Lawrence of Arabia [HVMC-12058]

10 minutes less than Dances with Wolves [PILH-7001] and "only" 4 sides for this one.

All Columbia / Tri-Star Hi-Vision release where manufactured in the same way: One big gold Digipak per disc in one big gold cardboard cover.
So, it's always nice, but not as gorgeous as PILH-7001 as you can see on the pictures below.

The box set, when packed



The same thing unpacked. List of contents:
- Plastic sleeve
- Digipak cardboard cover (?)
- Digipak 1, holding 1 disc
- Digipak 2, holding 1 disc
Unlike Dances with wolves, the 2 Digipaks and the cardboard cover have the same artwork.


Fortunately, they made an effort on the back of each Digipak including different pictures of the movies.


Digipak 1, with a nice color insert.


Digipak 2, a little alone. I'm not sure if the protective clothes were also included on this one, but I have none.


And the disc label... where you can read "Disc" instead of "Side"... going from Disc 1 to Disc 4.


And of course, some approval to show that the Hi-Vision release are kitty-proof.


Video

As this release is not chapter encoded, I've only taken some pictures of the beginning of sides 1 & 2
I didn't had much time to take more pictures and many I've taken are not good enough to be shown here.

Picture quality is really good. Although the picture itself is not always perfect and still have some flaws (defects?)
that appears from time to time on the screen (small black dots), like on many other old movies.

Side 1
Nothing moves during the opening credits, therefore it's great for MUSE.
I've tried to takes close up shots of the motorbike (tiny portion of the screen) to give you an idea of the picture quality.




Side 2
Here, another close up, the background is clear and detailed.



During daylight scenes, great MUSE quality, really enjoyable.







Night or dark scenes are, like on other MUSE release, of slight lesser quality.
I was able to take only one good shot of a "darker" scene.


One last close up, on Lawrence face, just great !




Audio

Good surround effects, i.e. during the first scene, with the motorbike, the use of the rear channel puts us on the bike with Lawrence,
and always a great musical score.

The A-Mode 4 Channel soundtrack delivers a very good alternative to an AC-3 soundtrack.
This release also have an EFM Track with a more classic Dolby Surround soundtrack.

Overall

Beautiful packaging, very good picture, interesting sound in A-Mode.
All in all, a good Hi-Vision LD. Too bad they forgot to give us some chapter stops. On a movie this long, it can only help!

Thank you. My attention has been grabbed. DON'T MAKE ME WAIT

Paws of Arabia.

You missed out on the opportunity to say "Pawrence of Arabia"

i look forward to the review of this set.
i own the CAV Criterion release and have to watch it again, it's a great film.
thanks for the pictures so far

I'm really interested to hear what the picture quality is like on this Laserdisc edition since this film was shot in 65mm. The Super-Bit DVD was slathering with edge enhancement and the Blu-Ray looks absolutely stunning beyond belief. I wonder where this Laserdisc lies... Will be interesting to hear...

nice one.

So, I've added some pics and tried to write something about it

Thank you. As a fan of this movie and of anything 70mm, I feel like we missed out on not having anything else 70mm on Muse. It looks like a really solid Muse release.

The pictures are great, thanks for posting them - I had to show the one picture to my 10 cats so they could see that other kitties had video collections too! One of my cats, Little Bits, likes to sleep on top of my Runco LJR-1 player after its warmed up - since the player has no ventallation holes on top, I don't have to worry about the player over heating or getting cat fur in the player.

I really like the "analog" look of the Hi-Vision images - they don't have that hard "digital" look that many BD's can suffer from, and while I saw a small bit of edge enhancement around the motorcycle wheel, it was very smooth and in no way looked harsh. Do you have other MUSE LaserDisc's? If so, could you post more pics and maybe post comparison pics of the same LaserDisc or DVD or BD so we can see how they compare - also, take some pics of frames where the people, etc...are in motion.

I love those digipacks. When Image was planning to introduce Hi-Vision MUSE discs here in the US, they bought a boatload of digipacks in anticipation, but everything fell apart so they ended up using them for the LaserDisc's of Silence Of The Lambs, The Thing and Little Man Tate. The only drawback to them is the wear they take on the hinge and the discs won't always stay on the spindle - I have to use rubber bands around my copies to keep them shut and the disc inside.

It does look like the aspect ratio is wrong though - it was probably transferred from a 35mm Scope reduction print because the aspect ratio should be 2.21:1 and not the 2.35:1 we are seeing in the pictures. At the time the MUSE LOA disc was made, telecines that could handle 65mm film were rare and very expensive. Interestingly, in all the original technical papers about MUSE and it's development, the Japanese recommended 65 or 70mm as the source for transfers since many 35mm sources have lower resolution than MUSE is capable of due to the film weave and jitter introduced when making 35mm IP's and such.

Excellent, thank you so much for the screenshots of the MUSE Hi-Vision LD of Lawrence of Arabia! The quality looks pretty good from what I can tell. Would you say that even despite being an older analog HD format equivalent of about 1080i resolution, that it still beats modern day DVD in terms of picture quality? which after all, even when upscaled, is still at the source just SD unlike MUSE which was HD?

My ! You've also got a cat collection ?!


I own a lot of Muse LD, currently 38, and some new ones are on their way. For LOA or DWW, I only own the MUSE Version, no other LD, no DVD nor BR.
But for others like Cliffhanger, Basic Instinct, T2, Dracula, Death Becomes Her, A Few Good Men, In the Line of Fire, etc..
I still own the standard LD, and the SQZ LD when it exists (twice for T2), but again no DVD nor BR. LD is engough for me.
So I could do some LD / SQZ / MUSE comparison the next time.


It really depends on how good the MUSE transfer was. For LOA, I'd say it beats the DVD quality.
But for other MUSE Discs like Top Gun, any DVD is certainly superior, as the transfer to MUSE is crappy.

Top Notch pics once again takou .......
Just love your feline friend !
Looking forward to the review........
Standing By !

Sorry, I forgot to edit the first sentence of the first post.
Review is done

great pictures, i have to watch this classic again, i own the CAV criterion but this is amazing looking !

This is really interesting to me since there is no way in hell I'll ever have a MUSE setup.

What's cool is that it still looks like LD, just way way better than a standard LD.

It would probably look even better running in person on a good monitor, an interlaced one probably. Whatever capture method you are using doesn't look like its doing an favors.

Yep, you are right, my capture method is not good and it doesn't do justice to the picture quality.

Doah !
Your "Review" leaves the audience hungry for more sir !
Thank you takou.....
And thank your cat !

Do you get good LCR front and surround with this version? I know the soundtrack like off the back of my hand all the sound effects and dialouge panning having seen it in 70mm Dolby SR and twice in 35mm Dolby SR and many times on VHS and then DVD in Dolby 5.1.