2018-10-01, 05:38 AM
(2018-09-30, 10:15 PM)Chewtobacca Wrote: Apart from the inferior colors, I wonder what people's thoughts are on the US BD. It has a higher bitrate and shows more picture information. PDB, is worth regrading the US BD?
I think so, Chew. There might be a project here.
Looking at my DVDs, the pics on caps a holc and on dvdbeaver, I agree with what many have said in this thread. To me, the US disc has the best luma picture. More picture, higher bit-rate, better grain (?), etc but with a very flat picture. For color/chroma I like the German Grindhouse the best. Beside the high contrast, the deeply saturated colors and orange skin tones look to true to a theatrical print and probably the best example of TGS' "true" colors. The other HD masters dip into the that modern green/yellow look. You can see it particularly in the skies.
So to me the best thing to do is color match the US master to the German Grindhouse and then use that as your chroma. Then fix the black level of the US master. That should make the picture look much less flat, desaturated and gray. Convert that to luma only. Then combine the two so you have the grindhouse colors, the US picture and a "custom" black level without the grindhouse's contrast.
So using the pics on caps:
Regular German\Grindhouse German\Regular US\US with adjusted black level\US regraded to grindhouse\US regraded plus adjusted black level
(avery, very rough first try)
What does everyone think? (Although asking might be a moot point since I don't have either of the german masters nor the US yet to truly test.)