Image of the Day

[randy_byers]

The Front Page (1931)

I think I've enthused about Netflix Instant View in the recent past, but now that I've watched more movies that way, I have to say that it's a mixed bag, quality-wise. I started watching the streamed version of John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) the other day, and I just turned it off. The image quality was just too crappy to bear. For other streams, the image quality is fine, and then there are those like this one, the 1931 version of The Front Page, that are crappy, image-quality-wise, but still worth watching, for me.

This was on the heels of watching Howard Hawks' 1940 version of the same story, His Girl Friday, also on Netflix Instant View, also compromised visual-quality-wise, but still worth watching. And both of these movies have been in my queue for a while, but watching Andy Hooper's fannish radio play of the story, produced at E Corflu Vitus, inspired me to finally watch them both. And the 1931 version isn't as good as Hawks', but it still has some great bits, including some great visuals, even in a crappy reproduction. In fact this screen cap has a distorted abstract quality that almost looks expressionistic.

Yeah, I'd prefer a high quality image too. Well, these are early days for streaming, and I think it'll get better over time.

Comments

[wrdnrd]

I never thought much about the quality of an image on DVD or VHS until i my friend Sarah started blogging. She's an aspiring film archivist (with several grad school apps circulating at the moment), so she's written off and on about how any particular film's image looks on DVD. Now i pay more attention to it myself even when watching things in a cinema. I was able to recognize, for example, how crisp and gorgeous the new 35mm print of "The African Queen" was while the head projectionist was inspecting it in the booth. The colors were amazing, and i'm really cranky that i was so sick with head pain that week that i couldn't go see it while we had it.

Do you think the image quality issues you're having with Netflix streaming are more due to the streaming technology itself, or is it maybe bad image transfer in the 1st place?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the streaming technology, because some movies look fine to my eyes. The Red Shoes, for example, and some of the newer movies I've watched. My guess is that it's a bad transfer from crappy source material. The soundtrack was really bad, too.

There's been some commentary about Netflix streaming on Dave Kehr's blog, and some folks have been saying that the best image quality is comparable to videotape and that none of it is as good as standard DVD, let alone hi def.