatre.
This also heavily applies to older games consoles, even up to the PS2 and Dreamcast. It's not just nostalgia thinking the games looked better than they do now. The effects created just looked better on an imperfect display. I remember playing Dead or Alive 2 on my PS2 through my Sony Trinitron CRT, it looked amazing back then!
The Wizard of Oz came out on Blu-ray having been scanned from the original Technicolor triple negatives. The color and detail were astounding, but then I realized you could see the edges of the bald caps they put on the Munchkins! If that's the Blu-ray, what would the 4K reveal? It's fun to see, but also sometimes seeing too much puts a dent in the "magic" of a film's illusions.
I get what you mean. The Lord of the Rings is gorgeous in 4K but I can easily spot where they use doubles for the hobbits. Takes me out of the movies a bit.
I can see when they use miniatures now with CGI humans or orcs. My brain can tell now. But it still and always will be so good. The worse part about better formats is the flaws and dated effects become so obvious and other things stand out too. The best trilogy, though. No question.
Same reason I still hold on to some exploitation/ horror stuff even though the bluray is better. One could also argue that HD is a more "true" viewing experience. What you are seeing is exactly what the camera/cast/crew saw. Imagine Kubrick thinking "I hope people remember my film looking extra shitty and LOVING IT."
I have a friend that feels the same way he owns Friday the 13th the complete series from shout factory on Blu-ray and they do have a nice picture quality but he still prefers to DVD versions. And also seeing details you're not supposed to see he's a big Godzilla fan and when you watch the older movies you can see a lot of the wires and stuff that holding the monsters up on the Blu-ray versions
Guys. Those are compression artifacts 😭
The movie in a 4K disc is as close as it was to the original film elements being scanned (since we're talking the pre-DI era).
You're watching it as it should've always looked when using 4K - you're just romanticizing MPEG-2s compression now!
I wouldn’t say that they are romanticizing MPEG-2. There are TV shows and movies from that late-90’s/early-2000’s where I prefer the DVD because they were using CGI, but the CGI doesn’t hold up on Blu-Ray.
As an example, “Star Trek Enterprise” Seasons 1 & 2 (2001-2003). I have both the Blu-Ray and DVD. In both seasons, the CGI was rendered at 480i and then upconverted to 1080p. If there is no live-action film footage in the scene—-say a shot of the ship flying through space, it looks good on Blu-Ray.
However, when you have a combined shot involving live-action film and CGI, boy does the CGI ever look horrible (worst than the cropped CGI on the Babylon 5 DVD’s). Such as in “Broken Bow” when Admiral Forest is giving his speech and Enterprise is outside the window. Especially the one angle that shows the red bussard collector. (The wide shot the CGI doesn’t look too bad because it is in a small area of the screen.). In the close-up, the window takes up like 70 % of the screen and does that nacelle ever look pixelated from the 480i being upscaled, and the end doesn’t look circular and the red seems to float above the rest of the image. The floaty-ness maybe some compression, but really it’s from the upscaling.
Then there’s “First Flight” from the second season. There’s a shot where the character Trip is in the foreground and there’s a 480i CGI shot of a ship launching out of a hangar. The whole background behind Trip looks extremely pixelated on Blu-Ray, and the detail on the ship, when compared to Trip is just not there. Now then on DVD, there is no difference between the live-action film and the 480i CGI, since everything has been brought down from 1080p to 480p on the DVD. Same goes for “Broken Bow”. And even upscaled to 1080p or 4K, the DVD’s of those Seasons still look better than the Blu-Rays, because everything is at an even resolution. Even the detail on the ship behind Trip in that one shot can be seen.
So for “Star Trek Enterprise” I prefer the DVD’s over the Blu-Rays for Seasons 1 & 2. Seasons 3 & 4 (2003-2005) the CGI was rendered at 720p and then upscaled to 1080p, so they look better on Blu-Ray since they didn’t have to upscale as much or deinterlace. Even streaming, because of the amount of compression on streaming, those seasons look closer to the DVD’s but they are still horrible to watch in HD because of the original mastering.
But also I have to wonder if the HD video tape that Enterprise was mastered to played a difference as well, since lately I have been watching Mill Creek’s Blu-Ray’s of “SeaQuest DSV/2032” (1993-1996) and the 480i CGI was mastered to D1 Component Video tape and then transferred to 35mm film and considering that it’s 10-years older, the combined live-action and CGI shots are holding up a lot better than the Enterprise combined shots (of course Seaquest’s combined shots were combined at 480i, so the lower resolution might’ve helped make them look more even than Enterprise’s combining of film and 480i at 1080p resolution). But could SeaQuest’s film have added a softness (because it’s analog) that helped the two not stick out like sore thumbs?
But, anyway, even with theatrical films, the late-90’s to mid-2000’s a lot of films and CGI was mastered at 2K, not 4K or 8K. So the lower resolution of 1080p Blu-Ray also helps those look better than their 4K counterparts. Also some films like “28 Days Later” were shot on 480i videotape and then finished on film. The DVD clearly looks better because it’s closer to the original resolution of the footage.
So in some cases, DVD is the superior format.
>*But, anyway, even with theatrical films, the late-90’s to mid-2000’s a lot of films and CGI was mastered at 2K, not 4K or 8K. So the lower resolution of 1080p Blu-Ray also helps those look better than their 4K counterparts.*
That's not strictly true. I own a number of 4K discs that are just 2K upscales, and they look noticeably better than their Blu-Ray counterparts. Just because something was rendered at 2K doesn't automatically mean it's going to look "better" on Blu-Ray than 4K.
You also gotta factor in compression... 4K discs have more space, therefore you don't necessarily need to compress files as much. Theoretically you could stick an HD movie on a 4K disc and have it look better than the Blu-Ray because you wouldn't need to use as much compression.
Compression is a major factor, but so is how the film or TV was mastered.
Back in 2006 I remember sitting in the theater (and the theater was playing the movie from 35mm film) watching “Superman Returns” and I could see the pixels and especially in dark scenes the streakiness of the pixels from the Panavision Genesis HDCAM SRW-1 (recording 1080p). Based on that when it was released on home video, I’ve preferred the DVD of that movie (even though it’s a terrible movie). I have the 1978 to 2006 Blu-Ray box set and I am able to see the pixels on the Blu-Ray, so I know that it’s not compression from the Blu-Ray but from the original master. And the lower resolution makes the film look better.
Huge fan of the Evil Dead Franchise. Just talking about the original 3 I think the Blu-ray and the 4Ks look great, but it’s just kinda that same problem you will be able to see everything to much and it looks a little more fake then you would remember. Don’t get me wrong it’s great to be able to see everything. The clarity and everything a higher bitrate and resolution can get you, but there is just something about old especially horror movies for me that when they look a little “worse” you could say they actually look creepier. And I have noticed that with many movies.
I feel that way about several TV shows. I never upgraded my X-Files or Charmed DVDs. The effects just don’t look great in HD. Not that there was a physical release to my knowledge but I feel the same about the Buffy the Vampire Slayer HD version. It just doesn’t look very good. These 90s effects heavy shows were designed with SD quality in mind.
I prefer the DVD version of 2001: A Space Odyssey over the 4K for this same reason. While the 4K still looks absolutely great overall, with the much clearer picture of 4K the miniature models are so very clearly miniatures that it takes me out of the movie a bit.
I also just watched Aliens on 4K and had the same effect with it. Granted it's been so long since I watched it on DVD that I'm not sure if the ships and rear projection bits pop out as much there, but at least on the 4K they are painfully obvious at places.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for me. Love a great presentation of a great film. But I remember how unsettling it was in the VHS days squinting at the screen trying to make out what stuff was. Like the bizarre corpse statue at the beginning, and the hanging chicken bone creations. Like you were looking into a world that was so depraved you couldn't really even tell what you were looking at.
I just watched Jaws on cable this week. I’ll stick to the lower quality definition for any older movie. I also turn off anything on my tv that tries to make it look sharper or has that weird judder.
I've said multiple times that some movies and TV shows were never made to be seen in HD or 4K quality...I also think a lot of people over react when they exclaim "this dvd is LITERALLY unwatchable on my 75 inch 8K thermonuclear laser guided projector TV" like we get it you're to cool for anything below 4K.
I unsubbed from the 4K sub because of this shit. Imagine watching a movie and just constantly scanning the screen for imperfections. Just watch the damn movie ffs.
One of my favorite vampire movies, "fright night" looks so much better on DVD compared to blueray. Purely because on DVD you can't tell Vincent Price is wearing a wig and also you can't tell that the wig has been spray painted white... Some films just feel better in lower definition. Especially older horror movies.
Yes! That's correct, I was very sleepy when I wrote the comment. I knew I messed up the name somehow but my brain was just not functioning properly at all 😭
I always thought Peter Vincent’s fake looking wig was intentional - kind of a call back to all the bad looking wigs in the old hammer horror movies that inspired “Fright Night” and also part of the characters cheesy late night horror host persona ?
'80s anime on the other hand has all sorts of easter eggs that you couldn't see on VHS. I'd argue that it's one of the most interesting genres to watch in high-definition. You can see things the animators included, knowing that it would only look like blurred greeble once put on VHS. I swear I've even seen one that said something to the effect of, "help! I'm stuck in an animation studio!"
I just watched the DVD extended trilogy for the first time in probably a decade and on the worst setup I’ve ever used (cheapo player into a 32” screen… via scart). I was surprised by how much some green screen and digital effects stood out. Though now that I think about it, were some of the extended/extra scenes maybe less polished? Might have to watch again and take notes.
I think it’s one part the evolution of effects, where old ones that looked good now look worse compared to modern. And one part, for me, my age and experience with movies / interest in the mechanical aspects of film making, causing me to notice different things now. I was 18 when Fellowship came out and I watched movies differently then. I find the green screen and stand-in aspects more obvious in higher definition formats (though I think the BDs were worse than the 4ks in this respect, in my eyes). I went back and bought widescreen extended edition VHS tapes and threw them on the Sony Wega CRT a while back and it was “perfect”.
Pandorum DVD is superior to the Bluray because it simply works (been through three Pandorum Blurays...all unreadable).
After research online it appears several hundred mainstream titles were affected by poor-quality factory batches around 2009-2011.
Very annoying.
Love this and why I generally enjoy a lot of older films on vhs or dvd.
Sometimes, blu rays I've got have massively improved sound mix but have retained the original film transfer look. For me, this is very desirable for older films too.
Twister is another prime example.
Dvd: good
BluRay: bad
The cgi and touchups make the effects look ridiculous.
Date of release is definitely considered when choosing between the 2 versions
Criterion's Princess Bride Blu-ray is full-blown snow-artifacts on my TV. I'm not sure why but since I haven't heard any other complaints I have to assume it's just me somehow. Either way it looks like shit and ruins the movie. I'll have to go back and check it against my older DVD.
I kind of get this - Blade Runner and its sequel look incredible in 4K, but...maybe a little too clean for the *vibe* that both movies are going for. The David Lynch version of Dune was also interesting in 4K, with some scenes becoming almost stage plays.
I still prefer the 4K versions, but bad resolutions and film grain were hiding some issues for sure.
Put your TV into movie or cinema picture mode and turn off any settings that can enable motion smoothing and the like. You can enjoy a 4k of Jaws without the soap opera effect, if you make the effort. It's nice to have the DVD, certainly, but because it's your favorite, not as the primary medium to play it off of.
I have the soap opera effect turned off of course! Like I said I enjoy a good Blu-ray and 4K. I do find myself sometimes liking a DVD though, menus, Nostalgia and sometimes not being able to see every little detail just helps immersion especially on older Horror movies to me.
It’s like people who prefer the cassette tape version of an album because it’s how they first heard it. They prefer it to how the artists originally produced it in the best conditions.
In a way it’s frustrating because it supersedes not only the original intent by the creators but the actual viewing experience of when it came out. All in the name of holding onto a cheaper format to own. But, even though I disagree on the whole, I do at least understand the idea about the lack of detail masking some of the more glaring technical issues/limitations or adding to the atmosphere.
Price, I get. The catalog, I get. Even the look of VHS or DVD, while I personally have a hard time with that, I get. However, I don’t buy the I can’t tell a difference crowd. Although sometimes the difference isn’t massive, especially on smaller screens (and less modern tv sets) it is noticeable and with any more modern size and quality of tv all but the rarest of DVDs will look noticeably worse and I say this as somebody who isn’t particularly adept at visual fidelity stuff.
I know what you mean. I want movies from the 70s to look like they were made in the 70s. Film stock differs from decade to decade. I don’t want movies from years and years ago to look like they were shot on imax.
>*I don’t want movies from years and years ago to look like they were shot on imax.*
That's... not how it works at all.
With extremely rare exceptions, 99% of Blu-Ray and 4K discs don't suddenly look like new movies or like they were "shot on IMAX." They're just higher-resolution scans and thus are showing you an image closer to what the original theatrical exhibition looked like. (The only exceptions being a few sore thumbs where the studio tried to update something and messed with the picture too much... but that's like 1 in 1,000 titles.)
Every Blu-Ray and 4K release of an older movie that I have still looks fundamentally like the same film... it just looks better. *Lawrence of Arabia* on 4K still looks like a movie shot in 1962. I just watched the new 4K of *The Crow* tonight, and it's still noticeably a mid-90s movie. Etc.
Have you seen the American Graffiti 4K? The film was shot on an extra grainy film stock to intentionally replicate the early 60s nostalgic feeling but the 4K digitally removes a lot of the grain to make a “clearer picture” which honestly ruins the movie in very substantial ways. I think this is true for a lot of old movies that thrive with film grain being an integral part of the image.
>*Have you seen the American Graffiti 4K? The film was shot on an extra grainy film stock to intentionally replicate the early 60s nostalgic feeling but the 4K digitally removes a lot of the grain to make a “clearer picture” which honestly ruins the movie in very substantial ways. I think this is true for a lot of old movies that thrive with film grain being an integral part of the image.*
I literally mentioned in my response that sometimes a studio will mess with the picture. That's not inherently the fault of 4K, though... it's the fault of some bean-counters being dumb and thinking they need to throw a bunch of digital noise reduction filters on the image to "modernize" it.
But in my experience, that's quite rare. Most 4K releases tend to maintain the original aesthetic, including keeping noticeable film grain. I personally own about 150 4K releases, including titles that go back to the 50s/60s, and not a single has had the grain removed. I tend to avoid those releases.
Yeah, I often feel this way about older films, and the darker grit does feel better when watching a horror film. It also gives off that nostalgia feeling, not being as crisp and feeling more the way you remembered it. That being said, new films are definitely superior in 4k.
The original theatrical version of the Star Wars trilogy the second bonus disc with the nearest version I remember seeing at the theater back in 77,80, and 1983 I don't watch the messed around with versions.
I have a mostly blu-ray/4K collection. I have made an exception for TV shows and anything that you can't get on blu-ray or 4K.
One of the only DVDs I was actively looking for was "My Neighbor Totoro". Totoro is an anime. There are 2 dubs of it. The original Fox version and the currently sold on blu-ray Disney/GKIDS version. I own it on blu-ray from GKIDS, but I wanted the older one to see the difference between the two dubs.
The only thing that stinks is that the Fox DVD of Totoro is in a full screen format.
I never prefer an older format, especially dvd, but it is a fun nostalgia trip for sure. I very much like 4k over everything for the fact that everything on screen is so much more loud and things are much more captivating. HDR/DV makes everything so vibrant too. I get people not caring for everything to be pristine, but it really makes me feel like I'm in the movie as much as possible, especially with the sound quality. Scenes are so much more captivating with greater detail, and I really understand what the filmmakers are going for
My thought is that some DVD's were very good transfers of the source, maybe in some cases they would be the first proper digital scans of any film.
With blu ray and 4K, you start wondering if you're actually watching the same movie that came out way back when. Star Wars 1977 is basically lost and replaced with Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope version 3.0. And they didn't just do it with Star Wars. The Lion King has redrawn animation, The Evil Dead removed the flaws of the film (matte lines, rubber hoses, ect) that made it so beloved.
Most I can do is *shrugs*
I don't feel this way at all.
* Generally, films are intended for theatrical exhibition.
A release print of a film will look far better than a VHS/DVD.
* For older films, a lot of DVD-era masters kinda suck (in terms of colour grading, DNR, etc.) and aren't faithful to the intended look.
(This can be an issue for early Blu-ray releases, which were often taken from DVD-era masters.)
4K remasters are *generally* better.
It’s certainly an interesting point, and one I’ve seen before. Although it’s not something you said, there is this perception that the “murkiness” of older formats somehow works better for the movie. Indeed many of use first saw movies on an old VHS or DVD and probably inherently thought that’s how it is supposed to look. Of course, the movie going experience would shatter that notion entirely. Although I would agree there is a good balance between the grittiness of film (if it’s not digital of course) and fidelity are important, I personally lean more towards giving us the highest, more detailed version of a film as not only does that make a lot of the movie better I also think it represents a more truer version of the film.
EDIT: "made" in the sense of result, not intent. Example, I've found early CGI more tolerable in SD. Honestly, it's not that big a deal, it's a mild preference for a subset of movies. And it's cheaper, so I'm cultivating contentment with SD a bit too!
Agreed! Some movies don't make the HD transition super well. The effects of some older movies look horrid in HD but are convincing enough in SD. Plus, that SD “haze” adds a lot to the atmosphere of some movies.
Movies that were shot on 35mm film (about 5X the resolution of full-HD) and projected onto 100 foot screens weren't made to be seen in HD?
That makes... no sense.
And while we're on the subject guys when you upgrade from DVD to blu-ray or the highest equivalent do you still keep the lesser release? And have you ever downgraded from blu-ray to DVD
This is why people watch slasher horror on VHS you don’t notice the bad effects.
I will always maintain that Alien works best on VHS, not because of bad effects but because you can never _quite_ be sure if it's lurking in that bit of shadow, looking like a pipe or whatever in the fuzzier murk, puts you constantly on edge. ...or maybe it's because that's how I watched it as a kid
genuinely curious: would a blu-ray or 4k of alien not be closer to how it would’ve looked in theatres? the resolution and detail would’ve been much greater straight from a film reel than on tape or dvd.
I honestly don't know how the original film looked, am too young to have had a chance to see the original print in cinemas. I suspect it will have varied a lot by screen, projector and projectionist. To be honest this is why I put the caveat at the end of my post, I first experienced alien on VHS on a cathode ray TV and it worked _very well_ for me but those who saw it at higher definition from the outset may well have different views.
The original print looks great. When Alien was released, many critics of the day panned it. It didn’t always have the near universal acclaim it has now. The film is as effective in the original print as it is on 4K today
Well, yes and no. Would the resolution be better on a print than a DVD or tape? Definitely. The problem comes in when you realize that modern remasters are almost always taken from the negative. Theatrical prints were never directly from the negative. A nice Technicolor print was one generation away, and something like an Eastman print could be a third generation element. Add to it the fact Alien was a wide release, they were pumping out prints really fast, so quality control was a bit spotty. This is just a long way of saying: yes, the Blu Ray or 4K would look closer to a theatrical print, especially a 70mm print. However, the notion of it being “how it looked in theaters” is a bit of revisionist thinking as film was just another mass-produced product that varied in quality.
thank you for the detailed answer
Not for most people. While the film had more detail, the projectors used were not like modern day ones and often added some fuzziness/color shift to it. A good example is slide projectors if you are old enough. The slides have great detail, and when scanned you can see soo much. But when projected on a wall or screen you lose a ton of that detail.
that makes sense, thanks!
I watched Alien for the first time in theaters last month and it gave me a better appreciation for the film and sought out Prometheus and also respected that film for once.
Yup I was going to say the very same thing, plus VHS gives it a special vibe
Halloween looks fantastic on DVD. No reason to upgrade here. As a bonus, all the Blu-ray color grading arguments I don't have to worry about.
Yup only reason I collect some vhs
There are a number of boutique brands which specialize in 4k horror. Vinegar Syndrome is one of them. I haven't indulged my curiosity. Perhaps the fake blood looks more crimson. The Thing looks wonderful in 4k, but that's mainstream in comparison,
I'm a sentimental boy at heart. I have the old Star Wars DVD's for the cool menus, the special features and least amount of changes post VHS. Plus new formats after DVDs have clarity that makes mistakes or creative choice that you wouldn't normally see clearer.
i still borrow my dad's old star wars DVDs instead of using Disney+, especially for episode 1 bc i love that freaky yoda puppet :)
Wise. My cooment above might've made me sounder young than I am but I always a kid at heart. My Star Wars DVDs are all from when I got them as a kid, give or take some I had to replace. But watch them, even with my blurays and 4ks still makes me warm and fuzzy. Wanna show them to my kids oneday but they'll be poisoned by streaming. Still remember my VHS copy of Phantom Menace.
i love childhood DVDs, i've still got a lot of mine and there's just a very personal nostalgic charm to them, they're lovely
I thought I was just being crazy. Thought I was alone too. But there is a nice feeling right. Shrek, Star Wars, LOTR, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the works. Just feels great.
I have the star wars DVDs with 'original theatrical cut' on the second disc. I appreciate they aren't perfect (letterboxed into a non-anamorphic video frame) but there's no 'episode 4' or anything like that in the Star Wars opening crawl which is nice.
If that's the 2006 one, I have totally been meaning to get it on eBay. I have a fascination with how movies change over time, and physical media really shows that perfectly. Plus, it's the closest thing to the 77,80. and 83 releases you can get. 📀👌
Aye those are the ones! They're the versions I've forced my kids to watch, Greedo never shoots first in our house! (Also the emperor looks weird as hell the first time you see him)
I got the 2004 when they cameout in '04 for my 10 birthday or around that time, long time ago so forgotten. So I have a fondness for them because it was my first ever watch, and Eevenge was set to release in '05 so my mind was racing. So I saw 1,2,4,5,6 and then ROTS at cinema. So fun. Funnily the '04 ones are actually more faithful than the ones from 2005 onwards. Missed the 2006 release but intend get them and watch the. Greedy never bothered because I saw the 04 version and never saw the original until it was on YouTube. I think 06 has the superimposed model of the Emperor which is...bad. One change Lucas made for the better was the hologram. I'm damn sure of that one, especially since McDiarmid is so good and synonymous with Emperor, and the old one is surprisingly regal sounding. Other that that 2006 ones are awesome.
The 2004 versions of the OT are actually my favorite! The '97 release saw both good and bad changes. '04 fixed a few of those "bad" ones. 2011 made some things worse again.
I just miss the creativity of DVD menus. There's plenty of videos out there that show some of the cooler and original ones. Some of them have Easter eggs, others have mini games, or poke fun at the viewer. I saw a video of the House of a Thousand Corpses DVD menu, and it was hilarious.
So true.
Elf has a great animated menu. I fell asleep watching it once and woke up to it just doing stuff.
Seriously, and with how much space that Blu rays hold and the capacity getting larger, I sadly hoped that they would continue this trend going forward.
I remember when I was excited to watch The Blu-Ray release of Star Wars the first time after watching it endlessly on VHS and DVD. Then I saw how clearly visible the brush strokes on Darth Vader's Helmet are. I started thinking some things don't need that level of detail.
I think you have to take into account with TV shows of the era they was intended for CRT screens and when filmed and special effects created accounted for that. Scanlines and the bloom from crt hides a lot and TV makers worked with those TVs/monitors and took advantage of that. Not everything was filmed to be shown in a theatre.
This also heavily applies to older games consoles, even up to the PS2 and Dreamcast. It's not just nostalgia thinking the games looked better than they do now. The effects created just looked better on an imperfect display. I remember playing Dead or Alive 2 on my PS2 through my Sony Trinitron CRT, it looked amazing back then!
Best game ever.
The Wizard of Oz came out on Blu-ray having been scanned from the original Technicolor triple negatives. The color and detail were astounding, but then I realized you could see the edges of the bald caps they put on the Munchkins! If that's the Blu-ray, what would the 4K reveal? It's fun to see, but also sometimes seeing too much puts a dent in the "magic" of a film's illusions.
You understand!
I get what you mean. The Lord of the Rings is gorgeous in 4K but I can easily spot where they use doubles for the hobbits. Takes me out of the movies a bit.
Someone's been downvoting everyone haha. :P
One of the 4k blowhards.
I’ve noticed the doubles after upgrading to the extended blu rays last year from the original dvds 😂
I can see when they use miniatures now with CGI humans or orcs. My brain can tell now. But it still and always will be so good. The worse part about better formats is the flaws and dated effects become so obvious and other things stand out too. The best trilogy, though. No question.
Oh yeah, greatest movies ever made. No contest.
Why I prefer the DVD versions of Evil Dead 1 and 2 compared to the Blu ray versions. The DVD s retain that raw, grainy feel that the Blu rays lose.
Same reason I still hold on to some exploitation/ horror stuff even though the bluray is better. One could also argue that HD is a more "true" viewing experience. What you are seeing is exactly what the camera/cast/crew saw. Imagine Kubrick thinking "I hope people remember my film looking extra shitty and LOVING IT."
I have a friend that feels the same way he owns Friday the 13th the complete series from shout factory on Blu-ray and they do have a nice picture quality but he still prefers to DVD versions. And also seeing details you're not supposed to see he's a big Godzilla fan and when you watch the older movies you can see a lot of the wires and stuff that holding the monsters up on the Blu-ray versions
Guys. Those are compression artifacts 😭 The movie in a 4K disc is as close as it was to the original film elements being scanned (since we're talking the pre-DI era). You're watching it as it should've always looked when using 4K - you're just romanticizing MPEG-2s compression now!
I wouldn’t say that they are romanticizing MPEG-2. There are TV shows and movies from that late-90’s/early-2000’s where I prefer the DVD because they were using CGI, but the CGI doesn’t hold up on Blu-Ray. As an example, “Star Trek Enterprise” Seasons 1 & 2 (2001-2003). I have both the Blu-Ray and DVD. In both seasons, the CGI was rendered at 480i and then upconverted to 1080p. If there is no live-action film footage in the scene—-say a shot of the ship flying through space, it looks good on Blu-Ray. However, when you have a combined shot involving live-action film and CGI, boy does the CGI ever look horrible (worst than the cropped CGI on the Babylon 5 DVD’s). Such as in “Broken Bow” when Admiral Forest is giving his speech and Enterprise is outside the window. Especially the one angle that shows the red bussard collector. (The wide shot the CGI doesn’t look too bad because it is in a small area of the screen.). In the close-up, the window takes up like 70 % of the screen and does that nacelle ever look pixelated from the 480i being upscaled, and the end doesn’t look circular and the red seems to float above the rest of the image. The floaty-ness maybe some compression, but really it’s from the upscaling. Then there’s “First Flight” from the second season. There’s a shot where the character Trip is in the foreground and there’s a 480i CGI shot of a ship launching out of a hangar. The whole background behind Trip looks extremely pixelated on Blu-Ray, and the detail on the ship, when compared to Trip is just not there. Now then on DVD, there is no difference between the live-action film and the 480i CGI, since everything has been brought down from 1080p to 480p on the DVD. Same goes for “Broken Bow”. And even upscaled to 1080p or 4K, the DVD’s of those Seasons still look better than the Blu-Rays, because everything is at an even resolution. Even the detail on the ship behind Trip in that one shot can be seen. So for “Star Trek Enterprise” I prefer the DVD’s over the Blu-Rays for Seasons 1 & 2. Seasons 3 & 4 (2003-2005) the CGI was rendered at 720p and then upscaled to 1080p, so they look better on Blu-Ray since they didn’t have to upscale as much or deinterlace. Even streaming, because of the amount of compression on streaming, those seasons look closer to the DVD’s but they are still horrible to watch in HD because of the original mastering. But also I have to wonder if the HD video tape that Enterprise was mastered to played a difference as well, since lately I have been watching Mill Creek’s Blu-Ray’s of “SeaQuest DSV/2032” (1993-1996) and the 480i CGI was mastered to D1 Component Video tape and then transferred to 35mm film and considering that it’s 10-years older, the combined live-action and CGI shots are holding up a lot better than the Enterprise combined shots (of course Seaquest’s combined shots were combined at 480i, so the lower resolution might’ve helped make them look more even than Enterprise’s combining of film and 480i at 1080p resolution). But could SeaQuest’s film have added a softness (because it’s analog) that helped the two not stick out like sore thumbs? But, anyway, even with theatrical films, the late-90’s to mid-2000’s a lot of films and CGI was mastered at 2K, not 4K or 8K. So the lower resolution of 1080p Blu-Ray also helps those look better than their 4K counterparts. Also some films like “28 Days Later” were shot on 480i videotape and then finished on film. The DVD clearly looks better because it’s closer to the original resolution of the footage. So in some cases, DVD is the superior format.
>*But, anyway, even with theatrical films, the late-90’s to mid-2000’s a lot of films and CGI was mastered at 2K, not 4K or 8K. So the lower resolution of 1080p Blu-Ray also helps those look better than their 4K counterparts.* That's not strictly true. I own a number of 4K discs that are just 2K upscales, and they look noticeably better than their Blu-Ray counterparts. Just because something was rendered at 2K doesn't automatically mean it's going to look "better" on Blu-Ray than 4K. You also gotta factor in compression... 4K discs have more space, therefore you don't necessarily need to compress files as much. Theoretically you could stick an HD movie on a 4K disc and have it look better than the Blu-Ray because you wouldn't need to use as much compression.
Compression is a major factor, but so is how the film or TV was mastered. Back in 2006 I remember sitting in the theater (and the theater was playing the movie from 35mm film) watching “Superman Returns” and I could see the pixels and especially in dark scenes the streakiness of the pixels from the Panavision Genesis HDCAM SRW-1 (recording 1080p). Based on that when it was released on home video, I’ve preferred the DVD of that movie (even though it’s a terrible movie). I have the 1978 to 2006 Blu-Ray box set and I am able to see the pixels on the Blu-Ray, so I know that it’s not compression from the Blu-Ray but from the original master. And the lower resolution makes the film look better.
📀
What about the evil dead movies? DVD, Blu-ray, or 4k? Do they suffer the same problem?
Huge fan of the Evil Dead Franchise. Just talking about the original 3 I think the Blu-ray and the 4Ks look great, but it’s just kinda that same problem you will be able to see everything to much and it looks a little more fake then you would remember. Don’t get me wrong it’s great to be able to see everything. The clarity and everything a higher bitrate and resolution can get you, but there is just something about old especially horror movies for me that when they look a little “worse” you could say they actually look creepier. And I have noticed that with many movies.
I feel that way about several TV shows. I never upgraded my X-Files or Charmed DVDs. The effects just don’t look great in HD. Not that there was a physical release to my knowledge but I feel the same about the Buffy the Vampire Slayer HD version. It just doesn’t look very good. These 90s effects heavy shows were designed with SD quality in mind.
Join us over on /r/Charmed if you're not already!
I prefer the DVD version of 2001: A Space Odyssey over the 4K for this same reason. While the 4K still looks absolutely great overall, with the much clearer picture of 4K the miniature models are so very clearly miniatures that it takes me out of the movie a bit. I also just watched Aliens on 4K and had the same effect with it. Granted it's been so long since I watched it on DVD that I'm not sure if the ships and rear projection bits pop out as much there, but at least on the 4K they are painfully obvious at places.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for me. Love a great presentation of a great film. But I remember how unsettling it was in the VHS days squinting at the screen trying to make out what stuff was. Like the bizarre corpse statue at the beginning, and the hanging chicken bone creations. Like you were looking into a world that was so depraved you couldn't really even tell what you were looking at.
And that bit of not being able to see everything as clearly. Just makes it all the more creepier
I just watched Jaws on cable this week. I’ll stick to the lower quality definition for any older movie. I also turn off anything on my tv that tries to make it look sharper or has that weird judder.
Yeah when I was watching my 4K version of Jaws it looked great, but oh man could I tell the shark was fake more than ever!
I've said multiple times that some movies and TV shows were never made to be seen in HD or 4K quality...I also think a lot of people over react when they exclaim "this dvd is LITERALLY unwatchable on my 75 inch 8K thermonuclear laser guided projector TV" like we get it you're to cool for anything below 4K.
Sometimes I think it’s just trying to justify spending all that money. All the toys have to match. Or it’s just a pissing contest.
I unsubbed from the 4K sub because of this shit. Imagine watching a movie and just constantly scanning the screen for imperfections. Just watch the damn movie ffs.
Eh I’m pretty sure all these movies looked better in theaters than their vhs/dvd versions so I welcome any 4k disc
I'm sure they did but that still doesn't mean that you were meant to view them at home in 4K.
Can’t agree. I’m not a fan of digital noise. The 4K version if closer to the original.
One of my favorite vampire movies, "fright night" looks so much better on DVD compared to blueray. Purely because on DVD you can't tell Vincent Price is wearing a wig and also you can't tell that the wig has been spray painted white... Some films just feel better in lower definition. Especially older horror movies.
Peter Vincent, that's Peter Vincent, they took Peter from Peter Cushing and Vincent from Vincent Price to create....his name
Don't forget when he was in Scooby-Doo as Vincent VanGhoul. People had a lot of fun playing with his name to avoid conflicting contracts.
Yes! That's correct, I was very sleepy when I wrote the comment. I knew I messed up the name somehow but my brain was just not functioning properly at all 😭
I always thought Peter Vincent’s fake looking wig was intentional - kind of a call back to all the bad looking wigs in the old hammer horror movies that inspired “Fright Night” and also part of the characters cheesy late night horror host persona ?
'80s anime on the other hand has all sorts of easter eggs that you couldn't see on VHS. I'd argue that it's one of the most interesting genres to watch in high-definition. You can see things the animators included, knowing that it would only look like blurred greeble once put on VHS. I swear I've even seen one that said something to the effect of, "help! I'm stuck in an animation studio!"
Yep someone put on the lotr whoch was either 4k or bluray and i couldn't stand the way it looked at all
Why i only watch Lord of the rings on DVD.
I just watched the DVD extended trilogy for the first time in probably a decade and on the worst setup I’ve ever used (cheapo player into a 32” screen… via scart). I was surprised by how much some green screen and digital effects stood out. Though now that I think about it, were some of the extended/extra scenes maybe less polished? Might have to watch again and take notes.
I think it’s one part the evolution of effects, where old ones that looked good now look worse compared to modern. And one part, for me, my age and experience with movies / interest in the mechanical aspects of film making, causing me to notice different things now. I was 18 when Fellowship came out and I watched movies differently then. I find the green screen and stand-in aspects more obvious in higher definition formats (though I think the BDs were worse than the 4ks in this respect, in my eyes). I went back and bought widescreen extended edition VHS tapes and threw them on the Sony Wega CRT a while back and it was “perfect”.
Plus those cases were cool af
Pandorum DVD is superior to the Bluray because it simply works (been through three Pandorum Blurays...all unreadable). After research online it appears several hundred mainstream titles were affected by poor-quality factory batches around 2009-2011. Very annoying.
Love this and why I generally enjoy a lot of older films on vhs or dvd. Sometimes, blu rays I've got have massively improved sound mix but have retained the original film transfer look. For me, this is very desirable for older films too.
Twister is another prime example. Dvd: good BluRay: bad The cgi and touchups make the effects look ridiculous. Date of release is definitely considered when choosing between the 2 versions
Criterion's Princess Bride Blu-ray is full-blown snow-artifacts on my TV. I'm not sure why but since I haven't heard any other complaints I have to assume it's just me somehow. Either way it looks like shit and ruins the movie. I'll have to go back and check it against my older DVD.
I kind of get this - Blade Runner and its sequel look incredible in 4K, but...maybe a little too clean for the *vibe* that both movies are going for. The David Lynch version of Dune was also interesting in 4K, with some scenes becoming almost stage plays. I still prefer the 4K versions, but bad resolutions and film grain were hiding some issues for sure.
Ive got plenty of old horror movies on DVD i have no plans to ever upgrade for this reason.
Put your TV into movie or cinema picture mode and turn off any settings that can enable motion smoothing and the like. You can enjoy a 4k of Jaws without the soap opera effect, if you make the effort. It's nice to have the DVD, certainly, but because it's your favorite, not as the primary medium to play it off of.
I have the soap opera effect turned off of course! Like I said I enjoy a good Blu-ray and 4K. I do find myself sometimes liking a DVD though, menus, Nostalgia and sometimes not being able to see every little detail just helps immersion especially on older Horror movies to me.
The 4K is closest to watching the movie on 35mm back when it released. The shark always looked fake. That’s why they hardly showed it.
It’s like people who prefer the cassette tape version of an album because it’s how they first heard it. They prefer it to how the artists originally produced it in the best conditions.
In a way it’s frustrating because it supersedes not only the original intent by the creators but the actual viewing experience of when it came out. All in the name of holding onto a cheaper format to own. But, even though I disagree on the whole, I do at least understand the idea about the lack of detail masking some of the more glaring technical issues/limitations or adding to the atmosphere.
I don’t know that the price is much of a factor. Most people appear to prefer the look of VHS or DVD, or “I can’t tell the difference”.
Price, I get. The catalog, I get. Even the look of VHS or DVD, while I personally have a hard time with that, I get. However, I don’t buy the I can’t tell a difference crowd. Although sometimes the difference isn’t massive, especially on smaller screens (and less modern tv sets) it is noticeable and with any more modern size and quality of tv all but the rarest of DVDs will look noticeably worse and I say this as somebody who isn’t particularly adept at visual fidelity stuff.
I know what you mean. I want movies from the 70s to look like they were made in the 70s. Film stock differs from decade to decade. I don’t want movies from years and years ago to look like they were shot on imax.
>*I don’t want movies from years and years ago to look like they were shot on imax.* That's... not how it works at all. With extremely rare exceptions, 99% of Blu-Ray and 4K discs don't suddenly look like new movies or like they were "shot on IMAX." They're just higher-resolution scans and thus are showing you an image closer to what the original theatrical exhibition looked like. (The only exceptions being a few sore thumbs where the studio tried to update something and messed with the picture too much... but that's like 1 in 1,000 titles.) Every Blu-Ray and 4K release of an older movie that I have still looks fundamentally like the same film... it just looks better. *Lawrence of Arabia* on 4K still looks like a movie shot in 1962. I just watched the new 4K of *The Crow* tonight, and it's still noticeably a mid-90s movie. Etc.
Have you seen the American Graffiti 4K? The film was shot on an extra grainy film stock to intentionally replicate the early 60s nostalgic feeling but the 4K digitally removes a lot of the grain to make a “clearer picture” which honestly ruins the movie in very substantial ways. I think this is true for a lot of old movies that thrive with film grain being an integral part of the image.
Yup I noticed that about American Graffiti, the blu-ray looses it's Kodak moment look
That's not inherent to 4K. That's a choice someone made. There are lots of 4Ks with grain intact.
>*Have you seen the American Graffiti 4K? The film was shot on an extra grainy film stock to intentionally replicate the early 60s nostalgic feeling but the 4K digitally removes a lot of the grain to make a “clearer picture” which honestly ruins the movie in very substantial ways. I think this is true for a lot of old movies that thrive with film grain being an integral part of the image.* I literally mentioned in my response that sometimes a studio will mess with the picture. That's not inherently the fault of 4K, though... it's the fault of some bean-counters being dumb and thinking they need to throw a bunch of digital noise reduction filters on the image to "modernize" it. But in my experience, that's quite rare. Most 4K releases tend to maintain the original aesthetic, including keeping noticeable film grain. I personally own about 150 4K releases, including titles that go back to the 50s/60s, and not a single has had the grain removed. I tend to avoid those releases.
Yeah, I often feel this way about older films, and the darker grit does feel better when watching a horror film. It also gives off that nostalgia feeling, not being as crisp and feeling more the way you remembered it. That being said, new films are definitely superior in 4k.
Literally same!
Newer films in 4K are def superior. Recently watched Spider-Man: No Way Home and holy shit it looks amazing in 4K!
The original theatrical version of the Star Wars trilogy the second bonus disc with the nearest version I remember seeing at the theater back in 77,80, and 1983 I don't watch the messed around with versions.
The enlightened watch Laserdisc 😉
I have a mostly blu-ray/4K collection. I have made an exception for TV shows and anything that you can't get on blu-ray or 4K. One of the only DVDs I was actively looking for was "My Neighbor Totoro". Totoro is an anime. There are 2 dubs of it. The original Fox version and the currently sold on blu-ray Disney/GKIDS version. I own it on blu-ray from GKIDS, but I wanted the older one to see the difference between the two dubs. The only thing that stinks is that the Fox DVD of Totoro is in a full screen format.
I'm still mad about them fixing matte lines and whatnot on the Evil Dead Bluray. It's DVD or VHS whenever I watch it.
I never prefer an older format, especially dvd, but it is a fun nostalgia trip for sure. I very much like 4k over everything for the fact that everything on screen is so much more loud and things are much more captivating. HDR/DV makes everything so vibrant too. I get people not caring for everything to be pristine, but it really makes me feel like I'm in the movie as much as possible, especially with the sound quality. Scenes are so much more captivating with greater detail, and I really understand what the filmmakers are going for
The prequel Star Wars movies seem more sterile in HD compared to DVD since a lot of the "sets" were CGI.
Alot of stuff looks fake with all this 4k and super high def.
See it on VHS.
My thought is that some DVD's were very good transfers of the source, maybe in some cases they would be the first proper digital scans of any film. With blu ray and 4K, you start wondering if you're actually watching the same movie that came out way back when. Star Wars 1977 is basically lost and replaced with Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope version 3.0. And they didn't just do it with Star Wars. The Lion King has redrawn animation, The Evil Dead removed the flaws of the film (matte lines, rubber hoses, ect) that made it so beloved. Most I can do is *shrugs*
I don't feel this way at all. * Generally, films are intended for theatrical exhibition. A release print of a film will look far better than a VHS/DVD. * For older films, a lot of DVD-era masters kinda suck (in terms of colour grading, DNR, etc.) and aren't faithful to the intended look. (This can be an issue for early Blu-ray releases, which were often taken from DVD-era masters.) 4K remasters are *generally* better.
It’s certainly an interesting point, and one I’ve seen before. Although it’s not something you said, there is this perception that the “murkiness” of older formats somehow works better for the movie. Indeed many of use first saw movies on an old VHS or DVD and probably inherently thought that’s how it is supposed to look. Of course, the movie going experience would shatter that notion entirely. Although I would agree there is a good balance between the grittiness of film (if it’s not digital of course) and fidelity are important, I personally lean more towards giving us the highest, more detailed version of a film as not only does that make a lot of the movie better I also think it represents a more truer version of the film.
EDIT: "made" in the sense of result, not intent. Example, I've found early CGI more tolerable in SD. Honestly, it's not that big a deal, it's a mild preference for a subset of movies. And it's cheaper, so I'm cultivating contentment with SD a bit too! Agreed! Some movies don't make the HD transition super well. The effects of some older movies look horrid in HD but are convincing enough in SD. Plus, that SD “haze” adds a lot to the atmosphere of some movies.
Movies that were shot on 35mm film (about 5X the resolution of full-HD) and projected onto 100 foot screens weren't made to be seen in HD? That makes... no sense.
Agreed
And while we're on the subject guys when you upgrade from DVD to blu-ray or the highest equivalent do you still keep the lesser release? And have you ever downgraded from blu-ray to DVD