Question on "Sharpe's Riffles" Series (1 Viewer)

[Jim Robbins]

I really like this British series but have been disappointed in the video transfers for the US market.
Did the PAL versions look any better? The US versions look like they were filmed through wax paper. So far I've only seen the first two films.

 

[PhilipG]

Great series.


Yes! The recent R2 DVDs are night-and-day better than the abysmal R1 releases (judging from the one R1 Sharpe DVD I own, Sharpe's Enemy; I have all the R2 discs).

The R1s are cropped to 4:3. The recent R2s are letterboxed at 14:9 (whether that's OAR or slightly cropped at the sides I don't know, but Sharpe was originally shown here with slight horizontal borders).

If you are multiregion-capable the R2 discs should be pretty cheap now. Or you could wait for better R1 versions (good luck). I was going to collect all the R1s until I saw the picture quality of Sharpe's Enemy...

 

[Jim Robbins]

Thanks Philip! It's a shame that this excellent series looks so bad here ,I'll look into getting them from the UK.
I am curious, was "Horatio Hornblower" also widescreen in the UK?

 

[Randy A Salas]

Sadly, the Sharpe's R1 DVDs are indicative of the video quality of most of BFS Entertainment's releases.

 

[PhilipG]

DVD: I believe that the last couple of releases were - but the others are cropped 4:3. :frowning:

TV: IIRC all Hornblowers were w/s on TV (and all 16:9 not 14:9)