thetao

I just ordered a copy of Metropolis for the first time, the Eureka "Masters Of Cinema" steelbook with both Blu-ray and DVD copies. Really looking forward to it.

I noticed the Eureka DVD content comes on a single disk, while the Kino edition is split between two DVD's. And the Eureka version has more extras! Any thoughts on this? (I don't have a BD player, so the BD disk will be shelved until that changes.) I don't expect Eureka to put out a bad product, and if they did, doubt I would notice on my meager entertainment system. Would you consider the second Kino DVD to be more marketing than necessity? Would anyone want to speculate how much better the Kino DVD might look on a very large TV (mine isn't) with a good up-conversion, compared to the Eureka? Just curious.

Of more interest, I started looking at previous DVD editions, for the different extras, and see from Amazon UK that Eureka released two double DVD editions recently, in 2005 and again in 2008. Sadly, neither are available at retail prices anymore...but I can work with that. DVD Beaver recommends the 2005 edition, but from the Amazon descriptions, they seem the same. Besides the cover graphics, does anybody know how they differ?

Thanks!

DVD Guy ATL

The Masters of Cinema Metropolis Blu-ray and DVDs are region coded and will not play on North American players -- unless you have equipment that has been modified to be region-free.

I have a region-free DVD player (that will process PAL video), but I do not have a region-free Blu-ray player unfortunately -- so I am having to go with the Kino version of this particular release. That being said, Masters of Cinema produces *great* packages and I own several of their region-free Blu-ray titles.

DVD Beaver has an exhaustive comparison of the features that can be found on all the various releases:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom...etropolis2.htm

Spiral Staircase

Masters of Cinema's Nick Wrigley recently explained the decision to not use use two discs:

"We were trying very hard for an extra documentary, a great Argentinian documentary called METROPOLIS REFOUND, which would have necessitated 2 discs. Eventually push came to shove, and despite being about a week away from it happening, we had to make the excruciating commerce-influenced decision to not include it. Instead of having only a 54 minute disc 2, we opted to put everything on one disc.

There are a number of reasons why we didn't mind not stretching it out to two discs. Over the last five years (ie. since we last issued METROPOLIS in the MoC Series) encoding has got much better plus we now have an altogether superior format (the Blu-ray, where we've optimised the image and sound as much as we can). We're happy with the DVD encode of the feature. The difference between not putting the documentary on disc 1, and putting it on a disc 2, was negligible."

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/...olis&start=333

thetao

Oh, yes, I have an Oppo DVD player, and today couldn't live without it. I get lots of UK DVD's, and have a few others from France, the Netherlands, Australia, and Japan. Oppo's decision to not put out a region-free Blu-Ray player is partly the reason why I currently don't own one at all.

I did see that DVD Beaver article, but the Metropolis DVD in question isn't listed. It's here, released in 2008, and with a similar cover to the Masters of Cinema 2005 cover, minus Maria-bot's shoulders. Does anyone know how this one differs from the 2005 DVD?

thetao

Wow, thanks. Answers don't come any more direct than that!

manicsounds

what what what? The BDP80 and BDP83 are easily made region free. Too bad they were both recently taken out of circulation....

Steve

The oppo BR player is easily modified to be region free (for both DVD and BR). Costs $50.

thetao

But no Oppo Blu-Ray player has even been region-free, straight from the factory, which has been my preference.

Still hoping for some insights into Eureka's 2008 DVD release of Metropolis.

manicsounds

That 2008 DVD is the same as the 2005 release. Just a re-release when the big Fritz Lang boxset came out

thetao

Cool, just what I wanted to know!