Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2001 3:16 am
Posts: 4259
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Columbia Films is a Tamil VCD producer based in Malaysia and they've entered the DVD world. I rented two of their titles, Puthiya Paravai and Adimai Penn. How have they done?
Puthiya Paravai (1964)
Video quality is horrible. The print they used has washed out whites, dull colors, and lots of scratches and nicks. To add insult to injury, there are terrible noise reduction artifacts. It is a small step up from VCD, but far from acceptable DVD quality. They have the audacity to put "negative transferred material" on the back. It could have been a much sharper picture. Plus, some scenes have an inappropriate blue or green tint, which does not look intentional. Aspect ratio is original 1.33:1. A yellow and red CF logo is at the top left corner of the screen the entire time.
They've included three audio tracks here. A Dolby Digital 5.1 mono track, a 2-ch Dolby Surround track, and a DTS 5.1 mono track. Yes, DTS. I don't have surround sound so I do not know whether only the center channel is active on the 5.1 tracks or it is mono in every channel, but the sound is muffled and hiss is present. The DD tracks are both out of sync with the video, about half a second ahead. Very annoying.
English subtitles have been included, with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
Adimai Penn (1969)
Video has been transferred from a VCD, so there are lots of compression artifacts. And of course, it is noise reduced to hell. Again, colors are dull, sharpness is nonexistant, and resolution is low. The CF logo is also on this one.
The same audio options DD 5.1, DD 2.0, and DTS 5.1 are included, and the quality is about the same.
The same type of poorly created English subtitles are included.
Looks like Ayngaran's place as the only good Tamil DVD producer is save. Columbia Films' DVDs are worse than Pyramid's DVDs. And Pyramid produces absolute crap, so that is saying a lot. Do not buy! 
Edited By DragunR2 on 1039208305
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