Date: 02/27/2025
Mood: worried
Listening to: In Your Room - Depeche Mode
time travel with me
For the people wanting technical info that doesn't exist online because the marketing for this refuses to elaborate. Here is the media info MakeMKV generated when I ripped it raw.
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 4.27 GiB
Duration : 1h 37mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 6 292 Kbps
Video
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Codec ID : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration : 1h 37mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 9 800 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
DURATION : 01:37:03.720000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES : 145593
Audio #1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 37mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 311 MiB (7%)
Title : Surround 5.1
Audio #2
Format : PCM
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 1h 37mn
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Title : Stereo
DVD metadata on read:
My weirdest opinion? The audio sounds better too. Especially the 5.1 surround. I can't figure out why though or how to explain this.
The good?
Many close up shots look really good and retain grain ("noise"). Also color restored and looks good in most cases. (Most.)See via gif:
This gif alone displays everything you'd want to understand. Mainly color grading fixes is so obvious this way. In actuality, in order to overlay this I had to manually adjust the 2020 disc's aspect ratio ("dimensions"). The 1999 disc is essentially letter-boxed (black bars) but somehow when this was done, it generated edge issues I spoke of before. However, when you remove the black bars and try to overlay the image to the 2020 disc you get this miracle.
The difference is pretty insane when you pick the worst frames ever. 1999 wants to default at 704x480. 2020 wants to default at 720x576 Europe style for 576p25 for being capable of transmitted to EU TV's 576i. Interesting. It essentially means the contents on this DVD is "EU TV ready." They can hand this to a broadcast station in some mannerism in this condition for b-roll. All the station has to do is make sure to display the odd field frame correctly. At this point... just rescan it in 1080p 16:9 restoration like the Du hast music video from 2023 being remastered in 4K. This is silly! The framerate is far smoother at 25fps where it should be naturally for Europe. It loses a lot of the blurring and ghosting my eyes tended to catch. I really dislike telecine footage between NTSC and PAL. Even if I know why it was this way for technological limits of the past regarding TV standards across the pond, it still bugs me. I think the extra blurred C frame always looks awkward. Especially when dealing with gifs. (The tumblr girl in me making gifs will never let this go.)
This is a 2:3 pulldown when you telecine PAL and NTSC in gif format. Nobody knows what this means, sorry... uhh. It's the part where his hand is blurry looking. That's the extra fake frame called "C". A, B, B-C, C-D, D. His hand is not actually blurry or replicating at all. There is no smear or blur or anything wrong with the footage recorded. What this is, is NTSC hell. Whenever you see gross blurry stuff like that or like stuff is smeared/replicated, that's a sign of a C frame 2:3 pulldown. The frame called C doesn't actually exist. It's made up of B and D forcing it to exist. When you duplicate frames to make a fake frame, you get... blurry and replicated imagery. Because you need to go from 25 to 29. How do you make a thing exist which was never originally filmed? You have to fake a frame to exist. It's a gross antiquated process that I am glad we can do away with due to technological gains.
Additionally, the bitrate is much much better at 10k. It still suffers the limit of being trapped on a DVD and not remastered from a rescanned film. However, for what it is... yeah it's significantly better. No contest.
The bad?
Medium wide shots are struggle city. Blurry, out of focus, weird. Not appealing to see at all.
They aren’t sized or scaled correctly. It looks like the way they were resized is wonky. Like someone used a resize filter such as bicubic, spline, etc improperly. This may be unfixable without rescanning the film reels. They are a huge improvement, but still show massive easy to spot visual flaws.
The “this is kinda a problem but only in a few shots” things:
So if you didn’t notice the glaring problem in the start of WF’s pyro stunt with the shoes, I commend you for being blind. Yeah, the white sparks shouldn't be ya know... GREEN lmfao. This has something to do with the color grading and filter used on the whole show. A rescan of the film may be the only solution to it.
They’re post-processing issues. They happen sometimes on even clothing with pale reflective surfaces to display green pixels.
Everyone knows the 2017 Paris disc concert is filtered, color graded, and stylized. But people don’t stereotype Live aus Berlin for this. Even though, yes, it’s color graded like Paris is. The thing is, in 1998 the concept of doing that intense color grading on a concert probably sounded really really scary with technology limits. Imagine doing this work on a fat Apple computer or Windows 98 in some archaic version of Adobe Premiere in the past of some whack software nobody has ever heard of in 15 years. Sounds horrible nightmarish, right? Live aus Berlin has massive “fuck it, we’re doing it live” energy to it that Paris doesn’t have. I guess the filmmaking comparison is the difference between doing a practical special effect or a CGI effect. Live aus Berlin has practical effects energy to it. 90% of the show is practical effects via clothes and lighting IRL to achieve the color grading. 10% computer work. That is why it’s not nearly as obvious as it is on Paris' disc to know it was edited digitally and why you don’t feel like it’s so obviously falsified. Whereas Paris feels like it’s a Photoshopped concert.
You can look at this and feel the digital editing that is like... weirdly unrealistic despite it being a real image. It's like somehow they made a concert into a filtered tumblr gif set but it's the whole dang blu-ray. Live aus Berlin feels tangible, textured, and “real” despite being stylized. You know? The thing is, Paris still is great for its stage lighting and presentation, but obviously has a “we will edit this digitally later” to it. LAB has a, “we cannot edit this digitally later because it’s 1998 we don't have computers for this and [Hank Hill voice] do I look like I know what a codec is? it needs to look good IRL or nothing.”
Where would we be without the flashing lights reflecting off Richard’s outfit to make it sparkly? This is also something in Till’s coat from Wilder wein and Klavier.
Arguably, you can say the same thing for sweaty shirtless Till reflecting and being glossy haha. This matters. It really does.
The only thing that looks edited is the grading on the ‘whites’ and is the flaw causing greens and some rainbow issues. The green is blatant in WF but the rainbow happens a lot to Till’s pants in any shot of him from far away. It also happens to his outfit in Spiel mit mir a lot. Also Buck dich especially visually suffers from the rainbow effect on white. This is also a really prominent issue on Richard’s pants but only a few niche shots of it show that happening. (In this example, it's his thigh being a rainbow and almost green effect again.)
I guess I can lie down the biggest criticism: they did nothing to restore or remaster the bonus footage. In actuality, they made the bonus solo angle + interview footage WORSE than 1999. They did something to sharpen it and cause jagged, pixelated, and crunchy issues. It's horrible. This issue is present strongly on the literal edges of the footage. It's still letterbox'd from the 1999 version too. It's why it's not remastered at all. They took some jank 1999 files with the letterbox and slapped it into this DVD. And it shows. The hell is this?????
Look at this atrocity. How is this even real? It's all sharp. Edges are jagged. The edge line of the letterbox is messed up. In motion, the jagged issue is even worse. It's borderline unwatchable. So I decided I am going to tinfoil my theories about this. They do not appear to have copies or genuine masters of the bonus footage anymore. Hence why they can't restore it properly. They have some kind of digital file but it's not proper enough to restore to 576p25 and nobody handling it knew what to do. It appears this footage is permanently saved in letterbox back in 1999 in some kind of digital format they cannot 're-save' a second time. The bitrate is better, but everything visually is worse. The interview suffers the same issues and is also trapped in letterbox.
Conclusion?
Concert? 2020 > 1999.
Audio? 2020 > 1999.
Packaging? 2020 > 1999.
Metadata nerd stuff? 2020 > 1999.
Bonus footage? 1999 > 2020.
Biased Bree Commentary:
Look, I’m not gonna say this is entirely unfair or some chronic flaw but the LAB editors really really struggled with showing any Paul footage. It kinda bothers me. (Hello? It’s me on my Paul blog. Why wouldn’t I say this?) But truly, most the footage of him shown has angles of him that I don’t understand the choice of. I keep thinking another camera perspective of it would make more sense than the one used sometimes. Where I’m internally like, “why this angle? why not the other camera I know you have on him? this would look better the other way.”I also don’t even know where to begin unloading and unpacking this deep Paul persona and performance nuance to describe why I have this chronic love-hate issue with him in Live aus Berlin. God, where do I even start? Lol, truly. I don’t know if I can even do this speech or if I am or will be ready for it. In summary: Paul is actually way too serious, too stiff, and not nearly as loose as he used to be months and years prior. It’s like he’s overwrought and overthinking this concert. It’s almost anomalous to me when I comb through bootleg footage from prior to this show and after it. He stopped a lot of his looser behavior and he is extremely stiff in this show. That I almost dislike it sometimes when I think about how flexible the 97 BF show is as a whole from him. Even some May-June 98 footage isn’t like this either. It’s like this issue specifically is Live aus Berlin centric. Nerves? Overthinking? Some other reason?
Because when he drops the tension grip sometimes in this show out of long time habit, it looks effortless once again (even if it’s not). Live aus Berlin is legitimately a show that looks like the effort is straining him to overthink it. It’s not that he’s doing too “much” in this show. It’s that it feels like he’s holding back to display extreme self-control in ways I'm not used to. That is what is bugging me. It’s like every time I think he’s gonna jump, bounce, or dance around he…. just…. doesn't. And this restraint and self-control looks bizarrely tense to me in an awkward way I am not familiar with him doing. He only ever finally cut loose back to the way I ~know him~ to be is in certain aspects of Laichzeit and Wollt ihr. Where I am finally like, “ahh yeah, that’s better. why aren’t you doing that more this show??” Why is he holding back? Why is he overthinking this? Please just perform the way you always have lol.
As a result, I often tend to have to watch and filter LAB as a unique Paul era in my brain. I still love it. I love this concert. He’s great. But the vibe and way I watch it is certainly different. This issue is prominent in Spiel mit mir too. He’s so ungodly tense and refuses to… well… for lack of a better way to say it: he refuses to dance to it. Where I am not unhappy or anything, but I just know the vibe is weird in my head. If I try to ignore this and contain LAB as a unique Paul era somehow it’s easier to appreciate it for what it is. He’s still a really good performer as always and he’s not lazy at all. Far from it. Like holy shit this man in Weisses Fleisch and Asche zu Asche is on another plane of existence lol and I’m into it. His facial expressions and eye contact game in Weisses Fleisch is like… I am looking respectfully 👀👀👀👀👀