Dances with Wolves [PILH-7001]

I own this box set since 2010 but I've only decided to watch it now... in 2013.
I've already "tested it" before, but as it's the uncut version of the film, you need to find 4 hours of free time in order to fully watch it.

But before you start watching it, you have to open the box set. And I must say, that's one hell of a packaging that Pioneer Japan made for us here.
You could think that a 236 min movie would fit on 4 CLV sides... but no, they had to put it on 5 sides.

You can find that also on the standard NTSC release ID3425OR. 5 must be a better number as 4.

Anyway, 3 Hi-Vision discs in the same box set, made this the biggest Hi-Vision box set ever. And if you want to keep your copy in a collectible condition,
you have to be extremly careful everytime you unpack it... and most of all, everytime you repack it in that darn fragile plastic sleeve with the precious
sticker obi (great idea, I tell you.)

The box set, when packed



The same thing unpacked. List of contents:
- Plastic sleeve
- Digipak cardboard cover (?)
- Digipak 1, holding 2 discs
- Digipak 2, holding 1 disc



Digipak 1, with protective cloth


Digipak 2, with a word about the movie in the inner sleeve,
a nice color insert, some instruction about removing discs from digipak and another protective cloth


Disc 1, side 1... here we go.


So, a little complicated, if you just wanted to watch the movie, but it's truly a beautiful item, each digipak having it's own glossy artwork, front and back.
You can see this edition was made with a lot a care (or love?) and almost 20 years later, you can still feel it.

Setup

In order to be able to view this discs, you need a few expensive items:
- A Muse LD Player (Pioneer HLD-X9)
- A Muse Decoder (JVC HV-MD2)
- An Audio Decoder (Pioneer SP-D07). Optional but helpful to get something good out of A-Mode encoded discs.


And, some company...


Video



This is a picture of my TV screen. As with almost every Hi-Vision LD, the titles, opening & closing credits are clean and sharp.
I've take photos during the first 2 hours of the movie.



I've tried to take some close-up photos with my camera zoom to show how good the picture is.
It looks better on my TV screen as on theses photos, but I hope it gives you an idea of the quality.



Some snapshots of the first hour (side 1) of the movie. Mostly daylight and quiet landscape views, perfect for Muse.










Some snapshots of the second hour (side 2) of the movie. In daylight...




...but also in the night, and surprisingly, the image quality stays almost as good as in daylight.
I've tried to show it on the 2 pictures below, but I'm not sure it's really noticable.



Then again, daylight, with a very good and steady Muse picture quality






Audio

This disc has no EFM Tracks. So the sound is only present in the Muse channel and has to be decode through the Muse decoder.
No sound will be heard through the RCA L/R Output of the player.

Sadly, no A-Mode (3.1) here, only the simple Muse B-Mode (2.0).
Although it suits the movie real good and does a good job, I find nothing special to say about it.

Overall

A beautiful and very unique Hi-Vision set and a clear Muse HD picture with very few compression artefacts.
A must have if you like this movie and own a Muse LD player.

One thing important though, with no CC, no LD-G, just japanese subtitles, it's not possible to get the meaning of the scenes where only native language is spoken.
Unless you can read japanese (I can't) or understand native language (I can't).
So if you're like me, you'll need to have the standard NTSC release ID3425OR in your collection also.

Takou.

Glorious, glorious. Even you're kitty approves of it all.

Nice packing on those MUSE discs if all Laserdiscs can come packed in that way.

nice pictures, i had one of those SP-D07, i think when you're doing LDs that's the only way to go for AC-3, not that
the other units won't work it's that this one will be so much nicer in the shelf.

look forward to the review!!

I use the SP-D07 exclusively for Muse discs.
For all AC-3 LD, I still have a Yamaha ADP-2. Same as ADP-1 but "Gold" to match all the other devices.

Just added some pics to finish my small review.
Hope it helps giving you an idea of what you can get with this release.

I can see tell the picture is great for MUSE but the camera and settings you're using are they mirroring as close as possible. I have to jumble around with settings on my camera to get as near close possible to what I or say yourself would see. Contrast level needs to handled a bit on you're camera otherwise no worse or bad than my quick snap shots off my CRT.

I forget what the other member said about MUSE audio is it discrete LCRS.

The film looked great on large screen at the cinema in 1990 best film I saw of 1990 over the Godfather part III that seemed like 5 hour film, and Dances had a cool Dolby SR film mix with even the softest non action moments it was driven with wonderful John Barry score.

More pictures from Dances With Wolves please. too bad the players go for a lot I wouldn't mind one myself.

very nice pictures, thanks for posting.
do you think MUSE is on par with what format out now?
as good as bluray or slightly less?

thanks for posting this one

@laserbite: Yeah, I'm not a camera specialist... this is close to the best I can do. But maybe I'll manage to improve myself somehow

@rein-o: I would say better than DVD, but not equal to bluray. Maybe on daylight stationary shots, is MUSE close to bluray.
But as soon as it's gets dark, or it's moving fast, bluray is cleary superior.

Ah, and just wanted to show that cue markers are sill here...



And to give a small idea of how wide the box set is, a small comparison with my other Hi-Vision discs. Dances with wolves being on the left end.

Please, you have to tell me about Lawrence of Arabia, I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE MUSE RELEASE.

All I can type is ...... NICE !!!!!
Thanks for sharing the pics......
Just outstanding .........

great collection.
and from what i've read it looks like the cue mark is from the animorphic print.
too bad it didn't last , and we got stuck with bluray , we could still have LDs today

@flcl4evr: Alright, what do you want to know ? I've already seen it, interesting sound in A-mode.
If you also wants some pics, tt could be my next review, but it's time consuming.

@firehorse_44: Thanks

@rein-o: Yeah... LD with 2013 transfer technology would certainly be something.
So MUSE LD with today's transfer technology and maybe a better compression algorithm would really be cool.

I just want to see pictures of the set. I can assume that it's got an ok picture, but I just want to see if it's as extravagant as Dances with Wolves. I'm already drooling over the fact that you have. I am infinitely jealous.

takou

I'm not being critical I know it takes a little playing around with settings even on my camera to get near or close.

I like that Que Dot on Dances does it have them all the way though the film? I can't recall if the VHS letterbox edition I have has them, as I have it on R2 DVD which is recoded at the same NTSC speed which is odd? And the bluray edition.

Should the Que Dots be entered into this thread. viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2206

Yep, and a whole lot of them!

I wonder if the other editions on Laserdisc have the Que Dots as well? Cheers for that.

Ok, will do.
But if I take the time to unpack it, I might do a whole review as well.

Thanks for taking the trouble to post some great pictures from your MUSE Hi-Vision collection. It isn't something you get the chance to see very often.
I've only 1 MUSE disc which I got with an HLD-X9 but no MUSE decoder so I have never been able to watch it. I actually doubt if I'll ever purchase
a MUSE decoder as my main interest lies in conventional music laserdisc titles. One MUSE title is just a nice thing to have to illustrate the history of the format and the fact it managed to pre-date current HD formats that everyone takes for granted by almost 15 years.

I wasn't aware of the huge difference in the thickness of some of the titles available which is very apparent when you show the spines side by side on the shelve.
It also illustrates the slightly different colour coding used throughout the lifespan of the format.

Whilst the packaging is easily the most lavish I've ever seen, I'm glad this wasn't adopted as a standard for conventional LD releases as it just isn't practical for regular use. I'm a very fussy collector who would never handle sleeves directly to avoid fingerprints, yet I find MUSE packaging simply too fragile and intricate for even my tastes.
I can only imagine how battered most sleeves would be if you were buying conventional LDs off Ebay packaged in this fashion since the average consumer has no idea how to care for such packaging.

Great to see it though and in such beautiful conditon!

And in fact some MUSE discs, such as the Test Disc, were released in more conventional packaging.

True.
Jumanji, as the last "film" Hi-Vision release, being the most "Standard LD Like".


I was lucky to find one sold as "new/never opened" on ebay.
Although you can never know for sure, as MUSE LD were not sealed, I did got a beautiful set.