Bridge On The River Kwai - Superbit coming soon! (1 Viewer)

[Gordon McMurphy]

Well, in the UK at least: http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page...57&g=72&pa=rcs

I take it that it will be a 2-disc, if it has all the extras ported over, unless they are just hangovers from the old/current release?

I myself feel that the transfer holds up well, but I know that others here think it is lacking. I agree that monkey'd 5.1 track is a bit tinny and weak, though.

Any thoughts?

 

[John Hodson]

My first thought is that Play.com have got it slightly wrong; they are the only etailer to show any extras at all, and they show the box art for the normal release - HMV show the actual art here:

http://www2.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/display...;-1&sku=399112

If they have included extras on a second disc, fine. But I have my doubts (especially at the price)...

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

I'm having my doubts, also.

Could this be an all-new, HD-sourced transfer? The current disc is DVD-9 of this 161m (155m on PAL) film, plus a few small extras and animated menus. Does it have a high bitrate?

Is this just a bit of marketing jive, or will it be like the Lawrence of Arabia Superbit, which was a substantial improvement over the original DVD?

 

[greg_t]

It is already out in R2 japan, I have it.

 

[John Hodson]

Well, Greg, don't keep us in suspense; what's it like transfer wise, any extras? Any comments would help

 

[greg_t]

I actually haven't watched it yet. I'll look at it tonight. There are no extras that I can see. The movie is spread out over two discs.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Available at CD Japan

Indeed, it is a 155/161-minute film over 2 DVDs. I would really like to see the mono mix preserved, however.

Reviewed here is the Italian Superbit edition, which came out last year, apparently. It basically states that the transfer is the same as the 2000 transfer, spread over a DVD-5 and DVD-9, which is weird. Why not two DVD-9s? At which point in the film does disc 1 end?

The Japanese disc is probably the same as this, as will the UK set be.

As much as I love the film, I was surprised to see The Professionals receive a new transfer (though it deserved it, as the colours were way off). Kwai will receive a new transfer at some point, but I am actually quite pleased with the current transfer and the extras are superb.

 

[Dick]

I would hope the break would come at the 1:50:23 (actually, the time encoding on the original DVD returns to "0:00" at the layer change, so the moment I refer to is at 29:09 on the second layer). At this point there is a fade out - one of the few in the movie and, I suspect, the point at which an intermission had originally been planned, but was dropped (can anyone verify?). This is at the end of the sequence in which Col. Nicholson recruits men from the hospital and they all march out to a reprise of the Col. Bogie theme; there is a final shot of Col. Saito watching them, which fades to black. Perfect intermission point, leaving about 52 minutes of the film for part two. (It was not unusual for studios to have the first "half" of a road show presentation actually run about two-thirds the length of a movie, followed by an action-filled final third after intermission). But, knowing how studios love to ignore perfect layer/disc breaks, I am sure Sony will find a way to put the disc change in a stupid place. There is no reason why a Superbit disc cannot handle 110 minutes on disc one while delivering its increased resolution.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

That's right. That always throws me, as the player drive does a lot of noisy whirling and the transition takes about 3 seconds (it is normally fast and smooth at layer changes) at the change. I have never seen any other DVD do that. An encoding oversight, it seems.

To be honest, I have never been a Superbit fan; it's a rip-off if you ask me. Some SB released are indeed an improvement over the previous discs, but overall, it isn't that enticing to me. Lawrence was different, as it was the color correction that sold me; if it had simply been a higher bitrate edition, I wouldn't have bought it. Superbit covers are also ghastly, I feel. I have the limited edition canvass case for the initial Lawrence set, which is divine. The SB edition's futuristic silver packaging makes it feel like it's some outre sci-fi film: yuk.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the wonderful, Ryan's Daughter from Warner. Hopefully, it won't be long and will be as good as their sumptuous Zhivago set.

 

[greg_t]

Do you have any of the Japanese superbits? I find their packaging to be much classier. The discs are gold and very nice looking. I only have a few of the Japanese superbits, but I always find them to be an improvement over the R1 releases. The Jurassic Park superbit blows away the R1 release. The only one that wasn't a significant improvment was Ghostbusters I.

I can't find my R1 Bridge on the river Kwai now, so I must have given it away, but I played the superbit last night and it looks fantastic on my 53" HDTV. The CD Japan site says it is remastered, and the only other superbit they list as remastered is Lawerence, so it makes me think this may be a new transfer as was Lawerence. I may try to rent the R1 to compare them. But in the scenes that I watched last night the superbit looked great.

Just checked, the japanese superbit ends at chp 16 at the 1:14:33 second mark. It is when they are taking about the type of wood to build the bridge with.

 

[Douglas R]

The Babel Fish looses something in translating the Italian review to English but I think I get the drift!

It remains difficult to understand the sense of this operation from part of Columbia, than nearly three years of distance from the previous Collector' s the richest Edition of extra it proposes the film on a DVD 5 and DVD 9 (why not to use two discs to double layer instead that one only) with improvements nearly null audiovisual aids. it is true that in the previous edition the classified bit installments to the video was little more than 4 Mb/s (the rest was occupied from the traces audio) and that hour Mb/s (audio excluded is attested naturally on the 6,4), but to a careful comparison we are not indeed resolutions to notice differences of risen between the two sections video, also why the master the same one is used and the greater defects of the images previously, more than in the jam, they are from chargeing just to the departure materials. The same one says for the audio, inasmuch as we must renounce to the English trace multichannel and that Italian in mono (a true one smacco for the intransigenti cinefili) and that the added one of the version in DTS, like written during book review, has not carried some benefit. We add to the usual absence of extra (quite the previous inner booklet from ten pages has been lost weight to a flyer of sun two paginette) and the passing of the beautiful animated menù of the previous DVD and we will not be able that to consider this Superbit one disappointment on all the foreheads.

 

[Maggi Magg]

I bought this the other day and first glance made my biggest fear come true.:frowning:
This is NOT a new transfer.
They have done the same as they did with Guns of Navarone.
The movie has been spread over 2 disc and they are both dual-layered.
The aspect ratio has not been corrected, as it is still 2.47:1 as suposed to the correct 2.55:1 cinemascope ratio.
The DTS audio is in my opinion the original DVD release DD 5.1 re-encoded to DTS.

As i said in the beginning of this post i have just glanced this disc over,it will need a closer inspection but i don´t think that will change anything.

This release is a BIG disapointment :frowning:
(It is the UK release i´m refering to)
Cheers
Maggi