Urheilukatu
FI-00250 Helsinki 25
FINLAND
Universal Studios
Universal Home Video
10 Universal Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
U. S. A.
July 18th, 2005
Dear Sirs:
I have to write directly to you concerning certain DVD releases. I
have written to your affiliated company Universal Pictures Finland OY,
but have received no reply. There are two problems that should be taken
into consideration, and I am sure that you have the means to rectify
them.
First of all, I must remark that
it is in my opinion very positive to import and market contemporary Asian
movies to Scandinavia and release them in a special series called
“Asian Vision”. Quite a few movies have already been
released in this series, but, unfortunately, most of them suffer from a
mastering defect that makes them unpleasant to view.
Most of the titles in the
“Asian Vision” series suffer from an inappropriate film
speed. In Europe, the television system is PAL, and its display frame rate
is 25 Hz. (In the U. S., the system is NTSC, and display frame rate is 30
Hz.) To show movies in the PAL system, they are slightly speeded up, so
that film speed is 25 fps, instead of 24 fps that is used in theatres and in
the NTSC system. Most of your general titles are treated accordingly, and
have no problems.
Most of the “Asian
Vision” titles are, however, converted from the NTSC system
inappropriately, so that the film speed remains 24 fps. In a TV system of
25 Hz, this causes problems because part of the film frames have to be
shown interlaced, and it affects the image quality. All movements become
slightly “jerky” and a bit messy.
Here is one interlaced frame
from the Japanese film Ringu by Hideo Nakata, released in
Scandinavia (DVD Region 2) as a title in your “Asian
Vision” series. As you can see, the image is quite messy —
things like this should not be happening:
This effect also distorts
aesthetical values when dream-like camera movements and pans become
slightly trembling. For example, this shot from Ringu loses its
aesthetical effect as the movement of the waves is not smooth anymore
because of the video artifacts:
Unfortunately, also the classic
movie Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock suffers from this problem.
In the new Scandinavian release, the film speed is erroneously 24 fps, and
the image is letterboxed. (In an older release, the speed was 25 fps, as it
should be, and the image was anamorphic.) The interlacing adds
unwelcome effects to the opening-credits animation, for example:
Interlacing also created irritating “ghosting” artefacts all the
time when something moves on the screen:
Is there a specific reason for
the unfortunate fact, that Hitchcock’s movies The
Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain and
Topaz were released in Europe with incorrect aspect ratio, that
is, 1.33 : 1? The U. S. releases have the correct aspect ratio 1.85 : 1, the
image is anamorphic, and the transfers are made from better prints. For
example, I myself ordered the U. S. releases of these four movies, and
bought a region-free DVD player to view them. If the Region-2 releases
are of inferior quality, people will buy the Region-1 releases instead. It is
obvious that this undermines the regional encoding system. The same goes
for the “Asian Vision” series: as the Scandinavian releases
are inappropriately mastered, people will buy the Asian releases directly
from Region 3 instead.
The second issue I would like
to raise is the inferior quality of the Finnish-language cover texts of your
DVD releases marketed here in Finland. People would probably find it
amusing if in your U. S. releases such difficult words as anniversary
edition and Czech would not be spelled correctly. I own
some of your releases from Region 1, and have spotted no clumsy
misspellings in them. The Finnish-language cover texts, however, are full
of vicious misspellings and clumsy language; it is obvious that they are
written by somebody who cannot write Finnish properly, and who often
hasn’t seen the movies in question either. I find it both
embarrassing and humiliating that a big company like Universal Pictures
seems not to respect the orthography and grammar of a minor language. I
have written letters to Universal Pictures Finland OY, but have received
no reply, and the use of bad Finnish on DVD covers continues.
There are two wishes that I
would like to make. 1. Please order your affiliated company
Universal Pictures Nordic AB to correct the 24 fps mastering problem in
the “Asian Vision” DVD titles. I cannot understand how a
big and traditional movie company like Universal Studios can make such a
blunder in the first place. 2. Please order your affiliated company
Universal Pictures Finland OY to use proper Finnish on DVD covers. A big
company should be able to afford a professional proof-reader.
| Yours sincerely, |
Markus Lång |
| |
Markus Lång
Ph. D. |
