A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Adventures of Robin Hood -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Warner's Blu-ray release of The Adventures of Robin Hood is magnificent in every way.

Harvested from incomplete surviving original negatives with missing units filled in with masters, The Adventures of Robin Hood is a perfect example of what thoughtful and precise film restoration using the latest in digital tools can yield.

One of the huge problems of three-strip Technicolor was that films were exposed on black & white negative with an ASA (film speed) of 5, with much of the light being lost in internal prisms and filters.

You'd never know it from looking at this miraculous Blu-ray.

An extraordinary release that is is as good as it gets.

Extremely Highly Recommended!

RAH

 

[Reagan]

I'm glad someone has received his copy.

I am excited about this. In fact, I was excited on Tuesday when I went to Best Buy to pick it up. Oddly, they didn't get any in stock, so I had to visit the internet to buy it. Still hasn't been shipped.

-R

 

[Douglas Monce]

Robert, any idea if this release is identical to the HD DVD?

Doug

 

[John_S]

I received mine from Amazon yesterday and watched it last night. In my opinion it looked amazing.

Btw, I've never seen the HD-DVD version, although I owned the SD.

 

[Jerome]

Does this bluray has french subtitles on the bonuses ?

Thanks

 

[Mike Williams]

I read on dvdbeaver.com that while the disc takes up 35 GB of space, the actual feature only takes up 16.5 GB. That really sounds ludicrous to me. Is that possible?

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well the movie itself is only 102 min long. Add to that a mono sound track and the fact that it is pillerboxed at 1.37:1. I don't see any reason why it couldn't be 16.5 gig VC-1 file.

Doug

 

[DeeF]

I own the HD DVD of this film. Should I buy the BD?

I have found that The Searchers looks quite different on BD than it does on HD DVD. Also, my HD DVD of this film no longer works properly (can't get the menus) even though the film itself plays perfectly.

 

[Eric F]

Does this still have the Bugs Bunny short?

 

[Michael Osadciw]

never seen this film but will pick it up just to see an older film in HD...and one that looks brilliant!

Mike

 

[Mike Williams]

It DOES contain the Bugs Bunny short, in HD. ALL of the extras from the HD-DVD are present on the Blu-ray.

Reportedly, the Blu-ray is identical to the HD-DVD, but if your HD-DVD isn't working properly, by all means you should replace it with the Blu-ray.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

What's different?

 

[Xylon]

Really? I may have to check this out.

 

[Douglas Monce]

The Searchers is the exact same encode on HD DVD as it is on blu-ray and should look identical. If you are seeing a difference you might want to go back and re-calibrate your system for both your HD DVD and blu-ray inputs.

I have also noticed that the menus on my HD DVD of The Searchers no longer works. I think it has something to do with the last update for the HD DVD players.

Doug

 

[Robert George]

Indeed. The advanced codecs for audio and video have changed the landscape in digital compression and framing a discussion using old preconceptions means little or nothing. Another example is the Polish HD DVD edition of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The entire disc contents, including multiple soundtracks, is only 13.1 GB, yet the VC-1 encode of the 120 minute movie is virtually indistinquishable at normal playback from Fox's domestic AVC encode that uses a BD50 with an average bit rate of 24 mb/s (I have both).

 

[Douglas Monce]

Yeah I think this is something that most people don't realize with both VC-1 and AVC. Pushing the bit rate from 15mb to 30mb isn't necessarily going to improve the picture. Some shots may have to peek around 30mb, but having the the bit rate stay up in that range for the most part is a waste of bandwidth and completely unnecessary.

Doug

 

[RonaldB]

Douglas Monce wrote: "I have also noticed that the menus on my HD DVD of The Searchers no longer works. I think it has something to do with the last update for the HD DVD players."

I have the same menu problems on my Toshiba HD-A30 with factory firmware 1.3 or after upgrading to 3.0. Does anyone who owns a HD-A30 know which firmware versions (if any) will allow The Searchers menu to work? Thanks.

 

[Vincent_P]

I have the same issue with my HD-DVD of THE SEARCHERS. I posted over at AVS asking about it, and apparently others have this issue as well. It seems to be a flaw with the most recent firmware (3.0 on my HD-A2). Apparently, if you revert back to the previous firmware version, the menus work again.

Vincent

 

[DavidPla]

I have never owned this film but I am very interested in picking it up. However, I have found the DVD for about $17 less. I don't want to get into a debate about how much hi-def makes a difference in older films but I was wondering if the blu-ray's image is that much different than the DVD? I am more than happy to spend the extra money but only if it's a large difference. I understand that all the extras are the same.

 

[Matt Hough]

A totally subjective opinion, but I think the BD is a major step up over the SD release. Color is much richer looking, and the sharpness gives a much more dimensional heft to the image.

One thing that stood out to me in the BD was how impressive fire looked in high definition. That may sound odd, but I was fascinated with the flames from torches, etc. The color was just magnificent.