Mr. Jones (1993) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Drama | Biographies-Cast & Crew | |
Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1993 | ||
Running Time | 109:19 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Mike Figgis |
Studio
Distributor |
Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Richard Gere Lena Olin Anne Bancroft |
Case | Brackley-Trans-No Lip | ||
RPI | $34.95 | Music | Maurice Jarre |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish |
Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes, at the start |
The movie focusses on Mr Jones’ buoyant personality and Libby's desperately trying not to fall in love with him, which makes for a simple but interesting plot. There are many memorable moments and the high quality of acting on show here really brings this movie to life. Mr Jones also shows us the other side of the manic-depressive coin, which makes it a bit of a roller-coaster ride at times.
Expanding on the plot any further would detract from some of the more memorable moments in this film, so I will keep it short and let you get on with reading about the quality of the transfer.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.
The picture is extremely clear and sharp at all times.
There is no low level noise present and the colour is perfect. There is no edge bleeding and no excessive edge enhancement was ever noticed.
No MPEG artefacts were seen - can you see a pattern emerging here?
The most astounding thing about this transfer was its lack of aliasing. Not one occurrence was seen, not one. This title is the most aliasing-free DVD I have ever seen, and it begs the question of why can't all DVDs be like this? I'm sure if you looked hard enough you would be able to find at least one or two occurrences somewhere, but really...
Pixelization or graininess was almost non-existent on my 250 cm screen, which is extremely impressive. I often found myself marvelling at the fantastic quality of this transfer in this regard. There was, however, one sequence that suffered from a little graininess, which ran from 66:55 – 70:28, though this was far from being bad. I have seen entire movies suffer from much worse grain problems than this one sequence - Frantic is one such title that falls into this category.
There was some noticeable image shake towards the end of the movie, during a distant shot of a jumbo jet coming in to land, but this is not a transfer problem, as I distinctly remember seeing this same effect at the cinema.
Film artefacts were very rare and were almost always small and unobtrusive. Unfortunately, the last five minutes of film suffered from quite a few film artefacts, which distracted me enough to stop this transfer from receiving a reference quality rating.
This movie is on a single layer disc, which is rather impressive considering its quality and the movie's running time.
One minor annoyance about this disc is that the subtitles defaulted to on with my DVD player.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
There are five audio tracks on this DVD; English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded 192 Kb/second soundtrack.
The dialogue was mainly clear and easy to understand but there were many times when it was very hard to understand.
There were no audio sync problems noticed.
The musical score is by Maurice Jarre, and it suits the movie nicely.
The surround channel was used frequently, creating a nice, enveloping sound. Of course, being only a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround recording, it lacked the localised and directional effects that are so superb in a good Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. By the way, this point should be taken more as an observation rather than as a criticism of this soundtrack.
The subwoofer was continually used to subtly add bass to most scenes, and was highly active during dramatic sequences that required extra bass.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Even though the video just misses out on being reference quality, it is an exemplary transfer, especially in the area of film-to-video artefacts.
Overall the sound mix is very good but the dialogue clarity is definitely lacking on many occasions.
Extras are limited to Cast & Crew Filmographies.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony DVP-725, using Component output |
Display | Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Onkyo TX-SV919THX |
Speakers | Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1) |