"South Pacific" Disc of the year? (1 Viewer)

[Mike_Richardson]

Couldn't they have found a way to make it work since the 2nd disc is a Blu-Ray? Most of the extras are in SD, how much room do they take up?

 

[MatthewA]

If the extras were all in SD, was it not possible to spread them equally across both discs?

 

[Dave Moritz]

If I am not mistaken the Bluray has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. So unless they did a horible job on the audio it should sound very good.

And as far as the roadshow version goes I have not seen that or the theatrical version ether. I am basically buying this title sight unseen. Now my question is would anyone here feel I would not like the theatrical even if I haven't seen the roadshow cut? I think it would still be a great addition to my HD collection. And I can not wait to get other classics like Sound Of Music and Gone With The Wind on Bluray.

 

[OliverK]

I am a bit surprised about all the fuzz about the roadshow version.
Yes, it would be nice to have it but it is a completely different version, not just a few minutes trimmed here or there.

That would mean the pink roadshow print would have to be brought back to life in its entirety. With current technology it would be almost impossible to results as good as with the theatrical print. Add to that the tremendous costs of such an undertaking and I can understand why we did only get it in SD.

Maybe a few years down the road with progress in technology it will be possible to release that roadshow print in an HD version, until then I will be happy with the theatrical cut which by the way I considered long enough when I last watched the movie.

But it would still have been nice to explicitly state on the cover of the Blu-Ray that the extended cut is in SD only !

 

[Greg_M]

Somewhere in the FOX vaults there is a room where they'll find all the cuts to the Roadshow version of "South Pacific", the cut songs from "The King and I" and "Carousel" (along with the original film shot in Maine and then re-shot on a soundstage)

Also the cut songs from "Doctor Dolittle" and "Can-Can"

Well, mabye not...but we can dream

 

[MatthewA]

They did find the uncut "Sand Pebbles," so anything is possible.

Hopefully the impending restoration of The Alamo will lead to the discovery of new restoration technologies.

 

[Vern Dias]

Actually, it is. I can easily run the spec. ed. DVD in my PC using Theatertek and ffdshow with Lanczos scaling and get a far more detailed image than anything that is encoded on standard def on a BD, regardless of my choice of BD player and how well is supposedly "upscales". As a matter of fact, I almost never watch anything on BD thats encoded in standard def as the quality generally sucks big time on my large screen.

Granted, I haven't watched the disc, yet, but if it's encoded in MPEG2, they might just as well left it off the disk, as I'll bet most of us that would watch it already have it on DVD.

Of course there is the slim possibilty they reencoded it in AVC MPEG4 or even high bitrate MPEG2, and if so, it may be worth trying to pull it off the BD into a format that TT can play.

Vern

 

[OliverK]

Would not work either as then people would cry foul as they need to keep their DVDs

 

[Vern Dias]

Yeah, that s true, too.

Vern

 

[cafink]

No, you can't get a "more detailed image," because you can't add detail to an image where there isn't any. You might be able to get an image that's better looking, for reasons unrelated to the level of detail, because you're PC does a better job of upconverting standard-definition material than your Blu-ray player does. But that's a problem with your Blu-ray player, not with the Blu-ray disc itself.

 

[MatthewA]

Blu-ray.com - South Pacific Blu-ray Review (50th Anniversary Edition)

The review says that the new 90-minute documentary is 1080i, and there's a shorter 14 minute documentary that is 1080p.

So the main feature couldn't be in HD but the supplements could.

Disc of the year? This nearly was theirs...

 

[OliverK]

Some of the extras obviously were done in 1080i and 1080p and it would not make sense not to put them on the disc like that with the space being available. I would not be surprised if the roadshow version existed only in SD form and therefore was put on the disc like that in order to offer all the content that was available in the DVD version.

It is unfortunate that the Schawn Belston chat was only about the Robe and so early - I would have preferred a chat about both The Robe and South Pacific where we could have asked about these things a week or two after both discs have both been released.

 

[ahollis]

If it was down to include the Roadshow in SD or not include it, I would vote to include it. I was very upset that the Roadshow version of THE SAND PEBBELS was not included on that Blu-ray release. Now I have two copies of it.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Well, I was all set to get this today; I think I'll pass. If the Roadshow is in SD--well, I already have that.

 

[MatthewA]

If this disc sells poorly, Fox needs to know why people aren't buying it and not draw the conclusion that they don't want the film. Letters need to be written to complain about this misguided decision:

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
2121 Avenue of the Stars, 25th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Seriously. The Godfather Part II can fit on one BD, and that has a good 30 minutes on the Roadshow version of this film. How hard would it be to include both versions in HD? Consider that the black bars from the 2.2:1 aspect ratio means space is saved.

If the Roadshow version was only mastered in SD (which could be the case), that's one thing. The fact that Fox only made a new 70mm print of the General Release version suggests to me that they seem to consider it a rough cut of the film of mainly historical interest (possibly because of the fact that they couldn't restore more of the color).

And it is a shame, considering the quality of the HD transfer.

 

[Greg_M]

The Roadshow version is faded and pink. Why would FOX invest in a HD transfer at this point???

Maybe if the footage can be restored then it would make sense to do a HD transfer. But for now the Theaterical cut is the main thing and the only reason to buy the Blu-ray disc

There are many other titles I would like to see from FOX then the roadshow version of SP (faded and Pink) in HD

 

[ahollis]

The General Release HD transfer is breathtaking. I was disappointed that the Roadshow release was not HD, and prefer that version since the last SD release, but I would have missed one of the most incredible releases if I did not get this on Blu-ray. Not only is the picture the best I have ever seen it, but the sound is also the best I have ever heard it.

Do not be turned off because of the Roadshow being a SD transfer, I am glad that Fox included it. I was more turned off that the Roadshow version of The Sand Pebbles was not included on that Blu-ray release.

 

[David_MSP]

I would also like to remind both Fox and Best Buy that these titles -need- to be carried in B&M stores that we can actually go to on the release date. Best Buy's decision to not stock many recent "classic" titles in their Minnesota stores is most disappointing and they lost out on several of my purchases because of it. It's not a Fox issue, per se, but I'm sure they can nudge retailers a bit.

 

[OliverK]

I am pretty sure that Fox has their reasons for only including the old roadshow version, most probably because there has not been done much work on it since the release of the DVD, I very much doubt that space would have been an issue.

Considering the quality of the general release version on the first disc I would not want them to release a roadshow version that is significantly worse looking than that cut and I hope that in time budget and available techniques will be there to do this version justice, too.

 

[Vern Dias]

Watched this last night, and while the daylight scenes do look stunning, I just wish thay had done the nighttime scenes (day for night) in a darker blue tint. They, unfortunately don't look good. Sharp and detailed yes, but like they used to look on the original prints, no. I understand that the that underexposed film doesn't age well, but I would have thought that some (more) judicious digital magic could have been applied to help them. The sequence at the docked airplane after the Thanksgiving variety show is particularly bad, showing a too light blue in the middle going to a purple at the sides.

I'm still glad we got this release, but would have liked to have seen the night scenes looking more like night and less like a pale blue.

Oh well, maybe on the next release.

Oh, and Carl, it's not a problem with blue ray player as much as it is having a much more powerful CPU in the PC. And yes, the image does reveal more detail when processed this way.

Vern