cinemaman

Just got this disc.... good and bad...

good.. for L&H, this is a real treat. some of the best sound shorts/films they made - including the classic Music box, busy bodies and (my favorite) sons of the desert

bad.. well, the video is better than VHS but don't be fooled by the infamous "digitally remastered." People forget that the first time ANY film is put on DVD it is essentially "digitally remastered." Picture is very soft, and occasional specs and even imperfections of the transfer process is evident. Not bad, mind you - I would say a solid B.... but not much more.

but what is bad is that - unless my TV needs fixing - the image was cropped. Surprising for a 1:33 OAR, but some of the top and sides of the picture was definitely out of range on my set. This especially hurt some gags where the heads were cut off. At times I felt I was watching a pan-n-scan version of a full frame movie! (again, if this is just me please let me know!). Not horrible - but enough that at least I noticed it in some scenes - especially when the sides of the intertitles were cut off.

The audio was - tinny but what else do you expect?

All in all still an incredible buy at $11- don't regret it for one instant, but really wish some real restoration work would be done for these films.

also, the spine wrapper had "vol. 1" on it so hopefully we can expect to see "way out west" and other L&H goodies..

NaturalMystic79

How many episodes did it contain?

abintra

Someone at the HTF linked this newsgroup thread if you are interested.

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&...ing.google.com

devilpants

Five: Sons of the Desert, Busy Bodies, Another Fine Mess, County Hospital and the Music Box.

I noticed a few weird embellishments here and there: Sons of the Desert had fade-outs which my original VHS copy didn't have. I was a bit put off by it, and will check both copies to see if the DVD has anything cut out of the original print (remember the Three Stooges golf short?).

I also noticed that the musical backing track in places seemed to have new instruments dubbed in as a sweetener. No hanging matter, but it does take away from the original issue.

ADDED: I have watched everything except "Another Fine Mess" and in response to the question of heads cut off, I didn't see any heads cropped off the picture. I don't know what kind of TV set you have, maybe it's responding strangely to your disc.

I did find it annoying that those crawling FBI warnings come up after every episode as if the disc were over.

cinemaman

thanks a million for that link!! now I have one huge question -- can anybody tell me if the Artisan shorts on this disc are worse than the german region 2 discs? I have a region 0 player and am thinking now of forgetting about Artisan's/Hallmark's releases altogether and going for the german ones.....

anyone actually have both to compare?

abintra

I don't know but it might be addressed in the following thread. If not, I am sure you can find out there.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...=&pagenumber=1

cinemaman

here is great stuff..
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&...y%26start%3D25

sounds like the best option is to get a region free player and get the German discs...