Spartacus: Foreign SE (by Universal) same bonus features and transfer as Criterion (1 Viewer)

[Rick Z.]

I bought yesterday a Spartacus Special Edition that is seemingly available outside the US. It has the same Special features as the criterion (the only one not ported over is the restoration demonstration I think), the transfer is anamorphic and is almost identical too... and it has a DTS track to boot! only the color timing seems to differ, sometimes it's just barely noticeable, sometimes the difference is quite big, especially the opening credits which tend to look green on the Criterion, and my SE somewhat reflect the colors of the original US bare bones edition (I think, although the image as a whole is a great improvement). It seems to me that this is the exact transfer that Criterion used minus the new color timing that was a applied by Robert Harris. Everything else is the same. I found some comparisons between the Criterion and the Universal SE region 2 version (which looks the same to the one I have). I'd like to hear some comments from Robert Harris as to what does he think of the image quality here. The skin tones look too red at times in my opinion. Does anyone else own it?

 

[willyTass]

I have the PAL region 4 Spartacus SE and it looks sensational
Will

 

[Rick Z.]

And I'm sure it's the same transfer as mine (region free, NTSC). Even the commentaries are subtitled. Has anyone actually listened to the DTS track?, it's probably the same that was meant to be included in the criterion DVD (but was left out due to disc space issues).

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Probably left out due to not wanting to pay the royalty than a space issue.

X Men's first release had the DTS track dropped (said due to space issues), to have it magically re-appear in the special edition for double dip purposes. Studios do this shell game all the time.

Dan

 

[Robert Harris]

The loss of DTS on the Spartacus disc was due to space.

RAH

 

[Magnus T]

Uhm... no. Peter Staddon (when he was still posting here) stated that they had mastered to versions of the X - Men disc. One with DTS and one without. He felt the picture suffered too much with DTS and so they removed it. The initial release had more special features than disc 1 on the 2 disc edition.