Firstly, apologies for revisiting a dormant thread. I received my Wing Commander Region 2 DVD over the weekend and have taken some screenshots from it and the Region 1 version. On the whole, I would agree with everything that's been said about the R2 DVD in this thread so far.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Packaging & Artwork
The R1 (US) and R2 (UK) DVD cover art is identical on the front, however the R2 DVD has a noticeable PG symbol (~1cm squared) in the bottom right hand corner. The backs are essentially the same, with the same three stills and story blurb. The R2 version does not have the image of a Kilrathi Destroyer (which is "inverted" on the R1 back cover) jumping into Sol though. About half-way down the R1 version a brief box lists the Bonus Features. The R2 version does not list any Bonus features, although about two-thirds of the way down the back cover it goes on to list the technical specifications in the typical format, i.e Run Time, Language, Subtitles, etc.
Opening the R2 cartridge reveals no additional printed material, however the inside of the front cover contains a list of the various scene selections. The R2 DVD itself has colour artwork in a similar motif to the front cover. The R1 cartridge includes a roughly A4-sized, folded, colour insert with Scene Selections and main character/actor biographies. The DVD however, has no artwork, just a reflective silver finish and black lettering of the film's name.
Menu System & Bonus Features
The R1 DVD includes a suitably styled, interactive menu system with various minimal animations and transitions between menu screens, complemented by sound effects and background music from the film. Each scene is referenced with a thumbnail image and title description. The R1 release includes a brief two-slide image of the main characters/cast, as well as the original theatrical trailer and two tv spots -- all are in 4:3 aspect ratio.
The R2 DVD is more sparsely designed. It includes a simple, but effective static menu system with no animations. The scene selections show a small image thumbnail, but no scene title. The R2 DVD has no bonus material.
Visual & Audio Quality
As I only have a standard 60cm 4:3 SD television and fairly basic DVD player with no home theatre setup, I did most of my testing on the PC. Having said that, both releases are very watchable on the tv setup, with no significant differences between them -- pausing and slow-tracking showed clean visuals and the output of both versions was good, however the R1 version is only just slightly less smooth in terms of playback than the R2 version, due to my multi-region DVD player having to convert from NTSC to PAL for playback on the tv. Sound was crisp, even from the tv speakers.
Region 1
When viewing on my PC, the extent of the audio and video quality is more apparent. My destop resolution is 1400 x 1050 (refresh rate 100Hz) and playing the R1 DVD through PowerDVD 6.0 engages a native resolution of 704 x 480 with black lines above and below the picture -- aspect ratio is 2.35:1. At that resolution the transfer seems quite good and sharp detail is evident in many of the brighter scenes. Enlarging to full screen and pausing/slow tracking reveals areas of rather low detail and some blocking, particularly in the darkly lit scenes.
Average bit-rate according to the PowerDVD information overlay is roughly 5 megabits per second (mbps), with much of the film hovering between 4mbps in dark, static scenes to about 6.5 mbps in light and dynamic scenes.
Audio quality on the R1 release is good, the dialogue is clear and the sound effects are conveyed well through my 5.1 speaker system on the pc.
Region 2
The R2 DVD is anamorphic 2.35:1 and starts in a native resolution of 1024 x 576 in PowerDVD. The transfer appears very similar to the R1 release, although more detail is evident upon inspection. This is further visible when enlarging to full screen relative to the R1 release. I could pick out some minor blocking in a few scenes, but this did not seem as extensive as the R1 release, atlhough again both releases offer a decent image quality apparent upon viewing and these disparate compression artifacts are noticeable only upon much closer inspection. So, while I would say that the R2 release does offer better image quality, the difference is generally quite marginal and probably won't be immediately apparent to most viewers.
As Loaf mentioned, an HD version has been broadcast (on Fox? In which case I would assume it to be 720p?) and such a version, hopefully coming soon on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, would definately offer significantly better quality with higher resolution and simply more definition -- the difference would be very clear.
The average bit-rate for the R2 release, according to the PowerDVD information overlay, is very similar to the R1 version, with an average of about 5 megabits per second (mbps), with much of the film again between 4mbps in low-light, static scenes to about 6.5 mbps in well-lit and dynamic scenes.
The audio quality on the R2 release seemed to be of the same good standard as the R1 release. I couldn't detect any obvious areas where the pitch correction was off or out of sync.
Missed Opportunities
As far as I can tell, the R1 release is a single sided, single-layer DVD, i.e DVD5 (like the R2 version) although I feel that it could have benefitted from a Superbit rendition. I realise that the Superbit term is specific to Columbia Tri-Star IIRC, it just would have been nice if Fox could have released a dual-layer (DVD9) version in either Region with the film essentially utilising the full 8.5GB's, seeing as they decided not to added any significant bonus material. It could have been done on the quiet and we would have had an effective superbit release. However, given the film's running time (96 minutes for R2 and 100 minutes for R1) and the lack of any extras (minimal on R1), the film can be encoded to produce decent quality on just the single layer and I would think that this was ultimately decided on from a business perspective, although I doubt that a dual-layer R2 version would have been anything more than marginally more expensive than the current R2 version. DVD9 disk costs over DVD5 would probably be negligble, I would think that the only extra cost would be the re-authoring/encoding from the digital master.
The lack of any bonus material (apart from the trailer and tv spots on the R1 DVD) such as the standard behind the scenes features, commentary tracks, deleted scenes, etc is disappointing, but hopefully this will be remedied in the eventual HD DVD release. I suppose we could also hope for a Director's cut with the traitor sub-plot and other cut scenes inserted.
R1 Technical Specifications
- DVD5 - Single Sided, Single Layer
- 2.35:1 Non-Anamorphic NTSC
- English 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 2.0 Dolby Surround
- Running Time: 100 Minutes
- Interactive Menus
- Scene Selection
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Original Television Spots
- PG-13 Rating
R2 Technical Specifications
- DVD5 - Single Sided, Single Layer
- 2.35:1 Anamorphic PAL
- English 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 2.0 Dolby Surround
- Subtitles: Dutch & English for the hearing impaired
- Running Time: 96 Minutes
- Static Menus
- Scene Selection
- PG Rating
Region 1 Screenshots
http://img156.exs.cx/img156/2064/wcmdvdr10029qz.jpg
http://img109.exs.cx/img109/3852/wcmdvdr10185sz.jpg
http://img109.exs.cx/img109/2467/wcmdvdr10287iv.jpg
http://img154.exs.cx/img154/9638/wcmdvdr10293ca.jpg
http://img113.exs.cx/img113/975/wcmdvdr10546yz.jpg
http://img113.exs.cx/img113/2207/wcmdvdr10703pb.jpg
http://img159.exs.cx/img159/6619/wcmdvdr11124ni.jpg
http://img92.exs.cx/img92/9144/wcmdvdr11144vb.jpg
http://img113.exs.cx/img113/7793/wcmdvdr11369fm.jpg
Region 2 Screenshots
http://img137.exs.cx/img137/6244/wcmdvdr20028wi.jpg
http://img52.exs.cx/img52/8225/wcmdvdr20110gp.jpg
http://img155.exs.cx/img155/6526/wcmdvdr20269qm.jpg
http://img46.exs.cx/img46/7531/wcmdvdr20358vz.jpg
http://img46.exs.cx/img46/7486/wcmdvdr20418pr.jpg
http://img147.exs.cx/img147/8990/wcmdvdr20537mo.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/6645/wcmdvdr20882zx.jpg
http://img78.exs.cx/img78/1149/wcmdvdr21010wh.jpg
http://img147.exs.cx/img147/3425/wcmdvdr21052ka.jpg
http://img129.exs.cx/img129/2786/wcmdvdr21369aa.jpg
http://img8.exs.cx/img8/4337/wcmdvdr21408lx.jpg
http://img39.exs.cx/img39/9766/wcmdvdr21633eg.jpg
http://img126.exs.cx/img126/6978/wcmdvdr21688bf.jpg
I took about 145 screenshots (704 x 480) from the Region 1 DVD and 170 (1024 x 576) from the R2 DVD. Combined size is about 56.5MB (19.1MB for R1 and 37.4MB for R2) @ 100% JPEG Compression. I'll try and upload a zip pack if anybody's interested.
Cheers,
BrynS