Jimmy didn’t get a thank-you from the studio. He got a cease-and-desist. He framed it next to his laserdisc player.
And then Henry Hill came calling.
“They degrained it,” Jimmy whispered. “Those animals. They used that automated shit. The… the ‘Digital Noise Reduction.’ They scrubbed the soul right out of it.”
The Beaver shifted in his seat. “Jimmy, the studio wanted it clean. Focus groups said grain looks ‘old.’”
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a videophile.
“Focus groups?” Jimmy laughed without smiling. “Since when do we answer to focus groups? I’ll tell you what this is. This is a shakedown. You put out a garbage transfer now, then in two years you put out the ‘Director’s Preferred’ version with the grain re-added and charge sixty bucks. You’re robbing these people, Gary.”
They met at a bar in Queens, the kind with sticky floors and no cameras. Jimmy brought the 2007 disc. The Beaver brought a laptop with the new 4K master file.
“What do you want?” Gary whispered.
The Beaver nodded once. Then he paid for the drinks and left. Three months later, the Goodfellas Ultimate Collector’s Edition arrived. Jimmy reviewed it on DVDBeaver under the headline:
“Same shit, different menu screen,” he muttered, sipping espresso at his kitchen table, surrounded by laserdiscs, Blu-rays, and three different Japanese imports of Casino .
“I want the original elements. I want a new scan. No DNR. No edge enhancement. No revisionist color timing. And I want it on a triple-layer disc with a proper bitrate. You tell the studio: get it right, or I go public.”
Jimmy didn’t get a thank-you from the studio. He got a cease-and-desist. He framed it next to his laserdisc player.
And then Henry Hill came calling.
“They degrained it,” Jimmy whispered. “Those animals. They used that automated shit. The… the ‘Digital Noise Reduction.’ They scrubbed the soul right out of it.” Goodfellas Dvdbeaver
The Beaver shifted in his seat. “Jimmy, the studio wanted it clean. Focus groups said grain looks ‘old.’”
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a videophile. Jimmy didn’t get a thank-you from the studio
“Focus groups?” Jimmy laughed without smiling. “Since when do we answer to focus groups? I’ll tell you what this is. This is a shakedown. You put out a garbage transfer now, then in two years you put out the ‘Director’s Preferred’ version with the grain re-added and charge sixty bucks. You’re robbing these people, Gary.”
They met at a bar in Queens, the kind with sticky floors and no cameras. Jimmy brought the 2007 disc. The Beaver brought a laptop with the new 4K master file. And then Henry Hill came calling
“What do you want?” Gary whispered.
The Beaver nodded once. Then he paid for the drinks and left. Three months later, the Goodfellas Ultimate Collector’s Edition arrived. Jimmy reviewed it on DVDBeaver under the headline:
“Same shit, different menu screen,” he muttered, sipping espresso at his kitchen table, surrounded by laserdiscs, Blu-rays, and three different Japanese imports of Casino .
“I want the original elements. I want a new scan. No DNR. No edge enhancement. No revisionist color timing. And I want it on a triple-layer disc with a proper bitrate. You tell the studio: get it right, or I go public.”