'The Professionals' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh's review of 'The Professionals' is up. He says it's a nice palette cleanser for anyone who has been watching too many chick flicks. This Blu-ray has pretty good picture quality, iffy sound, and some perfunctory bonus features. A worthy rental.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/182/professionals.html

[Arkadin]

just ordered this moldy oldey from Amazon and can't wait to check it out.
the dvdbeaver review was even more positive, and said this was one of the top 10 best looking older older (1970 or earlier) catalogs released do far.

[Brad1963]

I watched it Sunday, it looks great and is definately one of the better vintage films on Blu Ray.

[RandellG]

'The Professionals' comes to Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, who have once again programmed their disc to automatically open with annoying promos and trailers before the main menu (yes, I fully intend to complain about this in every review until they stop doing it).

First I doubt they will ever listen to you

Me I love the trailers before movies. I enjoy watching them and trying to guess what movie it is . Seriously though, that's one thing I like more about DVDs, the trailers

[robertc88]

From the review:

"Nearly constant presence of edge halo artifacts throughout the movie. The problem is pretty ghastly at first, with bright ringing outlines around any object or person highlighted against the sky. It tones down after a while, but never entirely goes away".

Curious as I didn't detect it nor have I read on others who posted a review on their applicable site that they had.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by robertc88

Curious as I didn't detect it nor have I read on others who posted a review on their applicable site that they had.

Look at any shot of a train. You'll see it.

[Moon Panda]

I'm usually pretty sensitive to EE, but I watched this on Friday night, and don't remember ever noticing it either.

[ben1080p]

Its on my TV schedule so I will check it out to see if its worth a buy!

oh and DVDTalk Review

[robertc88]

Joshua,

Sorry but I tried on two different displays with two different BD players and did not notice halo artifacts.

Time stamp or screen shots would be helpful. Some in other forums are questioning it themselves. Perhaps it is equipment utilized.

Regardless, this is mighty fine looking on BD.

[Lastyear]

Originally Posted by robertc88

From the review:

"Nearly constant presence of edge halo artifacts throughout the movie. The problem is pretty ghastly at first, with bright ringing outlines around any object or person highlighted against the sky. It tones down after a while, but never entirely goes away".

Curious as I didn't detect it nor have I read on others who posted a review on their applicable site that they had.

I never noticed it either.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by robertc88

Sorry but I tried on two different displays with two different BD players and did not notice halo artifacts.

Time stamp or screen shots would be helpful.

Honestly, I don't know how you could miss it. These were all taken from within the first few minutes of the movie.







My digital photography skills aren't great (hence the softness of these photos), but the halos showed up clearly enough.

Perhaps it is equipment utilized.

There's no chance of that. My equipment is thoroughly calibrated to eliminate issues like that. If my equipment were adding e.e., I'd see it on every disc, and that isn't the case.

My assumption is that Sony used the HD master from their 2005 DVD edition of the movie. At that time, the transfer equipment Sony was using added edge ringing to every movie they mastered. This was a pervasive problem the studio had for years and years and years. It wasn't until about late 2007 that they updated their transfer facilities and (largely) fixed the problem.

[project-blu]

lol wow, i've never seen halo's that bad. i guess my eyes don't look for flaws, unless they're beat you over the head obvious like that hair in patton (near the beginning, on one long shot on the bottom left of the screen, could have been removed)

[robertc88]

Josh,

By equipment utilized I meant maybe that would not be noticed by some of us depending on what we have or would you feel we should all see it?

Thanks for posting the pictures and taking the time to do so.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by robertc88

By equipment utilized I meant maybe that would not be noticed by some of us depending on what we have or would you feel we should all see it?

It is very possible that my front projection screen is larger and more revealing than your display.

I will say that this is certainly not the worst edge ringing I've ever seen, and probably won't be as noticeable on a smaller screen. My 3 1/2 star rating equates to a "very good", but due to the ringing it falls short of "great".

[bobobeastie]

This movie does not take place in the mid-19th Century. The opening scene has Lee Marvin riding in a car. Therefore it is also not remotely close to the Mexican American War. Just to make sure I'm not crazy I checked Wikipedia, and it says that the movie takes place after 1917, which makes it the Mexican Revolution that the film takes place after.