ShowsOn
Second Unit
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2011
- Messages
- 253
- Real Name
- Simon Howson
Hi all, I just thought I'd start a new thread for discussion of these Australian releases. The full list is here: http://www.bountyentertainment.com.au/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2 They previously released Violent Saturday in a non-anamorphic PAL transfer that looks the same as the Spanish version. They also released Boy on a Dolphin which I have been told is a very poor 4:3 letterboxed transfer. Today I received the following: Ride a Crooked Trail (1958) This is a good anamorphic NTSC transfer with an aspect ratio of about 2.3:1. If you don't want to get the Audy Murphy TCM set, this is a good way to get just this film on its own. 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956) This is a good anamorphic PAL transfer, again around 2.3:1 aspect ratio. This is perhaps slightly lower quality than Ride, but still a decent disc. Drum Beat (1954) This disc is a big disappointment because the aspect ratio is just 2.00:1, when it should be 2.55:1, because it is a very early CinemaScope film. It does, however, have a stereo sound track, and the image quality is reasonable considering the image is zoomed in so much. King of the Khyber Rifles (1953) This disc is a massive disappointment because it is improperly encoded! This is clearly meant to be a 4:3 letterboxed transfer, but the disc is encoded as 16:9, so the DVD plays back with an absurdly wide ratio because the image is horizontally stretched when it doesn't need to be! If you use software like VLC Media Player to force the disc to play back as 4:3, you get to see the proper aspect ratio, which is close to 2.55:1, but on the downside, the transfer is interlaced. Here is a demonstration of what is wrong with the disc. This is what the disc looks like:
This is what it should look like:
The sound seems to be stereo for the music and effects, but mono for the dialogue! Or maybe it is just narrow stereo (which wasn't common in early 'Scope films, usually they loved using wide stereo tracks to 'match' the width of the picture). The Disc ID of the bad version I have is 751F8A4A0CB837B6. Hopefully this fault is corrected so there will be a repressed version that is encoded as 4:3 instead of 16:9. ALL of the discs are region free which is good, but sadly they are also all single layer. The other good thing is they are $15 each, but if you wait a few months you can get them for $10 or less from ebay.com.au and department stores.