Alejandro Amenabar's Tesis has been released on DVD in the UK. Unfortunately it's a Tartan DVD (a company notorious for using worn out release prints with burned in subtitles to master their DVDs from).

Is this release any good?

I don't know about the Tartan release, but there's a fine US R1 release. I read that the transfer is decent. I have a few Tartan releases and they really aren't that bad - they don't have quite the budget of a major studio so some movies don't get a million dollar makeover as far as the print is concerned, but they do clean their equipment and their prints to the best of their abilities (I mean think about it - they typically release stuff that would have a lousy print anyway so then they get blamed for bad transfers) and they seem to be adding some nice extras when they can. Their In The Mood For Love had some really nice extras added. I looked for a review of the Tartan release but came up empty. Sorry.

There are several problems with Tartan which are entirely within their control and that is the problem people have always had with them. The first is their policy is to use telecines of theatrical prints which have already been subtitled for festival or limited release showings in the UK. Why do this? Because its cheaper and you don't have to pay for the subtitling as the theatrical prints already have the optically burned in subtitles. The problem? These aren't being telecined and encoded properly with brightness and contrast levels all out of wack, and the optically burned in subs are rendered all but unreadable in places as a result of this and white on white scenes. There really is no excuse for this, they are simply too lazy and too cheap to license a decent master for dvd preperation. I really don't get your comment that they tend to release stuff that would only have lousy masters, that simply doesn't add up given their large catalouge of Asian and European titles which all have infinitely better looking versions in other regions because the licensees in those regions have chosen to acquire a good master and encode it properly. Their Japanese catalouge is extremely pathetic when you compare it against any of the Japanese domestic releases, which is a shame. Thankfully they have been reconsidering this sort of policy and have made improvements with their release of Ring 0 which features removable subtitles and a half decent master.

The Tartan DVD is far superior to the US DVD. I had the US DVD and I sold it for the Tartan release. The US DVD was apparently mastered from a festival VHS and not a true master. The video quality is truly awful.

Thanks for the comments.

I am aware of the R1 release of Tesis, but I've only seen negative reviews (I think it's also full frame and cut).

I haven't made a purchase decision yet, mainly because of a rumored SE to be released in Spain.

I have lurked at British message boards regarding the Tartan problem and I agree with those who have speculated that Tartan doesn't put money into their releases because they are low-selling art-house type titles. Then consumers avoid their product because of their bad reputation which results in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Small UK companies like Hong Kong Legends and Artificial Eye probably don't have big budgets either and their DVDs are great, so Tartan has no excuses!