The French Connection Bluray Video Quality Issue

I hadn't been following the release of The French Connection on Bluray, so I was intrigued when I read James' review of TFC.

I searched for some screenshots of the TFC bluray, and immediately saw what the director had done. The screenshots show that the transfer had a bunch of chroma (color) information thrown out, so blurry colors bleed everywhere.

This chroma blurring effect is similar to many digital photo noise reduction algorithms...when used excessively. Digital image sensors produce a lot of chroma noise when you start hitting their ISO limit, so blurring the chroma channel helps reduce the visible noise. This is actually a pretty smart technique (and a visually acceptable compromise...to a point) since our eyes have less "color resolution" than "grayscale resolution."

Anyways, in TFC's case, this effect is an artistic choice than a noise reduction step. The chroma blurring here is so severe that from a pure image detail retention standpoint it would be unacceptable.

In case anyone here is interested in what this luminance and chrominance stuff is about, I made some images to help illustrate the issue.

First, I imported a TFC bluray screenshot into Photoshop and separated the luminance (grayscale) and chrominance (color) information. Then, I needed a comparison screenshot from a movie that had a normal level of color information. Well I happened to pick Zodiac. From the image below you can see that the chrominance channel of Zodiac retains a much higher level of detail than TFC (look for the sharp contours in the chrominance images).




Next, I decided to apply the TFC bluray effect to the Zodiac screenshot. Here's a crop for starters. Top: crop from original screenshot. Bottom: crop from TFC'ized screenshot. Note the color bleed from Robert Downey Jr's shirt, for example.


The full images are posted as links below:
The French Connection 1080p
http://www.lolcanosaurus.com/nweb/tfc_1080p.jpg

Zodiac 1080p
http://www.lolcanosaurus.com/nweb/zodiac_1080p.jpg

Zodiac with TFC bluray effect 1080p
http://www.lolcanosaurus.com/nweb/zodiac_full_tfcblu_effect.jpg

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[Post edited by YCH on May 23, 2009 - CDT 5:58 PM]

Reknown film restoration expert Robert Harris apparently likes the new look:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/ht-software-high-definition/282606-few-words-about-french-connection-blu-ray.html

...whereas a lot of other people hate it, including TFC's cinematographer Owen Roizman found it, who found it "atrocious"
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Back-By-Midnight/2009/02/25/Anarchy-in-NYC-The-Legacy-Of-The-French-Connection

Later, William Friedkin defended his vision and explained why Owen Roizman was not consulted when making the new Bluray of TFC:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Back-By-Midnight/2009/03/03/William-Friedkin-In-His-Own-Words

Side-note: William Friedkin seems a bit...out of touch with video transfers? He seems to imply that this new color timing isn't possible with DVD. I mean I love Bluray but come on.

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[Post edited by YCH on May 23, 2009 - CDT 5:54 PM]

Thanks. Yes, this is a case of where it's better to keep the excellent Collector's DVD edition over the new Blu-ray. Hopefully (no doubt), eventually Fox will re-do the BD, and get the image done right. The original film was never all that great to look at anyway, but the new BD image is *clearly* a step down - unfortunate for such a great film.

-JOE- (Love Hendrix!)

Well, when u push that "iso" setting up, you're getting grain. Cinematographers use this intentionally most of the times as it ads a distinct look. They would use a higher ASA rated film stock and process it in a specific way. Maybe what you're seeing on your Blu-ray disc is in fact an accurate transfer preserving all the grain and stock properties of the original.

You get grain with older films as film stock back then was not as advanced as it is today. Latitude is also an issue when talking about old movies. Film stock back then was not able to capture so many different quantities of light resulting in harsher colors and highest contrasts.

You see back then the craft of cinematography was truly a specialty, an art that not many people could practice. Due to the limitations, people had to be good at it. You shot it, and it almost was what u were stuck with until the film's release. Nowadays, with the evolution of film stock and the integration of digital technology, the cinematographer's art is broken down to departments. People now shoot on highly-sensitive, wide-latitude film stock (check out the Kodak Vision 3) which basically can read faces in a dimly-lit room with even a poor lens, take it in the computer, and as you just prooved, photoshop it into something completely different and print it. People don't "light" the scene anymore, they just expose and fix later.

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[Post edited by S_Coaster on May 23, 2009 - CDT 6:04 PM]

S_Coaster,

It appears that the French Connection bluray had, little, or no noise reduction applied to the luminance channel of the image. The chrominance channel is the problem here. I'm pretty sure previous DVD incarnations didn't show this excessive chrominance blurring effect, so no, it's not the original stock, rather it's a post processing effect that the director apparently wanted to achieve but didn't have the means in the 70s.

Please note that I do not own a copy of TFC bluray, I'm just going by the screenshots I found of it, and my own knowledge of imaging.

I don't work in the movie industry but judging from the extras I've seen on DVDs/blurays, good cinematographers will always light the scene as well as they can, even today.

If I had to guess, it's those who either lack the skill or time to do so, or forced by a certain need (eg: difficulty of lighting a green-screen shot) that big lighting changes are done in the computer. Even on a computer you cannot easily re-light the scene, like putting a virtual light in some corner of the room. You cannot really undo dark shadows once it's shot on film that way. What you can do effectively is change the color grade of the scene, and darken/lighten parts of the image (not specific surfaces of an object) and such. When filmakers go too far with image manipulation (eg: "day for night" shots) it stands out even with the snazziest technology.

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[Post edited by YCH on May 23, 2009 - CDT 6:22 PM]

Blu-ray is big enough to hold BOTH versions. Their were people moaning over changes made in TDK (i can't remember what the issue was..color timing?) It's kinda funny that you chose Fincher's Zodiac as a reference because if i remember correctly, he went back and redid Se7en on DVD back in the day actually improving the picture by removing excess grain and fiddling with the color temp, warming it up. Sooo, what we have with that film is not a true representation of what we saw in theaters either. However, he did make it better in alot of peoples opinion of which is opposite to the way some feel about TFC. Star Wars and Indiana Jones would be two more examples of not getting what you saw in theaters. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don't, and by judging by the screens of TFC, they didnt get it right...

(great topic btw.)

YCH:
That's why i mentioned the KODAK VISION 3, which features the widest latitude out there, it can pick up extreme detail even in shadows. Sure, people still light the scene, it's natural, but they know they shot 50% of it, cause they'll produce the final look in post. DI begun as a safety net for the cinematographer but nowadays it's integrated in cinematography as much as the actual shooting. I don't recall which issue it was, but a recent article on the "American Cinematographer" magazine was referring to how producers storm into color correction rooms and manipulate images even though cinematographers don't agree.

Christopher Nolan and his cinematographer Wally Pfister both agreed to by-pass the entire 2k film scan and color correction and go Optical (which means printing from film-to-film) preserving FULL resolution instead of downgrading to 2 or 4k , color correcting and then printing that lower-res image back on film. The Dark Knight was color corrected the good ol' way, using chemicals on the film it's self. (Which makes me wonder why the DVD and Blu-ray releases are so bad)

This is not to tell that DI and color correction isn't a tool. Many stories out there require a specific look to be more realistic. Take for example SE7EN. Se7en created a huge buzz between cinematographers when it came out cause it was shot on Reversal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_film ),then was scanned in 2k and was the first film ever to be color corrected in DI. But hey, it works great for the story and creates a very distinct mood surrounding the characters.

YCH, great information and I really appreciate that you added the comparison screenshots so we know what you are talking about.

Nice thread and hopefully the studios master their movies properly in the future.