^ interestingly, I had two different orders from Amazon.co.uk, which I couldn't combine, got an email that one order got shipped out last Monday (not my 'Suspiria BR), well today... my copy of Suspiria comes in the mail and not the other I thought I was expecting... hmmm.... crazy.

I've had tremendously long shipping times from the UK lately (not just DVDs, but vinyl LPs as well). It seems like a lot of my orders are taking 10-14 business days to reach me these days. Used to be a week...

That said, my copy of Suspiria arrived yesterday. Watched the first 20 minutes or so and I thought it looked great overall and much better in motion than indicated in the screenshots I've seen online.

My last order from Amazon.UK took 2 weeks. Not really expecting Suspiria until next week.

Do the screen shots exaggerate the color timing?

I don't know the movie backwards and forwards, nor do I pause the disc and skip frame-by-frame looking for problems, so maybe I'm not the most qualified person to comment. (I know there are some who adore this movie and know how it's supposed to look.)

That said, the contrast on my system was not blown out as it is in some of the shots I've seen online (specifically this thread: http://www.dark-dreams.co.uk/dd_foru...=10701&page=20). Maybe my projector is properly calibrated vs. a computer monitor?

I haven't gotten to the end of the movie yet, where the lightning flashes are supposedly way blown out. I'll try to watch the rest of the disc tonight.

I ordered mine on the 16th from Amazon UK. It shipped within hours and arrived on Monday, the 25th.

I was all ready to hate this disc after reading the threads and viewing the caps but it's actually pretty nice looking.

...and I just got mine in today too. Whee!

(It's been a pretty crazy week for imports: I've gotten Une femme mariee, Belle de jour, Junebug, Suspiria, Brief Encounter, The Elephant Man, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Eden Lake, and...um, don't judge me...Make It Happen in the space of a couple of days.)

I got a bunch of those myself this week too: Belle, Mandy Lane, Une Femme Mariee, as well as Suspiria, Thirst, This is England, and Red Road.

Gotta slow down for a while.

I didn't do a direct comparison with the screenshots, but the contrast was distractingly blown out as I watched it on my display. It didn't mar every single shot -- when Suspiria looks great, it's absolutely breathtaking -- but the contrast is so hot in its worst shots that it completely took me out of the movie.

Some comparison shots:
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/blu-...omparison.html

hmmm... I just read something very interesting. DP Luciano Tovoli is featured in the February issue of American Cinematographer:

"Tovoli recently revisited Suspiria at Technicolor Rome to supervise a new HD transfer which will result in a blu-ray release this spring"

??!!?? A region 'A' release!!!!, let's hope the disc looks like the UK version (and with the same extras)

Weinstein's own's the current Region A rights, so unless they sell it off, I don't see how it will get released. As it stands, Sony released their last film (Halloween II) and no new Weinstein catalog has come out for a long time. Remember the whole Grindhouse thing where Tarantino said he was working on it (DVD/BD) for a 2009 release?

You don't want it to look like the UK version. Promise.

I thought Vivendi was going to start releasing Weinstein titles to DVD/BD. Especially as the next few Dragon Dynasty titles are going to be released by them and there's a pre-order page available for Outlander on BD in May by them too.

^ it maybe a pipe dream, but maybe Suspiria will be released via Vivendi

oh.... I thought folks were complaining over the Italian bluray - oops, must have read that wrong.

I was under the impression it's now Sony (?) and only for new releases. It's a giant mess.

Oh, the Italian version is even worse, but the UK release is distractingly awful too.

I only skipped through some scenes but it looked alright. I'm just not expecting any miracles from this film no matter what studio is releasing it.

No, it's not. There are some shots that look pretty amazing, but the contrast is frequently blown out to the point where I honestly wanted to turn it off and put on the nearly-decade-old DVD instead. It's past videophile nitpicky territory and into uncomfortable-to-watch at times.

Why not? It was shot on low-ish speed stock, there's plenty of light, it's was even shot on three-strip Technicolor (the same as the most impressive classic catalog films on Blu-ray)...there's no reason why it shouldn't look gorgeous.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ac/ac0210/?ap=1#/72

Well, to be fair, I only skipped through a few scenes (first few chapters) and it seems the contract issues is towards the end. I do plan on watching it next week though.

Yeah....I'm just not leaving much hope it'll ever get a proper release. I skipped the first Region B release, but the second is not as bad, and if it ever gets a better release, I'll grab it again. I only paid $25 and I'm confident and I can unload it for $15 if a better release ever pops up.

It's especially bad at the end, but the contrast problems are all over. The more brightly lit the scene, the worse it is.

This shot is fairly early on, f'r instance:


Compare to:


It seriously made the movie very, very difficult for me to watch.

Well....shit.

so the top shot is from the UK BR and the second one is from the Italian disc? If that's the case it's completely different from what Tovoli supervised.

(from AC article):
"I worked with a very talented colorist, Fabrizio Conti, and we tried to stay as close as possible to the look of the original" he says. "I think we did an extremely good job, but it is impossible to compare even the best digital master to a film printed with Technicolor's dye-transfer process, especially for a film as extreme as 'Suspiria'"

so what, or more specifically wherre did it go wrong for the UK transfer? The brightening looks horrible.

how is the Italian version - "worse" I find it disheartening to read something like this, since the original cinematographer was involved with the transfer for the blu-ray release. If the transfer was botched for the UK version, wonder how the supposed US version will look

interestingly from what I can find doing some research on in the internet, Tovoli was also involved with the Anchor Bay transfer as well, since it's definately darker of the three disc's - one gets the sense someone definately did tinker with the UK transfer that wasn't Tovoli - and if the AC article is true that a 2010 US release is eminent (i.e, sometime during the year - I'm thinking 'Spring' is a vague promise) we will see a third version (closer to what Tovoli personally supervised), that might... might get it right. While the hidef digest comparison is helpful - it'd be nice if DVDBeaver updated it's comparison to also include the Italian bluray edition (just a thought)