Video


Presented in a slightly cropped aspect ratio of approximately 2.29:1 and anamorphically enhanced, the video is in NTSC with progressive encoding. The transfer is quite pleasing with vibrant colours and good brightness levels. Contrast levels are a little high with dark scenes not having as much detail as they could. There's a fair amount of dirt and speckles during certain parts (mainly edit points), but never does it become obtrusive. Image is steady, but a little soft – however, this could be a result of how it was filmed as mentioned in the above review. Finally, there's a slight amount of MPEG compression artifacts present, but considering the film is three hours long with over an hour of extra material, it's amazing this wasn't a much bigger problem. All in all, this can't hold a candle to the best DVD transfers used for the biggest Hollywood blockbusters, but it is still one of the nicest-looking Bollywood discs on the market.


Audio


The Hindi 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track featured is wonderful. Everything is clear and distortion-free for the most part with just the occasional crackle. The rear speakers are made good use of, particularly during the song sequences when the sound really comes alive.

Ratings;
video 7/10
audio 8/10
extras 6/10
overall 8/10

I had this DVD for a while. It is indeed a reprocessed version of the anamorphic YRF release - and an interlaced one at that. I didn't think the higher bitrate made much difference to the PQ and the English subtitles were also below par compared to the YRF DVD.

i'm pretty sure the Sony DVD is progressive. i counted 24 steps with my dvd player.

Why would anyone want to own this DVD in the first place?

Why would anyone want to own this DVD in the first place?