It's odd how Mann's revised version only has certain scenes heavily tinted green. I don't care much about cropping and I could accept the minor colour changes to the rest of the film for a nice 4K UHD presentation but the ugly green scenes just totally sink it.

Thanks all, I've been having trouble with Premiere crashing on export at 40% but it's just worked so I'm encoding now and I'll get a link sent over to those who have volunteered. Both the PCM and AC3 from the LD are included.

I volunteer as well. I'll see if it reminds me of the print I saw.

(2022-01-30, 11:30 AM)Beber Wrote: I volunteer as well. I'll see if it reminds me of the print I saw.

Thanks Beber that's great.

I'll volunteer as well. I saw a print of this at the same Mann retrospective I saw Manhunter if you want my two cents @alleycat

Everything looked good to me and there weren't any problems with the AC3 track.

@alleycat just skimming over the preview file, will give it a more thorough watch down later this week. But just to share general impressions, I have to admit that it doesn't look like the 35mm print I saw at the Mann retrospective at BAM. I recall very saturated colors, a distinctively cyan look and yellow-ish warm flesh tones (so pretty much what @Beber says).

Some of the hospital scenes with Robert De Niro at the beginning, for instance, look too purple. Heat did look purpler on some of the earlier DVD releases, but that may have been an artifact of CRT magenta compensation and not actually theatrical accuracy.

That said, you got the higher contrast quite right!

Anyway, don't want to be a downer, it is a nice-looking regrade that I'd certainly recommend over the current restored BD, which is way too desaturated. Will post more thoughts as I get further in.

Spot checking the preview file I would agree with TAF. It's not a criticism of the regrade itself but more of the colour reference used. It does have a very 'home video' look to it. The scene where DeNiro and Pacino meet has an odd blue/purple tint to the highlights which really stands out to me. I took another look at the scene on the JP BD and I think it has nice looking colours just rather desaturated.

Incidentally I'm currently scraping together all of the audio tracks I can find to compare them.

(2022-01-31, 06:02 PM)The Aluminum Falcon Wrote: @alleycat just skimming over the preview file, will give it a more thorough watch down later this week. But just to share general impressions, I have to admit that it doesn't look like the 35mm print I saw at the Mann retrospective at BAM. I recall very saturated colors, a distinctively cyan look and yellow-ish warm flesh tones (so pretty much what @Beber says).

Some of the hospital scenes with Robert De Niro at the beginning, for instance, look too purple. Heat did look purpler on some of the earlier DVD releases, but that may have been an artifact of CRT magenta compensation and not actually theatrical accuracy.

That said, you got the higher contrast quite right!

Anyway, don't want to be a downer, it is a nice-looking regrade that I'd certainly recommend over the current restored BD, which is way too desaturated. Will post more thoughts as I get further in.

(2022-01-31, 06:16 PM)Turisu Wrote: Spot checking the preview file I would agree with TAF. It's not a criticism of the regrade itself but more of the colour reference used. It does have a very 'home video' look to it. The scene where DeNiro and Pacino meet has an odd blue/purple tint to the highlights which really stands out to me. I took another look at the scene on the JP BD and I think it has nice looking colours just rather desaturated.

Incidentally I'm currently scraping together all of the audio tracks I can find to compare them.

Thanks both. Yes this was never going to be a representation of the 35mm print as the only sources I had for color were the LD and DVD. I did some tests using the LD but I was getting a lot of Dr Dre errors when creating the LUTs so unfortunately it wasn't practical to use. I also tried using a 35mm trailer but there just wasn't enough reference shots, it took 700 LUTs to grade it to the DVD and I found with the trailer it would look right on that one shot, but then all the other shots I didn't have a reference for didn't look right.  

So whilst the DVD isn't a perfect reference, it doesn't have the teal and cuts that the Blu Ray has.

So it seems the LD 5.1 track has issues. The right surround channel has no actual audio content; it only contains low frequency effects where the audio should be almost like a second LFE channel. I can't say whether this is down to the ripping process or is inherent to the LD source.

Comparing the waveforms of the LD 5.1 track to audio from other releases I would say (aforementioned error aside) that it doesn't look great. The LD is least dynamic of the bunch with peaks rolled off.

The DVD looks far better and is essentially a more dynamic version of the LD track with the peaks intact.

The JP BD looks similar to the DVD but louder with peaks rolled off to avoid clipping and spectrograms show some noise reduction.

The US BD and DDE BD are the same and are even more boosted than the JP BD with dynamic range compressed. Surround and LFE channels are also pumped way up on these.

As things stand the DVD looks to be the best available 5.1 audio option.