Technical matters






Restoration

What exactly do you do when digitally restoring the DVD editions? Scratches and marks are one thing, but I suspect that even at the highest DVD data-rate there is an inherent MPEG2-encoding problem with particularly grainy film-elements. Does your restoration include softening the picture in cases of extreme grain to avoid artifacts like on Highlander (although better mastering might have helped there...). If yes, it is artistically very debatable.
-- Julian Eggebrecht

 Thanks for a really smart question; you obviously have a good eye, and raise a fundamental philosophical point that's very important to us.

Every film print ever made is a reflection of the original film that originally passed through the camera. We do whatever we can to preserve the original feeling of the film grain even as we go to video. Transferring to DVD is no less challenging; we've worked to get the image as clear and sharp as possible without sacrificing the density, chiaroscuro balance, original color, etc.

To this end, in our restorations, we tend to remove only the worst film damage: edge damage, bad splices, egregious instances of dirt printed into the negative. Keep in mind that, while we always return to the best available elements, those elements -- particularly in the case of a filmed which was "lost" for many years -- may have quite a bit of this type of damage.

As to audio restoration, our primary attention goes to repairing dropouts, reducing broadband hiss, and eliminating crackles, pops, and, oh what the hell, snaps.

As always, our agenda is to present these classics as close to the way that they were originally intended to be seen as is humanly possible.

Will Silence of the Lambs on DVD be remastered in 5.1?

 The Silence of the Lambs was originally mastered to 2 tracks; that's the master we used for our laserdisc, and that's the one we'll be using for our DVD version as well. Now, please, before the 5.1 fans get their keyboards poised for some flame mail to Criterion, I will tell you why: We could take the stems of the original 2 tracks and reconfigure them into 5 tracks, but we won't. The reason is that taking such a step would require for us to force our own creative judgment onto a soundtrack that we didn't create in the first place. Criterion's goal has always been to present films as close as possible to the director's original intent. To make arbitrary decisions about a film's final presentation has never been what we do, and we're not about to start now.

However, many staffers believe that the way in which DVD presents sound has thrown a bit of confusion into the mix. All sound on DVD is encoded using the Dolby Digital scheme, so even a monaural soundtrack is going to be in Dolby Digital on DVD. The Silence stereo soundtrack is encoded for Dolby Pro-Logic surround (left, center, right, and mono surround). We truly feel that the original 2-track version is preferable to an artificially rendered 5 track version, and trust you will be pleased with this release.

Meanwhile, given the level of technical expertise that many of my correspondents exhibit, I refer you to the Dolby Web site. All of your questions will doubtless find their most accurate answers here.

16x9?

Hello,
I just saw that The 400 Blows will be released in only letterbox format on DVD!!! I will not being buying it or anyother Criterion release that does not take full advantage of the DVD format. In my personal opinion, if "The Collection" releases any original widescreen film in only letterbox format without a 16:9 anamorphic version, The Criterion Collection will have fallen from the graces of the true film lover. For Mr. Truffaut sake, I hope The Criterion Collection will give his piece the respect and care it deserves.
Thank you,
-- Karsten Lundquist


In all of the press I've read about Criterion's entry into DVD, I have not seen any mention at all of anamorphic encoding for 16:9 TVs. This is a very important capability of DVD, and one that should not be overlooked--especially not by a company such as Criterion that wants to present movies in the best possible way. So, what's the story? It will be a real shame if you don't anamorphically enhance those titles that can benefit from it.
Very few members of your audience currently have 16:9 TVs. I certainly don't. But we will. Eventually, we all will. And when we get those TVs, it will be so very wonderful to be able to pop our Criterion discs into our DVD players and get a picture that is 1/3 sharper than we've previously seen it. Don't you agree?
-- Louis J. Cassorla

 We're always going to master our DVDs from the best possible digital transfer elements available. Currently, there exist no 16x9 transfers of The 400 Blows, but our current transfer is gorgeous. Additionally, we have spent painstaking weeks removing scratches and other film damage and restoring the audio. In future, when we return to film elements to create new masters, we will definitely take advantage of the anamorphic 16x9 format where a transfer is available to us. While we recognize that viewers already equipped with 16x9 monitors may be disappointed, we hope to get ahead of the curve in due course, so that by the time 16x9 monitors are more common, Criterion's DVDs will take full advantage of the format.


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Aspect Ratios

My primary goal with DVD's is to get the finest quality reproduction of the film available with no cropping of the picture. With regards to cropping, what do I look for for assurance that an older film's (pre-1951) picture has not been cropped, that I am seeing the complete picture, is it the aspect ratio or format or both? I see various formats listed of DVD boxes: Widescreen, pan and scan, standard, letterbox 16x9, full frame and of course the various aspect ratios.

Let's take your new DVD version of The Lady Vanishes,what is the aspect ratio of that film and the format you will be displaying it in? I'm assuming that that film is typical of films of that era in the format they were shot in. And I am assuming that if anyone will be showing prints of these films completely then it would be the Criterion Collection.

I hope I have fully explained my concern and that your answer will help me when I have to purchase films not produced by Criterion.
-- Robert D. Hill

 Regarding Criterion titles: Every laserdisc (and each upcoming DVD) features an "About the transfer" box on the back of the package. Here you will find the aspect ratio of the film listed along with the picture and sound elements from which it was transferred. We endeavor to present every film in its original aspect ratio (i.e., the ratio of height to width of the image), unless the filmmaker expressly requests a slightly different framing. What that means is that the Criterion bar is your guarantee that you're getting the whole picture as the filmmaker intended.

A general guide to packaging: "Widescreen" and "Letterboxed" are interchangeable terms for the process of presenting a film with black mattes at the top and bottom of the frame, allowing a 1.85:1, 1.66:1, or 2.35:1 ("scope") image to appear on a 1.33:1 television screen without losing information at the sides of the picture. But beware: just because it's widescreen doesn't mean it's right. For example, Robocop was projected in theaters at the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, but when we transferred the Criterion version, Paul Verhoeven insisted that we present the film in the 1.66:1 ratio in which he had always intended for the film to be viewed. In reframing the picture at 1.66:1, no information is lost from the sides of the image, but more information is visible on the top and bottom of the screen. That's one difference between our Director's Cut version and the standard release.

"Pan and Scan" refers to the process of fitting a widescreen film into the 1.33:1 standard TV format, by zooming in on the frame, then panning back and forth across the image to get as much of the image into view as possible. Criterion never does pan-and-scan releases, and if your goal is to get as much of the picture as possible, you probably want to stay away from pan-and-scan editions.

"Standard," while not a technical term, is sometimes used to market pan-and-scan editions in contrast to widescreen editions.

Regarding The Lady Vanishes: Like the vast majority of films shot prior to Cinemascope's 1951 debut, The Lady Vanishes was shot "flat" or "Academy ratio," generally accepted to be 1.33:1 aspect ratio. (A highly technical email customer wrote to tell us that Academy ratio is actually 1.37:1 and that 1.33:1 was in use only through the silent era, but this is a bit arcane for all but the most ardent students of aspect ratios, and to avoid confusion we'll stick to the 1.33:1 figure). For the consumer, Academy ratio means the picture's the same size as a standard TV screen. No mattes or letterboxing are necessary, because the whole picture will perfectly fit a standard television frame. For sticklers and students of the ineffable, there were a few early experiments with widescreen images involving projection on multiple screens side-by-side, Abel Gance's Napoleon being perhaps the most famous. There are no such pictures in the Criterion Collection at the moment, but if there were, you could rest assured we would do whatever was necessary to show you every inch of the original frame.

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DTS

What is Criterion's stance on DTS? Will you ever use it?
--Damon Anyos

 Just the other day we were discussing this with our sound man, Michael Wiese, who loves the DTS format. "It's a 4-to1 compression instead of the 10-to-1 compression you get with AC-3, so it's definitely better," he said. So why haven't we done it? Well, when we're working on a major surround-sound special edition (The Game upcoming , for example), the DTS edition is usually already in the works from Image, and the number of DTS decoders in the marketplace just doesn't justify two DTS editions. Many of our customers do have DTS set-ups, but even more don't, and we simply can't use up both digital tracks with DTS, one analog track with a commentary, and leave nothing for the average Criterion customer except a mono mix on analog 2. In short, we're looking for our first opportunity to work with DTS, but it hasn't cropped up yet. I'll post the news as soon as we schedule our first DTS title.


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