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Roger,

Thanks for your post. I changed the player's output to 480p as you mentioned and the image of Une Partie de Campagne did indeed change to 4:3. Interestingly, though, the picture still looks slightly horizontally stretched. This is probably the closest to the correct aspect ratio that I can get out of this system (an Oppo BDP-80 and a Sony TV). On my second system (an Oppo BDP-83 and also a Sony TV), even with the player's output set to 1080p, the image looks correct (no apparent stretch in any direction). So, for the previous one time that it looked correct, I must have checked it on the Oppo BDP-83.

Roger Ryan wrote:I mentioned this before, but have found that some widescreen televisions have trouble showing non-anamorphic 4:3 DVDs in the proper ratio unless the output resolution on the player is reduced to 480p. At that resolution (which is all the resolution DVDs have anyway), the 4:3 image will be presented properly.

As noted in the "Technical Questions" thread, some players will allow the "Screen Format" to be set to "Fixed Aspect Ratio" (these are the terms Sony uses) which will allow standard definition 4:3 content to remain in the correct aspect ration on widescreen TVs with output resolution set to 720p or higher.

JimmyTango wrote:Can anyone verify that the Epstein box is encoded 4/3, but compatible to 16/9 screens? I contacted Potemkine but didn't receive a reply.

I sent them a message over a week ago asking for clarification on this and also whether they would be releasing any Epstein titles 1080p (as they have already broken up the box as per the Rohmer).
The news is, there is no news. So unless they are slow readers or have a cavalier approach to providing technical info it looks like we'll have to wait for some reviews.

They got back to me quickly with a shipping-related question (ordering directly from the label costs 27 Euro shipping to US for either or both the Epstein and Rohmer box sets btw). I'd like to order direct for whatever encouragement it may give them to do more such work in the future. I sincerely hope they haven't managed to botch the technical aspects of what could be one of the great achievements of the DVD era (even if we are in the run-up to a post-DVD era).

Well I haven't received a direct reply but their website listing now shows 'Image 4/3 ' In addition some more info from the Amazon listing
Contenu additionnel
Contient :
- les 8 DVD du coffret
- un livre
Entretiens :
- Bruno Dumont
- Léon Rousseau
- Viva Paci
- Eric Thouvenel
Bandes son de Krikor, Joachim, Aufgang
Young Oceans of Cinema, de James Schneider (68')

I don't think Dumont has cropped up here before? I was also hoping for Carax but maybe there's still time. choice of music tracks seem a bit volatile too.

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Well I haven't received a direct reply but their website listing now shows 'Image 4/3 ' In addition some more info from the Amazon listing
Contenu additionnel
Contient :
- les 8 DVD du coffret
- un livre
Entretiens :
- Bruno Dumont
- Léon Rousseau
- Viva Paci
- Eric Thouvenel
Bandes son de Krikor, Joachim, Aufgang
Young Oceans of Cinema, de James Schneider (68')

I don't think Dumont has cropped up here before? I was also hoping for Carax but maybe there's still time. choice of music tracks seem a bit volatile too.

Thanks Nabob. Good looking out.

I just received the following reply from Potemkine

"Picture will be on 4/3. The information page have been corrected."

That's good to hear (though really I'm hoping that MoC will just pick these up and put the whole thing out on Blu). I was earlier reading Michael's review of the Chaplin Mutual DVDs from Arte, and they too are in what I'll call anamorphic 4x3. Wasting a chunk of the already pitiful DVD resolution on pointless black bars, when you've got brand new modern transfers to work with? This is 2014, right?

Resto info: http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/musee-col ... jean-.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks like the release date has been pushed back to 6/3/14.

http://www.potemkine.fr/Potemkine-film/ ... 3f219.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Shipping tonight.

According to La Poste mine should drop on the mat tomorrow morning. If anyone is still harbouring doubts or unanswered questions regarding specs etc before taking the plunge feel free to ask.

Great! By the way, it's about eight Euros cheaper at amazon.es currently, compared to amazon.fr. Ordered, of course. No need to worry about the specs anymore, as I've seen screenshots elsewhere. Plain 4:3 format, as it should be.

Tommaso wrote:Great! By the way, it's about eight Euros cheaper at amazon.es currently, compared to amazon.fr. Ordered, of course. No need to worry about the specs anymore, as I've seen screenshots elsewhere. Plain 4:3 format, as it should be.

Do you have a link to those screenshots?

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:According to La Poste mine should drop on the mat tomorrow morning. If anyone is still harbouring doubts or unanswered questions regarding specs etc before taking the plunge feel free to ask.

How English-friendly is the set?

swo17 wrote:

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:According to La Poste mine should drop on the mat tomorrow morning. If anyone is still harbouring doubts or unanswered questions regarding specs etc before taking the plunge feel free to ask.

How English-friendly is the set?

The book is french only but is highly pictorial with loads of photies and poster art etc. All films have subs supplements do not. Will check more intensely to see if there are any anomalies but that seems to be the shape of things so far.

Just to clarify/The documentary by James June Schneider is in french with english subs but the introduction to it has no subs.

Tommaso wrote:Great! By the way, it's about eight Euros cheaper at amazon.es currently, compared to amazon.fr.

It was about $6 USD cheaper on Amazon.fr just now, I suppose I missed out on the discounted price. I wasn't planning on buying it so soon but its instant appearance on certain P2P backchannels kind of guilted me into it. It seems more important now than ever to support companies putting out such incredible and painstaking releases such as this (not to mention their Rohmer box not long ago).

You're right, it's currently 94.99 Euros at both amazon.fr and .es again, whereas it was 86.99 Euros at .es just three days ago. But certainly these little changes should stop noone from buying it right now.

Has anyone else experienced an issue with forced English & French subtitles? I can choose between subtitles in both languages and even though turning off the subtitles is an option the previous selected language still remains. I wanted to watch Chanson D'Armor free of text on the screen but it looks like it isn't an option.

Yes, you're right. Curiously, here and also with other discs in the set, if you choose to play the film without English subtitles, the player will select subtitle Track 2 (which is empty), while toggling manually to 'Subtitles Off' with your remote will give you English subs as well as toggling to Track 1. A strange authoring glitch which isn't a problem, only that "Chanson d'Armor" indeed has French subs on Track 2 (probably because the language isn't standard French?), although there's no French subs option in the menus. So that means that it indeed isn't possible to play "Chanson d'Armor" entirely subs-free.

So unless you hope that people will protest in large enough numbers to make them re-call the set, the only option you have is to run the disc through some copying programme and remove the subs in the process. They're player-generated, so that should be possible. Exactly what Nick once recommended about the wrongly non-removable subs on the second "Michael" disc in the MoC set, btw.

Update to the above: I've just watched the film and then read the booklet notes on it, and the restoration note expressly states that the film is presented with French subs. The introductory text also mentions that the film was presented with French subs at its Paris première in 1934. So, unfortunately as it is, it seems to be intentional that the subs aren't removable.

But I agree it's a pity, as the film is such a visual poem - basically like a silent, really - and isn't difficult to follow even if you don't understand Breton so that eighty years later they should really have given spectators the chance to see this fully without subtitles. Truly lyrical, concentrated and touching, one of the strongest of Epstein's Breton films.

Tommaso wrote:So unless you hope that people will protest in large enough numbers to make them re-call the set, the only option you have is to run the disc through some copying programme and remove the subs in the process.

If you play the disc on a computer through VLC, you can disable them as well, just tested it. As a side note - these transfers look amazing, especially for DVD!

yeah, they are beautiful. particularly nice to have a second-to-none version of La chute de la maison Usher, finally.

FYI - I just placed my order on Amazon Spain where the price is listed at 82.25 Euros. Once I placed my order, the price dropped to 67.98 Euros. Looks like they have 2 more in stock.