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Category | Thriller/Comedy | Introduction - with Tony Curtis
(2:45)
Theatrical Trailer - Shadow Of A Doubt (1:23) |
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Rating | |||
Year Released | 1938 | ||
Running Time |
(not 94 minutes as stated on packaging) |
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RSDL/Flipper | No/No |
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Start Up | Menu | ||
Region | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Director | Alfred Hitchcock |
Distributor |
MRA Entertainment |
Starring | Margaret Lockwood
Michael Redgrave Paul Lukas Dame May Whitty Cecil Parker Linden Travers Mary Clare |
Case | Black Amaray | ||
RPI | $19.95 | Music | Louis Levy
Cecil Milner |
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Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) | |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | No | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Theatrical Aspect Ratio | 1.37:1 |
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Macrovision | ? | Smoking | Yes |
Subtitles | Spanish
Japanese Chinese |
Annoying Product Placement | No |
Action In or After Credits | Yes, after credits |
The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format, and it is not 16x9 enhanced.
Amongst the efforts I have seen from this source, one of which I have enshrined in the Hall Of Shame, this is actually one of the better ones. Overall, it is an average transfer as far as sharpness is concerned, with a significant degree of variability throughout the transfer ranging from woeful to acceptable. Shadow detail naturally reflects the age of the film and this does again wander all over the place in this regard, although it has to be said that the tendency is towards the lower end of the acceptable scale. Another decidedly variable transfer as far as clarity goes, with some doses of grain thrown in for good measure throughout the transfer. There is somewhat of a problem with low level noise in the transfer, nothing really untoward but noticeably worse than in the Avenue One DVD.
Another sterling example of greys and greys here as opposed to black and white, although on the odd occasion this does display a greater depth to the blacks than is the case on the Avenue One DVD. The transfer does suffer just a little though in not being quite as bright as that DVD. Again, if I had not have seen The Criterion Collection release, then this would have been deemed slightly better than average for a film of this vintage. There is a general consistency in the tones throughout the film.
There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer.
There is also not too great an issue with film-to-video artefacts here,
with aliasing not being too prevalent and wobble and jitter being kept
reasonably restrained. There was a distinct problem with film artefacts
in the transfer, and these are definitely more prevalent here than in the
Avenue One DVD release. This is certainly not digitally mastered from the
best available sources as the cover proclaims - but the source material
is generally better looking than I was expecting.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain | |
Film-to-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
Overall, there is not too much of a problem with the dialogue, which comes up quite well in the soundtrack and relatively easy to understand. There did not seem to be any major issues with audio sync in the transfer, although I felt the initial scenes in the hotel were just a little out of sync - probably inherent in the source print used for this transfer.
The music comes from Louis Levy and Cecil Milner, and obviously its stature has not changed from the Avenue One DVD review.
In many ways this is remarkably similar to the Avenue
One DVD with the only real difference being the static is not present here.
However, balancing that off are a couple of instances of drop outs in the
sound. Other than that, this is not too bad a sound, perhaps a little bit
more congested than that on the Avenue One DVD release - possibly reflecting
the marginally lower transfer rate here. There is no surround or bass channel
usage here at all. Despite the slight problems, this really does not come
up too bad for a soundtrack of its age.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
© Ian Morris (have
a laugh, check out the bio)
2nd November 2000
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DVD | Pioneer DV-515; S-video output |
Display | Sony Trinitron Wega 80cm. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials. |
Audio Decoder | Built in |
Amplification | Yamaha RXV-795. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials. |
Speakers | Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL |