My dad will want this.

He has a VHS version of this which was fullscreen, but converts to letterboxed for the chariot scene. Pretty cool.

just off hand a bit, i always thought it was ridiculous how they always switched to widescreen for the chariot scene and then back to full screen.

Actually, I like the fact that they seem to be doing only one 4-disc SE a year, which makes it more of an event. Also, I cannot think of many Warner-owned titles that would really benefit from such treatment, over and beyond the 2-disc SE standard...Of course, that might make for an interesting DVD Talk thread in the future???

I'll definitely be getting this one. My dad also has the fullscreen version, and he bitches every time he watches it when it goes wide. He'll ever watch widescreen, it's a lost cause.

Oh I'm sure in a few years a 4-Disc SE will be the norm. Then 6-Disc SEs, then 8-Disc SEs.

Amazon is selling two versions of the four-disc Ben-Hur for the same price.

See Ben-Hur (Four-Disc Collector's Edition) and see Ben-Hur (Four-Disc Collector's Edition with Bible Study Guide) but they don't describe the difference , and they don't tell what the "Bible Study Guide" will be ... another DVD, a CD-ROM, a booklet, etc.

A quick google revealed a press release saying I am not interested in a political debate or a marketing debate over the target audience, but I am interested in knowing what the additional material will be ... particularly if there is no additional price. Has anybody heard any of the details of this "Bible Study Guide"?

Thanks!

Actually, the fact that the present DVD has a slightly cropped image is an argument in its favour. Your TV is not a 100-foot movie theatre screen and you should accept that. The slightly cropped picture allows your TV screen to use a lot more of its "real estate", even if you own a widescreen TV like I do. If the original laserdisc is any indication, detail was impossible to grasp on such a tiny ribbon of image spread out across the screen. True, the anamorphic widescreen DVD format gives you more detail, but size is also important. This issue was discussed on the "Letterbox Lunacy" chapter of the widecreenmuseum.com website: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/lb.htm .

Please see "The Video that Might Have Been", where the webmaster bitches about the low resolution of the correct AR

(sorry, it's the only way I can make the whole picture appear)
of the letterbox edition and wishes for a slightly cropped version (which is what we have in the current DVD).


On the other hand the present DVD transfer is not perfect and the same site comments on the area of the picture used:

"This is hardly a video transfer to be proud of. There's way too much image lost, particularly in the vertical dimension. BUT THERE IS REASON TO BE A BIT JOYOUS. Warner Home Video will be releasing a new Deluxe DVD set featuring a new transfer, ostensibly made from 65mm elements, and presented in a lavish four disc set that not only includes many materials released with earlier LD and DVD issues, but with a new documentary, full music score by Miklos Rozsa, and the Turner/Thames restoration of the 1925 silent "Ben-Hur" featuring Carl Davis' music score. Release is scheduled for September, 2005. If the new transfer is anywhere near the quality of Warner releases over the past few years, this will be a set worth owning. Your Curator tingles in anticipation!" (http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/special/camera65.htm)

I can see it now... "faith based" blind buyers complaining about all the slave talk, chariot races, and other drama pushing aside the "real" story.

But bravo to Warner for taking advantage of that audience... if it doesn't end up working against them.

My dvd player has a zoom out feature which allows me to see everything that is in the picture. There is more information on the right in the current dvd. You can see a soldier and a half past the main guy in the frame. However, on the left, you can't see really anything past the soldier on the edge of the screen like you can in the top picture above. This image is so wide as it is, I can't imagine how the other one will look. Hopefully the resolution will be better? There isn't much picture to put on the screen, so they should be able to do wonders with bitrate.

My guess is that the WidescreenMuseum screen captures do not take overscanning into account. That is, what they show is how it appears on most (widescreen) TVs. The top picture is from the (2.76:1) laserdisc and the bottom one from a preview on that laserdisc, which they judge optimal. Apparently the current DVD is not as wide but crops too much on top and bottom.

Having watched the laserdisc version on a 20" screen for years, I can tell you that when it comes to "Ben-Hur", less is more. I don't mind a little cropping at the edges, even on my 40" widescreen TV, it if means more resolution.

Definite double dip for me. Ben Hur is on my top 3 movie list.

Been screening through the various comments on the new release.

So, is it the general concensus that one should buy the new dvd even though one already has the last dvd version?

As much as I like Ben-Hur. it is getting tiring, not to mention expensive, to replace first one's vhs versions, and then multiple dvd releases.

thanks for any comments.

Join the club! I bought the widescreen VHS when I owned a 20 inch TV. I bought the widescreen laserdisc which cost a fortune and had the widest ratio imabinable (2.76:1). During the chariot race, Charlton Heston's face was represented by a 3-pixel fudge on that one... I bought every available soundtrack album until the ultimate one which even has unused cues... I bought the laserdisc of the silent version. I bought the relatively cheap single-disc snap case DVD edition, which has a more reasonable 2.5:1 ratio and a clearer picture. I bought a 40 inch widescreen rear-projection TV to do it justice, along with a 5.1 surround sound system. But I will probably buy this one too for the added commentaries, a still cleaner version of the silent version (which is at least as good as the 1958 version) and all the cool extras. And I'm hoping for a still more reasonable ratio of 2.2:1. Why? Because my living room is not a cinema!

everyone talks about the 4 disk that warner puts out once a year. I know they did Gone with the wind and now Ben Hur. Are there any others?

Since I have just about exhausted the available space to put in any more bookcases to hold more dvd's, I guess I will have to consider buying a condo or add on a room just to hold them.

Well, pretty soon we can all start all over again and replace our dvd's with HD DVD's or whatever comes down the pike next.

Next up is "The Wizard of Oz 3-Disc Collector's Edition" (October 25, 2005) [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...=glance&s=dvd] which is just an excuse to replace the cheap snap case with a more expensive edition. The original edition was finely-made, a great value, intricate to navigate and contained every imaginable extra, short of a complete bootleg of the musical "Wicked" or a snippet of Margaret Hamilton's undergarments. The audio extras of pre-recordings will actually be less numerous on the new edition and replaced by a "brand-new digital restoration" in "Ultra-Resolution" (wasn't that done already? should we expect one in Mega-Google-Resolution? will we need special green glasses to withstand all that clarity?) and new fluff pieces like "The Wizard of Oz Legacy". I will probably buy it anyway because of the restoration demonstration - I'm always a sucker for that one. Collectors should not let go of the old edition as those audio extras will become collector's items (those that are not on the 2-CD soundtrack album anyway).

The only possible extra of importance that could be included in this new set is the re-mix to genuine stereo of about 10 minutes of the film ("Departure from Munchkinland" and "Optimistic Voices") whose various "stem" recordings have survived. These scenes were included as a bonus in the laserdisc boxset of "That's Entertainment". But even if they are included in this new transfer, the "genuine stereo" - whose effect is subtle at best - will be completely lost in the powerful new 5.1 ersatz stereo remix.

Since you will ask anyway: So-called "stem" recordings were an MGM recording technique whereby more than one microphone was placed in the recording studio during orchestral or choral passages in order to emphasize the reeds, strings or brass or the male or female voices during the final mono mix of music + sound effects. Very few of these stem elements have survived for "The Wizard of Oz". When they are present, it's possible to recreate genuine stereo music passages in the mixing console.

In the ersatz stereo 5.1 re-mix: the dialog is in the front center channel (or occasionally follows the characters from left to right or vice-versa or from front to rear and vice-versa), the music and sound effects are electronically rechanelled for faux-stereo left and right with a slight echo in the rear speakers and occasional emphasis of an isolated sound effect on one channel and the bass sounds (such as the appearance of the wicked witch) are amplified for the sub-woofer. In such a set-up, "genuine stereo" musical passages would go virtually unnoticed.

It sounds like nobody has yet gotten a "Bible Study" version of the Ben-Hur set to see what it includes beyond the normal 4-DVD edition?

From the specs I've read, it looks like the new version does not lose any of the extras from the previous edition. Is that right? Is Charlton Heston's commentary edited down from its previous content to fit with the new commentary or is it a separate commentary track?

Since Ben Hur is one of my favorite movies, I'm tempted to upgrade. Normally I would pass if all we got are new extras, but in this case there is a significant change in the framing which demonstrates that the last DVD edition I bought (for probably $15) was incorrectly transferred. That makes me feel like I have to upgrade to get the proper framing (even though I thought the previous edition was properly framed), so in this case the least Warner should've done is offer a $5 or $10 upgrade rebate for previous owners to make up for their mistake, but foolish me to expect that. I wonder if in a year or two will get another edition that will correct and open up the framing even more, or if this time I can trust they did it right?

If I remember correctly, the Heston commentary did not cover the whole film. This edition will presumably complement his commentary with somebody else's.

And "incorrectly transferred" is a matter of opinion. The DVD edition had the right width (that is: it was not TOO wide) but sacrificed some of the height - which they should never do when a film is this wide, since resolution is measured in height not width. I'm hoping that they will also up the bitrate.

The dvdtalk.com review is out: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=17563

Unfortunately the distribution of this DVD has been delayed one week in Toronto so I can't check myself if the reviewer means it is 2.75:1 before or after the TV overscanning.

The old DVD was 2.75:1 before overscanning and 2.45:1 after overscanning (my own measurements). But even this figure was inflated as the picture was unduly cropped vertically. The reviewer offers no point of comparison to judge the vertical cropping. I think the picture posted on this page earlier is a good indication of what the vertical shouldn't be (it's too cropped vertically). We'll just have to wait and see...

If Ultra-Resolution was just a marketing gimmick, you'd have a point. However, Ultra-Resolution really is an important transfer process for 3-strip Technicolor productions, and the results in this case should easily surpass all prior video encarnations of Oz. The improvement to Oz should be much like that of the Ultra-Resolution transfer of Gone With the Wind versus its original DVD. Your hyperbole regarding marketing fluff is misplaced in this instance.

DJ

Baracine, if you go to http://www.dvd-basen.dk/uk/home.php3 and type in Ben Hur you will find several reviews. I read them all, but none of them were explicit about whether any of the Heston commentary was deleted from the previous edition when it was re-edited. If none was, then Hatcher was not allowed to talk during any parts of the film when Heston talked which meant Hatcher probably didn't get to talk about scenes he wanted to. The reviews don't mention if the aspect ratio measurements are relative to before or after overscan. I always assume BEFORE overscan because you'd think an intelligent reviewer would factor out overscan, but what do I know.

What convinced me I need to upgrade Ben-Hur is the screen shot comparisons at DVD Beaver. There is quite a lot of picture missing from both the edges and the tops of the previous edition which to me means it was incorrectly framed / transferred (even if others say it wasn't). All I know is I don't like to lose picture information that was meant to be there, and the picture gain on this transfer is non-trivial.

Comparing feature for feature on DVD Beaver, I don't see any omissions in the new 4-DVD set, but I'm not 100% sure. Colin's reviews on www.dvdmg.com are usually my favorites and do the best job detailing extras. For Ben-Hur he notes all the new extras, but he doesn't specifically mention any omissions. I hope that means there aren't any.

The dvdtalk.com review is explicit about this: The previous Heston commentary was "scene-specific" (about one third of the film). The new commentary complements it. I'm getting the new DVD tonight and am taking out my measuring tape...

Here is the dvdbeaver link: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/ben-hur.htm (a work in progress as they haven't had time to analyze everything)

It is already clear that the new transfer has a higher bit rate, that the colour is different, that the ratio is still 2.75:1 (before overscanning) but that the new picture shows more on the sides and more on top and bottom. It also appears that the 5.1 mix has been done from the original 7 discrete theatre channels as opposed to remixing a stereo track to 5.1. I'm buying!

New DVD:



Old DVD:



New DVD:



Old DVD:

Film historian T. Gene Hatcher's commentary is wordy, factual but soulless and almost always sadistically anticlimactic to the grandeur of the movie. This guy thinks no factoid is too insignificant for his perusal but misses "the big picture" everytime. Only listen for Heston's comments (which were on the preceding version of the DVD).

On the other hand, the new 2005 documentary "Ben-Hur: The Epic that Changed Cinema" has some good points. Despite its awful, meaningless title that never explains itself satisfactorily since, in retrospect, "Ben-Hur" was more the end of an era than a beginning, it is almost the only moment on the 4-disc extravaganza when Miklos Rozsa's music is talked about intelligently. The presence of Ridley Scott among the interviewees and the free promotion of "Gladiator" as a film that compares with "Ben-Hur" and that is somewhat part of its "legacy" (barf bag, anyone?) are absolutely ludicrous: "Ben-Hur" is a masterpiece of epic cinema with an extremely potent psychological subtext giving way to a moral, even spiritual, message that can be understood by all men of good will, regardless of their religion, whereas "Gladiator" is a crude, unoriginal revenge story, badly written, badly planned, badly researched, badly rendered and relying on unadulterated gore to make its feeble, redundant point. The two films should not even be mentioned in the same documentary - except for commercial purposes.

Did your girlfriend leave you after seeing this movie or something? - talk about bitter!

Don't get me started, please. I barely scratched the surface of why "Gladiator" shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as "Ben-Hur": An idiotic premise, a script written by illiterate, gonzo second-rate hacks, directed by an illiterate, gonzo director, a story that could have been an adaptation of a sleazy graphic novel (a.k.a. a comic strip), characters that have no past, no future and no development, internal inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, bad latin, derivative, run-of-the-action-mill "Celtic"-sounding filmscore, simplistic motivation, clichés aplenty, macho posturing, grim acting without a single touch of humour in its 2-hour length, behaviorally-challenged actors, gore galore, the worst child actor in cinema history, CGI that makes ancient Rome look like an unused painted backdrop from "Dune"...

If I had a girlfriend who liked this movie, I would have willingly left her on the curb in front of the multiplex...