[Canceled] Batman (1989) - Open Matte (Upscale Project )

[SilverWook]

Watched the full frame flipper with the color turned all the way down on my tv last week, and it was an interesting experience. The sound mix is pretty good for such an early DVD title.

BTW, Best Buy seems to have plenty of all the Batman flippers ('89 to '97) for $3.99 each if anybody is still looking for them.

[captainsolo]

I bit the bullet and ordered the old 1997 set off ebay from one of the surplus sellers...and it arrived sealed...
Brought back a lot of memories tearing off the awful old style snapper case stickers. And of course '89 was a floater disc and scuffed up...yet it plays both sides and holds against the old DVD Shrink scan test so yay DVD retention!
This is to replace my 4 Film Favorites letterbox only set-BTW guys these Legacy 1997 sets only go for five bucks on ebay.

Seeing the open versions on DVD instead of spot checking my worn old VHS copies is a different experience and it certainly seems like they didn't get all the same video bugs applied to them as the letterbox versions did. (But they did get some.) '89 is the same master source on both due to identical damage and gate weave and audio. The only difference is where some bright engineer cut Vicki pulling the lint hair our of her mouth.

Also of note is an audio tone noise evident in a few scenes on all soundtracks-primarily in Keaton's mic during the "she is great isn't she?" scene with Alfred and more so in the entirety of the "homicidal artist" Flugenheim scene. I noticed it when running the LD this week with my Klipsch towers reset to a lower crossover. It's in all the transfers.
I also think the main title weaving is odd since it's in every single video version out there including the Blu-ray. I wonder what exactly WB scanned in 2005 to HD???

[captainsolo]

Since I don't know where else to post this here are a few observations:

'89 1.33 has too much headroom and gets too claustrophobic due to whomever did the 1.33 pan n scanning. The film plays far better at 1.85 and seems totally designed for it. This reminds of why I probably didn't like the film on VHS as a kid-it felt too jumbled and it wasn't until DVD and especially the LD that I became truly obsessed. The 1.33 master is the same source transfer as the letterbox version and is thankfully without all the Edge enhancement, macroblocking and noise artifacts that make the 1.78 DVD so garish. However the framing gets awkward and it does have some noise so while it is technically better than the LD and DVD I still prefer the LD overall due to it having good framing and being without the letterbox DVD's nasty image. Also the 1.33 seems a tad brighter for some reason as I expect it is the VHS/TV master.

BR is very interesting. Upon further inspection the 1.78 DVD is virtually identical to the LD so those who can't find a non-rotter rejoice. A few contrast shifts here and there but virtually the same outside of the audio going to 5.1 from 2.0. The 1.33 is very interesting as it is far sharper and more detailed but also far brighter. Again the 1.33 framing gets somewhat awkward but this time it is centered properly and perfectly watchable without missing the sides too much. That said, again this is totally designed for widescreen and it does lose from going down to 1.33.

I never quite realized just how painstakingly photographed these two films are. All the more reason why they need properly dark 4K transfers.

[PDB]

A new color source became available to me. Here is what this upscale looks like colored to look like it.

[Beber]

That certainly looks very nice. I could see this film looking like that. The skin tones, the dark scenes where you only see the Bat's eyes, the general mood seems about right.

[Stamper]

Looks great! The only weird stuff is the hair on Michael Keaton's head.

So which version is cut? I'm confused, are the Blu-ray discs cut? (of the first film)

[deleted user]

That looks surprisingly good.

[Stamper]

I wanted to order the legacy set for 5 bucks but the shipping is 20 bucks for europe LOL guess I'll wait for this release!

[captainsolo]

The only cut version is the first letterboxed DVD which removes Vicki taking the lint hair out of her mouth for some reason.
The Warner BDs are region free and available in a 4 film favorites set for dirt cheap. They're uncut but merely 1080p bumps of the SE DVDs from 2005.

What new source is this PDB? I really, really like this new look as it feels very accurate to my eyes and how I imagined this would look if directly sourced.

[Bigrob]

interesting post over at Blu-ray.com

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p...tcount=500

(have sent them a link to sign up over here)