dvdmike said:
The German disc bar the extras has the same encodes as the French disc
Handy information. Their theatrical cut looks bad (whites blown to hell), just like the Universal BD and the Optimum BD. The HD-DVD is the best of the worst, in terms of least filtering.
The Aluminum Falcon said:
dvdmike said:
The German disc bar the extras has the same encodes as the French disc
Handy information. Their theatrical cut looks bad (whites blown to hell), just like the Universal BD and the Optimum BD. The HD-DVD is the best of the worst, in terms of least filtering.
What about taking the video from the HD DVD, converting it to BD format, grab the lossless audio and the English subtitles from the BD? Of course as a BD25. I could do this but I'd have to buy another XBOX 360 HD DVD add-on player and Army of Darkness on HD DVD.
I do have the single disc German Blu-ray which has the Director's Cut. Now I'm waiting for MGM Hong Kong to do a 4K master and put it on a maxed out BD50 with tons of grain. Of course lossless audio, subs and all the extra features.
the german transfer from the new kinowelt boxset of army of darkness u.s. theatrical cut is the same as the hd-dvd. you wont get anything better then this, unless universal would do a complete rescan of the ocn - to make all the cuts look stunning.
I'm not holding my hopes out for Universal to do a better master of theatrical cut from the OCN. They've been using the same transfer for years, and I doubt they'll do anything different.
I'm not sure what source material MGM used for their Director's Cut transfer but I doubt it's the OCN. There is a possibility we might see that be rescanned but unlikely again.
Does Universal even have access the OCN? All Universal did was buy U.S. distribution rights from DeLaurentiis, the film's actual owner.
I am certain that Universal does not have access to any film element of the DC; why else would Bruce Campbell have had to loan out his personal copy for the Anchor Bay DVD transfer?
the master mgm has for the d.c. is 720p. the extra bits have been upscaled to 1080p. the rest is from a real 1080p master.
I am guessing that the Director's Cut was only mastered to 720p because it was intended to be downconverted to 480p for DVD.
So whoever has the DC film element (presumably MGM?) would have to rescan it for us to have a real 1080p transfer.
if you have access to the ocn, then why would you do a 1080p scan? no, these days do 4k.
zeropc said:
if you have access to the ocn, then why would you do a 1080p scan? no, these days do 4k.
For this movie? I doubt it EDII got a 2k and ED only got a 4k scan (of 16mm!) because Sony did it
and then sony crop the shit out of it :P
Poor choice of words. I didn't mean a transfer in 1080p native. I meant a transfer of high enough resolution that it could be used to derive a true 1080p release.
Again, I wouldn't be surprised if the existing DC transfer was only done at a resolution of 720p, because it was just intended for DVD.
The Aluminum Falcon said:
I'm not holding my hopes out for Universal to do a better master of theatrical cut from the OCN. They've been using the same transfer for years, and I doubt they'll do anything different.
I've been wondering if "AoD" might be a part of Universal's deal with ShoutFactory. When you look at all of the other titles they've optioned (including Raimi's "Darkman"), it would seem to be a natural continuation of that agreement. And, since Shout has also been licensing MGM titles, releasing that DC in 1080p doesn't seem so impossible.
Eh, maybe I'm just chasing Leprechauns again :/
zeropc said:
and then sony crop the shit out of it :P
Only in the UK the us version also transferred by Sony is Oar.
And their crop is miles better than the tilted stretched crap we had for years
OmegaMattman said:
The Aluminum Falcon said:
I'm not holding my hopes out for Universal to do a better master of theatrical cut from the OCN. They've been using the same transfer for years, and I doubt they'll do anything different.
I've been wondering if "AoD" might be a part of Universal's deal with ShoutFactory. When you look at all of the other titles they've optioned (including Raimi's "Darkman"), it would seem to be a natural continuation of that agreement. And, since Shout has also been licensing MGM titles, releasing that DC in 1080p doesn't seem so impossible.
Eh, maybe I'm just chasing Leprechauns again :/
Shout use the masters universal give them same with criterion (mostly)
dvdmike said:
zeropc said:
and then sony crop the shit out of it :P
Only in the UK the us version also transferred by Sony is Oar.
And their crop is miles better than the tilted stretched crap we had for years
the u.s. blu-ray is from anchor bay.
zeropc said:
dvdmike said:
zeropc said:
and then sony crop the shit out of it :P
Only in the UK the us version also transferred by Sony is Oar.
And their crop is miles better than the tilted stretched crap we had for years
the u.s. blu-ray is from anchor bay.
Released by, Sony did the master they are identical
ah, okay.
Do any of the Blu-ray releases have the extra line of dialog in the HD-DVD release? (As Ash rides off into the sunset, before the fade to the S-Mart ending, there is a voice over of Ash saying "and so I left her there" on the HD-DVD release.)
I think I have officially bought too damn many versions of this movie. I currently have the R3 DVD, the HD-DVD, and the French Blu-Ray releases and I've previously owned the US LD, Japanese LD, and Anchor Bay 2-DVD set.
Sometime soon, I want to reconstruct the trailer and TV spots in HD using the blu-ray footage, just for fun.
It is in the TV cut, that is all I have on my PC atm.
My discs are packed up right now so cant check for a while
Does anyone have the audio and subtitle tracks from the three versions on the German Ultimate edition? I'm trying to put together "complete" versions of the three different movies and I would like to add the German dialog and subtitles if I can.
I can get them but as above all my discs are boxed up and not at my house right now :(
dvdmike said:
Shout use the masters universal give them same with criterion (mostly)
So did Anchor Bay when they had it, save for Campbell's video copy. But, I know a guy who knows a guy (yeah, one of those) who used to work at AB during that period. He claims that, back when they were producing their Limited Edition, AB contacted DeLaurentiis studios about additional footage and the Director's Cut and were told no material was available. And, that they were shocked (and a bit angry) when it popped-up for MGM's release.
I can't see a company like Shout just sticking to Universal sources if they know others are available which they may be able to garner...assuming the price is right.
OmegaMattman said:
dvdmike said:
Shout use the masters universal give them same with criterion (mostly)
So did Anchor Bay when they had it, save for Campbell's video copy. But, I know a guy who knows a guy (yeah, one of those) who used to work at AB during that period. He claims that, back when they were producing their Limited Edition, AB contacted DeLaurentiis studios about additional footage and the Director's Cut and were told no material was available. And, that they were shocked (and a bit angry) when it popped-up for MGM's release.
I can't see a company like Shout just sticking to Universal sources if they know others are available which they may be able to garner...assuming the price is right.
Shout do, it is in the contract with Universal that is why they have the same masters same with Criterion.
Why would Universal licence them just to be shown up?
I wouldn't be surprised if Universal eventually ended up releasing their own Director's Cut edition by pulling the missing bits from the MGM master and then using DNR, edge enhancement, and re-framing to match them with their transfer at some point.
dvdmike said:
Why would Universal licence them just to be shown up?
They already have been shown-up...and seem to be just fine with it. Look at Shout's "Halloween II" versus the original Universal Blu-ray. It might come from the same initial master, but Shout's is a cleaner presentation. Plus, Uni allowed Shout to include the TV Cut, which they themselves had no intention of releasing.
Shout's upcoming "Darkman" will doubtless exceed Uni's existing BD as well. And, I'd say Universal would not be licensing to Criterion if they did not expect their own editions (like that of "Brazil") to be totally surpassed.
If Universal was concerned with being "shown-up", they'd limit Shout to movie-only releases, such as Disney pulled with Anchor Bay. Remember that "Watcher in the Woods" debacle (which was spawned by "The Happiest Millionaire" DVD)? Or, they'd keep everything in-house.