Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Punch Drunk Love - video quality

hi everyone,

if any of you have the PDL dvd or have seen it, did you notice something funny about the video quality? I find the scenes that are dark are very dark, and scenes where there is sunlight, the sunlight is extremely bright.

I do think, as long as it really just isn't me, that this was done on purpose.

But is it just me? My TV? My Player? or do others notice this too?

Hi Ravi,

I don't have that particular DVD, but the symptoms sound familiar.

I'm gonna throw out a wild guess here and suggest that perhaps your problem may lie in the luminance adjustment of your rpcrt. Juggling contrast and brighness in your user menu may help,(if you haven't tried that yet) or maybe it's something that has to be accomplished in the service menu. Did the service Dude run a luminance histogram when(if)you called him(or her)out?

Try shutting off any picture "enhancement circuits" too, and see if that helps. It did on my Mits.

Course, it could be the DVD!
G'luck, Rich.

hi Rich,

i haven't had my tv professionally calibrated. I have fiddled with the brightness. i have also turned off the enhancements, no help. Other dvd's look fine, it's really just this one, so i was wondering if anyone else had noticed it.

thanks for the reply,
ravi

FYI im not sure if this has anything to do with it but PDL is a superbit dvd.
Jake

i did notice that and so i figured the video quality would be better. but i do remember when i saw it in theatres it was artistically filmed a bit funny. paul t anderson is just that way.

I wouldn't swear to it, but it sounds like the film was processed with the Bleach Bypass Method. It's a look that's been rather popular the last few years. It basically makes the whites whiter, the blacks blacker, and the colors less saturated.

Ha, if you guys own the actual DVDs with the case, you will see the artwork that was the inspiration for the movie. So PT Anderson decided to fill the movie with beautiful lens flares that are cause by light hitting the camera. So that is why the movie looks that way. Definitely an artistic decision. PT Anderson is very involved in the creation of his DVDs and supervised every frame of that transfer.

I recorded this a few days ago on CityTV-HD and thought the picture was odd as well...artsy director..

ok, so it's not just me:)

yea, he's artsy, but i love his movies!

If you think the picture in this movie is weird, you should try "Sex and Lucia", a foreign film from Spain. Very white whites and black blacks, but the colors are pretty saturated, as well.