Supermallet

Unless I'm misremembering. I'm pretty sure Nosferatu had an English commentary.

hanshotfirst1138

According to DVDcompare, it had a commentary with Herzog and Norman Hill.

E Unit

Correct. All of the commentaries on both Herzog and Herzog/Kinski sets had Hill and Herzog. The exceptions are Fata Morgana and Even Dwarfs Started Small has Hill, Herzog, and Crispin Glover. So unless Shout clarifies on the commentaries, it's possible the ones on the set will be new.

Supermallet

I'm pretty certain I kept my Nosferatu DVD when I cleared a bunch of them out. Sounds like a good thing I did.

Giles

his version of 'Nosferatu' is one film I have been meaning to see for awhile now. hidef bluray? sure... why not?

GreenVulture

The Beav gets his hands on Shout!'s release of Nosferatu and compares it against BFI's. Looks like Shout! botched things up, at least on this movie...some of those caps look terrible compared to BFI's. So cannot wait for July to get here and my BFI set to arrive; their work on Aguirre looks outstanding as well.

Why So Blu?

Shit, that sucks. I just pre-ordered the UK version.

Paul_SD

Just ordered the BFI as well- along with their Aguirre.

I'd been happy to get in on the early $17.99 price at Amazon for the Shout release, but after checking out the Beaver caps, the damage is even worse than I was expecting. Cliff posted over on Bd.com that they got the master straight from Herzogs company. It must not be the same one used on the S-C disc, as this one looks even more vigorously scrubbed. This begs the question is Shout at all capable of honestly evaluating the masters it receives? They started trumpeting this acquisition a year ago...and this is the ultimate result? I'm stunned at how epic the fail is with this.

So it looks like I won't be sitting down with this anytime soon as I now have to go through the laborious (and spendy) process of figuring out which region free player to get. Bastards.

Solid Snake

So wait. What does the BFI set have that the Shout! set doesn't? Cuz I'm getting worried now.

Also is it region free or not? Are we getting the same features on the films they share?

Paul_SD

BFI is "B" locked. It also has a different line-up of movies and extras.

BFI


The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967)
Last Words (1968)
Precautions Against Fanatics (1969)
Handicapped Future (1970)
Fata Morgana (1971)
Land Of Silence and Darkness (1971)
Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1975)
Heart of Glass (1976)
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
Stroszek (1977)
Nosferatu, the Vampyre (1979)
Woyzeck (1979)
Huie's Sermon (1980)
God's Angry Man (1980)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Cobre Verde (1987)

Special features*

All films remastered to High Definition
Alternative German and English versions of Nosteratu, the Vampyre
Nosferatu On set documentary (1979, 13 mins)
Burden of Dreams (Les Blank, 1982, 95 mins)
South Bank Show: Werner Herzog (Jack Bond, 1982, 50 mins)
Illustrated booklet with extensive essay by Laurie Johnson; full film credits
Full-length audio commentaries with Werner Herzog on selected titles

*Subject to change

Shout

This deluxe set includes, for the first time on Blu-Ray:

EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL

LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS

FATA MORGANA

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD

THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER

HEART OF GLASS

STROSZEK

WOYZECK

NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE

FITZCARRALDO

BALLAD OF LITTLE SOLDIER

WHERE THE GREEN ANTS DREAM

COBRA VERDE

LESSONS OF DARKNESS

LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY

MY BEST FIEND


The BFI also looks to be considerably cheaper

Solid Snake

*grumble* well... Guess I need to finally go region free. Shit. I was hoping to hold off on that shit but this set... Is pretty much guaranteeing that I can no longer stay with the PS3 and hope for some foreign BDs be acceptable to my region.

C'mon, bitches. Lead me to where I need to go to be set free by the shackles of my region.

Paul_SD

considering the turn of events, I don't think this post will exactly be off topic...

Think I'm going to go with a modded Oppo 103 for $589 shipped.
While I don't enjoy dropping $600 right now that I didn't need to, if this performs as well as the Oppos are known to (never owned one), I might just end up setting this up as my primary player.

If you're looking for something a little less expensive, Amazon seems to have a few from $130 (Icom, Orei) to $200 (Samsung).

Why So Blu?

Oh, I should have clarified. I'm going with the BFI Nosferatu but am still keeping my pre-order for the Shout Herzog set.

I was initially going to buy the Shout Nosferatu by itself but that's the one I canceled.

Hell, I may just pull a hail mary and get BOTH Herzog collections. Decisions, decisions.

Why So Blu?

Fuck it - it's Herzog we're talking about here. I just pre-ordered the BFI set. It came to about $85 shipped in USD.

hanshotfirst1138

I am so glad I have a region-free Blu player. It isn't much, but it was worth the extra investment. I knew that with an interest international cinema, it was something I simply had to have.

Paul_SD

The problem with being region free, as I learned a dozen years ago with DVD and PAL discs, is I would tend not to wait to see if a title would get announced here in a more economical and often higher quality edition (which nine out of ten times it did). Periodically I would actively look around for imports to buy more as a way of continuing to justify the purchase of the hardware than out of a real sense of urgent need.

Had I been region free six months ago, no way I would have waited for Criterion to announce Umbrellas of Cherbourg. That would have been an immediate order once word came in of the high quality of the disc. But then I would have ended up just wasting $30-$40 as there's no way I would have passed up a Criterion set of multiple Demy films. The times were there will be a clear comparison prior to release where you can see one or the other is the absolute right way to go, like here with Nosferatu, is going to be the exception not the rule.

There's already a ton of stuff I'm glad I never had the ability to play and thus import- though I was tempted to- Touch Of Evil, Double Indemnity, Two Lane Black Top, Black Sunday,Tess, Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, Red River...I'm glad that I was forced to wait on all those. Those were all quality releases, but I would much rather have a domestic one all things being equal. Easier to unload for one thing if I don't need to own it anymore.

BTW- my hunch is that Nosferatu will be the only really problematical disc in the Herzog set. The majority of the rest should look good to great. I'm basing this on the S-C German Herzog set of which the scrubbed Nosferatu was a part, along with much nicer looking copies of Fitzcaraldo and Aguirre.

Jaymole

FYI: I pre-ordered the Shout set for $87 at Blowitoutofhere using their 15% off coupon (MOTHERSDAY14). That is the lowest price I have seen so far for the set.

Why So Blu?

And we're still getting the Jacques Tati collection from the UK. I think that will ask be region locked.

Why So Blu?

Did they charge your credit card immediately or until the item ships?

Why So Blu?

I agree with some of your points but then there are those discs that will have a better transfer/extras over the U.S. versions. Masters of Cinema do great work. The UK versions of the original Nosferatu and Metropolis (among others) bury their U.S. counterparts.

There's been times where I've imported a not so big flick just because I knew it would take years for it to reach the U.S. shores. I've had John Carpenter's Vampires for like 3 years now. There's still no sign of it coming to the U.S. yet. Little things like that make all the difference. There are variables.

Giles

I preordered the UK box set, but am thoroughly annoyed that the doc film 'My Best Fiend' is exclusive to Shout's box set ... "shit"

Josh Z

If you buy the OPPO 103, use HDMI output 2 for video. HDMI output 1 forcibly applies a small amount of DNR to everything you watch, even if you turn DNR off in the setup menu. This is an inherent flaw in the QDEO processing chip that HDMI output 1 goes through. Output 2 bypasses QDEO.

The newer 103D model removed QDEO in favor of a superior VRS processing chip, which fixes that problem.

hanshotfirst1138

The 103D is already $600 before region-modding. I shudder to think how much it'd cost to mod it .

Neil M.

Criterion will probably be releasing a Tati box as well. They've at least hinted that they will be doing so.

Why So Blu?

Hmmmmm, I hope so. There's still plenty of time for them to announce something. The UK box set doesn't hit until end of July.