any beauty and the beast reviews yet? (1 Viewer)

[Kenneth Cummings]

Thank you Ron, your the best. *pays Ron more money*

 

[Dave Mack]

Saturday Night Fever, Ron?? C'mon, can ya tell us how IT looks???
D

 

[James Reader]

I will try to look at the two scenes you mention tonight, but I did check out the difference between the Special Edition and the Theatrical Edition on one scene. The Beast's wing in the scene where the Beast gives Belle the magic mirror had been cleaned up in the SE (due to the Human Again cleaning) but was still ragged in the Theatrical Edition.

Well seems that I may have to eat humble pie after all! Still, I maintain it must use seemless branching.

As a side note, it the film presented in 1.66:1? Is the 'Special Edition' presented in a different aspect than the 'Original' release?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Saturday Night Fever, Ron?? C'mon, can ya tell us how IT looks???

Paramount is late with the mailing of
the screeners. None of the sites will have
it till next week, from what I have been told.

Trust me, as soon as I get it, I will review
it. This is one of my all-time favorites.

 

[Robert Cook]

Ken_McAlinden wrote:

Quote:

I don't have the DVD yet, of course, but I think that it would be difficult to tell on most TV sets, because the DVD is (should be) both 1.66 and "16:9 enhanced," with windowboxing bars that are narrow enough to be hidden by overscan, whether the TV itself is 16:9 or 4:3. In terms of height, the picture will appear virtually identical in shape to that of 1.85 aspect ratio DVDs. This was definitely a source of confusion for the Tarzan DVD--which was in fact 1.66 as advertised--because some reviewers used absolute picture height to measure aspect ratio, and therefore believed that the claimed aspect ratio was incorrect.
The difference should be visible on computer monitors, however, and I doubt that the Original Theatrical and Special Edition versions will have different aspect ratios, as both were composed at 1.66. If that were not the case, they would either have to be encoded separately, or the picture would keep switching aspect ratios, which would look quite ridiculous. We all want to know everything NOW, but if that's not possible, we'll know everything in excruciating detail as soon as I can get my hands on the DVD. :wink:
By the way, if I somehow implied that being 1.66 is not visibly different from 1.85, I didn't mean it exactly that way. You might not be able to tell which is which by their shapes (apparent aspect ratios) on the screen, but what you'd get with 1.66 is a picture that is somewhat reduced in size, allowing you to see practically the whole picture with little or no overscan on the sides, and additional imagery at the top and bottom within the same picture height as that of a 1.85 DVD. If the Beauty and the Beast DVD were 1.85, the picture would be cropped at the top and bottom, and enlarged to fit the 16:9 frame, which means that overscan would then hide some of the imagery at the sides. This would be acceptable if the movie were supposed to be 1.85, but it's supposed to be 1.66, so your question is definitely relevant.

 

[James Reader]

Well heres some of the review text from DVDFile - and it looks like some of us will have egg on out faces after all - DVDFile state seemless branching was NOT used for the 3 versions. This, of course leaves over 4 hours of content on a single sided, duel layered disc!

Given so much to compress in so little a space, let me lead off this review by saying the presentation thus suffers from perhaps too much of a good thing. In my only real qualm with these transfers - all presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen - are noticeable compression artifacts due to the limited bit budget, with some solid backgrounds revealing blockiness, and more "jaggies" and motion artifacts than I'm used to seeing on a Disney title. The theatrical version also seems to get the short stick, revealing a lower bitrate throughout and more noticeable artifacting. Which is a shame, of course, because in all other respects, these transfers are outstanding.

I'm OK with the original film being presented in 1.85:1, but surely if different titles are being used, the special edition should be a different ratio? I'm not sure on the IMAX format, not having seen one, but is it not 4:3?

 

[James Reader]

Just had a thought; perhaps the 'Special Edition' has a higher bit-rate due to the presence of a commentary track only?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Guys,

I will be spending Tuesday reviewing this film.

I will be reviewing only ONE version due to
the amount of supplements.

Question: What version do you want me to review?

 

[James Reader]

Ron, I always consider the Theatrical version to be the content, and any expanded cuts, or director's cuts etc as supplements - so I would prefer the original version of the film please.

 

[Brian W.]

Ron, Original theatrical version, please.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

post edited...will repost in the future when I get my server issues squared away...

 

[Brian Kidd]

Yikes! That looks horrible!!!! How disappointing. Especially considering how far Disney has come in the year. While I'm glad that they gave us all three versions, couldn't they give us two on one disc and then the third on the other? Cut out some supplements or even go to a three-disc set? Too too bad.

 

[ChrisMatson]

Here is the DVDFile review.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

Ouch!!! THX-approved, huh? Hmmmm....
Which version are those screen shots from?
Link Removed

 

[John Berggren]

Three versions on one disc.
None to the quality we should expect for a release like this.
How likely is Disney to go back and do it right?
I guess we'll have to wait another 10 years for Beauty and the Beast to come out in true DVD quality.
They should have gone with 3 discs.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

The bare-bones 'Pinocchio' and 'The Black Cauldron' used a dual-layered (DVD-9) disc for a single version of the film with no substantial supplements. These titles are basically 'Superbit' compared to today's Disney releases.
Now, with 'Monsters Inc' and 'Beauty and the Beast', we get 2 or 3 versions on one disc with tons of soundtracks. And the compression artifacts show it.
These discs are authored to look fine on a small TV set.
The hell with extras. Getting the movie done right should be the first priority for any release.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Amen.

If we can get a 2-disc with Polyanna why not with Beauty and the Beast?

Can you say "Duh!"???

But REGARDLESS...it's pretty scary ain't-it?

ESEPCIALLY when you know how incredible these animated DVDs can look on the big-screen...it's a crime!

-dave

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

If we can get a 2-disc with Polyanna why not with Beauty and the Beast?
Can you say "Duh!"???

David,
I agree with your point in principle, but technically, Beauty and the Beast is a two disc set. It should have been three or they should have developed the capability to do branching at their authoring house if these screen shots are any indication.
Oh, and w.r.t. Michael's post, the 16:9 Monsters Inc. looks pretty good to me (not perfect but not bad either). I don't think it suffered much due to lack of bitrate. That layer change is a bit annoying, though.
Regards,

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Ken,
I think the Monster's Inc DVD looks better than what I am seeing of these screenshots, but I know it can look notably better than it does.
The 'flat' nature of 2D animation makes compression artifacts VERY apparent. Over 4 hours of material on a DVD-9 is too much no matter how you filter it, no matter how noise-free the source is, no matter how good your encoder is. And with 2 5.1 tracks and a commentary track? Forget about it!
You won't see a Ghibli anime title coming out of Japan compressed to hell like this!
This film is a true american classic and deserved to be treated better. But I bet Disney's marketing perceives (maybe correctly, unfortunately) the quantity of material on a release is more important to the american consumer than the quality.
These artifacts are going to be glaringly obvious on my ISF-calibrated HD set. Time to try the 'mosquito noise reduction' feature of my RP82, but it will surely soften the image.

 

[Todd Phillips]

David,
Are the blow-ups taken from the accompanying full-screen images? Because that just looks like JPEG artifacting. I would want to see a non-compressed screenshot before jumping to conclusions.