A Hard Day's Night Pan & Scan from Miramax?!? (2 Viewers)

[Derek Miner]

If the guy who restored the film says that 1.33:1 is correct

To be fair, he said 1.33 OR 1.66 would be appropriate, and did point out that there are empty seats visible that shouldn't be when 1.33 is used.

 

[Rich Malloy]

...something else that surprised me when I saw the specs: FIVE AUDIO COMMENTARIES * * * * * They say there are three from the cast. Could that be George, Paul and Ringo maybe? I hope Richard Lester recorded commentary as well...

!!!!

The commentary possibilities are truly exciting, but I can't help but think "overkill". Let's hope they're not five endlessly rambling tangents crying out to be edited into a single track. And, reading Michael's post together with Derek's, it seems that there are several audio options that should be included both for completeness' sake and the varying tastes of the viewers.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

So that means *some* scenes were shot at 25fps, to eliminate flicker on the video monitors. But, of course, the film was shown correctly at 24fps, worldwide. 24fps is the correct speed.

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

I think my head is going to explode. Thanks Terrance.
I thought this was projected around 1.66:1 when I saw this during the last theatrical re-release.

 

[Patrick McCart]

5 commentaries won't bother the video!

AHDN is only 87 minutes long, so with a dual-layered disc...the video can be very high bitrate, plus have the audio commentaries.

After all, the 4-track Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a 92 minute film on a 2-layered disc and the video is still excellent.

Plus, AHDN doesn't have to be anamorphic, so there's already less video bitrate. Add to the fact that the film elements are extremely clean and it's B&W...

 

[Shel]

Has it occured to anyone else just to be happy that A Hard Days Night is coming at all? If it's MAR, oh well, I'll get it anyway, I won't be thrilled, but I'll buy it. Disney isn't big on releasing much with good features. Most of the time I'm surprised they've released anything at all.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Quote:

16:9 1.77:1 anamorphic transfers have the exact same number of active (contiguous non-black, harder to compress) pixels (the full 720x480 array) as 4:3 full-frame transfers. Going anamorphic does not use more bits in this case. Only in the case of wider transfers (like 2.35:1 letterboxes versus 2.35:1 anamorphic) does the anamorphic transfer have more active pixels than the non-anamorphic version.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Going anamorphic does not use more bits in this case.

And, indeed, an anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer (which is what many appear to want) would use less bits than a 1.33:1 transfer.

DJ

 

[Gui A]

Does anybody have the specs of the R2 Japanese release?
I translated the amazon.co.jp page with babelfish, and it doesn't list the AR, but it does say it has DTS and was release Nov 21, 2001.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Somebody promoting an eBay auction on USENET in February said this about the Japan DVD:

Special Features Include: Chapter Selection, Film Trailer, Band Member Profiles (Japanese text), Cast & Staff Profiles (Japanese text), Guitar Instruction (How to play "Hard Day's Night"), Location Revisit (How the locations the film was recorded at look today)
NO RESERVE
Bonus items included.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

No! The soundtrack from the Criterion laseridsc is the stereo "home video" version created by MPI which edited in the stereo album mixes over the mono soundtrack. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The stereo versions are mixed much differently, with different vocal parts and overdubs.

Were the stereo remixes done by MPI, or for the theatrical re-release in the 1980s?

Criterion may have simply been supplied with the transfer by MPI -- I recall reading something about how the MPI CLV LDs of Help! and A Hard Day's Night were the same as the Criterions, just without extras.

I don't have the Criterion A Hard Day's Night, but I do have Help! (the CAV, no less). Comparing the You're Going To Lose That Girl sequence to the presentation of the same on the Beatles Anthology LD set, which, if I recall correctly, comes from the BFI restoration, Anthology's print is much cleaner, sharper and contrastier, but the sound -- the original mono -- is saddled with a horrible high-pitched squeal throughout. This squeal is not present in any of the non-stereo portions of the Criterion disc.

Would this squeal come from degeneration of the source material? Just something I've been curious about ever since I compared the two.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Would this squeal come from degeneration of the source material? Just something I've been curious about ever since I compared the two.

Yes and no. Even the 1964 release had awful distortion to the audio. The Miramax track is probably the best the audio can sound given the surviving elements.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

All MPI LD/VHS and Criterion LD were from the UNRESTORED versions and probably had the old 1981 mono track. The only benifit of the Criterion disc was the extras.

My Criterion CAV Help! most definitely has stereo music tracks dropped in over the original mono mixes.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

The songs are overdubbed by the original stereo tracks. The original mono had the songs overdubbed anyways, so why not use better fidelity material?

Why not re-dub the original mono songs? The mono masters are not of worse fidelity AFAIK, and many die-hard fans feel the mono mixes are superior.

Why not an extra mono track?

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Neither. The theatrical re-release by Universal Classics in 1981 used the old 1964 mono track, which was heavily distorted.

Are you sure of that, Patrick? I played that re-release - which added a prologue of a still-photo montage set to the song "I'll Cry Instead" - as a midnight show for several weeks back in 82-83. I remember the poster having a big notation that the film was now in "Dolby Stereo Sound" and the print's leaders had "Dolby" inscribed in the track area.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Are you sure of that, Patrick? I played that re-release - which added a prologue of a still-photo montage set to the song "I'll Cry Instead" - as a midnight show for several weeks back in 82-83. I remember the poster having a big notation that the film was now in "Dolby Stereo Sound" and the print's leaders had "Dolby" inscribed in the track area.

The songs were probably overdubbed from the album masters again. It wasn't until the 1990's that separate sound effects and dialogue tracks were located...and that was even after the restoration.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

That's what I thought, Pat. The print was definitely marked "Dolby Stereo", but it sounded like dead-center mono for everything BUT the songs, which were mixed in louder than usual. The overall sound quality was poor, very harsh and muffled. Sounded like the built-in distortion described above. We can hope this new release fixes as many of these past faults as possible.

 

[Jon Robertson]

And since when has this forum started defending open matte transfers over OAR transfers?

When there is uncertainty over the intended aspect ratio of the picture - despite what you say and believe, there are contradicatory sources.
And I am not "this forum", I am an individual.

 

[Larry Geller]

I remember the poster having a big notation that the film was now in "Dolby Stereo Sound" and the print's leaders had "Dolby" inscribed in the track area

The ORIGINAL HDN laserdisc, VHS & BETA (the red ones on MPI from about 1984) were this version--the original mono ST IS on it, but horribly re-channeled for stereo--this was the only official home video release of the original ST (you can tell because the cymbal crashes & other background noises ARE on the recording.

 

[Derek Miner]

I recall reading something about how the MPI CLV LDs of Help! and A Hard Day's Night were the same as the Criterions, just without extras.

I was under the impression that the only domestic laserdisc releases of Help! and A Hard Day's Night were Criterion. They issued a CAV and CLV version of each. If someone knows of some other versions, please share.