Reservoir Dogs, Flyboys and Lord of War (Holland - DFW) - impressions

[kannisto]

I got my Reservoir Dogs, Flyboys and Lord of War today and took a look.

I was disappointed to find out that they are not encoded in VC-1 but in MPEG-2, and I mean all of them. It was reported earlier that they should be in VC-1...? My player's (HD-XF2, Japan version of HD-A2) details display says MPEG-2 during playback and it has been working reliably so far.

All of them have simple menus in English only. According to back covers, all have DTS-HD Master Audio tracks in original language. In the menu, it's listed as DTS-HD. There are also English DD 5.1 tracks available. I tried them with DTS-HD so far. Dutch subtitles are fully optional. I noticed that Flyboys has English text on screen when there is some non-English dialogue, which is good.

PQ:
- Reservoir Dogs looked pretty good at glance, actually very decent
- Flyboys looked kind of average HD
- Lord of War looks bad, like SD DVD quality and as has been reported, it's not in OAR

AQ:
I suspected at first that there may be a pitch problem on Lord of War and Reservoir Dogs, but I have no comparison discs at hand so I can not be sure. After playing Reservoir Dogs a bit more, it's really really hard to say if anything is off or not in it, so I guess we really need a side by side comparison. There was some talk about a possible pitch shift in AVS forum based on some Dutch discussion forum. Flyboys' audio track sounds best out of these 3.

I have no BD releases of any of these so I can't compare to those.

EDIT: Something's happened in Image Shack to the original pics I took of Reservoir Dogs case, they are not possible to open at least currently. I took new ones to replace them.

Pics:

[Arkadin]

Holy Crap! That's absolutely tragic news! I'm speechless.
How could original OAR be lacking?? wtf??
Is this a first with an hd release?
extremely dissapointing.

[cash]

wow, that sucks. I'm still gonna order RD b/c its gotta look better than my 10th year sd edition. Plus, its only $27 from Xploited

[kannisto]

After watching Reservoir Dogs a bit more, it's growing on me. That one looks actually pretty solid and now I'm not really able to hear the suspicious pitch in the audio department that I felt in the beginning. I think Reservoir Dogs can be recommended but I wouldn't recommend this version of Lord of War. I need to watch more of Flyboys to get a better idea about that one.

[Sporadic]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

How could original OAR be lacking?? wtf??
Is this a first with an hd release?

Nope, The World's Fastest Indian was cropped by the director for home release.

I'm glad to hear that Reservoir Dogs is good, that's the only one I picked up.

[cash]

Any word on Saw 3 yet? I just place my order for it from Tony. Hopefully I'll get it at the beginning of next week. Hoping its a VC-1 codec, but it's looking doubtful.

[ben1080p]

Disapointed in Lord of War,, out of all of em, that would have been my pic.
Lets see some Saw impressions.

[Devil N]

I almost bought Reservoir Dogs today, since it's such a steal at 15 euro, but fortunately reason took over and told me I'd better wait and read some impressions here first.

Now, out of sheer principle I shouldn't buy any HD disc encoded in MPEG-2, but if RD really is quite good as said here, then I might reconsider. Again, at this low price (HD DVD's usually start at 20 euro, 25 euro is most common, and some discs are a ridiculous 35 euro), you can't really go wrong.

[beyondmediaonline.com]

Guys, what are these pitch problems that I continue to read about with imports? I'm not familiar with this.

[CrasMack]

Haven't gotten mine yet.. Sounds like Lord of War is a candidate for a return

[Kocheese99]

I got my Reservoir Dogs from xploited today. I watched some of the old 10th anniversary ed. before i threw this in just to try to get a better gauge on the differences. I'm about a half hour in and just kinda skipping around now in the HD.

There were no audio issues with me. In fact the audio was quite good. And compared to the SD it was far superior. I'd give the audio at least tier 2 possibly tier 1.

As for the video, i think its a pretty decent upgrade. Compared to the SD the colors seemed richer and more vibrant. Definately an upgrade over the SD 10th anniversary ed. Never bought the gas can so i don't know how that compares. I'd give the video a solid tier 2 rating.

I haven't delved into the bonus features yet, but i'm quite happy with the purchase. So if you're a fan of Reservoir Dogs, i think you'd be safe in picking it up.

[Arkadin]

pitch problems are related to tranferring a PAL master to NTSC standards I believe. look at www.hddvdheaven.com for an article regarding this issue. It supposedly is only an issue on a few early StudioCanal discs, so if this is true, it is more problems with the mastering process. It manifests itself as an annoying higher pitch to the actor's voices. It is sometimes worse on some discs that are known to have the problem than on others. Some people don't notice anything. Really depends on how familiar you are with the title. worst examples are said to be French versions of "Total Recall" and "Basic Instinct"

[pkde]

It's like Resident Evil in Germany.
They were announced to be encoded in AVC, but in the end they were MPEG-2 encodes.

Same with the Dutch releases, codec is different from the announcement.

[Randyboy]

Hey guys, school me, what does OAR stand for?

Yeessh on 'Lord of War'. I'm expectin' this along with 'RD', and
'The Island'.

I'm going to have to check out 'Lord of War' myself before I make a decision on whether it's a keeper or not.

[Staffyman]

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