My new Australian DVD just arrived

POSTED BY: Honeybadger
UPDATED: Monday, February 13, 2006 05:43
VIEWED: 11508
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DONCOAT

Saturday, February 11, 2006 11:19 PM

Mine arrived today too. Shiny!

The tin box is just about the sweetest gorram thing you ever saw. Worth the price just for that alone. It's not just a painted flat box -- the title is raised (embossed) as is the Ninja River.

I've watched through the new extras. I'll give a quick summary for those as don't know what they are.

First, there are several more extended scenes (that is, different cuts of scenes from the BDM). Probably the most interesting of these is a longer version of the wave from Inara to Mal, with more byplay between them. The final cut was definitely tighter and "better" cinematically, but the extra banter is hardly go se.

There is a long Q&A session with Joss in front of an auditorium of Browncoats who'd just seen Serenity. Good questions, good answers -- as usual with Joss -- but no stunning revelations. Joss does downplay the possibility of a return to TV, but that was then...

There's a tour of the Serenity set with Joss and/or Nathan. Some of the other cast members and crew appear briefly. A few interesting observations about the differences between the movie and TV versions of the sets.

There's a short feature about cinematographer Jack Green, in which we find out that three of his kids also worked on the shoot: one as a second unit cameraman, the others in assistant roles. We see how well he and Joss worked together. Joss says, "I told him it was okay if he finished my sentences, but would he at least let me start them first?"

And lastly, there's a great short documentary about the process of writing the script (Joss explains why it's the hardest thing he'd ever done) and making it into a film. We meet the editor, Lisa Lassek, who Joss praises highly.

But I mean to say as, the shiniest moment of this segment comes at the very end, where we see an extended version of (arguably) the funniest of the outtakes: the "dirt nap with baby Jesus" goof by Nathan. It's better because it goes on longer than the one in the gag reel does -- it shows how the rest of the cast reacted. Poor Jewel really lost it! I thought she might throw up, she was laughing so hard. So was everybody else. Joss steps into frame and gives Nathan a hug, which suggests to me that he was in on the gag, maybe even fed Nathan his new lines.

I definitely noticed the faster frame rate. The voices really do sound a bit cartoony. Quite noticable in the intro, with River's teacher sounding a bit like Alvin the Chipmunk. I didn't watch the whole movie, though, nor the extras that are on the US DVD (so I can't say if they're any different).

The video quality doesn't seem as good as the US DVD's, but that may be because I can only watch it on my laptop. Still, it seems a little bit fuzzy/blurry, which I didn't notice on the Region 1 DVD. Imagination, or something to do with PAL/NTSC conversion? Does anybody else notice this?

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I don't disagree on any particular point.

MOOSE

Sunday, February 12, 2006 2:02 AM

Thanks, DonCoat!

DONCOAT

Sunday, February 12, 2006 3:56 AM

My pleasure. I'll be interested in hearing others' observations, too.

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I don't disagree on any particular point.

DONCOAT

Sunday, February 12, 2006 3:57 AM

Double post, gorram it.

GROOSALUGG

Sunday, February 12, 2006 4:04 AM

Out of curiousity, is one of the extended scenes the Lilac entrance, with River's "I'm the brains of the operation" line? I'm dying to see that!

RACOONBOY

Sunday, February 12, 2006 5:16 AM

faster frame rate? cartoonish voices? I'm not sure I noticed that... And the video quality seemed fine to me.

I got mine on friday, I would have got it earlier but my mum wouldnt give it to me because I stayed home from school because I could barely walk (semi-long story), but yeah, its cool, they should've put more on the other disc though, there isnt much more on there. But at least we got treated better than you americans.

DONCOAT

Sunday, February 12, 2006 2:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RacoonBoy:
faster frame rate? cartoonish voices? I'm not sure I noticed that... And the video quality seemed fine to me.

Yep. PAL video has a 4% faster frame rate (25fps) than film (24fps). When a film is converted to PAL video, is typically done frame by frame and shown at the PAL rate, so it runs faster by that much and the sound track has to be pitched up to match. Voices (and music) sound a bit strange, if you're familiar with the sound of the theatrical release.

This can be avoided by special audio processing to keep the pitch normal (though the faster speed remains) but I don't think that was done for Serenity.

In any case, the running time of the Oz DVD reflects the difference -- 114 minutes instead of 119 for the US version.

Here's an article that describes the issue in more detail:
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALSpeedUp/PALSpeedUp.asp

Quote:
Originally posted by RacoonBoy:
...they should've put more on the other disc though, there isnt much more on there. But at least we got treated better than you americans.

That's because we're horrible earth-raping, world dominating monsters, and you're just good-time Ozzies

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I don't disagree on any particular point.

LAX01

Sunday, February 12, 2006 5:41 PM

SWEET, I didn't think they'd get here so fast...I guess mine is sitting at home considering I pre-ordered from EzDVD like 2 months ago :)

MER

Sunday, February 12, 2006 6:28 PM

What's the region for Aus? And I really do hope they'll release anothre edition b/c not having these features isn't fair :( .

MALADJUSTED

Sunday, February 12, 2006 7:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Honeybadger:
No braging intended!

Just wow from Australia to AZ in 2 days and I didn't even ask for 2 day service.

Blue Sun couldn't have done better!

HB

I'm really happy for you. I ordered mine at the end of December. I've just checked my status and it's still saying order pending and OUT OF STOCK. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this.

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