Thursday, November 26, 2009

Blu-ray Brit round-up

2:26 PM / Blu-ray / Comments11 Comments

Blu-ray

Don't say I'm not good to you: rental copies of the recent UK releases of Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection, The Descent and Sunshine Cleaning landed on my doormat in the last few days, and I'm here to provide the lowdown on how they measure up against the already available US and (in the case of The Descent) Australian releases.

  • Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection: Coded for all regions. The first three films are, as with their American counterparts, encoded at 24 fps, with roughly comparable (perhaps even identical) image quality, whereas the fourth film, A Matter of Loaf and Death, runs at 25 fps like its standalone UK counterpart. It appears to be the same encode as that earlier release and thus lacks both the horrible aliasing and audio distortion that affect the 24 fps American version. All special features are in standard definition PAL. It's also worth pointing out that the Cracking Contraptions shorts are conspicuously absent. However, given how much better A Matter of Loaf and Death looks and sounds, I'm going to say that this is the one to go for, provided your player can handle 50 Hz content.
     
  • The Descent: Coded for Region B only. Colour palette matches the Australian BD and UK standard definition DVD rather than the American BD (see here for a glimpse of the rather pronounced differences). Unlike the Australian release, all of the extras from the standard definition DVD have been ported over. Bit rate and overall file size are slightly lower on this release than on the Australian version, despite the presence of both PCM and DTS-HD Master Audio tracks (both 5.1, and one of course rendering the other redundant). A cursory glance didn't reveal any noticeable differences as far as compression is concerned, but this was far from an in-depth scientific comparison so I wouldn't like to say for sure whether this is the case. In any event, the region-free status of the Australian release is likely to make it the most viable option for American readers who don't want to be lumbered with their native release's incorrect colour palette and/or the inferior MPEG-2 encode that is now in wide circulation over there.
     
  • Sunshine Cleaning: Region coding unconfirmed (I forgot to check before I sent the disc back). This appears to use the same encode as the US release, and is therefore also optically censored.

That's all for now, folks. If I get the chance later, I'll post some comparative screen captures.

 
11 Comments

1. paku said:

Sounds good. I ordered the UK W&G earlier this week, so I guess this means I don't have to worry. Thanks.

(Posted on Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:41 PM)

2. Ian said:

Fantastic to hear the Wallace & Gromit news! Thanks for checking this out :)

(Posted on Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:25 PM)

3. Bleddyn Williams said:

Thanks for following through with the Wallace & Gromit check, Michael!

It wasn't worth getting the UK one and using my region-free player unless there was a clear advantage on Loaf and Death. Glad to hear there is. UK one is coming my way for Xmas.

Cheers!

(Posted on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 3:30 AM)

4. FoxyMulder said:

I think The Descent 2 is opening soon and i have read that in America the MPEG2 release might be quietly getting removed from shelves and replaced by an AVC encode.

I have still to watch the Australian edition of The Descent but i would like to ask a question regarding filtering on the Australian edition.

I have read you state many times that if you look at the bottom of the letterbox black bars and see a faint line that it is a sign of filtering and the Australian edition has this although from what i saw the image quality still looks high.

I have noted on my projector i can shift the pixels up a little and get rid of such lines and i am sure that can also be done on the JVC LCOS projector.

Incidentally how black is black on the JVC projectors and how would you rate LCOS compared to LCD ?

(Posted on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 8:13 AM)

5. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Foxy:

Another US Descent release? I'll believe it when I see it. Still, anything's possible, as demonstrated by the MPEG-2/AVC debacle.

I wouldn't say that ringing around the letterbox bars is always an indication of filtering, but in my experience it's often the case. Regarding the Australian release, I see no ringing whatsoever at the top and bottom of the frame. (Take a look at the screen captures here.)

As for specific projector questions, you're far better off asking my brother. I'll point your post out to him and see if he'll shed some light on the subject.

(Posted on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM)

6. Brian said:

Cheers for the info on these discs Michael, both of which I've been holding back on picking up until now.

(Posted on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 2:25 PM)

7. Simon said:

Does the UK version have both cuts like the US disc?

(Posted on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 12:07 PM)

8. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Simon:

For The Descent? No, just the original cut. The version released theatrically in the US was only ever created for that market so it's doubtful that it will ever show up on a non-US release.

(Posted on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 12:23 PM)

9. Adam Grikepelis said:

Michael, don't s'pose you happen to have had a better look at the UK BD of The Descent?

would much prefer to have the Director & Crew commentary track, but really in the end it's the AV quality of the film that matters most
cheers

(Posted on Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 2:47 PM)

10. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Adam:

Thanks for the reminder - I'd completely forgotten I was going to do a comparison. Here you go:

http://www.landofwhimsy.com/writings/dvdimage-descent.html

(Posted on Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 4:33 PM)

11. Adam Grikepelis said:

thanks Michael.
didn't expect that detailed a repsonse at all :)
guess I'll be getting the UK release once the price drops a bit.
don't like the film as much as some, but there's something about The Descent that keeps bringing me back to it. will be very interested to hear more about the production on that dir & crew track, as I never did buy the DVD.
cheers

(Posted on Friday, January 8, 2010 at 12:20 AM)

 
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