DVDBeaver

[Gary Tooze]

New...

Criterion - Region 0 - NTSC "The Most Dangerous Game" vs. Legend Films (colorized and b/w) - Region 1 - NTSC

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Cheers,

[Gregory]

Gary,
Any chance of adding a comparison with the new Warner Archive disc of Party Girl to your review of the Warner R2? In addition to this being an important film, it would be interesting experiment to see how these DVD-Rs hold up against a DVD counterpart. The DVD might seem the obvious choice over the DVD-R, but in this case it seems the DVD is nothing to write home about, and Warner US might have worked from better elements (though it didn't look like that was the issue with the R2, -- but I haven't seen it).

[Gary Tooze]

Possibly Gregory - but they are pricey and being in Canada I can't order. Perhaps one of our American reviewers will get.
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New...

Koch Lorber - Region 1 - NTSC "L'Innocente" vs. Nouveau Entertainment Ltd - Region 2 - PAL

Raro (2009 subtitled reissue) - Region 2 - PAL "The Key" vs. Cult Epics (2004 anamorphic reissue) - Region 0 - NTSC


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Have a good weekend,

[psufootball07]

Hey Gary,

I had a question pertaining to the film Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock.

I took a course this semester about the Rhetoric of Hitchcock, and I suggested to my professor that we watch the updated release of the film by Universal Legacy Series. Overall the quality was better, but he suggested that the scene in which we see Thorwald smoke in the dark, and the cigarette lights up looks sharper in the older release. I was wondering if you could confirm this. This is just a minor detail, but it appeared in our screening that the cigarette barley lit up at all in the Universal Legacy series version, granted we were watching on an 80 inch screen. Hope you can confirm or deny this!

Thanks,

Ryan

[Gary Tooze]

I'll see what I can do Ryan. I have to find the old DVD first.

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New...

MGM (2-disc) - Region 'A' - Blu-ray "The Graduate" vs. MGM (2-disc - 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition) - Region 1 - NTSC vs. MGM - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Momentum (SE) - Region 2 - PAL

Universal - Region 1 - NTSC "Field of Dreams" vs. Universal (2 disc 15th Anniversary) - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Universal - Region FREE - Blu-ray


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Cheers,

[psufootball07]

Thanks Gary, my professor has been teaching that Hitchcock course for at least 15 years, and he even writes some academic articles that are published about his films. So I wouldnt be surprised if he is right, its just something that would make you scratch your head if the Universal Legacy Series is in fact a weaker transfer in this shot.

[Gary Tooze]

New...

Buena Vista (2-disc) - Region 1 - NTSC "Monster's Inc." vs. Buena Vista (Edition Collector 2 DVD) - Region 2 - PAL vs. Walt Disney Studios (2-disc) - Region FREE - Blu-ray


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Cheers,

[manicsounds]

Hey Gary, about the Monsters Inc disc,
The US version and the International versions are slightly different. Signs that were in English for the US release (like Walk/Don't Walk), were changed to pictures or alternate signs.

Are both included on the Japanese release or just the International?

[Gary Tooze]

Hi manic,
I'll check but remember them being in English with forced Japanese subs underneath - although I only recall seeing this happen once (example it doesn't happen in the screen grab of the newspaper).
Gary

[Gary Tooze]

New...

Eureka Video - Region 0 - PAL "Faust" vs. Kino - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Divisa Red - Region 0 - PAL vs. Eureka Masters of Cinema #24 (2-disc) - Region 0 - PAL vs. Kino (Restored Edition (from Murnau Box) - Region 0 - NTSC

Eureka Video (Masters of Cinema Series) - Region 2 - PAL "Tartuffe" vs. Kino (The Restored Authorized Edition) - Region 0 - NTSC

NY Film Annex - Region 0 - NTSC vs. "Une femme mariée" Koch - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Masters of Cinema - Region 0 - PAL

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Cheers,

[Gary Tooze]

New...

Fox / Lorber (Out Of Print) - Region 0 - NTSC "Last Year at Marienbad" vs. Optimum - Region 2 - PAL vs. Criterion (2-disc) - Region 1 - NTSC

In our review of Magick Lantern Cycle Blu-ray we've compared 3 captures to the Fantoma NTSC DVD.

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[ellipsis7]

Looking forward your review of CC's MARIENBAD Blu - will be interesting as Optimum are also to release a Blu of MARIENBAD in September, how then the Blus compare in Region A & B...

[Gary Tooze]

True ellipsis7!
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New...

Fox Lorber - Region 0 - NTSC "My Dinner With Andre" vs. Criterion (2-disc) - Region 1 - NTSC

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P.S. Some may be interested of the titles on our homepage that are listed for upcoming Blu-ray including Lynch, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Godard, Losey and more...

Cheers,

[Dadapass]

Are you no longer reviewing the Philippe Garrel x 2 DVDs?

[DrBanan]

When looking at the screen cap comparisons of the CC versus Tartan blu-ray editions of The Seventh Seal, I get the distinct impression that it is the CC that looks consistently (but slightly) brighter of the two, but Gary claims it is the Tartan that should come out brighter looking. Could the labeling of the caps have been accidentally swapped?

I have the Tartan edition myself, and excellent though it is, I couldn't help but notice that in some scenes the brighter areas of the image look a just a bit "overexposed" - something I hope the Criterion edition might do better.

[David M.]

Hey Gary, about the Monsters Inc disc,
The US version and the International versions are slightly different. Signs that were in English for the US release (like Walk/Don't Walk), were changed to pictures or alternate signs.

Are both included on the Japanese release or just the International?

The Japanese BD is the same as all the other international versions, that is, missing the text during these moments.

There are two options: one is the Japanese version, which has some Japanese text (such as on the newspaper). The other is the International version, which has English text when text is absolutely necessary, but graphics replacing some other parts (such as Walk/Don't Walk). Neither is the original version.

Sulley's hand gesturing ("Go to sleep", where he holds two fingers up in a "two" position on the word 'to') is also changed to something that non-English speakers would more easily understand.

[ellipsis7]

Gary - The UK version of MADE IN USA is from Optimum (i.e. Studio Canal) not Warner - it is a similarly sharp print and transfer to the Criterion, as you present it - I wonder if either will shave it (although certainly the Criterion is slightly ahead on extras and package presentation)... However as you say Nouveaux UK 2 OR 3 THINGS is dire, dismal and an unnecessary distraction, obviously considerably surpassed by the Criterion...

[manicsounds]

Old news maybe, but whatever happened to DVD Beaver Lite?

[Perkins Cobb]

Old news maybe, but whatever happened to DVD Beaver Lite?

Well, the site design has improved, for one thing.

[manicsounds]

I don't see Gary making updates in this thread, but there are some updates on his site.

Inglorious Bastards - Severin BD added

The Most Important Thing: Love - Mondo R1 added

The Red Shoes - ITV BD added

Lola Montes - Second Sight R2 added

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[denti alligator]

I don't see Gary making updates in this thread, but there are some updates on his site.

Maybe he's upset at us for this.

[GringoTex]

I don't see Gary making updates in this thread, but there are some updates on his site.

Maybe he's upset at us for this.

He's definitely pouting.

[denti alligator]

It is constructive when, for instance someone like Nick contacts Gary over a perceived problem with grabs and submits his own.

Using a different method? Wouldn't that fly in the face of the consistency? To put it another way: why is it that Nick's caps looked different from Gary's? And why would Gary have accepted Nick's, but not those from Mondo?

I wrote this in the Mondo thread:

DVD Beaver wrote:

For LA FEMME PUBLIQUE the DVD Producer actually posted me all 4 versions that we compared and I assured them I used the exact same system and settings to obtain the screen captures! The producer I dealt with was unsatisfied with our result and I had no ethical way of placating him. I wasn't about to improve the quality of his release's captures and invalidate all 80,000 other images on the site. I still insist to him that this would not be ethical.

I agree that Gary opens up a whole bag of trouble if he makes an exception to his system, but isn't that what he did with MoC?

Can anyone parse that first sentence for me? "All 4 versions" of what? There are 7 sets of caps and 3 DVDs compared. They "used the exact same system and settings to obtain the screen captures"? The same system and settings as Mondo Vision's caps? How could that be (given dramatic difference in caps)?

---

I think Gary's in a pickle. He can't change systems now, what with 80,000 caps. I don't quite understand his rejoinder to Mondo, but I take it that that's a big part of the problem.

[GringoTex]

If Beaver did take up a new "formula" for grabs which may or may not show much if any difference, and may or may not increase the bandwidth requirements how are the readers supposed to regard the previous 80,000?

This is absurdly fetishistic. The 80,000 screen caps don't represent some holy grail of video presentation. How can they? Has Gary been using the same capture process for the past four years? Is that the problem? Technology changes too quickly. It would be one thing to use two different capturing processes within the same comparison (that would be unethical), but other than that his fidelity to his process is nonsensical.

There's obviously a problem with Gary's capturing process as has been demonstrated time and time again in this forum. He refuses to fix it.

[Person]

Oh no - not another 'crack pipes at dawn' DVD Beaver mass debate!