El Cid & Fall Of The Roman Empire coming in Germany! (1 Viewer)

[Danny_N]

According to German website BLURAY-DISC.DE - Blu-ray Filme, Forum, News, Technik, Spiele, Software El Cid and Fall Of The Roman Empire will be released in Germany on BD on August 21. Both will be 3-disc special editions (1 BD with the movie, 1 DVD with extras, 1 DVD with digital copy).
El Cid: EL CID (3-DISC DELUXE EDITION) BLU-RAY - Film-Details
Fall Of The Roman Empire: DER UNTERGANG DES RÖMISCHEN REICHES (3-DISC DELUXE EDITION) BLU-RAY - Film-Details

 

[Douglas R]

Good news! From the extras listed, it looks as if these transfers originate from the master used for the Miriam Collection DVDs, minus the audio commentary tracks.

 

[Rachael B]

I'd like to upgrade from my LD's on both of these titles. Fall Of....I'm especially partial to. I will order it, regardless of Wee-jun.

 

[john a hunter]

Thanks for the good news. If they are to look and sound good on BD, then some restoration will be required.Especially EL CID which looked rather poor on DVD. FALL has always looked sharper. Is this label the type that will spend $$$$ on them or just dump them on the market?

 

[MatthewA]

This company may not even have access to the material to do a new (better) transfer. El Cid needs one, though.

 

[OliverK]

This release will use the HD masters that were derived from 35mm lowcon prints that were also used for the Weinstein DVDs. The 2k master was screened theatrically last year and HTF member David Boulet was there, a search certainly will dig up his post on the screening.

So this will and cannot be a no holds barred release unfortunately and nobody should even think about a scan of the original (or derived) large format elements as this would have to be financed by the owners of the moives that are apparently rather hesitant to spend money on these movies.

I do not know how much of the skewed color pallette of El Cid is baked into the master and hope that we will get a significant improvement in both colors and detail over the current DVD versions, it would be unreasonable though to expect anything close to perfection.

The releases will be region B only btw, so anybody who cannot play back Region B should not get his hopes up.

 

[OliverK]

It is not a question of access as much as it is a question of cost - I would expect a low 6 digit or high 5 digit figure cost increase to arrive at a Blu-Ray that makes El Cid comparable to for example South Pacific.

The question of spending money and doing things right has also been covered by RAH in his El Cid review thread that makes for a very interesting reading.