WHV Press Release: Ben-Hur 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collectors Edition (Blu-ray) - Page 2

Will the U.K. set work on U.S. players?

Yes, all Warner BRD releases in the UK are region free.

Ditto.
I have the UCE's of Gone With The Wind, Wizard Of Oz, Sound Of Music, Ten Commandments, and Planet Of The Apes.
The printed materials included in those sets are terrific.
The Ben Hur set will join the rest in my collection.

I bought two of them (GWTW & WOZ), and stand by my verdict: junk.

And for the record, I also don't think much of the "digibook" packages (Bridge on the River Kwai, How the West Was Won, Hustler, Dr. Zhivago, King Kong & Commancheros). Commancheros and Hustler set new lows in disk (non) protection.

I've both those two, The Ten Commandments and The Sound of Music. To me, the printed materials are worth every penny. It's the watches and shot glasses that give these boxes a bad rap.

I just wish they'd do a day-and-date disc only release instead of making those of us who DON'T want the fancy box wait for months and months. Come on Warner!

I'm not keen on the boxsets and digibooks either. I bought the boxset of The Ten Commandments just to get all the discs that came with it. I have pre-ordered the UK Ben-Hur (as I did GWTW). I'm a big fan of the film and of Heston; but I don't need all that stuff. I already have two original programmes from Ben-Hur, and Heston's published version of his journals. I don't begrudge those as want the boxsets; I just don't need all that stuff. Too bad they don't release versions with all the discs on the same day as the boxsets.

And as to the digibooks, I almost never read them. They usually have lightweight info in them anyway.

The only reason I'm buying the boxes of this and Citizen Kane is for the packaged 2nd film. The extra stuff is just a small extra incentive. Exclusive documentaries are also and large incentive for me. The West Side Story giftset only has trinkets included (though classy), so that's one I'll be getting only a standard release for.

Like they did with Gone With the Wind, there will most likely be a department store exclusive non-box edition for the holidays.

I'll probably pick this up when the price eventually comes down. I find an "Ultimate collection" that doesn't include high def transfers for (at least) both included movies is not so "ultimate" after all. The second unit director for the chariot race in the 1925 version may have been a vicious animal abusing lowlife, but I can't say that he didn't know what he was doing when he filmed that scene. I actually think the chariot race in the earlier version is better done than in the Heston version.

Was the actual restoration (not the scanning) done at 4K, 6K or 8K?

Fairly sure it was 4K. Any more would be rather needless, given that 8K is reserved for large format, and 6K is something of a misnomer for 4K scanning of films shot in horizontal 35 processes like Vistavision and Technirama.

Ben-Hur is large format filmed in 65mm Ultra Panavision.