Barry Lyndon (1975) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Drama |
Theatrical Trailer Menu Audio Collector Card |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1975 | ||
Running Time | 178 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (88:19) | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Programme | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Stanley Kubrick |
Studio
Distributor |
Warner Home Video |
Starring |
Ryan O'Neal Marisa Berenson Patrick Magee Hardy Kruger Diana Koerner Leon Vitali |
Case | Snapper | ||
RPI | $36.95 | Music | Leonard Rosenman |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
Barry Lyndon is a slow, sweeping epic that sedately moves us through the life and times of Raymond Barry, and shows the characters that influenced him and the ones that he influences, not always to the good. In many ways, it is similar in scope to the more recent Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, in that the goal of this movie is not the end of the journey, but the journey itself, and the characters we meet along the way.
Sit down, relax, and enjoy the marvellous storytelling that is Barry Lyndon. And take a little break to refresh yourself during the Interval.
The transfer shows its age, and looks like a transfer of a 23 year old movie. No restoration appears to have been done to this image. The image is variably sharp, and would be best described as a soft picture, which tended to be a little blurred at times, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Shadow detail is passable, but not great. Low level noise and grain is present at times, particularly in wide shots of the sky.
There is a major image skip at 69:01.
The colours were muted and subdued, once again showing the film's age. A number of scenes exhibited intermittently variable colour saturation (71:18 - 74:45, 109:28 - 110:20, 146:58 - 150:55). Red is the only colour that is really well presented.
No MPEG artefacts were seen.
Film-to-video artefacts consisted of numerous and variable artefacts. Telecine wobble was occasionally an issue, with this being particularly a problem in the early part of the movie, which exhibited quite considerable image wobble. Aliasing was a moderate problem at times.
Film artefacts were a more-or-less constant intrusion, with frequent negative blotches, scratches and various other artefacts present in the image. This was perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this transfer, and the most in need of rectification.
In addition to the subtitles listed on the back of the packaging, a German subtitle track is also present.
This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed at 88:19, between Chapters 25 & 26. Surprisingly, this layer change is not placed at the movie's intermission point, which would clearly have been the best place for it. Nonetheless, it is not particularly disruptive.
Dialogue was clear and easily audible, never being drowned out by sound effects.
There were no audio sync problems with this disc.
The music was a combination of classical rearrangements and original scoring from Leonard Rosenman. It had a suitably English feel about it and enhanced the on-screen action nicely. A significant portion of the soundtrack during battle sequences consisted of a slow melody played very effectively and dramatically on timpani.
The surround channels were not used.
The .1 channel was not used.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;
Collectible Card
There is really no compelling reason to prefer one version over the other.
The video quality is borderline acceptable.
The audio quality is acceptable.
The extras are limited.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-505, using RGB output |
Display | Loewe Art-95 (95cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). |
Audio Decoder | Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital decoder. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | 2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer |
Speakers | Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer |