1) Progressive Transfers- I want my DVDs to look good right now on my interlaced TV and player and I want them to look even better played on a progressive TV and player.

2) True soundtracks- I'm tired of this 5.1 mono crap and I'm also tired of 5.1 mixes being mangled on DVD. Let's hear films as they should be heard.

3) Good video transfers- Obviously. No excessive DVNR, no falling apart of the image in dark scenes, less artifacting, better color, etc.

4) Anamorphic menus

5) Meaningful behind the scenes material- every behind the scenes featurette I've seen on Indian DVDs has been bull so far. No information, just the director, producer, and actors gushing over the film and each other. I want to see an onset documentary like on the Criterion discs of "Do the Right Thing" and "The Royal Tenenbaums."

6) Director's commentary- There are some very interesting filmmakers, and I would love to hear Ram Gopal Varma, for example, comment on his own film.

7) Isolated scores, including the songs without vocals

Better subtitling- Subtitles are often awkwardly worded and have many spelling and/or grammar mistakes.

Feel free to add to this list.

Wishfull thinking r2 dragon dude! Pls. wish on the shooting star! regarding hindi dvds!lol!

Instead of them moving forward in DVDs...indian DVD manufacturers are moving backwards!!!!!!

Keep wishing...shaid agle janam mein indian dvds kuch behtar hon



Edited By urbanlegend on July 23 2002 at 18:13

its very rare to get a decent print in the cinema's let alone on the dvd not in our lifetime m8 !!!

More deleted scenes would be nice. And don't just recycle tv featurettes and pass them off as extra material. It's not original. It's be nice to have some DVD-exclusive material as well. Especially in the case of a period film (even more so if it's based off a true story), include some documentaries, and more info on that period.

you guys expect waaaay too much!

enjoy what u have now??

why does everyone want indian dvds to be equal to hollywood?

There's not much to enjoy in Indian DVD, yaar! Eros and Yash Raj hold the rights to so many films, yet, their DVDs are absolutely terrible. While Hollywood DVD quality (both transfer and extras) is getting better, its getting worse and worse for Hindi DVDs. You can't tell me that you don't wish "Company" had a better transfer and something informative on the making of the film.

What Bollywood directors need to do is to start getting involved in the production of DVDs of their films. At least get the directors of photography to supervise and approve the transfers. High profile Hindi films consistently get mediocre video and and often mediocre audio on DVD.

Meaningful extras would show that the company cares, but if they would settle on working on good video and audio quality, I wouldn't mind.

As a collector, i appreciate Hollywood DVDs. First of all for their quality in terms of video and sound. Second, the extras they have, which gives an insight on the movie.Third, the creativity and the input given to the menu and cover design. That what a dvd stands for...quality and content. As for bollywood dvds, they're best left for rental purpose only.

hmm...

i think you guys miss the point:

first and formostely(sic), do hollywood movies come on dvd only 2-3 months after release...?

and consider this : while by indian standards, YR and EROS are big, by western standards they are small

third: the market for indian movies is small compared to hollywood movies. Why should a company spend a billion if it can, at max, make a million off the dvd?

...

i'm not supporting the poor quality, etc. i would love it if good dvds came out - but we should accept that most likely, they will NOT, and we shouldn't dwell too much on them...

Small market doesn't automatically exclude quality. Look at the quality of discs put out by smaller American companies like Anchor Bay, Synapse, Image, and even Criterion. None of these are huge studios, but the quality of their transfers is still quite good. Just look at the following Werner Herzog box set done by Anchor Bay. It is a limited edition, but how many people know who Werner Herzog is?

http://www.amazon.com/exec....1115179

If Anchor Bay can do all this for a German filmmaker with limited appeal in the US, surely Eros can produce a decent transfer for Devdas, which they most likely will not.

I'm not even gonna get into the issues of progressive scan or anamorphic menus. Some of the discs I have don't even have the basic things done right, let alone advanced things like progressive scan. I'd love to see it, but I think the following things should take priority.

1. Proper Aspect Ratio: Stop cropping 2.35 down to 1.85. It looks awful and I haven't read a single post from anyone on this forum who prefers this. This also means no "squishing" of the image!

2. Proper subtitling: Subtitles that are in sync with who is speaking! It makes it very confusing for those of us who don't speak Hindi when Ajay Devgan is speaking while Aishwarya's dialogue is subtitled below. Also, Hindi DVDs have very poorly timed subtitles. Sometimes a line will appear on the screen for about a tenth of a second and vanish before I can even read 2 words! Then, I have to rewind and freeze the picture while I read the subtitle. I have never run into this with any US disc, even from the smallest companies. Also, I wish the trailers would be subtitled as well as the songs.

3. Anamorphic Transfers: Anamorphic transfers have become the norm rather than the exception now with DVD releases worldwide. All new releases should be anamorphic.

4. Use early generation interpositives: Instead of using release prints, why can't they go back to an early generation IP? This is done with almost any R1 release these days and there is no excuse for the horrid scratches on the Eros-B4U release of Dil Se. The print they used looked like worse than some prints I've seen at drive-ins.


I do have to say that after viewing Taal last night, I am extremely impressed with the job Eros did with this film. It looked and sounded flawless, had good subtitling and was in the correct 2.35 aspect ratio. I don't think even DEI would have done it as good (it would've been "squished"). Maybe there is hope for EROS after all??

Jeff

This is because it causes hell lot of money for the producers to make an IP just to release on video when so many theatre run prints are available. Although this money can easily be recovered, our desi dvd companies will behave like the typical desi thug. They simply have no pride in doing a job well...

It is not an advanced issue. This is the normal way of recording for film material (24 fps). The biggest advantage DVD author gets is that only 48 half frames need be recorded instead of 60 half frames per second. It is just a matter of pressing the right buttons, provided you have the film source. Problem is unwillingness, carelessness or the use of Beta masters. Another pathetic cause of loosing the original frames is multi-transfers from NTSC to PAL to back to NTSC and on and on (un-imaginable but it does happen).

Rana



Edited By rana on July 24 2002 at 10:08

Might this be because Subhash Ghai(both the producer and director) was DIRECTLY responsible in authoring this DVD?

Wish more directors took a personal interest in the making of a DVD. All the Hollywood directors do, which is why there is a Director's commentary version of the film.

well Bollywood is low both on professionalism and vision. What they do not realise is that if they start making quality DVDs they could well attract the non-Hindi speaking crowd as well. Just like there is a huge following for all the Hong Kong movies regardless of the fact that most of them overseas do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese.

As they say...if wishes were horses.....

Jeff,
I live in Columbus, OH and it seems you live close to my place(Indianapolis or close) . I invite you to see my setup and compare the difference between progressive sourced dvd to an Interlaced dvd and discuss about Indian movies.