House Of Flying Daggers R1 - April 19 (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

A lousy transfer is bad enough, but the worst thing about Miramax is the way they cut Asian films to shreds -- it's like they chop a random selection of 20 minutes out of each movie!

 

[Donnie Eldridge]

If you haven't seen it yet, it's probably Stephen Chow's best work yet. A definite classic!!!

 

[Edwin-S]

Did Miramax cut Hero? What cuts were made to it?

I was never able to see House of Flying Daggers or A Very Long Engagement. Those types of films never make it into the theatre in the town where I live. Another one I would have liked to have seen was Appleseed. No dice on that one either.

 

[Richard>S]

Just out of curiosity, what's the general opinion on the R2 Japanese transfer?

I've seen plenty of mention of the Edko & Starmax releases but seeing as though the R2 Japanese transfer of 'Hero' was generally accepted to be the best i was wondering whether it was a similar case in this instance.

 

[Citizen87645]

IIRC the Japanese transfer was okay - not as good as the Edko or Starmax. I'm not totally positive or even remember where I read this (most likely in the DVD Talk forums), but I know if it were that much better I would have been obsessively searching for it.

 

[Yumbo]

The R1 video is terrible! Thought something was wrong with the focus. Not so bad after first 30 mins. Long shots were way poor. Was it like this theatrically?

Sound is fine, sounding like EX actually.

 

[Kain_C]

AVLE did make it to my backwater state of South Carolina, but in a town about 40+ minutes away, not including time driving through the city.

Anyway, we were surprised to see a HUGE line for it! This was only like a few weeks ago! We underestimated the appeal so much, we had to sit like 3 or so seats back from the screen! Ouch! We then figured out it was mostly French class students.

Despite terrible seating, I loved the movie and plan to snatch it up when it finally comes out on DVD. HoFD is also a must buy, although I haven't seen it.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Ni hao!

My review of HoFD will be posted in a couple of minutes. Be there or be square!

 

[Rich Malloy]

From the screen-grabs on DVD BEAVER, it appears that the R1 is a bit softer than either the Edko 2-disc/3-disc and Starmax releases, so those long shots look a bit worse than they should on a better transfer. I'm hoping this will ultimately be a Superbit, at which point I'll upgrade.

Also see the Beaver confirmed that the Edko 2-disc is a full bitrate DTS-ES track (my equipment won't tell me). I suspected this, and it sounds amazing. Comparisons at the DVD TALK international forum say this track is quite superior to the half bitrate Starmax edition, so I suspect the R1 pales slightly here, as well.

Minor cuts aside (and these do bother me), I'm hoping that an eventual Superbit release might finally marry the best video to the best audio. At this point, I think I'll stick with the Edko 2-disc, with the best audio, second best video(just a hair behind Starmax), and white/non-intrusive subs.

But I might need the R1 for the extras (awaiting some reviews on these to see if worthwhile)...

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Those of you checking the comparison on DVD Beaver should skip the synopsis if you haven't seen the film yet -- he reveals a huge spoiler!

 

[Andy Patrizio]

The video is definitely poor. I was so disappointed. Over bright, flickering like crazy in places, out of focus. What a disappointment.

 

[Ron Boster]

With all the negative comments about the R1 video, what does that say for the Widescreen Review critic who gave the video 4.5 out of 5 and the audio 5 out of 5?

Ron

 

[Citizen87645]

Or our very own HTF reviewer? The DVD screen caps on DVD Beaver don't suggest it would be classified as "poo" - the single disc Edko would get that honor.

 

[Andy Patrizio]

Poo = poor. Sorry about that.

I double checked twice. And I've got some mighty pricey gear. Put a few other discs in, made sure my settings weren't nuked. This is a disappointment no matter how you look at it. And screen shots can't convey the pixilation or the flicker, which is really noticable in places.

 

[Citizen87645]

Hey, if you want to rate DVDs that way, I'm not stopping you.

 

[Yumbo]

Must have been a SuperBit copy! The R1 is downright poo poo!
I just watched Bad Eucation, which has a fantastic STANDARD transfer.

ps. The Woodsman is DTS but not SuperBit from Columbia.

 

[Ian Currie]

This is pretty interesting. DVDReview thought the transfer was terrific.

http://www.dvdreview.com/fullreviews..._daggers.shtml

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Where are the negative comments coming from besides on this thread (and Andy's IGN review)?



Andy,
Didn't you just get a new RP-LCD and DVD player to go with it? Is it possible that some picture settings on your display are off (contrast too high, etc.)? Did you have it professionally calibrated? I know that at least with my DLP, I have to set Contrast lower than where it would be for the brightest white my set is capable of because it throws off the whole upper spectrum. And this only showed up as a problem on certain discs (like Finding Nemo).

Interesting calibration thread for those interested, including my experience with my digital display and the Contrast setting.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I did not notice any pixilation. Can you give an example that I could check?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Clearly, he is a genius!