Arrow Releasing Demons & Demons 2 On Blu!

[X-human]

Overall this is good news but while it looks like this came from an excellent master Arrow has unfortunately bit-starved what has easily been their best two transfers to date:

Hints of just what’s wrong with Arrow Video’s Blu-rays of Demons and Demons 2: The Nightmare Returns begin with the disc specs themselves (these are both single layer treatments), but even that can’t explain the depth of what’s wrong here. The sad fact of the matter is that no label mangles their properties at the authoring level so regularly, so willfully, as Arrow Video does. They dependably do less with acceptable average bitrates than I’d have thought possible, and unfortunately the average bitrates here are a sight lower than that. Demons fairs the best overall, though its video stream only occupies a distinctly low 12.2 GB on disc. The 89 minute feature is Mpeg-4 AVC encoded at a middling average video bitrate of 18.0 Mbps, and compression artifacts are plentiful. The milky blacks regularly split into swaths of blocking, and the integrity of the film texture is compromised throughout. The 91 minute Demons 2: The Nightmare Returns goes lower still, receiving an Mpeg-4 AVC encode at an average video bitrate of just 15.6 Mbps, and its compression problems are more prevalent for the trouble. While I didn’t feel that either film looked especially bad in motion (even as poorly encoded as they are, these transfers can look very strong), the encode issues were still obvious enough in playback to trip my irate critical triggers – looking at the image up close is as disappointing an experience as I’ve had in a while.

http://wtf-film.com/site/2012/05/06/...ouble-feature/

Something Weird Video has been guilty of the same thing, turning the bit rate down real low and leaving a half empty 25GB disc. So it's not even a cost cutting measure because the bit rate being that low doesn't save them any money. Baby steps I suppose. Baby steps.

I'm probably going to buy these as it seems unlikely Demons will reach our shores any times soon. Although I said the same thing about Battle Royale.

[othervoice1]

I ordered the steelbook from Amazon UK but I won't get it until next month because I also ordered the ROTLD BD and chose to have both delivered at the same time.

Same here - since ROTLD got delayed I cancelled my previous order and then combined it with the Demons steelbook

[sinister]

I've only watched Demons so far, pic quality is OK but the sound is disappointing being only mono. The old Japanese laserdisc I had was in Dolby Stereo and was much better audio wise.

I don't have the Jap LD anymore but I wonder if it would be possible to rip the PCM audio from the LD and create a better Blu-ray version.

<edit> Oh, from one of the review links above:

Arrow have stated that they were unable to synchronize the Dolby Stereo tracks and have used mono English and Italian tracks. Whatever the quality of the Blu-ray's LPCM mixes (see Blu-ray comments), this is disappointing since the film's original mix is Dolby Stereo.

[Katatonia]

Demons 2 screen comparisons: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-r..._2_blu-ray.htm

[Robert Simandl]

Interestingly enough, the audio for D1 is stereo if you pick the Italian track and use the English subtitles.

But I was surprised to find the Italian dialog does NOT sync with the video any better than the English track does. Both tracks were apparently overdubbed after the fact.

[Zombie Dude]

Originally Posted by Robert Simandl

Interestingly enough, the audio for D1 is stereo if you pick the Italian track and use the English subtitles.

But I was surprised to find the Italian dialog does NOT sync with the video any better than the English track does. Both tracks were apparently overdubbed after the fact.

I think a lot of these Italian movies are dubbed over as the actors speak many diffident languages. American actors will speak English while other actors may reply in Italian or another language. Then it's just dubbed over. I think it was talked about on the Suspiria dvd.

[Demoni]

Originally Posted by Robert Simandl

Interestingly enough, the audio for D1 is stereo if you pick the Italian track and use the English subtitles.

If we remove the English subs it´s not stereo anymore?

[kingtut13874]

Hey guys is anyone having problems playing their Demons 1 and 2 Blu rays? I have a Region Free Sherwood 5004 - all my other Arrow BDs and imports play fine - but these won't work. Any suggestions? Thanks!!