Blade Runner on IFC -- New Transfer

Hi there - new member; first time post.

Just caught Blade Runner: DC on the Independent Film Channel. It's airing as part of Pulp Indies on IFC, uncut and letterboxed at the correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is far superior to the terrible 1999 Warner Home Video DVD. Right away you can tell this is something new - rock solid titles and the first reel is free from the dirt, blotches, and film splices that marred the first generation DVD.

Was this transfer intended for the now defunct Special Edition DVD? Has anyone seen the film on television lately and noticed this difference?

Looks like IFC's showing the film twice on Sunday for those looking to capture or TiVo a copy.

Welcome to the BladeZone Forums!

Interesting... Could it be from the Special Ed? Are you sure it isn't any of the reviously available transfers? If so, how come it went public. I wonder? This may be worth of further research..

Nice info fot those who can grab a digital copyof it!

I Tivo'd the IFC version a week or so ago, and honestly didn't notice, it looked like the same old crappy DC-DVD transfer as always to me. However, tonight, I'll take another look to make another assessment (I saved the Tivo copy). If that's true, it would be awesome, and I'd tape it again at the best res so I could transfer to PC as is (MPEG2) and to Divx/xVid re-encode. We'll see, but I doubt it is anything other than what we've all seen before...

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm fairly certain this is an unreleased transfer of the Director's Cut. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been watching right from the start. The WB Pictures logo no longer suffers from horrible weaving and there's no present dirt (but there is a huge "TV MA LSV" bug in the top left corner that spills onto the clouds -- thanks IFC...) All of the following title cards have much better registration now.

Take a close look at the first few shots of "Los Angeles, November 2019" aka "Eye on the City". As the first shot cuts just after the lightning strike watch the close-up explosion. The terrible dirt and blotches that always bothered me appear to be gone. This has been present in all versions I can remember - from the DC:DVD, the DC cav laserdisc (frame 6410) and even the Criterion LD of the international cut. I always assumed this was trapped in the film elements and therefore featured in all transfers, so someone had to digitally remove this I'm guessing.

Also look at the close-up shots of the eye, and the shots on Holden's back as he stares out the window. Much cleaner.

One of the most striking scenes (regardless of how you feel about the content) is "Deckard's Dream" which on the DVD has terrible scratches and dirt. Not on IFC -- and the shot has been color corrected to white, where the DVD had a slight sepia tone to it.

I haven't had the chance to do any real A-B viewing of the different versions but these are the things that stood out right away. I am watching it on a smallish CRT television but I don't think I'm completely crazy.

It's reasonable to think that Warners has a cleaned up Director's Cut transfer sitting around and that they have the legal right to license it for broadcast. Right?

Caught some of Blade Runner on IFC. The quality did seem to be a cut above the DVD, but it could be that they have an updated broadcast copy from Warner Brothers. I'd like to know if there are any obvious differences after BLADERVNNER checks the tivo.

There are no editorial changes to the film. It's the Director's Cut. I could easily believe this is simply a re-transfer of the film done by a technician at Warner HV -- if it wasn't for the color correction done to the "Deckard's Dream" unicorn shot. To my eye the change from sepia to white is not the result of any automated filter. Someone made that decision. And if you're making those types of changes I would hope Ridley Scott would be sitting in the room, telling you how to dial that color in just right.

This is the only reason I mentioned the 'Special Edition'. The fact that Scott's on record saying he prepped the different versions for a combined release makes this more likely his choice. Perhaps he was never happy with the one additional shot inserted into the film for the Director's Cut. I remember seeing it on the big screen in the 90s and believing all the trash talk about the unicorn shot being b-roll from Legend. It always looked a bit 'off'.

But again -- there are no changes to the edit, just the cleaned up print and slight color correction.

welcome. so many posts in so little time.

its the directors cut, no special edition or anything special for that matter. to me, the quality looked a tad under the dvd. it was pretty bad.

even though i own every copy of the movie, i felt the need to watch it every showing on tv anyway, lol. what a true fan. somehow i *KNEW* that IFC showing would reel in some new members. IFC is cool because they dont censor their movies.

OK. I took an unscientific, five-minute review of this last night. I concur that it is the DC with no new scenes. I also agree that the quality was so-so, but that surely has more to do with broadcasting over cable combined with my Tivo encode (which was still done at "best" quality, but nonetheless is MPEG2 at a lower bit rate and resoultion than DVD would be, but that's another topic).

HOWEVER, I was able to confirm two of the specific points made above: (1) the titles/credits are WAY LESS jumpy than the DC DVD, there is still a little movement, but it is noticeably and obviously much better than the DVD; and (2) someone definately did some color correction on the Unicorn scene (and given that probably elsewhere too?), no doubt about it, I compared both, and as said before the DVD unicorn is much more sepia-looking, where the IFC scene was plain and simple white (completely different colors, very obviously different). Nice observation of that point!

Anyway, this raises some interesting questions about what version they are playing and whether they did some remastering of their own or not. I'd love to get my hands on their copy, but Tivo-ripping a cable broadcast image just isn't going to get us much. Now if they had broadcast in HDTV, that would raise all sorts of possibilities, but they didn't and they don't. That's it for now...

BladeRvnner-

Thanks for taking the second look at your TiVo'd version. I'm glad others agree that there's something new and 'special' about this broadcast.

As far as the quality of the broadcast - again, I'm watching it on a standard def. CRT Sony television, but I personally prefer it this way. But I also find myself watching the laserdiscs much more than the DVD - definitely a case of 'less is more'. The DVD just brought out too many warts in the '93 transfer.

I'm looking into a loss-less capture of the next live broadcast straight out the back of my Comcast digital cable box. Just need to find 80gigs of free space. Using a high quality AVI file I'm sure fans could do a DVD encoding that puts the official release to shame.

Upcoming times for Blade Runner on IFC:

? Blade Runner (1982)
IFC, Sun Jun 26 06:45am PDT
? Blade Runner (1982)
IFC, Sun Jun 26 01:15pm PDT
? Blade Runner (1982)
IFC, Thu Jun 30 09:45pm PDT

Also - it looks like BR will be airing on Bravo on 07/09. It'll be interesting to see if they show this new transfer or a pan-and-scan edited version of the '93 WHV transfer.

I missed the showing on Bravo because I just found out about it today (DOH!). I thought I would let the forum know a bit of trivia about the existing DVD. An anamorphic transfer was made of the DC at the time that the DC Laserdisc was made because there was some talk at that time of doing anamorphic (16 X 9 Enhanced for Widescreen TV) laserdisc releases (and a few were released in promo-type numbers, mostly with widescreen TV sales).

Therefore, the existing DVD is from a pretty old transfer originally for laserdisc. I remember that even at the time of the DC laserdisc release, being disappointed that the 7 or 8 channel soundtrack from the 70mm roadshow prints weren't incorporated into an improved soundtrack. It's possible to hear some overdriving of the levels on parts of the audio. The recent cancellation of the special edition DVD was a disappointment, but I think the new HDDVD format has announced that BR will be one of the initial releases for the format, so HOORAY! There may be a chance to see some of the work put into the DVD on the HDDVD.

I think the new HDDVD format has announced that BR will be one of the initial releases for the format, so HOORAY! There may be a chance to see some of the work put into the DVD on the HDDVD.

You can't go mouthing off news like that without providing PROOF. So, were'd you hear that bit of info anyway? How about some links? Sorry, not to be a pessimist, but I don't believe it at all because there are so many other intellectual property rights issues with BR that go way beyond some new format like HDDVD. Anyway, I hope you're right, but let's see some proof of this rumor...