[Al.Anderson]

This is an embarassing question after having hung around the forum for so long, but how does one determine the specifications of releases? Basic stuff like whether it's OAR or anamorphic or a decent transfer. There's IMDb for movies - is there some such reliable DB for DVDs? I can look at a sales site and get an idea, but how do I know if they are wrong or are leaving info out; or even whether there's multiple releases?

And in case there's not a good simple general answer for this, can anyone help me with whether "The Train" has a good release?

[Malcolm R]

This is what Amazon.com has listed for "The Train":

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, See more
Director: John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn
Encoding: Region 1
Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Black & White
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Mgm/Ua Studios
DVD Release Date: May 1, 2001
DVD Features:
Commentary by director John Frankenheimer
Music only track
8-page booklet featuring production notes
Widescreen letterbox format

I doubt there's any single source that's 100% complete, or 100% accurate. Ideally, the releasing studio would have the most information, but that's not always the case either.

Here's the link to "The Train" at the MGM website.

[Al.Anderson]

Thanks Malcom, to be honest, I didn't go to the studio site and that did help in this case. But even then, it's being released in widescreen - is that the original aspect ratio? (IMDb doesn't say anything about the movie OAR. And what about the transfer, things like that, that the releasing studio might not be completely open about. I see people state very specific info on the board, and just can't figure out where they get the info from.

(And what the heck does Amazon means by color and B&W?!)

[Douglas Bailey]

I've no idea what Amazon is smoking. The Train is pure black-and-white, and it's quite a good transfer IMO.