"Kaminey" describes the authoring department at Moserbaer.

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Kaminey BD Review
Movie:
I really enjoyed this movie in the theatres and to me it is one of the good movies released in recent times. Priyanka just rocked and Shahid was good as well perhaps his best so far and so are the rest of the actors. This movie is not for everyone's taste and it has been proven by its box office stats.

My friend brought the BD to my place. Unfortunately, we couldn't watch the movie in full as there were too many people around. In a way, I am glad that I didn't watch the full movie as the PQ is very poor. Very dissapointed.

BDReview:
Video Quality
The moment the movie starts, the first thing you notice is significantly raised black level. The image appears dull and washed out with a milky sheen to it. I don't recall how it was in the theatres. It was dark and dull compared to many other movies as Vishal wanted it that way but this BD appeares duller and more washed out.

The reason I am saying this is because the black floor at the begining where you see a black screen with acknowledgements and some credits appear washed out as well which should look just black as it has nothing to do with the movie or directors vision. It simply proves that is is not properly authored.

It appears somewhat similar to the screenshots posted at the beginining of this thread, although I must say it looks better than the screenshots posted. Computer generated screenshots never look like a filmic image you get on a PJ or good TV. I was using a YCbCr 4.2.2 from the BR player and set my PJ to Rec709. Since the issue is similar to many other Indian BDs recently released, I though of checking how the picture would look with RGB treatment and changed my BR player to output RGB (0-255) and set my PJ to RGB. Since my PJ can accept and display full range RGB, a Full range RGB at both ends offer the same picture quality as a YCbCr 4.2.2 -> Rec 709. As suspected, at calibrated setting the images appeared the same as with the YCBCr standard settings - dull and washed out. It is really a shame to see BDs like this are sold without any quality control in place...

I changed the PJ colour space to RGB video. This should not be used with a properly authored BD as it would clip the blacks and whites on a full range RGB display. I use this only with problematic discs with raised black level issue. With RGB video, the image looked much better including a boost in colour to get rid of the dullness(although it looks richer it is technically a narrower color gamut than RGB full). Even with that in place some scenes still looked milky (but that could be how it was shot).

+ points

1. Overall color is more or less consistent although quite dull.
2. sharpness more or less ok from my limited viewing.

- points

1. The biggest issue is raised black level making the picture a washout. huge dissapointment.
2. Contrast is significantly compromised.
3. Does not look good with default calibrated settings. Simply bad picture

Audio Quality
The DTS MA track is pretty good and the surround channels gets a nice treatment from time to time. It sounded full and detailed. The only positive part in this BD is the sound.

Summary
Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to any comfort level on the PQ of this BD. It appears so dull and anaemic. I udnerstand that the movie was not shot in a way to dazzle your eyes with colors and effects and I am not sure how close the BD is to Vishal's vision of the look and feel. To me, it just doesn't look good and the raised black level is very annoying and difficult to watch on a calibrated display. On doing the RGB conversion, it looked much better but I or anyone else should not be doing any conversion at all. The BD should be authored in the right manner to enjoy it with calibrated setting.

I will skip this BD and wait for the UTV one. Cold rating from me for the PQ although the sound is nice. I would alos like to know from others what they think about the washed out and dull image. Was it like this in the theatres?

The issue of raied black level seems to have become a common problem with most Indian BDs and I have seriously started to doubt theior QC processes. One reason could be they are using limited range displays for authoring but I would hope that is not the case as they must be having state of the art equipment. Are they using a different setting for reviewing?

This is becoming a very dissapointing issue for bollywood Blu ray fans. The authoring houses need to do something about this.

I have taken some photopraphs to demonstrate the raised black level issue and how it can be fixed to some extent using a RGB conversion.

Please note the photos are taken from a projected image handheld and due to lack of time I did not use any proper settting to capture the images. The images are only to show the issue and should not be treated as a true representation.

My Rating
Video: 2.5
Audio: 4.25
Overall Quality Score: 3.25

Review done with
Display : Infocus IN82 Full HD DC3 DLP Projector
Screen: 90”
BD Player: Sony S350
Av Amp: Denon AVR 1910 AV Receiver
Speakers: Q Acoustics 1010i 5.1 Surround System

Images to demonstrate the Washed out and dull effect with normal setting (Full RGB and both ends) followed by using RGB video color space for the same scene. The washed out effect is moe prominent in real image and the camera's limted dynamic range was not able to pick up every detail.

Thanks Yaar! I have a hitch that film was made in murky way lol

But if dvd had better print and authoring by UTV there might be still hope!

@anibap
Thanks for the great review.


I can assure you that the movie was not shot this way. The UTV Blu-ray is being authored by 'Digital Entertainment' but I am not too hopeful from that version either, for the original source may be the same for both Blu-rays.

Initially I thought the same and since I don't have the DVD with me I couldn't compare.

But, if you see the initial pre-movie parts like thanking media partners the UTV video and the rolling credits at the end, you will see those are washed out well. Those sections has nothing to do with the theme of the movie or the directors vision and they should be on a full blackground in the same way as any other normal DVD or BD. With this BD, the background for those sections is light grey and washed out which proves that it is an authoring issue.

Thanks Sanjay. I am still hopefull that UTV version will be better.

Did you sort out your lamp for the PJ? was it like end of life or it just went pop?

Look forward to more reviews from you.

This being one of the better movies of last year, I am hoping for the UTV version to be better too. Atleast, we know that even if the source is the same, Mr. Chandna (Digital Entertainment) will do a far better job of encoding/authoring than MoserBaer ever would.
Nahi yaar, like everything and everyone else in this country, the lamp supplier keeps promising to deliver the lamp the next day. Woh 'Kal' jo kabhi aata nahi. I did go buy a new Samsung 50" Full HD Plasma (C550) and I am atleast able to now look at the technical aspects of the disc. But I think I am going to hold back from reaching any conclusions about picture quality from a non calibirated display and that too, one that is only 50". Damn 50" seems small. Makes me wonder, how anyone can make any critical conclusions about 1920x1080 picture quality from viewing on a 50" display? Thus, until I get the lamp for my projector, I will limit my reviews to only providing technical information about the Blu-ray titles and then fill in the audio/video comments later.

since you baught the tv now i wonder why didnt you go for led-lcd tv which is far much superior than the plasma........in color accuracy black levels and many more departments......??

@divyansh - You just got it the other way around. A plasma will beat a LCD hands down in terms of black levels, color hues etc etc. Pioneer KURO plasma displays are still the holy grail of HDTVs. No LCD can ever come close.

the last time i went to see a tv samsung led tv and plasma were displayed side by side with same presentation been played and led's image look much much better...........

The LED TVs is a misnormer, they are LCD TVs with LED back light instead of CFD. LED back lit TVs have better contrast ratio and present more accurate colors than the CFD back lit TVs. LCD TVs with LED back light which have the ability to have local dimming may come close to Plasma TVs for black levels. IMHO if you are going for a Large screen TV Plasmas still rule as opposed to LCD, the only problem being they tend to consume more power than LCD TVs.

I don't know about the "No LCD can ever come close" part, but you are definately right about Plasmas in general being far superior to most LCDs, specially anything close to them in their price range.

A normal TV showroom is no place to accurately judge a TV. The high ambient light, specially due to their jewellery showroom type lighting, is not fit for judging the picture quality of a TV, specially not a Plasma. In fact this is one of the major reasons, most people are attracted to LCDs in the showroom. You should ask the salesman to turn off all the lights, atleast in the area above and around the plasma. Also, Dynamic/Vivid is generally the worst preset setting to watch a TV in. The Samsung TV I bought, has a Dynamic picture mose/preset, which I have renamed as the LCD mode. The reason being quite simple, the minute I switch the TV to the dynamic mode, the picture looks a lot like a LCD, ie. too damn bright, artificial looking and over saturated colors, contrast blooming, raised black levels, digitalized looking picture, only just a few of the issues I have with most LCDs.

PS: There is no commercially available LED TV yet and we are atleast 7-8 yrs away from one, atleast if we consider what would be considered at a practical cost. The so called 'LED TVs' currently being marketed are simply LCD TVs that use LEDs as the source of light instead of the commonly used CFLs. The term 'LED TV' is a misnomer and it is an unethical marketing term, being used to mislead customers into paying more.

Damn those words are like dejavu. I swear I can see that I wrote almost exactly the same words regarding this issue on another forum a few weeks ago.

PS: Did you mean 'CFL' and not 'CFD'?