kurupt

-Thanks-

neilio

This review is from my girlfriend's point of view. She received it in the mail on Saturday and watched disc one. It's a 2 disc set and I think she was pretty pleased with it overall. I'll speak with her and post what I find out.

wattoclone

This A&E presentation of Pride and Prejudice is a must for any DVD collection. If you have never seen this miniseries be warned that you will not be able to to stop watching umtil you have seen the entire 300 minutes. As an owner of both the earlier Pan&Scan DVD set from Image and the new WIdescreen SE from A&E, I can only say that it is a bargain, even at the list price. This new (A&E?) video transfer is absolutely superb in all respects. There is no pixelization or graininess whatsoever. The color intensity and saturation is markedly improved over the earlier DVD release. You should be aware that the widescreen format is actually 1.85:1, not 2.35:1 as indicated on the box and DVD sleeve. This was not a surprise to me since after watching the very informative and entertaining featurette "The Making of Pride and Prejudice" included on the SE, the cameras used were obviously not 70mm, but more than likely of the 35mm variety.

kurupt

Thanks,

The previous set was pretty bad so I preordered the SE, but it hasn't arrived yet and I was impatient to find out about the transfer.

Gil Jawetz

Couple of thoughts:

The making of was interesting but they didn't talk to some of the most interesting stars. I guess they just didn't have the footage but a little background on Jennifer Ehles etc... would have been nice

Is the transfer really that good? It looks nice to me but is it supposed to be so high-contrast? I didn't think the color saturation was right. The actors look pastier than usual and it looks kind of blown out. Maybe I need to adjust my tv but I don't have that experience with anything else.

Still, such a great film it is still worth getting.

wattoclone

OK. so it isn't reference quality, but it was certainly much better than the first release. Considering it is less than $20 at deep discount I am very happy with it. I should have mentioned that I used a Sony 9000ES progressive scan player and an Ultravision HDTV. This player, although expensive, makes all DVD's look great. I view the cost as reasonable considering I have over 500 DVD's in my collection.

Gil Jawetz

Ok, well, given that you have such a fancy-pants system, did you notice the same image issues that I did (too contrasty, desaturated colors) and do you find that anomolous with the way this particular movie is supposed to look? The only other way I've ever seen it is on a really beat-up vhs dub. The clips in the making of doco on the DVD, while not as sharp, have much warmer and more golden colors than the same scenes in the film on the disc. Is this screwed up? Just curious.

wattoclone

Considering how fast electronic technology upgrades I do not consider my sytem very "fancy"-just adequate. I am not an expert at video reviewing and I am not sure what you mean by "contrasty" or "desaturated colors" I would say that compared to the first transfer I found the colors much more intense in progressive mode. The "Making Of.." documentary was so intense in color saturation that I felt the need to adjust the color intensity down on the set, which is very rare for my system. Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness and Color intensity have been adjusted way down or off using an Avia disc. On some DVD's I find little difference between interlaced and progressive mode. However, in the case of Pride and Prejudice SE, the difference was remarkable. Another example of this is the older Total Recall release. The newer "DVD in a can" Total Recall release looks pretty good either way. The bottom line is that the new P&P transfer is clearly better than the old one which I paid considerably more for.

Powerstroke

I'm totally disappointed with the new Pride and Prejudice SE

Yes, the bad sepia tint in the original is gone (although, with inside shots it always
gave me the feeling that only candles were used to light the set). But, what has
replaced it in this new SE version is just awful. Where are the colors and flesh tones?
And contrast - far too much, it's either black or white. And if it's black or dark in color,
it all but disappears in the shadows or at night.

Then there's the motion artifacts. Am I the only one seeing a blur when the camera pans or actors move across the screen?

I was always envious of our R2 neighbors and their anamorphic version, and couldn't
wait to get the SE version, which I had thought would be the same. But alas, is not.
About all that I can find good with the SE version outside of the anamorphic format, is
being able to replace the flipper cases of the original's with the SE's keep cases.

Boy, I'm sure glad I didn't let go of my original copy of P&P.

Gil Jawetz

Those are the same problems I noticed (well, I didn't see the artifacting). So, is this not the transfer on the R2 version? Any site have stills of the 3 versions for comparison?

Powerstroke

buskerdog;

I couldn't find any side-by-side screen shot comparisons.
But here are two reviews I found through DVDBasen.com,
the first is a R1 review from the USA, Classicsondvd.com

VIDEO AND AUDIO QUALITY:

First things first: the box incorrectly identifies the aspect ratio of this new widescreen transfer as 2.35:1 (which didn't seem likely even when I read it, since this was made for television). And indeed, the aspect ration is actually approximately 1.78:1. The transfer is unfortunately not that great. The color depth is generally very good, but at the the pictures looks very washed out and the color balance isn't quite right. The black level is very deep, but the contrast and shadow detail are often quite poor: for example, when Darcy arrives for the first dance near the beginning of the series, his black hat is indistinguishable against the night sky.

However, the biggest problem with the transfer is the presence of a host of digital artifacts: there are more motion artifacts present in this series than I think I've ever seen in a single transfer before. Not only do fields and grass etc. blur whenever there is a pan, but even at time when the actors move there are very noticeable motion artifacts. Truly a shame.

Then there is this R2 review from England, dvd.reviewer.co.uk

Video/Visuals
Now this is more like it. The Region 2 Pride and Prejudice is framed at 1.78:1 in glorious
anamorphic. The picture finally has the contrast and detail it deserves. In a back-to-back viewing against the Region 1 copy, there is no comparison whatsoever - colours are stronger and more defined, blacks are actually black, and the amount of additional information lost to the pan and scan copy is revealed. The picture still has a slightly yellow tinge to it, but for the most part, colours (especially flesh tones) are reasonably realistic.

When it comes to the encoding, again the Region 2 disc enjoys a far superior finish. There were only a few minor glitches on wide pans or large areas of pale colours like walls. This was, however, nothing which would distract from general viewing. It must be remembered that this is not a feature film, but a made-for-television drama. As such, the production values, and hence the picture quality does not always reach the levels of the Hollywood blockbuster. However, considering its origins, the picture on Pride and Prejudice is actually stunning
and better than anyone has the right to expect.

To me, it is obvious that they are not speaking about the same DVD transfer.

Groucho

Thread hijack:

A film does not have to have been shot in 70mm to obtain the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. In fact, most 2.35:1 films are shot in Super-35 or Scope. I believe the last 70mm feature film (not counting IMAX) was Branagh's Hamlet (1996).

Gil Jawetz

Blast it. Although the comparison in the R2 review seems to be with the old R1 release, it seems like we got jipped again. This was a gift for my girlfriend although i really like it as well and I'm bummed that they didn't use the R2 transfer. What's up with that? And what is up with releasing a bad transfer? Don't they have eyes? I work with video encoding, compression, and DVD authoring and we never send anything out that blatantly looks screwed up. Why can't these damn companies extend us the same courtesy? If someone came to me and said "Here's the new Pride and Prej transfer. It's practically black and white but hey it's better than the old transfer" I'd be like "Go fix it and don't leave until you do!" Ridiculous!

Iron_Giant

My wife and I loved the movie.

The picture did seem to be a bit to bright/washed in the beginning, but got better as the movie went on. But, that did not stop my from enjoying the movie.

I found it a little hard to understand what they were saying a few times during the movie. That may not have been because of the sound transfer, but because of the speed of the dialog and because of the British accents.

For 19.95, I enjoyed 4 hours of a great movie.

Powerstroke

Iron_Giant; I guess that the whole point with the "original release", that besides the picture's non anamorphic quality, the story and the actors well made up for it. (I mean, a love story with only one kiss in the entire movie between the two princple characters is unheard of by today's standards.) For my wife and myself, we will continue to watch with great enjoyment the original release because of its warmer look, and give away to the family the cooler and darker SE version - minus the keep cases.

Iron_Giant

I can let my 9 year daughter watch the movie and talk to her about having a great character that will draw another man(when she gets older) of character to her. And how not being a woman/girl of character can get you into trouble. How oppisite from the material that is coming out from Hollywood. Very few movies show that how we should be people of character.