Author Topic: Oro Plata Mata (4/28/08)/(7/1/13 - Restored and Remastered Version)  (Read 45279 times)

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Offline rse

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Got my copy of the restored Oro Plata Mata.  I haven't seen it in full yet but I started watching it with Peque's audio commentary last night.  I haven't finished it yet but the audio commentary itself (so far) is worth the purchase price. It's that good and informative!  I noticed the improvement in image quality although the image appears to be very soft and flat. It seems to me that the restorers used too much digital noise reduction.  There's also something off with the framing. Like Himala it seems like they open-matte it to 1.85:1 with the top and bottom cropped.  There's a scene in particular where it's very noticeable. It's the one with Mary Walter catching the girls by the creek talking with a naked man (Ronnie Lazaro), where she ended up throwing guavas at him. There is a shot where a huge part of her head is cut off from the frame.  I remember in the old DVD that that's not the case.  I have to check out my old DVD later and compare.

Offline roadworthyninja

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Uy bibili ako nito :D

Yung copy meron ako eh yung luma talaga, di ko mapanood ng maayos kasi madilim :D

Offline Dan

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Got my copy of the restored Oro Plata Mata.  I haven't seen it in full yet but I started watching it with Peque's audio commentary last night.  I haven't finished it yet but the audio commentary itself (so far) is worth the purchase price. It's that good and informative!  I noticed the improvement in image quality although the image appears to be very soft and flat. It seems to me that the restorers used too much digital noise reduction.  There's also something off with the framing. Like Himala it seems like they open-matte it to 1.85:1 with the top and bottom cropped.  There's a scene in particular where it's very noticeable. It's the one with Mary Walter catching the girls by the creek talking with a naked man (Ronnie Lazaro), where she ended up throwing guavas at him. There is a shot where a huge part of her head is cut off from the frame.  I remember in the old DVD that that's not the case.  I have to check out my old DVD later and compare.


I guess all the more reason to hang on to the previous DVD version. Same with the first Himala DVD.

Offline rse

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I guess all the more reason to hang on to the previous DVD version. Same with the first Himala DVD.

Sample screen capture showing cropping in the new DVD.

Unrestored DVD


Restored DVD


As you can see this scene was badly cropped. I can't understand why they cropped Mary Walter's head instead of the boulders below the screen.  Or why crop at all?  What's wrong with 1.33:1 aspect ratio when it was the original framing?

Offline traveler69

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Oro, Plata, Mata DIGITALLY RESTORED & REMASTERED Special Collector's Edition DVD
Directed by Peque Gallaga
Written by Jose Javier Reyes
Starring Manny Ojeda, Liza Lorena, Sandy Andolong, Cherie Gil, Joel Torre, Ronnie Lazaro, Fides Cuyugan-Asension, Maya Valdez, Lorli Villanueva
Total Running Time: 194 minutes
Originally released in 1982 by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines


I finally picked up a hard-to-find DVD of Oro, Plata, Mata over the last weekend after about 4 years of hearing the buzz about its  restoration. This is the digitally restored  and remastered special collector's edition of the delightfully-quirky director Peque Gallaga's iconic film, pressed on a dual-layer DVD-9 disc. (Some movies which run for more than 3 hours had to be pressed in two single-sided DVD-5 discs).







I was too young to watch the movie when it was first shown in Manila's theaters in 1982. At that time it was screened for mature audiences only. My parents and older relatives, however, went to see the movie and found themselves instantly "connected" with the storyline about life during World War II, as if they had relived their own ordeal and misery of being constrained to evacuate for their safety and live temporarily in a jungle somewhere in Northern Luzon. As a child, hearing their own stories was how I had become deeply curious about the film.





With the popularity of rental video stores everywhere, I had rented betamax tapes (oh yes, there had to be two tapes to accomodate the long movie in two parts!) and watched Oro on a CRT TV for the first time in 1983. One thing I didn't appreciate with the betamax version was the very poor quality of video. It was just darn too dark. Plus, there were constant tracking streaks and several distorted sections due to frequent rewinding of the rental tapes. Similar problems plagued the VHS copy of Oro acquired sometime in the early 1990s.



More than 30 years later, there is a big "wow" in watching the digitally restored and remastered version. On my 4k TV panel, I am now seeing details and colors in the film which I have never seen before. Quite a transition to watch this film for the first time in a full widescreen format (no black bars) compared to the 4:3 format which I had originally seen in the 1980s and 1990s.



For a quick comparison, here are some screenshots from the circa-1990s VHS copy and the restored edition on DVD:













Thankfully, the DVD comes with chapters, audio commentaries and some extras (trailers, story treatment, and fight scenes  storyboard).  Very rare even for a Filipino-produced DVD.

There are some caveats that I would like to point out about this DVD release.

Is this DVD a FULL HD release?

Okay, let's go by the numbers. Full HD provides 1080 lines with progressive scanning (also referred to as 1080p). However, it bears stressing that the highest resolution that the DVD format can support is 720 x 480 pixels per frame for NTSC (or 720 x 576 pixels per frame for PAL), which is at best only 37.5% of the resolution of 720HD (1280 x 720). In other words, the image that I see on my 4k TV panel is only the upscaled video from the 720 x 480 resolution of the DVD format which is its native highest resolution for NTSC.

Technical info about DVD Video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

Is the DVD audio remastered in 5.1?

The DVD packaging does not actually indicate the kind of audio mix. While my home theater system indicates the audio output to be of stereo signal, the audio sounds typically monaural to my ears. Take note, I have read that Oro was screened at the UP Film Center sometime in early 2015 with a new 5.1 mix which was "redone" in a US facility specializing in audio. Perhaps the new 5.1 sound mix came later and didn't make it to the DVD's pressing and release date.

Hopefully, ABS-CBN will eventually re-issue this film on bluray to get the FULL HD treatment (meaning, 1080p) with the new 5.1 audio mix. Even better if they can make this landmark film available in 4k video. I personally prefer to buy the physical bluray disc for my video library than stream a movie from iTunes or from any other streaming service.

Hats off to ABS-CBN Corporation, which has undertaken an admirably ambitious project of saving Filipino film classics, and to the Central Digital Lab with a group of about 16 people who reportedly worked on Oro for 1,700 hours (that's roughly 70.83 days or 2.36 months).

« Last Edit: Oct 27, 2016 at 10:08 AM by traveler69 »

Offline jas

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Good post, but there is an existing thread for this:

http://www.pinoydvd.com/index.php/topic,34874.0.html

Offline rse

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Oro, Plata, Mata DIGITALLY RESTORED & REMASTERED Special Collector's Edition DVD
Directed by Peque Gallaga
Written by Jose Javier Reyes
Starring Manny Ojeda, Liza Lorena, Sandy Andolong, Cherie Gil, Joel Torre, Ronnie Lazaro, Fides Cuyugan-Asension, Maya Valdez, Lorli Villanueva
Total Running Time: 194 minutes
Originally released in 1982 by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines


I finally picked up a hard-to-find DVD of Oro, Plata, Mata over the last weekend after about 4 years of hearing the buzz about its  restoration. This is the digitally restored  and remastered special collector's edition of the delightfully-quirky director Peque Gallaga's iconic film, pressed on a dual-layer DVD-9 disc. (Some movies which run for more than 3 hours had to be pressed in two single-sided DVD-5 discs).







I was too young to watch the movie when it was first shown in Manila's theaters in 1982. At that time it was screened for mature audiences only. My parents and older relatives, however, went to see the movie and found themselves instantly "connected" with the storyline about life during World War II, as if they had relived their own ordeal and misery of being constrained to evacuate for their safety and live temporarily in a jungle somewhere in Northern Luzon. As a child, hearing their own stories was how I had become deeply curious about the film.





With the popularity of rental video stores everywhere, I had rented betamax tapes (oh yes, there had to be two tapes to accomodate the long movie in two parts!) and watched Oro on a CRT TV for the first time in 1983. One thing I didn't appreciate with the betamax version was the very poor quality of video. It was just darn too dark. Plus, there were constant tracking streaks and several distorted sections due to frequent rewinding of the rental tapes. Similar problems plagued the VHS copy of Oro acquired sometime in the early 1990s.



More than 30 years later, there is a big "wow" in watching the digitally restored and remastered version. On my 4k TV panel, I am now seeing details and colors in the film which I have never seen before. Quite a transition to watch this film for the first time in a full widescreen format (no black bars) compared to the 4:3 format which I had originally seen in the 1980s and 1990s.



For a quick comparison, here are some screenshots from the circa-1990s VHS copy and the restored edition on DVD:













Thankfully, the DVD comes with chapters, audio commentaries and some extras (trailers, story treatment, and fight scenes  storyboard).  Very rare even for a Filipino-produced DVD.

There are some caveats that I would like to point out about this DVD release.

Is this DVD a FULL HD release?

Okay, let's go by the numbers. Full HD provides 1080 lines with progressive scanning (also referred to as 1080p). However, it bears stressing that the highest resolution that the DVD format can support is 720 x 480 pixels per frame for NTSC (or 720 x 576 pixels per frame for PAL), which is at best only 37.5% of the resolution of 720HD (1280 x 720). In other words, the image that I see on my 4k TV panel is only the upscaled video from the 720 x 480 resolution of the DVD format which is its native highest resolution for NTSC.

Technical info about DVD Video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

Is the DVD audio remastered in 5.1?

The DVD packaging does not actually indicate the kind of audio mix. While my home theater system indicates the audio output to be of stereo signal, the audio sounds typically monaural to my ears. Take note, I have read that Oro was screened at the UP Film Center sometime in early 2015 with a new 5.1 mix which was "redone" in a US facility specializing in audio. Perhaps the new 5.1 sound mix came later and didn't make it to the DVD's pressing and release date.

Hopefully, ABS-CBN will eventually re-issue this film on bluray to get the FULL HD treatment (meaning, 1080p) with the new 5.1 audio mix. Even better if they can make this landmark film available in 4k video. I personally prefer to buy the physical bluray disc for my video library than stream a movie from iTunes or from any other streaming service.

Hats off to ABS-CBN Corporation, which has undertaken an admirably ambitious project of saving Filipino film classics, and to the Central Digital Lab with a group of about 16 people who reportedly worked on Oro for 1,700 hours (that's roughly 70.83 days or 2.36 months).



For HD version, check out the iTunes release.  It's even clearer than the remastered DVD.

Offline Verbl Kint

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I have been waiting for the BD version, which is why I held out on buying the DVD. Glad to know that studios in the Philippines finally realize that 480p is a legacy format.

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Offline rse

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I have been waiting for the BD version, which is why I held out on buying the DVD. Glad to know that studios in the Philippines finally realize that 480p is a legacy format.

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I highly doubt that they'll  ever release Pinoy movies on bluray as there is no market for it. For HD, the only option is iTunes. It's mostly Star Cinema that does it though. But do check them out as the iTunes versions are significantly better encoded that their DVD equivalent as Apple QA is quite stringent and they had the pass it before the movie gets accepted.

Offline Verbl Kint

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I haven't gone to iTunes in over a decade. Do the Star Cinema releases have special features like audio commentary available?

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Offline traveler69

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When Matti's ON THE JOB was released on bluray circa 2014, I had high hopes then that the local movie industry willl follow suit and "upgrade" their other releases from DVD to BD. Well, it didn't happen in the way I expected things to happen. It's rather slow or nearly non-existent.

I can only guess why a transition to BD is going to be a big challenge even for Star Cinema.  Is there a local market for the BD format or the producers simply underestimate the Pinoys' preference for hi-def?  Or is there enough content or material that deserves to be released in BD to make it a viable business?

Still, with the number of restored films now being churned out by Star Cinema, I have not given up that hope, especially with films like Oro.

I personally prefer to own a physical bluray disc over any streaming or video on demand online service.

« Last Edit: Nov 06, 2016 at 05:27 PM by traveler69 »

Offline rse

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I haven't gone to iTunes in over a decade. Do the Star Cinema releases have special features like audio commentary available?

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No special features, feature film only.

Offline rse

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When Matti's ON THE JOB was released on bluray circa 2014, I had high hopes then that the local movie industry willl follow suit and "upgrade" their other releases from DVD to BD. Well, it didn't happen in the way I expected things to happen. It's rather slow or nearly non-existent.

I can only guess why a transition to BD is going to be a big challenge even for Star Cinema.  Is there a local market for the BD format or the producers simply underestimate the Pinoys' preference for hi-def?  Or is there enough content or material that deserves to be released in BD to make it a viable business?

Still, with the number of restored films now being churned out by Star Cinema, I have not given up that hope, especially with films like Oro.

I personally prefer to own a physical bluray disc over any streaming or video on demand online service.



On The Job Bluray was an international release.  I haven't heard of a locally produced and released Pinoy bluray.

Offline Dan

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On The Job Bluray was an international release.  I haven't heard of a locally produced and released Pinoy bluray.

Plus -- other than hi-def visuals -- it didn't have the special features that the local DVD release has, right?

Offline traveler69

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On The Job Bluray was an international release.  I haven't heard of a locally produced and released Pinoy bluray.

I did not say in my post that it was a local release. I simply stated that Matti's film was released on bluray circa 2014.

Matti's ON THE JOB is a Filipino film produced by Star Cinema and Reality Entertainment. It was distributed both locally and abroad with international partners in the US (Wild Go USA Entertainment) and Madman Entertainment (Australia), among others.

It bears mentioning in the discussion because it is essentially a Filipino film that was released not only on DVD format but also on bluray. And for a local pioneering company like Star Cinema, if it so wishes, has that capability to release a Filipino film on bluray with its resources and ties with international distributors.
« Last Edit: Nov 10, 2016 at 01:05 PM by traveler69 »

Offline Dan

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Chill.

Offline rse

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Plus -- other than hi-def visuals -- it didn't have the special features that the local DVD release has, right?
I have both the bluray and the locally produced DVD.  The bluray has the international cut, which I prefer.  It's more focused.
If I remember it correctly, the bluray has most of the features of the DVD except for the audio commentary.

Offline rse

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I did not say in my post that it was a local release. I simply stated that Matti's film was released on bluray circa 2014.

Matti's ON THE JOB is a Filipino film produced by Star Cinema and Reality Entertainment. It was distributed both locally and abroad with international partners in the US (Wild Go USA Entertainment) and Madman Entertainment (Australia), among others.

It bears mentioning in the discussion because it is essentially a Filipino film that was released not only on DVD format but also on bluray. And for a local pioneering company like Star Cinema, if it so wishes, has that capability to release a Filipino film on bluray with its resources and ties with international distributors.


My point is that I don't believe that any local producers will ever release Pinoy bluray discs since there is no market for them.  I am hopeful - but I don't think that it's ever going to happen.

Star Cinema don't even release most of their restored films on DVD format due to lack of demand.  For example, at the moment, you can only buy Karnal DVD from the ABS-CBN premises or in their special screenings.   The only good thing is that it's been available on iTunes way before the DVD release, and the HD version is quite stunning - although it lacks the special features found on DVD.

The other few Pinoy films that have landed on bluray so far are the ones picked up by international distributors.  The good thing now is that more Pinoy films seem to get screened, even winning major prizes in the international festival circuit thus improving their chances of being picked up by an international distributor and get a bluray release.

For example, I am so happy that we will finally get a hand on a BFI bluray release of Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag and Insiang by March next year. And a Criterion release for Maynila hopefully soon after.


« Last Edit: Nov 12, 2016 at 08:33 PM by rse »

Offline Waxx

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where is this available? will give it as a gift to one of the supporting cast who is the uncle of my wife..


Offline jerix

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Interested too. where can I buy?
Samsung65MU6303/TCL4kPS49TV/OnkSR608/OnkTXNR676/Marantz/Akai/Sansui/PrjEssential-II

Offline JeromeA

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this is one of my favorite filipino film. saan po ito nabibili mga sir?

Offline rse

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iTunes, local dvd shops (kaso baka out of print na). try nyo rin sa ebay.