Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (MVD Visual - Aug. 14, 2018) - Blu-ray Forum

Egbert Souse · 12-06-2019, 11:39 PM

https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/200-Motels-DVD/157779/

Just wanted to give people a heads up about MVD's DVD-only release of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. As odd as it is for me to buy a standalone movie on DVD in 2019, it's actually a bit of a surprise.

First up, MVD is using the same HD master in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen that has been on MGM HD and online streaming services. While it's strange that they couldn't release a Blu-ray, even though the film was shot on PAL video and transferred to 35mm, I'm going to guess the Blu-ray rights are with someone else (Shout?). For those who care, it curiously has the late 70s/early 80s United Artists logo while the trailer has the early-70s version (without the Transamerica T).

While they initially announced it would be more or less bare-bones, there's a bit more going on here. They used a DVD-9 and maxed out the encode. Watched the first ten minutes and it rarely went under 8 MBS. There's also two audio tracks - Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Mono (both 448 kbps) plus two trailers (really just one trailer - shown once in 4x3, again in 16x9). The latter track is listed as stereo, but it seems to be dual mono to my ears.

Image quality is pretty nice considering what it is.

Overall a gigantic leap in quality, though, over the 4x3 MOD DVD MGM used to offer and the garbage quality bootleg. A Blu-ray would have been nice, but until then this is a worthwhile edition.

12-06-2019, 11:39 PM	#1
Egbert Souse Blu-ray Guru Top contributor Member since:Mar 2011 Location:Northern Virginia Home Theater Gallery:5 4K collection:309 Blu-ray collection:1870 DVD collection:182 Digital collection:3	Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (MVD Visual - Aug. 14, 2018) https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/200-Motels-DVD/157779/ Just wanted to give people a heads up about MVD's DVD-only release of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. As odd as it is for me to buy a standalone movie on DVD in 2019, it's actually a bit of a surprise. First up, MVD is using the same HD master in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen that has been on MGM HD and online streaming services. While it's strange that they couldn't release a Blu-ray, even though the film was shot on PAL video and transferred to 35mm, I'm going to guess the Blu-ray rights are with someone else (Shout?). For those who care, it curiously has the late 70s/early 80s United Artists logo while the trailer has the early-70s version (without the Transamerica T). While they initially announced it would be more or less bare-bones, there's a bit more going on here. They used a DVD-9 and maxed out the encode. Watched the first ten minutes and it rarely went under 8 MBS. There's also two audio tracks - Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Mono (both 448 kbps) plus two trailers (really just one trailer - shown once in 4x3, again in 16x9). The latter track is listed as stereo, but it seems to be dual mono to my ears. Image quality is pretty nice considering what it is. Overall a gigantic leap in quality, though, over the 4x3 MOD DVD MGM used to offer and the garbage quality bootleg. A Blu-ray would have been nice, but until then this is a worthwhile edition.

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