Scorsese's THE DEPARTED DVD available on November 2
 

Scorsese's THE DEPARTED DVD is available on November 2 at alldvd.ca for 22 bucks. The Russian PAL dvd specs are widescreen (anamorphic?) and English DD 5.1.

Check it out at:
http://www.alldvd.ca/Product/DvdDeta...roductID=31563


That's pretty damn quick. Russia usually gets crappy western movies early, not excellent ones like The Departed.

it's got the wrong aspect ratio.

Yeah, and Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Until we actually see the DVD it's pointless making judgements on the specs listed by a shop.

I'll be waiting for the rental DVD.

They usually don't have any extras but the transfers are simply stunning and some of the best I have seen;based on some previous ones I have purchased(Lucky Number Slevin is one).

Placed an order for the hell of it. One of the things we do with our home theater is auction of night at the movies with dinner for various auctions like at my son's school, united way drive at work and wife's women's golf assoc. fund raiser. If this is a nice transfer...it would be fun to offer those auction winners a special movie treat. Though it would have to be the right audience.

Ronboster:

I hope this isn't an elementary school we are talking here - Departed ain't that kind of family movie...;)

So at your movie auctions, do you get a lot of people asking you "how did you get that movie so early? or can i rent that?"

I will probably wait for the region 1 DVD and make a blind buy on the nice 2-disc set you know will happen. Though, having never seen this at the theater if I ordered it I would probably feel cheated knowing I could have waited and bought for the same price a 2-disc set, and it would create a sense of owning a screener copy or some odd feeling for me. I would believe for die-hard fans of this film this is an absolute must buy! since it will probably be a few months before region 1 sees a release of The Departed on DVD. This is awesome though that fans can legally get a DVD of this so soon and fast.

Since I buy a fair amount of non-r1 dvd's esp. those that aren't yet available in the states...it's always a treat to show someone a film that's playing in the theaters. I was lucky for awhile, had a fellow hobbyist that worked for a studio and would trade dvd's for academy screeners (never sold them), that was a real treat. Yes, we get a real surprised look when we offer a new title. Most assume it's a bootleg and don't know or consider other region's studio releases and their availability.

Speaking of grade school...we hosted an outdoor drive way movie with an inflatable screen and speakers for my son's 2nd grade class. With adults we had about 45 ppl. It was a blast. We showed Over the Hedge.

The problem with some of these Russian discs is the fact they have forced, non-removable Russian sub's. Mr and Mrs Smith, Sahara, The Covenant (which also happened to be a screener), Manderlay etc... all had the same problem. There have been a few pretty decent threads on this forum about the issue's removing sub's with these discs. Things may have changed since then, but I'll be honest in that I don't have the confidence. Yes, you can (according to alldvd's response to the issue) "rip and re-encode the disc without sub's" to get around, but then I question why I'm buying the DVD if it can't be used as is. You may want to do a search for "manderlay" in this forum to see the response from alldvd and other people. If I'm not mistaken Revolver had the same issue also.

I found the threads about Manderlay and Revolver;

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ight=manderlay

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ight=manderlay

It is very easy to remove the subs. I have done it for the previous purchases I have made. Btw; Revolver has one of the best transfers I have ever seen...

yea, the transfer on revolver was pretty damn good.

What player are you using? My region free player is OPPO.

Thanks for the links splatti. Looks like it's in one example it's a matter of turning them off through the menu options...which if in Russian, would be trial and error to you stumble on the correct sub menu option.

Still looking forward to a dvd release of a film my wife and I really enjoyed. Even though she didn't care much for Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs. I really liked the series as a whole.

Can the subs be removed with a Malata?

I have a Malata 393 and a 520 (Maybe one of the best, if not the best region free players ever made). I also have a Panasonic (usless), Sony and Venturer. Manderlay and Revolver had perfect pictures, I don't dispute that. I only mentioned "The Covenant" was poor, but I guess I got what I deserved for buying a stupid film like that. lol. The only player I could remove the Manderlay subs with was the Venturer, and that was with the menu hack (the hack is in the link). In fact, ALLDVD published my hack on their website within the Manderlay description at one point because of the e-mails they were getting from customers. I'll be interested to see how the Departed goes when Ron gets it. Hopefully it's great.

just found a spoof of the trailer on youtube called "the deported" :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT7d4...elated&search=

Sorry I should have been clearer about the subs... you will have to make a back-up copy and remove them.

My copy should arrive early next week. I'll report back on the quality. Stan at alldvd.ca said he did expect forced subs on this title. Besides making a backup copy, someone suggested changing the player's language to hindu or some other unavailable option will force the dvd to remove the subs...doesn't sound like it may work. Anyother tweaks ppl would like me to try, I'd be more than happy to do. I will be using an OPPO for my all region playback.

The video looks very good...as I remembered it in the theater. The print does have some dirt and specs, which I would expect to be cleaned up by the R1 release. And, yes the subs are forced. Their placement is annoying, but hey it is what it is. I probably won't watch the whole thing until a week or so. I don't have a dvd burner. Is it a fairly simple process to create a back up copy and remove the subs? I have a co-worker who has a dvd burner...what would be the process? Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ron

PS: I write up a complete review in a week or so.

is it just me or is the audio really messed up the last 15-20 minutes?

The last 10 minutes were fine, but before that for about 20 minutes dialogue was ok but sounds and music many minutes in advance. It was very annoying.
There were also a couple of issues with audio out of sync during the movie.

Fantastic film but I won't be buying anymore from russia.

indeed.. i'm glad i caught this in theatres before watching this dvd..

beware.. the audio problems at the end make it unwatchable in my opinion.. pretty much ruins some key scenes

I went to the subtitle menu and clicked on the last option. Then went to chapter selection, chose chapter two and then "rewinded" all the way back to the beginning. The subs were gone then.

The video looks pretty damn good. I wasn't aware of audio sync problems though. I haven't made it all the way through it yet. Guess I'll still get the region 1 disc.

DumDum...thanks. I too have only watched about 5 mins in the beginning of the movie to work through the subs issue and not watched it all the way through.

Well, I still hadn't had a chance to watch the movie from start to finish. I did try the work around that DumDum suggested...it didn't work using the OPPO dvd player. I did watch the last 10-15 mins. The only audio problem I noticed coincided with two jump cuts in the image and what was an off sync issue when Matt walks into his apartment where Marky Marky is waiting for him. Other than the annoying drum cadence during the funeral scene I nothing stood out as an audio problem.

Yeh, after I wrote this I went back and double checked, and of course it didn't work...lol. I somehow got the subs to disappear though one time.