Silence of the Lambs gets a 4K Remaster by Criterion

[spoRv]

What would you call analogue HD recordings?

*cough* W-VHS *cough*

Absolutely!

But you can always record analog HDTV using a digital recorder (D-VHS) or a capture card...

[deleted user]

Yeah no, but what if it's recorded on W-VHS and THEN digitized?

That AAP-AR one sounds interesting, if you can spit out a normal 4:3 version too. I'd really like a Silence of the Lambs full open matte one, ever since I saw the open matte 35mm screens on ebay.

[spoRv]

Yeah no, but what if it's recorded on W-VHS and THEN digitized?

That AAP-AR one sounds interesting, if you can spit out a normal 4:3 version too. I'd really like a Silence of the Lambs full open matte one, ever since I saw the open matte 35mm screens on ebay.

Well, at some point you have to capture/digitize an analog recording... a W-VHS recording of a MUSE program captured via capture card would be the same, more or less, of a D-VHS or direct capture of the same program...

Said that, I can say that it would be quite easy to get a "normal" 1.33:1 version out of an AAP-AR which use only 1.33:1 and 1.78:1 (or 1.85:1) - with a YAO hack, just cover the exceeding parts at the sides, and you will get a fullscreen version, with the central "slice" from a BD/DVD, and the top/bottom from DVD (or SDTV); difference with analog sources would be too noticeable!

[deleted user]

That sounds good. Apply some 35mm-y LUT on top and you have a nice approximate cinematic version.

[zoidberg]

MGM released a full-screen DVD. There was also a widescreen DVD released by Image but I can't find any info on the master for that one.
There's also a full feature super 8mm released by Derann, screenshots certainly point to the cyan/orange timing.

[captainsolo]

Wow there's much more variation than I realized. Interesting.

The new 4K master is about as good as you can do...except that is as per usual they didn't take into account what prints looked like or were timed for. Thus is fixes the problems of the MGM HD master but still appears a tad too cold. The Criterion seems to be a port of their LD and is flawed due to being an old master designed for CRT viewing but has things that aren't in the new master either.

Sooo...I've got to get the new disc to have my third Criterion release of this same film...which took until; the second viewing to appreciate its wonderful construction and tone which is actually quite lovingly old fashioned. But I will agree with the Commodore that I agree 1000% on Seven.

[Beber]

Here's how looks the French VHS from 1992 I just bought and copied onto DVD.

[CSchmidlapp]

Sooo...I've got to get the new disc to have my third Criterion release of this same film...which took until; the second viewing to appreciate its wonderful construction and tone which is actually quite lovingly old fashioned. But I will agree with the Commodore that I agree 1000% on Seven.

I never thought of it in that way.
I'm going to grab a copy when possible and give it another watch.

So what's the consensus on the best Video Audio release to watch?

[nirbateman]

Best audio is the DS mix on the Criterion BD, blows the 5.1 out of the water.

As far as video, the Criterion is definitely the better defined, being the result of a new 4K scan of the negative, but there is some doubt about the colors. It is definitely more faithful than the MGM BD, but in some scenes I clearly remember it being faithful to the 35mm print I saw a few months ago.

So I believe we can have a consensus about the audio, but we will have some arguments about the video.
However, we won't be able to argue about the Criterion BD being better than the MGM.

[captainsolo]

Prior to this new release I had fallen back to using the old Criterion despite it being and older transfer and had recently finally gotten the LD release that is a CAV/CLV hybrid.
I do still like the older CC disc in some ways but it is defined by being a 90's transfer. The MGM CE DVD was the one DVD copy I had for some time previously and the same master used on the first BD-it's not bad but just doesn't have the same atmosphere as the older Criterion.
You can see the evolution on dvdbeaver:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_r...lu-ray.htm
Criterion LD port to MGM SE to MGM CE to BD port which wasn't very good to new 4K master.

So the new release will technically be best and it is nice to see they have the original mix present-however as Criterion is in the habit of over scrubbing their audio as evidenced by our own Dr. Moshrom, I'll wager that the LD audio could sound better.