R1 vs MK2

Discussion of Lost Highway

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Sugardrugged Fairy
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Post by Sugardrugged Fairy »

I'm waiting for the french MK2 dvd, and i'll tell you what's in it.
There's a place i'd like to show you. Near the ocean. It's very secluded.
I think you'll understand me better if you come with me.
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Pete Martell
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Post by Pete Martell »

Maybe the exras of the French edition are the same as the UK and the Spanish special editions:
The second disc totals 90+mins and has 2 interviews with David Lynch 2005 & 1996, and 1996 on set interviews with Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, and Robert Loggia.
A modern making of, a 1996 featurette (which features the rest of the 1996 David Lynch interview)the teaser trailer and the October Film Distributers Theatrical trailer (which seems slightly out of focus?)

P.S.Now the uk version it's sold on Ebay.co.uk used for more than 30 pounds when the summer was sold sealed for under 10.Damn,i wish i'd bought that then!
shemsha
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Post by shemsha »

And here is a comparison between the new DVD and the older ones (MK2 etc.)

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/DVDReview ... hwayr4.htm

I have the Cinema Club edition and it's excellent.
The Universal sounds lame.
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Sugardrugged Fairy
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Post by Sugardrugged Fairy »

I have the French MK2 version, and there's no 78-page booklet like DvdBeaver say.
There's a place i'd like to show you. Near the ocean. It's very secluded.
I think you'll understand me better if you come with me.
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Evenreven
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Post by Evenreven »

Interesting... Lynch-approved or not, DVDBeaver certainly were hard on the new one. The image looks pretty good, but it seems like someone's turned the contrast and brightness levels all the way down. If I remember correctly (and the projection was done right), I'd guess that the theatre-projected image looks like something in between the MK2/CC and the new R1. The film does have a grey-ish tint for most of the running time, but this new image seems excessively grey to my eyes.
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bmiller
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Post by bmiller »

The Universal image looks dark whether it's Lynch approved or not. Hey, I wonder if David Lynch approved those chapter stops?? It certainly doesn't look as detailed as the MK2 or Cinema Club releases. I wonder why the average bitrate = 5.63mb/sec is so low. Since there's no extras on the R1 disc why didn't Universal use all the available 7.4 GB for the movie instead of needlessly compressing it so much? Good old Universal: delaying the movie until the furor??? of the Robert Blake trial settled down and then overseeing a DVD mastering job that looks like it's straight out of the late '90's. Oh, and thanks for that DTS audio track, Universal. You rule.
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Post by eyeboogers »

I can read the bad review...I can see the part about the bitrate being lower, but the images from the R1 looks a lot closer to how i remember the film from the theatres (i watched it 4 or 5 times back in the day) than the MK2.
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Darth Bowie
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Re: ...

Post by Darth Bowie »

eyeboogers wrote:I can read the bad review...I can see the part about the bitrate being lower, but the images from the R1 looks a lot closer to how i remember the film from the theatres (i watched it 4 or 5 times back in the day) than the MK2.
Yes, the new R1 version is much like the way I remember seeing it in the theatres in the U.S. The MK2 has great extras but the film itself looks too bright.

8)
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Post by John Neff »

I haven't seen the 'new' Universal DVD yet, but if it has a lower bit rate it could be due to the date of the transfer. Unless Universal re-transferred the film for this release, the scan was done in the Spring of 1998 or 1999, for USA Films, who had the DVD rights. The technology in film scanning has come a long way since then, especially in resolution. The soundtrack was not re-treated, and the original John Ross 5.1 mix was used for the DVD.

Problem was, they never released it. Barry Diller was head of USA films then (he went on to lead Universal for a while), and apparently he did not care for the film.

It was very frustrating to David that it was not released. I would be interested to know if he had a hand in this release, and if a new transfer was made.
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Darth Bowie
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Post by Darth Bowie »

John Neff wrote:I haven't seen the 'new' Universal DVD yet, but if it has a lower bit rate it could be due to the date of the transfer. Unless Universal re-transferred the film for this release, the scan was done in the Spring of 1998 or 1999, for USA Films, who had the DVD rights. The technology in film scanning has come a long way since then, especially in resolution. The soundtrack was not re-treated, and the original John Ross 5.1 mix was used for the DVD.

Problem was, they never released it. Barry Diller was head of USA films then (he went on to lead Universal for a while), and apparently he did not care for the film.

It was very frustrating to David that it was not released. I would be interested to know if he had a hand in this release, and if a new transfer was made.
Interesting story John. The new DVD still looks great. Maybe they'll spruce it up with extras for a Blu-Ray release.

8)
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Post by TheArm »

I'm really bummed. I feel like we've waited so long for this release and now it seems clear that it was just a rush job. :(

Oh well, I'll be happy to finally own it, it just deserved so much better, especially after this long wait.
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Evenreven
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Post by Evenreven »

After a second look on the screenshots on DVDBeaver I'm beginning to think they're not familiar with how it looked on the big screen. Yes, the Universal release sucks in the extras department; yes, it's lame that they didn't even bother with a DTS track; but to say that the MK2 release looks more natural is wrong, I believe.

The MK2 screenshot below really blows the deal for me. Maybe objectively it's a better image, but it is not how it looked in the cinema, not by a long shot. While the Universal image is a little bit too dark, I think the DVDBeaver reviewer stating "red and black boosting" as a major problem simply hasn't seen the film in a cinema. (For the record, I've seen it 7 times in a cinema, but the last time was in 2000, so my memory might be faulty.)

Universal R1:
Image


MK2 R2:
Image
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joey m
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Post by joey m »

The universal looks much closer to my memory of how the theatrical looked.
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trollmanen
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Post by trollmanen »

The Universal DVD also looks closer to the WS VHS version that was put out in the US in regards to contrast and levels, though my version is a little fuzzy too many viewings. I think the Universal version looks better than the MK2 version, as the MK2 version is too bright for my taste, though I'll still get it at some point because of the extras.
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Post by kerplooey »

Sugardrugged Fairy wrote:I have the French MK2 version, and there's no 78-page booklet like DvdBeaver say.
Actually, the intial release did include this booklet, which was inserted as well as the DVD case in an "hologram" box (I'm not sure hologram is the correct word, but you know, those kind of prints that show you a different image according to the angle at which you're looking at it).

This was a limited edition so I guess the only version available now is just the plastic case sans booklet and hologram case.

As far as the film transfer is concerned, I tend to agree more with you guys than with DVD Beaver. While the MK2 transfer shows bright and detailed images, which would be great for a documentary, I definitely remembered the film as more of an impressionistic work, closer to a painting: the shapes and scenes would fade in and out of that very dark world, and we were getting the scenes more as they "felt like" than actually looked. The MK2 edition is too "true to life" for me, and I remember being bothered by it from the moment I started playing it.

Still, it would be great to know for sure that the Universal DVD is the actual Lynch-supervised transfer.... We're all guessing it is, but it would be a relief to have the final word that we can go with this one as what the director himself wanted us to see.
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