Archive for May 5th, 2010

In my mind, pirate dvds are made by pirates. Real ones. Like the one in this photo...

Last time on “Pirate dvds and you: a love hate relationship”, we took a look at the first of 3 different types of pirate movie dvds, The Cinema Copy. And what a copy it was. An experience best saved for when you’re least interested in the movie itself, cinema copies are the stalwart of every self respecting dvd shop out there with the standards of a $5 street escort and the looks to go with it. And I hated it.

Moving on, the next category in the pirate dvd quality section is:

The Clear Cinema Copy

Wait – what? A clear cinema copy? Didn’t we just examine the crucial downfalls of such an abomination in the previous post? How is a clear, let alone steady cinema copy even possible? Is there even anyone else in the cinema when it was tape – err screened?

/shrug

If we have the technology, it can be done. Steady hands and all.

Movie: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Image Quality: Well now, we’re starting to get into the good stuff. The Clear Cinema Copy has a slightly wider spectrum of image quality, depending on how willing you are to forgive slight…discrepancies. On the one end of the quality meter, you’ve got the infamous “awesomely steady” hand, which, at beginning of the movie, starts out quite terribly, adjusting the camera to get the whole movie into view. Then, after the film is framed as best as can be, by some small chance of a miracle, the camera stays. Still. You almost forget you’re watching a pirate copy, it’s that good.

On the other hand, some pirates take that extra step and get access to a better vantage point then in the audience moshpit. A telesync works “…with a professional camera on a tripod in the projection booth and a direct connection to the sound source…” , so you get all the juicy, lovely movie goodness in one shot, the way it was meant to be viewed, minus the $5.50 (or however much you would have paid to see it in the cinemas, prices may vary from different countries…). Thus, you end up with an image quality that is close to its original, clear version:

The obvious pitfall to this method of film extraction however, is that the colours will sometimes come across as a little odd, and some scenes tend to slide towards washed out hues then the proper colour vibes it was meant to be seen in. This can be attributed to the quality of the camera, or the light leaks from the projector which the camera would be positioned next to.

If you’re finicky about picture quality, then give these versions a miss, as the (if you have the ‘awesome steady hand version’) camera adjustment issue at the beginning of the movie will most likely throw you off, as well as the (if you have the ‘i’ma just put my camera next to your projector’) washed out colours which do tend to happen almost throughout the movie.

Score: 3.5/5 (make it a 4 if you’re happy with what you’ve got)

It’s good. Not crystal blue skies great, not totally badly doctor horribly bad, just good.

Sound Quality: The copy that I had was terribly terrible. Which was ironic since the visuals erred on the side of a dvd rip. But, as we all know, a movie is two sides to a coin; visuals, and sound. And while the CC variety may be of somewhat improved quality visuals-wise, sound is almost always a hit & miss. In my case, I was the unfortunate receiver of a copy that had the sound placed in as an after thought, or after the visuals were done, or both. First it was low, so I had to crank up the volume to the ‘I hope there isn’t a sudden big explosion’ level. Secondly, the music was louder then the dialogue. Go figure =_= Right now I’m torn between a muffly, noisy, hollow and crowd murmur sounding recording of the Cinema Copy, and the messed up levels of the Clear Cinema Copy. Of course, there are always instances where the Clear Cinema Copy is of relatively good sound quality (God bless whoever was in charge of outputing that particular dvd), but again, they are often far and few between.

Score: 3/5

Overall: 3/5

Its less of a gamble then a Cinema Copy, but with the downside of slightly awful to goddamn awful sound quality to deal with. Worthy only if you’re (a) ok with straining your ears and potentially missing out on important plot developments via dialogue and (b) too impatient to wait for a proper dvd ripped quality version to come out, and you’ve judged it just about right so that the movie you’re after is a few months old from its release date, but is still quite awhile away from its original dvd retail release day, hence allowing the pirate distributors the chance to release a CCC.

Next: The “Original” Copy! (Inverted commas inserted to signify the ‘air quote’ use)