Asaki

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

• 74 - Akira (Criterion Collection CAV) (Letterbox - DS)
• 74b - Akira (Criterion Collection CLV) (Letterbox - DS)

Apparently I'm in a niche group of people who prefer the original English dub of Akira to the redub (and I don't just mean on this forum). There was an official PAL release of it on DVD, but it's in fullscreen, it looks pretty crummy, and I could not get the audio to sync up to NTSC video at all.

I think the audio was in mono, too. I know someone had an AVI widescreen fan-edit of the original audio at Demonoid, I think it was in stereo, but the sound quality was really bad. Probably sourced from an old VHS.

I guess most people just watch it with the Japanese audio and English subs.

Well, I ended up going with this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00752R4PK/

I don't usually do the whole "warranty" thing, but I figured this is probably one time I should. Looks like BD players are either less than $100, or more than $500, and not really much inbetween...at least on Amazon with "four stars or higher" selected. Hopefully I don't end up getting what I paid for =|

Ziz said:

You need to take most reviews with a grain of salt.

I don't know. If the reviews weren't so vastly widespread, and were written in all caps with horrible grammar and spelling, maybe I'd trust them less, but as it is, I have doubts that it's simply due to human error.

SilverWook said:

If you're a Costco member, they usually have brand name models at under $100 this time of year.

I've seen a Sony model at my local Walgreens of all places.

Yeah, I've seen lots of brand names advertised at other retailers for under $100, these are the "really bad reviews" models I spoke of.

Heck, I checked Toshiba's website, and their highest ranked model only had 2.5 out of 5 stars (not that I trust Toshiba much, with the experience I've had).

I know I should probably think more highly of Sony for having come up with the BD format in the first place, but I've seen enough of their CD players and Playstations fall apart...

Now that I think about it, would there even be any benefit to getting a dedicated BD player over a PS3? PS3 has free Internet and has Netflix and YouTube etc. right? And we don't have (or want) a 3D TV.

There might be better places to ask this, and I know I'm way late to the party, but  I've kind of been thinking of getting into it, lately.  I was just wondering, do they make any good cheapish BD players yet, or is PS3 still the way to go?

Every time I find one for less than $100, I check the reviews on Amazon and they all say "I bought this at WalMart and had to take it back because it stopped working."

Not sure what features I'd be after or anything like that, I'm so behind the times @_@ I just kind of feel like if I got a PS3, I'd be wasting it's potential because I doubt I'd play very many, if any, games on it.

SilverWook said:

Aren't game consoles notoriously finicky for DVD playback?

I wouldn't know. Never heard much about it before, and don't have much experience with it. My XBox at home (not 360) modded with XBMP plays most DVDs fine. Has problems playing some of the few DVD+Rs I have, and the XBMP program itself still has a few annoying bugs in it, but that's about it.

Before I brought the XBox over, we used to watch DVDs through a PS2, and I remember it would just sit there a judder and skip when we tried watching burned discs (though for some reason, it played those DVD+Rs pretty okay).

Speaking of SE errors, I let my friend borrow GoldenEye and he couldn't play it in his 360 or whatever other DVD player he tried =|

I guess he's going to be watching the UE instead.

I checked the Sean Connery Volume 2 DVDs the other day. The discs have different art printed on them, but they seem to be the UEs otherwise.

I was going to say they have the original mono soundtracks added on, but from what I've seen of the UEs, the whole "They don't have the original soundtrack included." thing must be a PAL-only complaint.

But are they unedited? The edited ones are pretty easy to get a hold of.

If you figure it out, let me know. I haven't been able to "hack" ComicsKingdom since they restructured in October (though I haven't had time to try as hard as I'd like to).

You can zoom in a little bit and save the GIF: http://safr.kingfeatures.com/idn/ck/content.php?file=aHR0cDovL3NhZnIua2luZ2ZlYXR1cmVzLmNvbS9TYWxseUZvcnRoLzIwMTIvMTEvU2FsbHlfRm9ydGguMjAxMjExMjNfNzIwLmdpZg==&tok=420061f838dee5950c432468eca2e886

but obviously that URL can't easily be hacked to get to the different sizes, like you could before. It's especially terrible trying to read the Sunday pages of Dick Tracy...it's like they just have everything completely automated and don't check or care if you can actually read the words on the page!

SilverWook said:

The shots of the tv with Wayne Newton look like freeze frames! That grain isn't moving.

 Yeah, I noticed that straight away on The Spy Who Loved Me; DVNR through the roof! @_@

I think I'll be able to handle it though, with how often I watch these movies...Goldeneye I think is the only one I've even seen more than once.

Planning a marathon sometime soon, though. Hopefully right after the Christmas marathons are over.

Still a bit pricey for a movie that I don't even remember if I liked or not =)

Not to mention, I wouldn't be able to do anything with a BluRay disc.

team_negative1 said:

Only half the people that were on the blog last time have responded, and even some people that have joined up now haven't made a comment yet.

I sent a reply to your email, BTW, re: username. I've just been being patient though and assuming you'll get to it in time (sounds like tomorrow?) and that it did not get lost in cyberspace.

Ack! Apparently NSNA is out of print and on the pricey side.

I guess I probably won't be owning that one any time soon.

They've had quite a mix of SEs and UE's around here for a while now, but I hadn't seen any of the two disc sets until about a month ago, and only Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

All I'm missing now (in general) is Casino Royale, Never Say Never Again, and maybe Die Another Day. Though there's probably a couple more SEs that I want to replace bad UEs, like The Spy Who Loved Me.

Oh geeze, I was just at Target and they've got ANOTHER set of Bond DVDs...

No special features at all (except for commentary), but quite a lot of audio options, including original mono.

No idea what transfer they are, but man do they have some reaaally swank looking cover art. I almost grabbed From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, but then saw that they had these Sean Connery collections for $10 each (which I think are just repackaged UEs?), and figured that $20 for nine discs was a more practical choice than $15 for two =|

SilverWook said:

One thing that puzzles me about the documentaries, how can there be SE DVD's on the bookshelves behind Michael Wilson, when the documentaries first came out on the SE's? If they aren't the DVD's, what are they?

Promotional mockups, maybe? I haven't seen that doc, so I couldn't say for sure.

Which one(s) is it on? I might take a peek if I have it.

Yeah, but ANH was a unique transfer. I'm not sure about the other two...but I guess we'll find out, one way or the other.

Yeah, I didn't get an email either =(

Or at least I don't think I did. I'll have to check more thoroughly when I get home from work.

captainsolo said:

Can't remember if it's been covered elsewhere, but were these ever confirmed to be smear-free as well?

That would be really weird if they weren't smear-free, since they're pre-THX and all...

The real question is if they're worth preserving, or if they're just the same transfer as the SWE and/or JSC. I think someone already said they were, but I can't really remember for certain.

negative1 said:

...we already have

your contact information from the last blog.

That's what I figured.

Man, with all the people who were completely oblivious to the first blog, it's weird to hear that the second blog is getting overloaded.

Is it because of the secret public screening or something? I notice a lot of new faces here lately...

Yeah, I don't remember getting an email invite either, I remember it being through PM here...but I guess I'll find out.

I was there for the first one, and I'll be there for the blogs to come, until the end of time.

Big Lots really needs to stop selling all the Bond DVDs...all I need now is the rest of the Connery films (sans Dr. No and Thunderball) and I'll be set.

...and maybe the movies they did after Goldeneye that weren't Die Another Day (though I did like Casino Royale a lot)...

Still haven't seen Quantum of Solace (I was told I wouldn't be able to watch it with all the "MTV editing" going on), but the one they have comes with what must be a super awesome James Bond calendar for 2009 B)

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

This is definitely the most bizarre project in the history of OT.com.

I'm pretty sure that award goes to the "converting old fullscreen VHSes of the OT into 3D BluRays" project.

...which, BTW, I am STILL waiting for >:(

It probably looks like an old VHS capture that's been reencoded a few times and sent through KaZaA and back, like the producer's cut of Halloween 6.