The discussion me (G-MANN) and antp had about me updating the Ronin page.

antp: Ronin is already done (by me) from the original DVD, and I think that no car is missing. Except maybe some background one, though there is probably nothing more that is really worth mentionning.



G-MANN: I know, but if I can get clearer pictures, can I replace the existing captures?



antp: I do not really see why you would get clearer pictures Only difference is the color saturation or other program-dependant settings like that.
You said previously that you like to select views for series/movies that you complete yourself (e.g. Sopranos), well in this case it is the same: I selected the shots of this movie, and as pictures already come from the DVD I do not really see why they would have to be replaced, I like these as they are
Except those that were not added by me, and that I still haven't reshot from the DVD:
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_15411-Lancia-Delta-1985.html (cut from http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_12800-Porsche-911-Turbo-930.html by someone, there may be a better pic of it)
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_71346-Audi-100-Typ-44-1983.html (well, maybe it comes from the DVD, but it was not added by me)



G-MANN Let me show you the difference, your image is below mine (I saved the image directly from the page, the quality is still the same)




I play the DVDs with PowerDVD which has a capture frame function, and I have it on the "Vivid" setting (out of Vivid, Original, Bright and Theatre

I've just noticed the aspect ratio of my picture is different to yours, I'm not sure which one is correct (mine is 717x299 pixels, the original capture was sized to 720 x 405 pixel, but I cropped away the black "letterbox" bits), but that can be easily fixed.

If it's OK for me to redo the page, I'll respect your wishes by using the same shots, but if I think another shot might be better, I'll post it as thumbnail and I'll let you decide, I won't just replace your shots with shots from different times in the film without your consent.


antp: As I said, the only difference is the color saturation/brightness. I am not sure that it is worth replacing the pictures for that. And is it considered as "better"? Which one of the two shot is the closest to the original movie? If it is a color setting applied by PowerDVD, it may not reflect the real color of the movie picture, as it is supposed to be.

For the details, yours seem better, but it is normal: it is much less compressed! (40 KB vs 26 KB) So it gives a sharper appearance. At some point we decided of a compression ratio to not use too much disk space, so it is normal to lose some quality in that. On that point the comparison between the pictures isn't fair.

For the ratio, I do not know which one is correct, but they are close. It is strange that none of the two had a "standard" ratio of 2,35 or 1,85, but if I remember well I checked that it was OK by comparing the size of a capture with what was displayed in the movie.

We come back to the problem that you had with Ralph, and on that I agree with what he said about the logo on his pictures: for the few difference between the pictures, I personally prefer to have mine staying as they are


G-MANN: The vivid setting just makes the colours more vivid, the original setting is just duller, but the picture is just as sharp. I much prefer the vivid setting.

Sorry, but the truth is my picture is definetely clearer and less pixelly than yours. But if you really want your pictures to stay, then I'll accept that.



antp:
As I said, this the fact that yours is sharper and less pixelated is mostly due to the fact that it is less compressed (hence 1.5x the size...)
And about the colors, if it looks better it maybe does not really respect the original movie

With the time that it takes for doing captures and then process them, why do you want so much replace the pictures? I understand it for movies where the pictures are rather small or in bad quality, but when there is not a so major difference...


G-MANN: Could you decompress your pictures?



antp: Note: I edited your message to remove imageshack links so when we click on pics to see them fullsize we are not redirected to imageshack website.

I think that the color of these pictures look a little faded because at that time I cheater on color contrast, to see better dark scenes in movies (that I now disabled, as it gives bad colors in non-dark scenes... as we can see on Ronin's capture).
When I redo captures from my DVD I get colors more similar to yours.
e.g. with 15% compression (size similar to your picture)

and with 25% compression (what I usually use)

Well, some day I will maybe redo the captures then, but as said above is it really useful? And why do you want to do all this work? Do you have too much free time?


G-MANN: Why compress them at all? I know that way they take up less space (I know saving an image as a JPEG does compress it somewhat) when the site reaches it's maximum you just move to another server anyway, it's doesn't seem like one day this site will have to stop because there won't be any space left.

Are both those pictures above yours? If so I guess there's not much point in me updating the images with clearer, better ones (and clearer sharper pictures ARE better, it's like saying which is better between VHS and DVD), when you could do it. However some of the pictures currently on the page are a lot more pixelly than the one of the BMW.


antp: Why compress them "so much"? Because it takes lots of space. Currently we have more than 2 GB of pictures, and it is increasing faster and faster. Moving to another web hosting isn't so easy when you have several gigabytes of data
The quality is not so important for the purpose of the site. In the two pictures that I posted above, you have to watch the picture carefully to notice compression difference, I am not sure that for most of the visitors this difference has any interest (maybe I am wrong, it is just my opinion )

These two pictures are mine, yes, I just made the capture from the DVD (a little too quick because it was late: the ratio isn't exactly correct I think).
As said above, those on the site look less good because at that time I was probably correcting too much the brightness. It is maybe due to the program that I use, MPC, which may have been improved in latest versions.
And not all were added at the same time: I made that in three times. Some pictures are there from a long time as Ronin was the very first movie for which I submitted picture on IMCDB if I remember well!
Those that look pixelated are maybe those that were added from a divx, as I didn't had the DVD the first two times that I added pictures for the movie.
e.g. http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_3021-Alfa-Romeo-75-1988.html looks quite bad, I agree.
So I actually should redo captures of those (actually I thought that I did it last time... maybe I just kept that task for later but forgot it...)

And so?
I thought that the discussion was fnished Some day I'll remake my screenshots (except if you really wish to do that work yourself?)

I just wanted to want keep this for a reference rather than let it get deleted.

One more thing I'd like to add is that I think it's much better to have clearer pictures than blurry/pixelly/less colourful pictures, because the latter kind look like they've been taken from some dodgy pirate copy.

Sure, better pictures are better than bad ones By redoing a new capture I saw that the color difference was not so much due to PowerDVD's color correction, since I got a similar result with the current version of MPC.
I guess that my "bad" captures are due to an old version of MPC and/or the fact that some came from a divx (which was not a pirated copy, as I did that copy myself from an original DVD that a friend lent me - such copy is legal in Belgium).

Well it would be nice to have that page updated sometime with better pictures. Of course if you don't feel like doing it, I'll always be available (for the near-future anyway).

I will do it within a reasonable time. Maybe not this week or this month, but I will try to do before end of next month for example.