Region Free Blu Ray

I bought an HD DVD player a couple of years ago but the demise of the format and the relatively high price points of the competing Blu Ray players caused me to shy away from HiDef for a while...until recently.

I'd been doing some research -- see, I wanted to go "region free" AND I wanted to go Blu as well. Luckily there turned out to be a bargain-priced option in one box.

The Momitsu BDP 899 was touted on several video forums as being able to handle any disc -- all regions of DVD, PAL, NTSC, all regions of Blu Ray. The only problem was the price. The Momitsu was going for a cool $300 and change. Well, when sources confirmed that the new budget Sherwood BDP 5004 was nothing less than a clone of the Momistu -- at half the price -- I decided to jump.

Since I've only had the Sherwood a couple of weeks, my impressions aren't absolutely conclusive, but I can say so far that it's a great bargain for home theater fans who want to watch PAL DVDs and Region B locked Blu Ray discs from Europe but are willing to do without all the bells and whistles of streaming web, Netflix, etc (the Sherwood is capable of BD-Live via an ethernet cable, but by all accounts it's actually a liability to the player's performance). In addition to regular Region 1 DVDs and Blu Rays, my viewing options have opened up to include discs from all over the world -- a must for a fan of Eurocrime, giallos and art cinema like me.

There are a quite a few "Europe only" discs of note out there that I strongly recommend. First off Paramount's Blu Ray of ZULU can be had for around $16 on Amazon.co.uk and the picture is astounding, easily besting all previous DVD releases. It's also region free, so it'll play on any U.S. player. BFI put out Kenneth Anger's MAGICK LANTERN CYCLE on Blu and it's a revelation for fans of experiemental cinema. Highly recommended. Also available only as a Region B locked blu is Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS. Some fans have decried the rather rough print used for the digital transfer but the clarity and sharpness are top notch. Definitely an upgrade over previous DVDs. Michael Anderson's classic post WWII effort THE DAM BUSTERS is also available as a low-priced UK-only Blu. You'll probably never see this released in the U.S. -- thanks to the name of the Wing Commander Gibson's dog! (although there are still rumors out there that Peter Jackson is remaking this one).

The UK video label Masters of Cinema frequently duplicates Criterion's efforts here in the States but there are a few exclusive titles including Franju's JUDEX and the spooky Japanese cult-classic-in-waiting, HAUSU. Shameless offers region free PAL discs of slumming Eurotrash such as THE DESIGNATED VICTIM and THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN. And for the price of breakfast, you can get your mitts on the enhanced for 16:9 DVDs of Hammer's DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS or QUATERMASS AND THE PIT which have only been released here in the States as OOP non-enhanced discs from Anchor Bay.

The German branch of Amazon has it's own treasures, although the shipping, for some reason, is prohibitively expensive (usually more than the cost of the DVD itself). However, Sergio Corbucci's THE MERCENARY coming out on Koch DVD at the end of this month is nearly enough to make me sell my 16mm TV print. Maybe that'll cover the s/h cost. Now if only I could figure out how to read German...

Aspect Ratio and the Necessity of Enhanced DVDs

The 16:9 widescreen TV revolution has forced me to come to terms with the often misunderstood topic of DVD aspect ratios. It turns out some of the disks in my collection -- including "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- are now almost unwatchable, thanks to obsolete video technology that is still being practiced by some manufacturers and studios. Knowing the difference between an anamorphically enhanced DVD and a DVD presented in a simple widescreen format could be the difference between watching a movie and experiencing it -- especially on a flat-paneled TV.

First, a little primer: One of the first things to understand is the actual concept of aspect ratio itself. Aspect ratio refers to the ratio of the screen's width to its height. So a common cathode ray (CRT) tube television set, with its squarish screen, actually has an aspect ratio of 4 wide to 3 high, or 4:3. Since television screens are various sizes, the 4 and the 3 don't necessarily represent any one number of measurement. Most films made before 1953 were meant to be seen in the 4:3 format (also known as 1.33:1). With the advent of TV, Hollywood sought to lure viewers with something CRTs couldn't deliver -- a panoramic picture. Thus, the birth of widescreen in all its many flavors -- Cinerama, Cinemascope, Todd-AO, SuperPanavision, et al. The new format expanded the image ratio from 1.33 to 1 to up to 2.58 to 1 (in the case of classic Cinerama). Thanks to an anamorphic optical process utilizing special lenses, the photographed image was squeezed onto frames of 35mm and 70mm celluloid, resulting in a distorted, elongated image that was "decompressed" by another lens when projected, which actually distorted the image yet again, stretching the picture to fill the new, wider screens in movie theaters. With the anamorphic system, filmmakers could use up the entire frame of film, preserving much more detail than if black bars or letterboxing had been used in the frame. Viewers might remember seeing old movies on television where the actors and buildings appeared elongated and distorted during the opening credits -- this was the uncompressed anamorphic image, usually broadcast to display the full credits without cropping.

Which brings us to the new flat screen televisions. These high definition-capable screens are formated in what is termed 16:9 -- in other words 16 wide by 9 high. The ratio is also sometimes expressed as 1.78:1. Quite a change from the old 4:3 television screen. Note that most modern films are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, but thanks to the capabilities of digital technology, an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 can be "stretched" out to fill a widescreen TV panel with no black "letterbox" bars.

A lot of the widescreen DVDs manufactured before 2000 look like complete doo doo on new LCD and plasma screens. Why? Before digitally, anamorphically enhanced 16:9 DVD transfers, most companies manufactured their disks for use on 4:3 television screens -- along with those harsh black bars on the top and bottom of the screen built in to the picture -- much in the way that older moviemakers did to create a widescreen picture before the introduction of anamorphic photography. While this looks perfectly acceptable on older sets, there is simply no way to stretch the picture to a 16:9 aspect ratio without creating severe distortion which some people apparently don't mind, judging from the "HD" broadcast quality of several local television stations here in Dallas which pull a 4:3 picture all the way across a widescreen, resulting in short, fat actors and squished sets.

Thankfully, many older DVDs, such as "2001" have been remastered in "enhanced for widescreen television" editions. And while the studios could be accused of double-dipping (they wouldn't ever do anything like that, would they??), it's hard to find too much fault since they've been rather forward looking on this issue for the past six years, producing anamorphic DVDs for a market that is only now being tapped into. Remember, always check the aspect ratio on the back of any DVD you're interested in and always look for "enhanced for 16:9 TVs", keep in mind that that cheap "bargain" you may find on eBay could be an old non-enhanced version of disk that will never play properly on your new LCD TV and finally, don't be alarmed if you still see black bars on certain films like "Star Wars," which features an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. There's no way of fitting the entire frame onto your screen without some cropping on the sides.

For (lots) more information on the history of widescreen cineman, check out the excellent Widescreen Museum website.
And this guy does a much better job at explaining the technical side of widescreen DVDs than I ever could.
Here's a really good site with pictures.