NEW Rashomon DVD: It's looking better than the Criterion!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Oct 2006, 20:38

Firstly the Criterion has:

Video: 4:3
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Transfer: NTSC
Audio: Japanese Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono or English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
Extras:
- Audio commentary by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
- Introduction by Robert Altman (6:39)
- Excerpts from the documentary “World of Kazuo Miyagawa” (12:32)
- Theatrical Trailer (3:19)
- 28-page Booklet featuring reprints of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short stories “In a Grove” and “Rashomon”, an essay by Stephen Prince and an extract from Kurosawa's autobiography

BUT check out the forthcoming Region 4 Madman DVD:

Released: 8th of November 2006
Rental/Retail: Retail
Video: 4:3
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 115 mins
Transfer: Progressive PAL
Audio: Japanese Dolby Dual-mono
Extras:
- Making of RASHOMON - Interviews with original Crew (68 mins)
- "The World of Kazuo Miyagawa" - Documentary on Cinematographer (12 mins)
- Outtakes (4 mins)
- Newsreel Footage of Rashomon at Venice Film Festival (1 min)
- Original Trailer (4 mins)
- Image Galleries:

Posters (15)
Promotional Stills (60)
Production Stills (26)
Storyboards (23)
Inside The Sketchbook (10)
Venice Film Festival, 1951 (3)

Source: http://madboards.madman.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=21116

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 23 Oct 2006, 20:45

4/3 Pal AND progressive ?
Is that even possible ?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 23 Oct 2006, 20:56

tom2681 wrote:4/3 Pal AND progressive ?

Of course it is.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Oct 2006, 20:57

Why? Surely Progressive just means the way it's encoded? It's not related to the aspect ratio or anamorphic enhancement.

Not that I care it will be decent AV with IMO much better extras (Commentary vs. 68 Minute Interviews).

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 23 Oct 2006, 21:25

Wont bother at all, its far from his best film, if not his worst film in fact. Not bad, just not great. It doesnt exactly sound an exciting dvd anyway.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 23 Oct 2006, 21:40

It all depends on the transfer though, you could have all the best extras but it's worthless without the transfer to back it up. I seriously doubt that the Toho master (which Madman would've used) can match the Criterion transfer.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 23 Oct 2006, 21:52

I guess it could be a newly found transfer that Madman found somewhere in the hot and humid caves in Austraslia

or they just ripped it from the Criterion dvd and made it pal, stranger things have happened.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 Oct 2006, 23:29

Extras sound groundbreaking for such an old movie.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 23 Oct 2006, 23:45

True but then the Criterion in the extras department is even shiter, was my point.

Well I think on paper anyway it looks tops.

EvaUnit02 wrote:I seriously doubt that the Toho master (which Madman would've used) can match the Criterion transfer.

Only time will tell, of late Madman have been very good.

romerojpg wrote:or they just ripped it from the Criterion dvd and made it pal, stranger things have happened.

Re-read the spec. we already know that's not going to happen.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 24 Oct 2006, 09:24

Damn yo, I just just got the Crit as well. N/M.

Great film like.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 24 Oct 2006, 12:25

PAL should always be progressive as they simply speed up 24 fps to 25 fps instead of the crappy 3:2 pulldown stuff they do with NTSC. What Madman really means with this is that this is a true PAL transfer, i.e. non of the crappy NTSC-PAL conversion (which if done in the mastering system won't necesarilly mean upscaling of NTSC).

PAL progressive is a stupid name for a stupid idea which should be a given anyhoo.

That said. Claiming it looks better than the Criterion without having seen the disc is a bit much isn't it?

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 24 Oct 2006, 16:56

Hmmm he does make an interesting point with his last sentence....

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 Oct 2006, 19:16

If it were true. How claims that? I don't. I said:

"Not that I care it will be decent AV with IMO much better extras (Commentary vs. 68 Minute Interviews)."

That's hardly saying it will look better.

As for the Criterion people are incredibly snobbery about Criterion discs. Everyone yelled yipeey when they heard Yojimbo and Sanjuro were getting re-released (or more to the point no one compliained) yet both DVDs have a commentary and 35 minute featerette.

Woopy doo. The forthcoming R4 Rashomon is roughly the same and somehow the extras are shit!!!

Yep definitely snobbery.

jimmyscab · Post by **jimmyscab** » 24 Oct 2006, 20:35

romerojpg wrote:Wont bother at all, its far from his best film, if not his worst film in fact. Not bad, just not great. It doesnt exactly sound an exciting dvd anyway.

Is he having a laugh? Is eee 'avin a laff?

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 24 Oct 2006, 21:15

I mean compared to his other films

which are mostly staggering

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 24 Oct 2006, 21:25

bradavon wrote:Woopy doo. The forthcoming R4 Rashomon is roughly the same and somehow the extras are shit!!!

Now who's the one making up shit which one no said? No one said that the Madman extras are shit, just that they aren't worth anything if you don't have a transfer which is up to scratch. The transfer will probably look fine, but probably not as good as the Criterion.

They'll probably just use the raw restored Toho master (like what they've done thus far, or like what the Koreans did with 7Sam), they wouldn't put in the effort to restore it even further like Criterion would. Criterion may mess stuff up a number of colour films with "colour correction", but they're kings of making B&W films look pristine.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 24 Oct 2006, 21:54

Hidden Fortress for me looks staggering, as do some of there under the radar samurai pics

like KILL an amazing film, sadly just the film on the dvd really, ohh them "lesser" films need extras, Criterion seem to think if Kurasawa didnt direct the Samurai film, then it doesnt deserve extras. Shame when so many other Samirai films even kick Kurasawas butt.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 Oct 2006, 22:19

EvaUnit02 wrote:just that they aren't worth anything if you don't have a transfer which is up to scratch.

That's a given.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 25 Oct 2006, 09:21

I first saw Rashomon before SS, Yojimbo etc. I thought Rashomon was good but not as entertaining as those others

chenlung · Post by **chenlung** » 26 Oct 2006, 20:24

All DVDs are stored as interlaced fields. It's down to flagging to make it progressive or interlaced.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 27 Oct 2006, 09:01

But it's not a problem with PAL transfers. Simply because field 1+2 = frame 1, and field 3+4 = frame 2. Whereas on NTSC field 1+2 = frame 1, field 3 = frame 1 and field 4 = frame 2.

So while technically every DVD-Video out there has an interlaced MPEG2 stream (at least if it want to call it self a DVD-Video), there are no issues with film-sourced PAL. Thus there's really no need to specify PAL Progressive. If I remember correctly Madman have previously released discs that were mastered in the NTSC domain and converted to PAL. These would naturally suffer the same pulldown/interlacing artifacts as NTSC does...

Oh, and flagging does you no good if you don't have a deinterlacer - but even the stupidest deinterlace can put together two PAL fields to create a frame.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 27 Oct 2006, 19:25

Of course they really mean Native-PAL but as we know this I'm happy.

p.s - Reply to the Madman thread and tell them they've been silly. I dare you

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 30 Aug 2008, 16:45

New UK Optimum SE:

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/ ... ition.html

Grim reported this awhile back, it's now coming the 13th of October. I wonder how it will compare to the Criterion R1 and Madman R4.

Are there any capture comparisons between the R1 and R4?

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 30 Aug 2008, 19:32

No commentary is disappointing, IMO

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 30 Aug 2008, 19:54

It has a 68 minute documentary instead, that's as good as a "film historian" commentary in my book.

The 68 minutes Documentary is likely to be the same one on the R4. If I were to choice now I'd get the R4 myself but this UK DVD may beat both it and the Criterion.