In terms of audio and extras they're great discs, however for PQ they are terrible. The restorations were seemingly done well just to be destroyed with heavy, heavy DNR and Edge Enhancement that makes both films grainless, smeary messes (particularly MMT). Any chance they let Criterion take care of them like they did with AHDN, or is Apple too proud to let someone put out decent blu-rays of these films?
I think both look absolutely fantastic, especially Help! Color on both is great (Criterion's Help! might as well be B&W in comparison--see Another Girl on both).
Yes. The color is great. The rest is not. All grain is scrubbed. Everyone is a smeary, waxy mess. And Help! has terrible halos around everything/one. They need to be remastered in 4k, no grain reduction, no edge enhancement. In other words, restored the image then Let It Be.
Or the LaserDisc from Japan (unfortunately, it has subtitles).... You get John's original "Roll up! Roll up!" lyric as well...
Roll roll up ( sic te he) That’s essential to the mix. Also if you have a crt should look sound good. Bit of a hassle vhs in the 21st Century. But if they can’t get it right with the Blu Ray, no option.
You are probably correct that it could be better. But with comparison only to cruddy VHS and DVD versions available previously, I think the blu-ray looks incredible.
I'd should correct my OP and say that Help! isn't grainless, it suffers from heavy EE. MMT is the grainless blob of an image.
that's for sure, but we also need the Stereo as well even if it is not original...but the original mono would be quite cool...just as I saw it at the movies!
I agree on MMT...WTF happened to that? I found this used for a couple of bucks...that's all it's worth.
It seems some of the problems with MMT stem from a 35mm source being used as opposed to the 16mm A/B rolls.
I have no way of knowing for sure, but the people at Apple Corps are very bright, and it's clear to me from the recent reissues they've been doing that there's a lot of stuff quietly going on in the background, and they've no doubt archived all kinds of stuff. It basically has to be done from the original camera negative, and it's pretty standard archival procedure to get that stuff done just to be ready for anything: HD, 4K, 4K HDR, etc. I think under optimum circumstances, these films could look pretty striking. I'm reminded of the music videos provided on the Sgt. Pepper boxed set a couple of years ago. They left no stone unturned in really doing a good job on those projects in terms of picture quality. Actually, an insider from the Anthology project in 1993-1994 revealed to me that the shots used in that show were done from the 16mm A/B roll camera originals. So they still own and have access to all the footage. And a ton of outtakes, I'm sure. As I often say: all they have to do is to want to do it and to spend the damned money. A whole lot o' spendin' money... it's gonna take plenty of money.
Yeah, the restored “Hello Goodbye” video (as well as plenty others on the 1/1+ BDs) is jaw dropping. The story I’ve heard regarding MMT is that the 16mm camera negatives are long gone and the BD is sourced from not even a blown-up 35mm master element, but rather a release print, which was apparently the best source they could find at the time. They were able to clean up all the damage, but at the expense of what detail was there. I would hope something better has been found since, but who knows.
I feel like this is right on the money. They probably smeared it to high heaven to get rid of blemishes and the result is what we got. Personally, I'd rather have got more damage with more detail.