Night of the Living Dead...which version is best?

[buck135]

Originally Posted by othervoice1

So basically the Japan and French blu-rays are the best - Japan's is region A so will play on U.S. players correct? The French release is region locked but has better extras? - Im tempted but I hate to plop down 50 bucks for the Japan release when I can get the dvd for 5.00 <: ho hum - still deciding...

You are correct. I was using my PS3 to play my Japanese Happinet blu-ray (movie and extras) before I picked up a region-free player. The french blu-ray has the same transfer, as well as both documentaries ("One for the Fire and "Reflections of the Dead"), however it is region-B locked. My advice is to pick up the Elite Millenium DVD while it's still cheap, and wait until there is a sale on the Japanese Happinet blu-ray again. Hope this helps.

[othervoice1]

Thank you - you have provided some great information <:

[buck135]

Originally Posted by othervoice1

Thank you - you have provided some great information <:

Anytime. Happy to help, especially with this film. Let me know if you have any further questions about any of the other versions on BD/DVD.

[vidjunkie]

Well to me the Forgotten Films version would have been the best if it was not missing the 30+ seconds, I fixed my version but that does not help the rest of you, but the Happinet is nice, but from all I have read the 2 best versions are still slightly cropped on the sides, the Happinet and FF, so my Friends and I are going to try something with this movie and we really hope it works, we are confident it will, I have several different versions of this film on BD, but this is where I need help, which BD has the best image quality but no cropping on the sides? what we plan on doing is matching the 2 up and taking the missing image and putting it onto either the FF or Happinet to make the best damn possible version, we are also planning on for fun taking the color info from the colorized version and making an HD 1080p color version lol we are not sure how this will work but again we are confident we can make this work, who knows until you try right?

Thanks for any and all help.

[buck135]

Originally Posted by vidjunkie

Well to me the Forgotten Films version would have been the best if it was not missing the 30+ seconds, I fixed my version but that does not help the rest of you, but the Happinet is nice, but from all I have read the 2 best versions are still slightly cropped on the sides, the Happinet and FF, so my Friends and I are going to try something with this movie and we really hope it works, we are confident it will, I have several different versions of this film on BD, but this is where I need help, which BD has the best image quality but no cropping on the sides? what we plan on doing is matching the 2 up and taking the missing image and putting it onto either the FF or Happinet to make the best damn possible version, we are also planning on for fun taking the color info from the colorized version and making an HD 1080p color version lol we are not sure how this will work but again we are confident we can make this work, who knows until you try right?

Thanks for any and all help.

IMO, it doesn't get any better than your corrected FF version picture wise. I should have the Austrian version in a few days. I'll let you know if the transfer is any different.

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by buck135

IMO, it doesn't get any better than your corrected FF version picture wise. I should have the Austrian version in a few days. I'll let you know if the transfer is any different.

Thanks buck but the FF and Happinet versions if I am reading everyone correctly at the other forum says that these 2 are cropped on the sides, and I have seen screens showing this, but then members mention other versions that surely do not look as good as the FF or Happinet but at least have the full uncropped image, so my question is, which of these "un cropped" versions is the best? we need to use the best as to have that much less work when we merge the images to make a new and improved image.

Thanks

[buck135]

Regrettably as you mentioned, the gorgeous Forgotten Films and Happinet BD's are cropped. The Network/German Limited BD's aren't cropped, but they look terrible. I'm hoping the Austrian BD I ordered uses a different print, though I doubt it.

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by buck135

Regrettably as you mentioned, the gorgeous Forgotten Films and Happinet BD's are cropped. The Network/German Limited BD's aren't cropped, but they look terrible. I'm hoping the Austrian BD I ordered uses a different print, though I doubt it.

The new German Limited Book is this a non cropped version? the biggest thing I need is to have all frames present on the BD, we need to match them up to get what we need to make the ultimate video.

Thanks

ps. all Network video's are un cropped? if so is there a list of all the "Network" releases?

[buck135]

Originally Posted by vidjunkie

The new German Limited Book is this a non cropped version? the biggest thing I need is to have all frames present on the BD, we need to match them up to get what we need to make the ultimate video.

Thanks

ps. all Network video's are un cropped? if so is there a list of all the "Network" releases?

I'm fairly certain the German limited BD is the same transfer as the Network BD. Of the ten versions of this film that I own, only those two have that print. All the others are the Dimension/FF transfers. Problem with the Network transfer is whoever handled it removed all of the damaged frames causing "jumps" throughout the entire film. It also features vertical lines running through the print. At no point do you feel that this is a high definition transfer of the film. I'd be happy to email you comparison pictures later this evening (cell phone pictures).

[Robert Simandl]

There's a 1080p copy available for free at archive.org, apparently ripped from one of the BD releases.

http://archive.org/details/Night.Of....ing.Dead_1080p

But if Elite ever made a BD of the Millenium Edition, I'd still buy that in a heartbeat.