I have a Panny player with Faroudja too and I was not impressed with the PQ at all!
IMO, it is definately way better than EROS crap, but falls short of looking smooth and film like. All the close-ups and medium shots were ok. The long shots looked like crap. I noticed little grain during the night scenes. The night battle scenes did not look good. I guess in this period of horrible dvds, we can't even take chapter stops for granted!!

The sound mix and the DD 5.1 was awesome! It was DEja Vu if you listened to Saving Private Ryan 5.1 mix.

I loved the MAking of .. It was insightful.

I found the movie itself to be ok. Nothing ground breaking. It could use some good editing. If you are going to make Bollywood movie in Hollywood style you have to cut down the running time other wise it will become tedious for the viewer. The effects were pretty good overall. CG helipcopters did not look good. The climbing sequence was decent.

Spiky!! I agree with you here mostly!!

Now I wonder, may be Mhafner got a special custom made 30fps copy, that looks like NON ANAMORPHIC Kadkoundein!!..yum yum!!

Not seen the entire DVD, just a quick glance through to check quality and I would give it at least 7 maybe 7.5. I think the transfer is decent and sounds like (from mhafner comments) a faithful version of the original print. Seems clean and sharp enough to beat anything that comes from Eros, Video Sound and other muppets. Sound is good. Warkmarks are disappointing and don't need to be there. This transfer looks very Ayngaran type but progressive, has the same distinct look (DVDs of 16 December and Lal Salaam had similar transfers but were non-progressive). The colour palette you can debate but without direct comparison with the original print its hard to compare, so I think mhafner is in better position to judge the faithless of that since he has seen both.

Overall it’s a good DVD… alas like numerous others times it’ll be a one off decent DVD that’s thrown into the arena to say that Indian DVD quality is improving. While all the rest release the same old crap

Ali

there are 2 things to consider checking on windvd 5 with forced bob and wave mode the 24 FPS idream DVD 's done by prasad looked very good to me that means their encoding is right to a certain extent as it works well on windvd.

also it depends on how you set your encoder during the encoding process please also bear in mind that now we are talking of prasad but many and i think even now some major hollywood DVD's have wrong pulldown and errors in that area also the GOP (group of pictures )structures in some areas which causes errors in 2:3 pulldown( that is the right term) .This determines the coding effciency because it decides how much data will come in the first frame and how much the next frame has to copy after the first frame +the differnce in the second frame itself and also factors like field sequence etc.

check hometheaterhifi.com they check even this factor in the reviews of DVD titles.

if sufficent time is given then each seq of encoding could be optimised to the max as the encoder has to make many passes to achieve the bit rate and compression needed for MPEG 2 from a HD master and prasad 's current encoders forgot the make are very good i have seen similar stuff in action .so the more passes the enocoder makes the better it analyzes the material and also the setting up the GOP structure and pulldown seq .

In laksya in many areas as i posted earlier there was a lot of grain also it gave it a bad video like appearence even on a good xenon projection system from christie which was old saw it before in a new proj the grain was more apparent mainly shots of driving through kargil opening credits a dusty grainy feel to the sky jeep etc .

kindly post your comments on the above

Let's keep two things apart. The look of the film and the look of the DVD.
Many of you don't like the look of the film and blame the DVD for something it
can't fix. The DVD has problems of its own, but the look of the film is not one of them.
I do NOT like the look of the film prints much. The DI process clearly exaggerated the
grain and gave the film a noisy and somewhat video look. This same look, although
cleaner, is also on the DVD. It's on the DI and HD too, just with less noise.
I wish the film had been color corrected traditionally and we had seen prints off the
original negative (as usual, but it's bad for the negative, of course). It would have
looked quite some nicer. Given the existing master the DVD does a pretty good
job. Not more, not less.

DVDs can only be as good as the source!

For example, we have customers complaining about a white flash line that appears on the top part of few DVDs whenever the shot changes. If one notices, 75% of our movies(in Telugu atleast) have that visible line in theaters which is result of poor cement joint work done by film lab. It's just not too noticeble in theater due to the size of screen. In many cases, the frame gets cut-off on top to remove that line while making a DVD. There are several issues like this with original source that can't be fixed later.

Good thing is the people at Prasad and Mantra are ready to listen to our suggestions and improve their work. Sunny and Mike are well known names at Prasad and they value their feedback and made several improvements on their recommendations!

credit to ZULM!

Well, ali, I never regressed of giving it 7/10, but you again shyed of commenting, if it is AS GOOD AS MK! and BETTER THAN K3G?

Thats my DILLEMA!

I TRUST MHAFNER's judgement for OVERALL QUALITY!

I did say BETTER than MOST!

But I AM CONFUSED with MHAFNER's comparison!!that does not seem to be VALID!

Well, whatever the reason, you can cut it whatever way you guys want!!

IMHO, this DVD does not look as GOOD as ASOKA, MK, LAGAAN and K3G! for WHATEVER REASON!

Film looking BAD in theatre too, might be reason for FLOP!
IMHO..this DVD is FLOP- AVERAGE to GOOD! too!!

If others think this DVD IS SUPER HIT!! I respect their part of opinion!

Based on ur current judgement on Lakshya, ali and mhafner, u should REVISIT ur REVIEWS of MK and K3G dvds! REVISING GRADING:

Lakshya..7-7.5/10
MK..6-6.5/10
K3G...8-8.5/10

** very HARD to digest! though!

Personally I think it's better than the K3G DVD but not as good as Mission Kashmir DVD.

I would group Lagaan, Asoka, Mission Kashmir in one class.

K3G & Mohabbatein (which to me have similar transfers) are lower in quality class group than this.

Lakshya DVD falls in between these groups in terms of quality.

Ali

Mohabtaen is not as GOOD as K3G imho!

I do agree!! K3G being soft transfer, but mhafner said, K3g did look sharp to him, than Lakshya!!

With weighing PROS/CONS here!! K3G, is not as good as MK! I agree!!

Mohabtaen, not as good as K3G! either!

Lakshya, might be between or Mohabtaen or K3G inching close to K3G!
While both have their OWN PROBLEMS!

FILM was SHOT BADLY! with GRAY MURKY LOOK!! so it MET ITS CONSEQUENCES on DVD!

I haven't seen Lakshya yet, so no comment on that.

But, Mohabbatein and K3G are not in the same class as Mohabbatein has very low bit rate.

Of the 5 DVDs metioned here, I'll rate
ASOKA 9
LAGAAN 9
Mission Kashmir 9
(Diaphana DEVDAS 8.8 to 9)

K3G 8.5
Mohabbatein 7 (very low bit rate and soft pic)

If Lakshya DVD (I haven't seen it yet) is similar to the current Ayyangran quality minus the EE and DVNR, it could be somewhere bet 7.5 & 8.5 for those who don't mind EE & DVNR and will score higher who give more importance to "No EE & No DVNR".

But, there seems to be consensus that Lakshya is the best Hindi DVD of a New Film (not counting Meenaxi and Diaphana Devdas) that has come out since Tumko Na Bhool Paayengay more than 2 Yrs ago.

Arsh, I was comparing Lakshya and MK concerning spparent detail and sharpness,
nothing else.
I did not say I liked ithe look overall better than MK.
I like some aspects of the Lakshya DVD and others less.
But when I rate the DVD compared to its faithfulness to the master
(how good or bad that may be) I think Lakshya is closer overall.
You don't like the look of the master anyway. I don't rate how much I
like the look of the film. I like the look of MK more too. Not a DVD issue.
MK strikes me as a below average Columbia-Tristar-Sony DVD.
Nice, but I have seen much better from them.
The MK DVD would look quite some better if it were
done like Lakshya from a state of the art DI from the
camera negative, superbit version, of course.
The Lakshya DVD shows that the DI approach has
tremendous potential. It's just not yet fully implemented.
Have a look at the censor's card. Have you ever seen a cleaner
and steadier card on any Indian DVD? There are other shots in
the film that are rock steady, clean and detailed like the best prints
you can think of, just only with (not quite) DVD resolution.
Imagine all shots were top compressed, there were no EE and ringing
and you can see the potential of showing what the master looks like.
I wish I could see a DVD of Devdas made that way. And the HD of
course. It would be gorgeous.

Who is consensus at here rana ?in ur consideration? Mike and ali only?

The rest whoever commented! had a negative comment!! Now ali, is putting it equal or better to Mohabtaen..that is NOT A VERY GOOD DVD by any means!!

My apologies? I am confused here!!

DEVDAS too, is not on PAR with ASOKA/LAGAN etc! Close ups are good, far shots are NOT!

Now this is altogether DIFFERENT ISSUE! MIKE? that MK, is below average from CT standard! ??? ofcourse!! No question!
But I dont want to go into SPIDER MAN SB vs MK! here!
It shows the BEST dvd authored by PARSAD, i.e Lakshya is not on par with, one of WORST by CT! simple as dat!

But that is NOT THE ISSUE here either!!

Whoever/whatever dvds from hindi cinema are available, irrespective to who authored them, whether EROS/ZEROS or CT the GREAT!!

How do they compare with each other, FAIR and SQUARE!

I dont care SD did it, BEI did it, or whoever!

Lakshya, as a film, even being VERY HIGH on TECHNICAL superiority, PER BOLLYWOOD STANDARD..lack SOUL. imho!! thats why film did not do well!!

Lakshya, even being BRILLIANTLY authored by all possible BEST AVAILABLE means in INDIA! by no MEANS compares equally, to some BETTER AUTHORED HINDI DVDS that fortunately we have out there!!

People liked DCH! but film aside! Imho, it was not a VERY GOOD DVD!

Now Pls dont start comparing to MHN, HUM TUM, MYKSH, MDK, KHAK-EE or LOC!plsss!!


I DONT CALL A DVD VERY GOOD/THE BEST EVER! if someone has said IT IS GOOD! It is only, if it LOOKS GOOD to me too!!

again, IMHO, by no means, LAGAAN and MK are EQUALLY good as ASOKA METRODOME!

Oh, Ok!! This is besides, further coments on Quality aspect of Lakshya dvd!! My hands r up!!

I did check, count steps on my dvd player, Yamaha CX1, it counts 24 full frames per sec, same as MK!

So, Now I seriously DOUBT Mhafner and me dont have THE SAME! dvd!!

We have the same DVD (if you have the official one).
The Sony player just does if differently than other players.
I checked with a Pioneer and it does not show what the Sony shows me.
These streams can be flagged many ways and there are several ways that
do work and produce a correct pulldown at normal speed. And players
apaprently do different things with the same flags.
Fact is a Sony-CT DVD gives me 24 frames and steps per second
and Lakshya gives me 30 with the pattern I described. Other
Indian DVDs give me 60 steps/fields (with correct pulldown) and yet
others give me 60 with field merging. It's irrelevant as long as no player
is misguided by flags or the pulldown out of the player is wrong.
So, we need someone with a progressive player relying on flags only
to see if the flags are incorrect. The other aspect is that I don't
think the are 48 fields stored on the disc but 60 wasting bits on
redundant fields which are needed for better MPEG.