Quantum of Solace Looks Different on Broadcast TV?
Gassy Man
USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
Anyone else notice this? For lack of a better term, the picture quality is warmer, the image quality is softer, and it seems slowed down somehow, like a quarter beat. The editing doesn't seem quite as harsh as a result. It could just be me, of course. But I've noticed that when movies and TV shows go into second broadcast or syndication, they can look different.
For instance, the more recent first-run broadcasts of Law and Order: SVU often look oversaturated and rather like high definition video. But when they're shown in syndication, the color seems desaturated -- more like the original series, when it was a procedural instead of the melodrama it is now -- and it has a more film-like appearance.
Interestingly, just compared a screen cap from the broadcast to a DVD scene. Tried to pick a "cooler" contrast scene. The broadcast is definitely a shade warmer -- you can see more red in the faces, for instance. It's also cropped differently. Look at Craig's shirt and see how much less you see in the DVD image at almost precisely the same moment. I'm wondering if the blu-ray is warmer and cropped more like the TV version since the resolution is higher than DVD.
Comments
The blu-ray will likely be cropped like your bottom photo, as that's the theatrical aspect ratio, and at this point home video defaults to preserving that (wasn't always the case). But when syndicators and basic cable channels like TNT get these movies, they tend to want them to fill the screen, so they either crop the sides or open the top and bottom (looks like a little of both on the TNT example).
As for color, every time a film is scanned or mastered from film elements (or even a master tape), the person at that console is deciding color temperature and framing. (Even when the film's director or DP is sitting there, this process is vulnerable to second-guessing and the "George Lucas" tinkering effect.) When Dr. No recently hit 4K streaming, the color was cranked up way too high and you could see a boom mic in the first Honey Ryder scene.
Each network has its own tech specs, and an in-house engineer will often put the content through a spectroscope to see if the video signal is "legal" (adheres to that network's specs). From there, they either tweak the color levels to fit their specs, or sometimes just give it a blanket setting, which is why movies often look crappier the further down the TV food chain they go.
It's a science, but it's, alas, infrequently an exact science.
Here's the Blu-ray version of your scene, next to your DVD example and next to your TNT example. The framing is identical on the DVD but the resolution allows for more detail in the image and on the color spectrum.
Meanwhile, TNT is probably spitting out a 720p signal with the color smushed down to their specs, and an altered frame to for most TV screens.
Hey, thanks HMHH, sorry for the late reply, but the board was down a few times when I tried to reply. This explanation helps a lot.
This was very interesting, thanks!
Continuing the topic of QoS TV airings, I just noticed that there are no location cards on the HBO showing. (No Kazan in the snow from the overhead shot, no Haiti at the hotel, no London on the road)
I'm assuming HBO is airing a finalized version of the movie before the title cards were localized?
That's damn peculiar! I just went and looked.
I'd say this was some sort of textless submaster for international use, but a: a city name is a city name, and b: a true textless submaster wouldn't have opening credit text.
That's really bizarre.