The Lion in Winter (1968), Spanish 2013 release

[UnknownBesideArch]

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[Octavio]

I am not interested on the quality of the dub, actually I don't care about any dub at all (except on kid flicks) just on the PQ, AQ and the extras if any.

But even most important to me (and I am sure for many fans of the movie who lives in the americas), is this edition region-free or region B locked?
Can anybody confirm if it's playable on region A hardware?

Thanx in advance for your kind answers

[Torrente]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

and the Scandinavian release from Soul Media, which likely has very poor PQ

Why?
Did you watch it?
Because it's not necessarily poor. It's likely 1080i, but some of their releases are pretty nice PQ wise (for the prices they are charging)

[Eeeper]

I'm going to take a gamble on this next week. Plus Amazon ES has the Orson Welles version of Macbeth for a similar price. Might get both and see if they're any good, picture quality wise.

[Eeeper]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

Oh, and for anyone who may be interested: apparently there's also a Spanish Blu-ray for the 2004 made-for-TV remake (starring Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart):



As far as I'm aware it's the only Blu-ray of the remake that has been released at all, so it may be worth looking into for fans of the more recent film. Here's the Amazon.es link:

Yeah, I was going to mention that the distributor of the Spanish blu ray of the film seems to have used the ad copy for the TV version in their description! Nice to know the second version is available as well. As far as I know the DVD version of it has been out for some time.

[Eeeper]

Just to say to all here, I've just ordered the disc from Amazon ES. It should be here with me by the 15th. So if Arch's disc arrives beforehand, well and good, but if not I'll post up some thoughts and more importantly, screenshots, on the transfer.

Please note: I'm finally in the process of buying a Region A player. But I won't be buying it until next month so I won't be able to tell anyone of the region status of Lion in Winter, unfortunately.

[Eeeper]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

Most excellent indeed, that's something I'm unable to do myself!

And you may be able to assess the AQ better than me too. I use an ancient set of cheap headphones to watch movies, so I have no idea if anything sounds good or not; anyway, at the very least it'll be nice to have a second opinion on the overall quality of the disc!

Will do, sir. Though, I'm not expecting much, audio-wise!

[Eeeper]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

My copy arrived in the mail earlier today, and I just finished watching it. A great movie, exceptional acting, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Here's a scan I took of the back cover:

[Show spoiler]

Okay, let's see: I've tested the disc and it's completely REGION FREE. The disc menus are in Spanish; audio options are English and Spanish; and the only subtitles are Spanish, but thankfully they can be disabled. The disc has no extras at all.

I was very pleased with the PQ. I'd never seen the film at all before today, so I can't compare this Spanish release to previous versions and I've no idea if all the colours were 'accurate' or anything; but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looked, especially for such an old movie. I reckon it was certainly more detailed than DVD quality, and the picture appeared to have been cleaned up a good deal. It was definitely much better than I'd expected.

Note: the case back cover says the disc is a BD-50, the aspect ratio is 2:35.1, and my PS4 seemed to think it's MPEG-2... whatever that means.

As for the audio quality, it seemed mostly fine; I didn't have any problems making out dialogue. My one complaint is that I think the audio was out of sync in a few scenes, but then when I tested the disc on another player the disconnect seemed to be gone. So maybe it's fine after all...

Note: the case back cover says both audio options (Spanish and English) are Dolby 2.0, whereas both my PS4 and region-free player showed the sound as being Linear PCM 2.0, at 48 kHz. I have little or no idea what all this technical stuff actually means , but I thought I'd list it here anyway.

Summary: the movie itself was terrific, I'm happy with the disc as a whole, and as far as I'm concerned the impressive PQ outweighs any (unconfirmed) audio sync problems. Highly recommended!

It's entirely possible that the film's been given an MPEG-2 video encode. That's a bit worrying as nobody really uses it anymore. That said, from what you've mentioned about PQ & AQ I don't think it'll be a deal breaker for most. Thanks for the update, Arch. I'll do a disc breakdown when I get mine in the post.

[movielib]

I'm glad to hear the disc is decent as I ordered it last week and it's on its way to me. Also glad to hear the sound is LPCM 2.0 (lossless) rather than Dolby Digital 2.0 (lossy). Yes, it's a little odd to have an MPEG-2 encode as Eeeper says. (MPEG-2 has been succeeded by VC-1 and AVC.) But if the picture is decent it's OK.

Like many I am not really that knowledgeable about the technical stuff. If I am wrong about any of the above please let me know.

[movielib]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

Regarding the sound, I'm still not 100% sure myself. The back cover says Dolby 2.0, but when I check the disc details while it's playing in my PS4 it shows the LPCM thing (and MPEG-2). But I don't have any way of confirming that the PS4's assessment is accurate!

I think we need someone with a BD drive in their PC to check the disc properly.

I don't know any reason why your PS4 would be wrong. I'll check my disc in my Oppo as soon as I get it.

[movielib]

I got my Lion in Winter today. The sound is indeed LPCM, confirmed by both my Oppo player and my Denon receiver. The encode is indeed MPEG-2 but the picture is pretty good. Not demonstration material by any means but with a bit rate that hovers around 30. No doubt an AVC encode would have been superior but I don't think anyone should hesitate getting this disc if you are a fan of this magnificent film. We probably won't see anything better for a long time, if ever.

An oddity: when you press the subtitle button while the movie is playing there is a track indicated for English subtitles but if you choose that track you don't get them. It's the same as choosing no subtitles. But there is no English subtitle track indicated on the main/popup menus. I suspect they originally planned to have English subtitles and dropped it somewhere along the way but forgot to remove it as a choice with the subtitle button.

[Eeeper]

Got my disc this morning. Noticed the subtitle thing too. I'll do a disc break down on it ASAP.

[Arkadin]

possibly an old encode that mgm never got around to releasing back in 2006, 07, or 08.
I really hope TT brings this out or just plain old MGM.
It definitely should already be out in the US.
very classic film.