http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/02/siff-picks-of-the-day Comments On: SIFF Picks of the Day by Lindy West en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:45:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:07:57 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Jason Eckelman]]> Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:40:33 -0700 The Stranger Posted by -ink]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:11:32 -0700 The Stranger Posted by oldmanandthesea]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:03:44 -0700 The Stranger Posted by STJA]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:35:19 -0700 The Stranger Posted by josh]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:30:14 -0700 The Stranger
But I know watching the subtitled Icelandic film White Wedding was kind of hard when it derezzed the words so you could barely read them, TM.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:26:49 -0700 The Stranger
On the other hand, I still have a hefty rant against projected DVD at SIFF. Last night I went to the archival presentation of The Great Race, which I had never seen before (thought it was kind of OK). Instead of being treated to a nice crisp 35mm projection (I'd hope for 70mm, but it wasn't at Cinerama), I was shown a projected DVD that looked like it was killing the player.

SIFF probably has some sort of up-res DVD player to simulate high-def. But, the player chokes on DVDs, and isn't very good. For the first 10 minutes, the central channel was not working (the vocals were very very quiet compared to the sound, and they were not hunting rabbits). But, that was passable if just a technical glitch.

The major issue was the video quality. It was tear-my-eyes-out poor. First, It had the quality of being shot on digital. Now, we're talking a big budget overblown movie that was filmed on 35, and blown up to 70 (with some success). Next, the image couldn't decide between being full of artifacts or soft focus. And last, during more contrasty scenes (such as night shots), the video had interlacing issues, where all of a sudden we got major lines through the image for most of the scene.

I don't know what the major deal was, but it was awful. AWFUL. If Hitchcock in High Def was anything like this bullshit, I'd have been even more pissed off.

Stick to 35mm when you can SIFF. I know at festivals, sometimes filmmakers can only get you video. But, if you're doing something that I KNOW has a 35mm print somewhere - especially something archival - don't show me a second rate DVD.
Posted by TheMisanthrope]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:09:21 -0700 The Stranger