Updated: DOTM Blu-ray 3D Color/brightness

[RiseDarthVader]

I think its funny how people are saying its the blu ray when 50/50 are saying the opposite. Obviously its not the blu ray, everyone I know is content with the picture quality through out the entire movie, there is no drop in brightness for me or over saturated colors. Mr. Bay specifically stated that there is no standards for different 3D TV's, this is the same with Black levels and color ratio's for regular HDTV's its the individual company that sets its black and color ratios not through the standards of another HDTV company. if anyone here can back me up, its a standard set by the company not the different products as a whole. The same thing is happening here with 3DTV's.

Mr Bay and others are correct that there isn't a standard to calibrating 3D displays yet but you are incorrect in a way that there is no standards for 2D displays either. The entire film and television industry does follow a standard set by the SMPTE which makes sure the image from production to post-production to projection all output the same image that the Director, DoP and Colour Grader wanted. All the displays used in the industry are calibrated to have the same gamma, contrast, colour temperature (D65), etc. And all film prints, film projectors and digital projectors follow the same standards. Now the TV settings out of the box do not display all these factors correctly as their all designed to be the "prettiest" on the showroom floor to catch peoples eyes so they usually have white that are too blue, contrast and colour saturation jacked up through the roof. So to get consumer displays to follow the standards of the industry you need to get an ISF calibration if you can afford it. With this calibration the ISF technician would set your display to have the right contrast and colour with test patterns and also have the colour temperature of the whites be correct by bringing it as close as possible to D65 using a device scientifically reading the light coming out of the screen.

Now that that aspect is out of the way I'm going to move onto why you can't really rely on the opinion on the 3D Blu-ray from "most" of the forum members because they just don't know what to look for. I just wanted to point out once again that the issue is with the encode on the retail disc because the brightness levels were measure scientifically directly from disc comparing several shots throughout the movie including explosion and lens flare heavy shots what would be the brightest and they showed a definite loss in brightness after the 42 minute mark. Just go back to the links I posted especially the second one that has the data to the right of the screenshots showing the scientifically measure brightness levels. And to address the issue of using anyones opinions on Blu-rays to judge whether something is correct or wrong because there are cases where the home cinema/blu-ray enthusiast catch things that the general public doesn't notice or know how to look for. "The Dark Knight" on Blu-ray is probably one of the most recommended Blu-rays for most people for "reference quality" and "Blu-ray to show off to friends". Yet the enthusiast home cinema owners and Blu-ray collectors know their is a massive error with the transfer on the retail disc. The contrast is overcooked, the 35mm material has poorly applied digital noise reduction and artificial sharpening aka "edge enhancement". This is backed up Torsten Kaiser who is a film restorationist. And here is what he had to say about "The Dark Knight" on Blu-ray

TK: The Dark Knight Blu-ray transfer has certainly raised a lot of questions and debate. Have you been involved in those discussions?

KB: Some. I certainly have my opinions on the transfer, and many of them are negative.

TK: On the web, a lot of people have been saying, "oh, it's way too contrast-y" and so on and so forth. And that is correct. Others have said there is a lot of edge enhancement present. And, yes, it is, mainly because of the changes in contrast; specifically changes made to whites and in the lower grayscale. Many of the edge halos or pixel breakups, as they are being called, that appear are present due to contrast changes, not necessarily by way of what people call edge enhancement. On The Dark Knight Blu-ray transfer, the biggest error – by far the biggest error – its producers committed was the complete change of the film's original color timing. The Dark Knight was not copied with an optical printer. The original material – I held it in my hands – it was gorgeous. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was… I fell flat off my chair. (Laughs) The colors are so different compared to those that appear in the Blu-ray transfer. I've seen the Blu-ray once, and I've never looked at it again. It's very unfortunate too because it makes the Blu-ray image exactly what it is. And this is something that is hugely important. It also unfortunately happened, albeit in a different way, to North By Northwest. When I saw North by Northwest, I talked to Robert Harris about it – specifically about the opening being de-grained to a level that you begin to see line twitter. It's a side effect from a de-graining tool which causes the layers to wobble a little. It's a weird thing that should have never made it past the quality control stage. They should have known exactly what caused it and should have changed it.

And here is a comment from Robert Harris another film restorationist (that worked on The Godfather trilogy restoration) on the LOTR FOTR Blu-ray issue that was a pretty big discussion on Blu-rays forums

I have just spent another hour, beginning at 6am, with the new FotR / EE / BD.
Just as an aside, having worked with both silent and sound projects, black & white, tinted (both stock as well as dye), tinted and toned, Eastman Color, three-strip, as well as both printed to dye transfer Technicolor, I'm reasonably attuned to color, timing, densities, etc.

And after continuously reading about the color problems on FotR, I have concluded that I do, in fact, have a defective set. I'll be requesting a back-up copy from WB, and will reconsider my earlier comments.

Sources:
https://www.smpte.org/about
http://www.imagingscience.com/
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=6885
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/31...in-blu-ray/270

[RiseDarthVader]

I also want to point out that my 3DTV has been ISF calibrated for 2D and 3D separately. While there isn't a standard for 3D calibration yet I got the calibrator to calibrate the screen to produce the same 2D standard image through the 3D glasses while the TV was in 3D mode with some 3D test patterns.

[myothercar]

2D Blu-ray__________3D Blu-ray__________


The claim that they baked the dark, yellow hues into the picture to counter the tint of 3D glasses is strange. Of all the mass market 3D eyewear I've worn, they all make the image darker and slightly yellow. Baking more darkness and yellow into the Blu-ray isn't going to counter the tint of the 3D glasses- it's only going to intensify the tint two-fold.

Besides, these color alterations were best left alone. We 3DTV owners run our sets with a variety of content and know what color and brightness adjustments need to be done to neutralize the tinting effects. As long as content makers leave the color timing true to the 2D version, it will look right on our sets when we activate our 3D color profiles.

[RiseDarthVader]

That's true and the passive glasses with the RealD cinema system add a warmer yellow tint to the image so I would of expected the grading for the cinema to push the cooler colours and not warmer colours. My Sony active shutter 3D glasses add a yellow and green tint to the 3D image so my ISF calibrator had the TV push more blue colours from the TV and took out some of the greens to get the whites to match up with 2D D65 colour temperature.