'Battle of Britain' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Peter's review of 'Battle of Britain' is up. He say it's an
impressively-mounted spectacle, but it's lacking as a narrative. The
characters are ciphers, and the drama inert. This Blu-ray delivers
solid video and audio, but no supplements (and it carries a high price
tag!) For fans only.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/616/...ofbritain.html

[bluskiessmingatme]

Must be delayed because all I am getting arethe basics of the release, no review.

[ben1080p]

Its up.
hmmm.looks like the only great transfers omint from these old films I'd The Longest Day and Patton. Which are luckily the best
I just dont understand how Fox charges an arm and a leg when they dont even use a new encoding and use the SD discs encoding. Obviously it shows a huge difference when remastered(Patton and Longest Day) while they movie using the DVD source(Battle for Britain, Sand Pebble, Bridge) are only minor upgrades.

[Rachael3000]

The audio portion of the review continues the proud tradition of holding vintage audio to the same standards as recent audio. It's about time to start rating vintage audio for it's merits within it's era's standards. The review suggests that lack of discrete surround action is a liability. Clue, it's a mono movie, originally.

[Kid Banana]

Originally Posted by ben1080p

Its up.
hmmm.looks like the only great transfers omint from these old films I'd The Longest Day and Patton. Which are luckily the best

Yup, Battle of Britain and A Bridge Too Far have vanished from my 'to get' list after these underwhelming hidef debuts

Originally Posted by ben1080p

I just dont understand how Fox charges an arm and a leg when they dont even use a new encoding and use the SD discs encoding. Obviously it shows a huge difference when remastered(Patton and Longest Day) while they movie using the DVD source(Battle for Britain, Sand Pebble, Bridge) are only minor upgrades.

Nor me. BoB, ABTF and Sand Pebbles were all remastered for DVD re-issue in 2003/2004 so it's not like the materials used were out of the ark but they haven't been helped by MPEG2 encodes and dropping the DVD extras. I can't believe that they squeezed the 2 hour plus Battle of Britain onto BD25 using MPEG2, the current market won't stand for that.

I'll probably pick up Patton and The Longest Day but am bummed to miss A Bridge Too Far, which is my favourite of the bunch.

[bellybongo]

Originally Posted by Kid Banana

I'll probably pick up Patton and The Longest Day but am bummed to miss A Bridge Too Far, which is my favourite of the bunch.

Amazon currently offers a Blu-ray War Classics Bundle (Patton / The Longest Day / Sand Pebbles) at 45% off, I might go for that offer:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...0080_fe_img_1/

[Jimbo976]

Thanks for the review!! I personally think the movie is better than that but each person has their own opinion.

I'll be picking this up at some point in the future when the price is a little lower. The other 4 war movies coming out the same day will keep me busy until then.

[Arkadin]

I have seen many reviews of the 2 war movies that have been out for a while, and they have been mostly positive. Don't cheat yourself Kid!
just get them and see for yourself. I bet you will me quite happy with the results even with mpeg 2 which I have criticised to no end. Hopefully we are almost to the end of the mpeg2 releases. That said, these are what we have, and they are definitely better than the "regular" versions.

[giedrys]

This guy Bracke clearly has some issues when it comes to writing about the film itself and not about video or audio quality. But what can you expect from a guy who gives 1.5 stars to Crash and 4 stars to Enchanted

[illegalprelude]

I love the random Michael Bay jab. Remember its so hard to be on the side that sites on a couch and writes about a movie but easy to be the one actually making it

[Kid Banana]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

I have seen many reviews of the 2 war movies that have been out for a while, and they have been mostly positive. Don't cheat yourself Kid!
just get them and see for yourself. I bet you will me quite happy with the results even with mpeg 2 which I have criticised to no end. Hopefully we are almost to the end of the mpeg2 releases. That said, these are what we have, and they are definitely better than the "regular" versions.

Yeah, I guess I'll pick them up when they are available for a decent price in the UK, it's just that I really hate Fox and am loathe to part with my cash for what should be a better product. That said, the lure of A Bridge Too Far is probably too strong for me to resist.

I wish Fox BDs were as universally good as recent Sony and Disney releases.

[ben1080p]

Originally Posted by giedrys

This guy Bracke clearly has some issues when it comes to writing about the film itself and not about video or audio quality. But what can you expect from a guy who gives 1.5 stars to Crash and 4 stars to Enchanted

haha..thats right....Crash was awesomely better!
4/5

[Jimbo976]

I just watched a good part of this movie and am very happy with it. The PQ seems pretty good to me for a 1969 movie. I would give it more than 2.5. I guess even a 2.5 Blu-ray PQ looks much better than any DVD.

Mine now is only a rental but I'm pretty sure i'll pick it up down the road now.

[Godstar]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

I just watched a good part of this movie and am very happy with it. The PQ seems pretty good to me for a 1969 movie. I would give it more than 2.5. I guess even a 2.5 Blu-ray PQ looks much better than any DVD.

Mine now is only a rental but I'm pretty sure i'll pick it up down the road now.

I agree it didn't look bad. I did feel like there was some loss of detail, but that could have been from the soft focus or perhaps they used a bit too much DNR.

[dannyjl]

Watched this last night and was pleasantly pleased after reading the review here. I think the PQ looked really good for the most part but the sound was the biggest surprise. Explosions and gunfire had a kick that I wasn't expecting from such a vintage movie. The only audio negs would be with the loudness of the music in contrast to the dialog. I had to really crank the volume and then turn it down for the loud symphonic parts. Seems a lot of my TRUE HD disks suffer this fate. I'm happy with this disk having seen it several times on other formats.