musick

looks like they are price matching a listing that was up at Walmart.com for the same price

http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Lambs-...8108567&sr=8-1

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=5599554

PopcornTreeCt

Thanks. In for 1.

DVD Polizei

Gotta love the comments on this Blu-ray version on Amazon's website.

Classic Films

Thanks. I got one.

dx23

Ditto!

The Cow

How do you even find them? Amazon always mixes the comments for different versions of the same movie together.

ilovedealsbaby

people post dvd or blu ray in there heading for the dvd blu ray stuff but u just got to read ever one to see if they say dvd or blu ray but i read it alot of people say buy the dvd not the blu ray

musick

I was hesitant after I pulled the trigger due to mixed reviews but then I popped in my Criterion dvd (which I hadn't watched in a long time) and came to realize it is non anamorphic and has print damage galore.

14.99 is my magic price point for catalog and from all the accounts I have read this transfer is free of any print damage

DVD Polizei

True, but I read the comments and decyphered their retardness. A few refer to the new "MPEG-2" transfer on Blu, and they say they can't tell the difference between it or the DVD version. MPEG-2 isn't my preferred choice of codec, but it does rather well IF AND ONLY IF you have a large capacity disc to hold more data, which MPEG-2 requires. And it seems this is on a BD50 disc, so I'm not worried. Besides, the original print wasn't great anyway. I'm really curious to see how the first 5 minutes look. The part where Starling is running through the FBI's training ground.

jackson walker

Thanks for the info about MPEG-2 storage requirements. I didn't realize that.

rfduncan

The DVDTalk review of this title made this a no-brainer for me at this price. I will still hold on to my Criterion DVD (which has been my only release of this title thus far), but I can't wait to see the rumored drastic video quality improvements on this release.

Thanks OP!

islandclaws

How could I possibly pass this up?

I can't. Ordered one.

seymouru

The guys over at AVS weren't too thrilled with the transfer, but it's still miles ahead of the DVD, and certainly worth $14.99 to me.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1126453

musick

you'd be hard pressed to find anything the guys at AVS are thrilled with other than complaining

DVD Polizei

No problem. Glad to get some info out there. Also, DVD Beaver has a few screenshots which should take care of anyone's doubts--except for AVS folk (although they are sometimes justified). I'll be reviewing this myself when I get it early next week.

critterdvd

I would honestly be really surprised if it would even be possible to find and repair a print of this film to near-perfect quality. The movie is almost 20 years old and was filmed on a pretty small budget and was not expected to amount to anything in the box office.

Personally, the blu-ray transfer is the best I've seen and it's clean enough where I'm happy with it.

musick

12.99 @ tower.com

http://www.tower.com/silence-lambs-j...wapi/107017507

GenPion

This Blu-ray looks awful to me based on the pictures at DVD Beaver. At least, I certainly feel it could be better with a better encode... in any case there is no way I'd pay $15 for this. $10 or less or no sale IMHO. I might wait for it to cost even less than that and this is a great movie! What a shame.

DVD Polizei

Well, I have to disagree. Even viewing more screenshots at AVS, the Blu-ray version looks better. The Criterion seems too dark, and the SE DVD seems smoothed out. The Blu-ray version not only appears more balanced in terms of lighting, but has more definition (just check out the lettering on the black jacket in the second collection of AVS screenshots--you certainly couldn't make that out in the DVD versions). I think the Blu-ray is the better of both Criterion and SE DVD editions.

Just what exactly were you expecting from this release. For $15, I can easily sell my 2-Disc Collector's Edition and probably break even, if I wanted to.

I'll be comparing both Blu-ray and the Collector's Edition for my own comparison.

I have a lot of doubt if an AVC encode would improve this film.

musick

how is a better encode going to change the source material?

DVD Polizei

Well, this is where the folks at AVS are better known for creating 100-page threads about. There's a lot of debate over which encode is best. Because we're still talking about compression. AVC, MPEG-2, VC-1. These are still compression algoryithms.

Personally, I prefer AVC. I don't particularly like MPEG-2, because it requires a lot more disc space to get the same effect, and if I had to split hairs, I'd say MPEG-2 does not make a flawless movie look its best over an AVC transfer. However, in this case, we're talking about an extremely old print, so I just have a lot of doubts on whether a particular encode would have been so much better. Even if this MPEG-2 transfer was shelved for a while, would an AVC encode really have made it shine and pop like others imply it would.

I kinda doubt it.

Mr. Cinema

Never, ever check AVS for anything regarding BD. They don't enjoy films over there. All they do is look for problems. Moronic lunatics.

musick

like I said about the Criterion version
it is non-anamorphic and it has all kinds of print damage that appears throughout the movie ... it is unwatchable on my 50" 720P plasma

the BD is anamorphic and from what I understand (and will confirm when I get it) exhibits no print damage througout the movie

WMAangel

There is no such thing as an anamorphic Blu-ray....all Blu-ray Discs are natively 16x9 due to their 1080p resolution...

musick

ok, semantics but I think you know what I meant