Complete Pluto 2 / More Silly Symphonies problem

[tinternet]

Hi, have you noticed that cartoons in these tins are restored in some strange way? I mean the blue/violet/red tint tone in picture. It is quite unplesant to see violet ham, red tree trunk or blue leaves. The color correction was excellent before the fifth wave. What do you think of it?

[Jules]

Well, the last two waves haven't been properly restored. Donald Duck Vol. 2 is an atrocity. I just purchased Pluto Vol. 2 and am disappointed by it too. And yes, you are right. There do seem to be abnormal tints in the video. I suspect the shorts have been given minimal restoration and their colours "enhanced" by digitally overly-saturating them.

Could that be what happened?

[musicradio77]

I have the "Complete Pluto - Vol. 2" and I don't have any problems with the quality of the restoration.

[tinternet]

Well, the last two waves haven't been properly restored. Donald Duck Vol. 2 is an atrocity. I just purchased Pluto Vol. 2 and am disappointed by it too. And yes, you are right. There do seem to be abnormal tints in the video. I suspect the shorts have been given minimal restoration and their colours "enhanced" by digitally overly-saturating them.

Could that be what happened?

You are absolutely right. I hope it will be repaired in Chronological Donald 3. I would rather pay more bucks but I want quality.

[dvdjunkie]

I am with MuscRadio 77 on this one. I have both sets, Pluto Vol. 2 and Silly Symphonies Vol. 2, and have not noticed anything like that which is described. In fact my 'toons all look very nicely restored. I wonder where those people live who are having problems with their "tins 'toons", and if might have something to do with where these are manufactured. I know that one plant doesn't make all of the copies for the whole world, so it has to be where that certain volume was manufactured.

[Jules]

But dvdjunkie, haven't you noticed that the contrast between the shorts between, say, Pluto 1 and Pluto 2.

The shorts on Pluto 1 one look simply stunning. Perfect colours, unrivalled clarity, and an immaculately clean print. Not forgetting the perfectly still frame and stability of the picture.

Now take a look at Pluto 2. A good number of shorts a riddled with specks and flecks and scratches and light grain. The colours seem overly bright or saturated, and at times surprisingly dark. Overall, the picture doesn't look "clean". It seems dirty and murky and prevents the animation from looking well-defined, detailed, and mostly nice and neat. Aaron has assured me that the shorts on this and Donald Vol. 2 are restored. But I expect they have only been given a minimal restoration in comparison to earlier Treasures.

A lot of the shorts on these discs look to me the way they normally look when exhibited as bonus features on some other DVD title. Translation: Not good. I seriosuly doubt this year's upcoming Treasures will be any better. What are the odds of that when Disney haven't broken this "new" trend for two years in a row? I'd gladly pay more money just to get Disney to make them the way they used to. Please, Disney! Please!!!!

I think Mr. Maltin needs to go and give the guys responsible for the video presentation of the last two waves of Treasures a kick in the butt.

[dvdjunkie]

Julian, I read your post yesterday (Monday) and went back and did a comparison of both Vol 1 and 2 of Pluto, and Vol. 1 and 2 of Silly Symphonies, and I did not notice a difference in either of these sets. No glitches, flecks, specks, minor scratches, or color differences between either series.

Again I am wondering if it is where the sets are pressed. Since you in live in Malta, your pressing plant may be in Europe or somewhere that quality control is not an issue. It seems that the only people that seem to have problems with their DVDs of Walt Disney Treasures live out of the Continental US. Not saying that is the problem, but it is something that we should look into as far as quality control goes.

[disneyguy]

Mine are fine also..
disneyguy

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I'm not sure those discs are even available as European releases. When we're talking about Walt Disney Treasures, and nothing else is pointed out, I think we should assume that we're talking about the original R1 sets. As for quality, it seems to me that certain different people are going to see different things even on the very same discs.

[Mr. Toad]

I am just not seeing the color problems that are being mentioned. Yes Wave 5 was not cleaned up, but the color channels did not seem to have problems. Wave 6 while not up to the standards of early releases was better than Wave 5 and major props for replacing the discs on the title card issues.

tinternet and Julian -are you both sure your home theaters are set up correctly? I have never seen this mentioned on golden age caroons or animation history forum and these guys know what the cartoons are supposed to look like. They would be all over it if there was a problem like this(like they were with the Platinum edition of Peter Pan)

[MK Sharp]

Perhaps tinternet (or Julian) could give us the details of where to find some of the more egregious colour problems so we can all take a look.

[ichabod]

Well Julian Carter asked me specifically to give my thoughts on this issue about a month ago and I said I would when I'd gone through the DVD, and I've finally worked my way through Pluto volume 2.

And my thoughts.

Well it's obvious that the shorts on Pluto Volume 2 are not restored. Every short exhibity grain etc. Some shorts are either over or under saturated making the colours seem overly dull or overly dull. However to be honest I don't think it's too much of a problem. Considering this is unrestored 60 year old material, it could have been so much worse and I don't think the prints are really that distracting.

However as to this blue leaves and purple ham comment, I really don't know what this is about. I didn't notice any odd colouring at all, and I was deliberatly watching out for it. Again if someone pin points the precise shorts these blue leaves appear I'll take another look.


Although I am not happy with either of these titles for a different reason. The shorts seem to be presented at a very low resolution. Often the outlines of characters appear blocky and jagged like when you blow up a image.

Since I don't have the capacity to take R1 screencaps. I have taken this image from the short Puss Cafe from the R2 dvd of Oliver and Company. Could someone take the corresponding frame from the Treasures DVD and we'll see what a comparison of images does? Upload the image at full size, if you decrease the size or compression of the image, it will make the whole experiment pointless.

[Owlzindabarn]

So you guys are just bringing this up now; now that the thing's been on the market for 9 months???

We all know that Disney dvd has forgotten how to restore animation work and that they've forgotten how to present cartoons on dvd. They've forgotten. Has there been one good animated release in the past 2 years?? Uh uh. Nope. Why should Pluto 2 be any exception?

[Mr. Toad]

So you guys are just bringing this up now; now that the thing's been on the market for 9 months???

We all know that Disney dvd has forgotten how to restore animation work and that they've forgotten how to present cartoons on dvd. They've forgotten. Has there been one good animated release in the past 2 years?? Uh uh. Nope. Why should Pluto 2 be any exception?

I don't think anyone is arguing that Disney is not putting the effort into the restorations of the Treasures they once did. However Wave 6 was a big improvement on week 5. What we are arguning is the specific problem tinternet has brought up and whether it exists. I would say no.

[leuchtmuschel]

I haven't any trouble with the second volume of Silly Symphonies.

Everything looks fine.

Any restoration could only base on the sources. Keep this in mind, please.

The next thing is how much you would spend in time, money and effort.

I think that Disney put a lot into this!

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I'm not quite sure what trouble you're referring to here, but the reason why replacements were made for More Silly Symphonies wasn't exactly picture quality or level of restoration, but first and foremost a less than optimal choice of title cards and one or two more technicalities.