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Waterloo - Page 2

post #31 of 45
3/4/09 at 11:39am

Re: Waterloo

My region 2 PAL copy of Waterloo was very much in sync last time I watched it. Picture and sound were very good, except for a few dirt marks and scratches during the credits.

I used to have the original souvenir cinema brochure to Waterloo but gave it to a friend who was a fanatic on the Napoleonic Wars, and this was his favourite film.
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post #32 of 45
3/4/09 at 11:54am

Re: Waterloo

The audio isn't too bad in the beginning where most of the dialogue takes place. Once they get to the Ball and Christopher Plummer the audio starts coming faster than the lip movements. In the last half hour is it really off - as if they dubbed another language - but there isn't too much dialogue in the second half, but it is still a bit distracting - maybe when SONY releases the film on DVD in the States they will correct it (lol)
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post #33 of 45
3/4/09 at 12:05pm

Re: Waterloo

I only watched the UK version a few nights ago; no problems at all with synch, in fact it was notable just how good the soundtrack is.
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post #34 of 45
3/4/09 at 12:50pm

Re: Waterloo

was the Uk version speed up for PAL? and it's only a region 2 disc correct?
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post #35 of 45
3/4/09 at 1:14pm

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_M
was the Uk version speed up for PAL? and it's only a region 2 disc correct?

Well, it's a PAL disc, so yes, it runs 4% faster than the theatrical version. I can't lay my hands on my disc right now, but being from Sony I guess it is bound to be restricted to R2; it's also cut by the BBFC, they don't specify why, but I would say it would be for horsefalls.
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post #36 of 45
3/5/09 at 5:40am

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_M
The audio isn't too bad in the beginning where most of the dialogue takes place. Once they get to the Ball and Christopher Plummer the audio starts coming faster than the lip movements. In the last half hour is it really off - as if they dubbed another language - but there isn't too much dialogue in the second half, but it is still a bit distracting - maybe when SONY releases the film on DVD in the States they will correct it (lol)

Last I checked, Paramount had the U.S. rights to this film. I know they didn't do terribly well with the movie in America, but I would think with the popularity of stuff like the History channel they could be persuaded to release the film on DVD.
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post #37 of 45
3/5/09 at 11:19am

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Edward Heuck
Last I checked, Paramount had the U.S. rights to this film. I know they didn't do terribly well with the movie in America, but I would think with the popularity of stuff like the History channel they could be persuaded to release the film on DVD.


Paramount originally released the film theatrically in 1971 - they may have licensed out the overseas home video rights to SONY.

The film would look great on Blu-Ray. While it's not a great film by any means, it a Great looking film - like having museum paintings come to life in your living room. Maybe Paramount will license it out in the States
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post #38 of 45
3/5/09 at 12:56pm

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_M
Paramount originally released the film theatrically in 1971 - they may have licensed out the overseas home video rights to SONY.

The film would look great on Blu-Ray. While it's not a great film by any means, it a Great looking film - like having museum paintings come to life in your living room. Maybe Paramount will license it out in the States

Apparently Paramount only released it theatrically in the U.S., Columbia distributed it elsewhere.
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post #39 of 45
3/11/09 at 6:42am

Re: Waterloo

I have no synch issues with the Russian DVD. I do have synch issues with the Region 2 DVD. That is because my current Pioneer region-free player seems to have sound synch issues with DVDs that are produced outside Region 1. Maybe it is because it upconverts as well. I may bring back my old JVC for playing Region 2 movies.

My Russian DVD is produced by a company called Shinco (at least, a Shinco logo appears). I know there was obviously some post dubbing on the film, but I find the dialog synchs up fine. I also noticed that the Region 1 DVD is from a PAL source. Steiger's voice sometimes sounds a tad high-pitched and sped-up at times. Last night, I ran the final few moments of both versions, and checked the running time via the Display function on my player. Both versions clocked in at 2:08 and some seconds. If the region 1 version had been truly produced as a region 1 NTSC DVD, I should have expected its running time to have been a few minutes longer than a region 2 disc with PAL speed-up.
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post #40 of 45
3/11/09 at 1:44pm

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by David_B_K
I have no synch issues with the Russian DVD.

David,

That's odd, since some of us have sync issues with the Russian DVD - is there more than one version? Does it have something to do with the players or the set up?

During the second half of the film the sync is way off
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post #41 of 45
3/12/09 at 6:51am
Thread Starter 

Re: Waterloo

Well, I believe the Russian version Greg and I have is from Atrium DVD ( ATRIUM DVDART ) and Columbia Tristar Film Distributors International, it certainly appears to be an official release. It is not the Shinco disc. I also screened the film on a Pioneer upconverting DVD player. I assumed the reason that the audio sync drifts in the second half of the film was due to the fact that they ported this transfer over from a PAL disc. I have not tried playing the film on another player but I can do this and see if my Pioneer was the reason for the sync problems. It is true that the post dub done on Waterloo is very much like a Spaghetti Western, but I was aware of that and that to me is no big deal.

I screened two other import films, also region 0 and NTSC, over the weekend on the Pioneer. A Korean version of 55 Days at Peking and a Russian version of The Ipcress File...no sync issues on either one. I also would guess these were ported over from PAL discs but I'm not certain of that.
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post #42 of 45
3/12/09 at 11:58am

Re: Waterloo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reggie W
Well, I believe the Russian version Greg and I have is from Atrium DVD ( ATRIUM DVDART ) and Columbia Tristar Film Distributors International, it certainly appears to be an official release. It is not the Shinco disc. I also screened the film on a Pioneer upconverting DVD player. I assumed the reason that the audio sync drifts in the second half of the film was due to the fact that they ported this transfer over from a PAL disc. I have not tried playing the film on another player but I can do this and see if my Pioneer was the reason for the sync problems. It is true that the post dub done on Waterloo is very much like a Spaghetti Western, but I was aware of that and that to me is no big deal.

I screened two other import films, also region 0 and NTSC, over the weekend on the Pioneer. A Korean version of 55 Days at Peking and a Russian version of The Ipcress File...no sync issues on either one. I also would guess these were ported over from PAL discs but I'm not certain of that.


Yes Reggie, I to have the DVD from ATRIUM DVDART. Is there another Russian DVD out there?
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post #43 of 45
3/12/09 at 1:47pm

Re: Waterloo

No synch problems here with the UK DVD. Glad I opted for that since even with a superior picture unsynched dialogue would be just too distracting for me. YMMV.
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post #44 of 45
3/16/09 at 10:10am

Re: Waterloo

I have a lot of admiration for Waterloo (and War and Peace) and I have owned the UKR2 DVD for about five years. I bought it for £5 ($9). It's a DVD-5 (single layer) btw, though it is generally very good for a transfer made in 1999. But I'd love to see a Blu-ray.

The main problem with the Ruscico transfer of War and Peace is the encoding. It looks like they used the old codec (?) of MPEG2 with lots of macro-blocking and noise, especially when the camera pans left/right during a detailed background - you see this at the very start, when the bushes and trees break up. The elements used - and this may be inherent in the currently unlocated 70mm negative (not 65mm, the Russian's used a 70mm negative) - have a contrast problem, where there is flickering througout the film. Otherwise, it looks good - not great, just good, most of the time, in the way that Russian color films from this period look - cold, dark, sometimes dangerously low contrast and generally quite dense, unlike UK/USA Super Panavision 65mm productions, which were bright, sharp, lush and stable.

What is needed is to find the original 65mm neg cans and do a James Bond-style 6-8k digitial restoration. But where would the money and time come from? The Eastern European economy is in meltdown.

BTW, try to get the OOP soundtrack to Waterloo - it's awesome.
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post #45 of 45
2/9/11 at 9:58am
Thread Starter 

Ok, it took quite a while for me to get back to this thread but I just screened the Russian DVD of Waterloo again last night and this time on my Pioneer Elite Blu-Ray player and did not have the audio sync issues in the second half of the film that I did on the Pioneer DVD player...so maybe this is a player thing and not a DVD thing.

 

Here is what I did notice though, at the point just before the layer shift the audio goes out of sync for one line of dialogue spoken by Christopher Plummer (playing Wellington, of course) then after the shift the audio was immediately back in sync and remained so for the rest of the film. So, perhaps the audio on the Russian DVD only goes out of sync on some players or upconverting standard DVD players. Obviously, the Pioneer Blu-Ray player also upconverts the picture quality but in this case there was no audio sync problem in the second half of the film. This seems to clearly indicate the audio sync issues are more player related than disc related.

 

On a final note, this film is gorgeous to look at and we will never see the battle of Waterloo filmed this way again...this really should get full Criterion treatment on Blu as this is a fantastic film that was just harshly judged and ignored at the time. Please Criterion attempt to get your hands on this one!

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