Sholay (1975)

[88mph]

Originally Posted by Hindustani

In order to screen SHOLAY in your present HDTV in the best available format at this point in time.

You'll have to do 2 following things.

(1)PICTURE Quality only: Get SHOLAY Anamorphic Widescreen DVD of Carlotta (FRENCH) edition. According to all the reviews, SHOLAY (carlotta) French DVD has the best PQ available in 480p anamorphic widescreen format.

(2) AUDIO Quality only: Get your hands on SHOLAY original DEI DVD minus EROS logo or B4U logo or fake DEI logo. This original late 1990s release has the best, most authentic, 4-track stereo surround sound directly authored from Sholay 70mm 6-track stereophonic sound print.

Good luck finding the latter (original DEI) DVD. Former (french carlotta) is available through amazon.fr.

also, get ready to spend good chunk of money.

Need some clarity on the audio mixes.

Is this "4-track stereo surround" mix on the original DEI DVD a DD 2.0, 4.0 or 5.1 track?

[rajkapoor]

^ DEI and Eros both have 5.1 audio. Check the following shots:

Discs.jpg

DEI1.jpg

DEI2.jpg

Eros1.jpg

[Duane Dibbley]

Originally Posted by rajkapoor

^ DEI and Eros both have 5.1 audio.

The 5.1 audio on the Eros disc is fake - it is an identical mono track on each channel.

[88mph]

Originally Posted by rajkapoor

^ DEI and Eros both have 5.1 audio. Check the following shots:

Thanks for confirming, appreciate it! I was going mad thinking there is an elusive first pressing of the DEi disc with DD 2.0 track (as some reviews suggested but wasn't clear about).

Originally Posted by Duane Dibbley

The 5.1 audio on the Eros disc is fake - it is an identical mono track on each channel.

Yep. But worth noting there is a Russian DVD which is a copy of the Eros B4U Director's Cut with has a DD 2.0 dual mono track. Unsure if its a bootleg.

As for the original DEi; while its encoded 5.1 and has true stereo separation, it also a fake or rather poorly mixed 5.1 track. I extracted the audio into an editor and the L & R surround channels are basically copies of the FL and FR but at a lower volume, meaning it also includes dialogue as well as effects.

[88mph]

What else can I say other than Sholay on home media is an absolute travesty. Such a shame for this Bollywood classic.

There is no decent release, each have its own strengths and weaknesses. Here is my rundown:

DEI DVD - Overall very nice picture quality. This one has the best colours and contrast IMO. The film grain is present and looks pleasing. Downside is obviously the cropping from the original theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio down to 1.85:1. This is particular bad because it was already matted from a 4:3 print. Another issue with picture is some crushed blacks and loss of detail.

Sound is really nice and dynamic being stereo. There is some nice channel separation supposedly representative of the original 70mm mix. But as mentioned in my last post it is a bad 5.1 surround mix where surround channels are copies of the front ones where dialogue is also present. Another problem is during the song segments the vocals and instruments have some really bad distortion from clipping, like a blackboard screeching. Yuck.

Songs aren't subtitled to English.

Carlotta (France) DVD - Original theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio! The movie looks amazing in this ratio and feels correct. Picture has good detail, nice grain resolve (better than DEI here). However there are problems with it being over bright at times. There is a yellow tint present throughout which is a bit distracting but not terrible, some scenes are worse than others.

Sound is serviceable. Mono mix and clear enough but sounds a bit flat. Slight distortion with vocals during songs like the DEI but not as bad.

No English subtitles.

Eros B4U DVD - Its the full length Director's Cut with the original ending. Worth it just for that. 4:3 open matte ratio, therefore having the most picture information out of the lot with more top and bottom compared to the original theatrical version. The picture is too bright though, and the colours are lacking and lifeless looking rather faded. More like a TV show than a movie. There is some ghosting with moving scenes. A lot of reviewers s**t on the image quality but its not that bad.

Sound as mentioned is fake 5.1. Mono from all channels. If you have a skillz it would be easy enough to isolate one of the channels into 1 channel audio track and remux with the video. There are some pops and skipping at various points which are a bit annoying. Other than this, the sound is actually quite good. Dare say it, its probably the best overall out of all releases! Nice crisp highs, everything sounds clear and no (or barely any) distortion with the vocals on songs! Real shame it is not stereo other wise it would be the clear winner.

No English subtitles for songs.

1080p 3D to 2D / Streaming / HDTV - Just don't bother with this. Extremely offensive version. Most annoying of all, the picture has really nice clarity and is a true HD transfer so there is a nice print and scan available out there. However they just had to screw it up by dialling the saturation up to 11. The colours are sickening! Honestly gave me a headache watching it. And because its a 3D to 2D conversion there are some modified effects like stones and grenades being thrown in your face. Its just looks so strange.

The audio is equally as shocking. New music and effects added everywhere. I think the only thing leftover from the original is the dialogue.

Only good thing to come out of this are the English subtitles for the songs.

[ravenus]

Nice sum up. Sholay's home video legacy is what I use as a caution to tell people who start fantasizing about 4K restorations and UHD's of their favorite classic movies. If one of India's most successful and best loved films cannot have even a good DVD release over all these decades, how much can you hope for other movies?
Yash Raj is almost the only studio that has shown some respect for their older catalog - at least Deewaar, Kabhi Kabhie, and Silsila have had decent BD's in their OAR and original sound mix. I am not a fan of their 90's films so I don't know about those (I remember DTPH looking weird in screenshots). The BD of Mr. India was decent visually, but the fake surround was a mess - had to force it to stereo.
Everyone else is outright awful for BD's of older films - cropping to 16:9, egregious DNR, weird color tones, fake surround, excessive audio filtering.

[bhaskar1981]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Nice sum up. Sholay's home video legacy is what I use as a caution to tell people who start fantasizing about 4K restorations and UHD's of their favorite classic movies. If one of India's most successful and best loved films cannot have even a good DVD release over all these decades, how much can you hope for other movies?
Yash Raj is almost the only studio that has shown some respect for their older catalog - at least Deewaar, Kabhi Kabhie, and Silsila have had decent BD's in their OAR and original sound mix. I am not a fan of their 90's films so I don't know about those (I remember DTPH looking weird in screenshots). The BD of Mr. India was decent visually, but the fake surround was a mess - had to force it to stereo.
Everyone else is outright awful for BD's of older films - cropping to 16:9, egregious DNR, weird color tones, fake surround, excessive audio filtering.

Wasn't the Mr India BD done by Eros? I've never seen it, I've stuck with a decent quality pirate DVD that was doing the rounds before the original Eros DVD came out.

[ravenus]

Yep, done by Eros.

[Duane Dibbley]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Yash Raj is almost the only studio that has shown some respect for their older catalog - at least Deewaar, Kabhi Kabhie, and Silsila have had decent BD's in their OAR and original sound mix.

Not quite - their BDs of Kabhi Kabhie and Silsila have remixed soundtracks with new effects added (raindrops, birds chirping etc.) and some songs have been replaced with audio from the CD versions. Not as obvious as the changes to Sholay's soundtrack, but still.

[ravenus]

^Didn't know that, thanks. I assumed that since they were not upmixed to a fake surround, they would be original mixes.

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