Crazy Laserdisc IRE Levels

[echo1434]

I was just capturing a Japanese laserdisc with my Canopus ADVC-300 unit. I just assumed since it was Japanese, the IRE level was 0. So I did a short capture and watched it. It looked way too bright — obviously not 0 IRE. So I set my device to accept 7.5 IRE and gave that a try. It was better, but black still wasn't true black.

I ran it through the Edius Vector Scope and the black levels were showing right around 7.5 IRE! That means that my original source must be 15 IRE and that capturing it "as-is" and playing it back on an NTSC DVD player could render it as 22.5 IRE!!!

Finally, I ran it through a levels filter to reduce the IRE again by 7.5, and my final file did indeed look correct (and measured properly on the Vector scale).

I'm pretty sure I'm reading things right, and I've developed an eye for true black, so I'm quite sure my observations here are correct. Is it possible that the person who mastered this was simply a complete idiot? Has anyone else noticed anything like this before?

[FulciLives]

I remember one Japanese LaserDisc (a horror film called THE CHURCH) that was SO dark that it was very nearly unwatchable.

The only USA release (at that time) was a FS VHS whereas the Japanese LD was WS but the movie was only about 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 so I ended up always watching the FS VHS since the picture was 10x brighter and NORMAL compared to the VERY dark Japanese LD (which I still think was the worst looking LD ever).

All through-out the 90's I bought tons of Japanese LaserDiscs (and sometimes VHS releases) and the quality was always very good (for the most part) but they did "screw up" sometimes and often times the transfers ... while good overall ... had a tendacy to be a bit too dark. In the case of THE CHURCH it was just ridiculas. Another title that was overly dark (now that I think about it) was the Japanese 2 LD set of CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka THE GATES OF HELL). That was another painfull movie to watch where, despite being letterboxed, the USA FS VHS was better as the brightness/contrast was SO much better (although the USA FS VHS was from a very dirty beat-to-hell print whereas the Japanese LD was a much "cleaner" print).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman