Hi there. Recently I got a french Bodega release of Mohabbatein DVD. A 2 DVD set with the movie split on 2 discs(split exactly at the interval point) and half of extra features on 1st and half on 2nd disc(all features same as on that of YRF). It has got both Hindi Dolby 5.1 and Hindi DTS tracks and subtitled only in French lang. I could not spot evident difference in sound apart from the fact that DTS encoded is a bit louder than the dolby track.

Following is the cover image taken from Amazon.fr


The menus stills (taken from ecranlarge.com)





Below are some comparison screenshots that i have myself taken in win DVD. The most obvious difference is in the resolution size itself. Bodega has a 1024 by 576 size but the YRF version is in 852 by 480 size. Due to this reason, the BODEGA SHOTS ARE LARGER IN SIZE THAN THE YRF SHOTS. Other differences are that the Bodega Release has enhanced contrast and more vivid colours and also it is slightly cropped from left and right but does not lose any vital information.

For every shot I have given my layman comments. As I am not a technical expert and only a learner from u all writing comments on zulm. I have posted shots for the first time on zulm. So All of u r welcome to give value addition in helping me to decide which version is better.

The order for every shot- 1st one is Bodega and the 2nd is YRF:-




On the YRF for the duration when credits are rolling, there are visible vertical black bars on both sides of the frame. This may be because of the result of cropping from left and right by Bodega. This is clearly evident in the above shot. In YRF Strangly the Bars appear only for the duration when the opening credits roll and never before or after it.




The above is a total night shot in order to compare dark details. The only thing I could spot in this shot was that the Black is deep and better defined in Bodega while the YRF one is a little brighter with more compression artifacts visible on the brighter black.




The above shot was the only exceptional frame where a vertical black bar was visible on the right end of the screen other than during the opening credits. This was not the case with bodega being cropped, exactly covering this bar in effect. Secondly one major difference visible is the sharpness and details level being very good on YRF release and the Bodega just looks pale with quite a soft and smooth image. Just try to see the windows of the building and u know what i mean.




Due to increased contrast in Bodega, one may be loosing finer details but to me, looks like for some scenes it works well with the theme of the movie. For eg in the above scene the higher contrast gives an impression of a better amount of sunlight, giving Narayan Shankar that "Surya Namaskar" feel in a grand way. At the same time, see how the details of curves and folds of both the actors' costumes is better in YRF because of accurate contrast level.




The above scene is a good example of clear difference between the two- the cropping is clearly seen in terms of the temple saint on the extreme right in YRF turning entirely invisible in Bodega. Secondly, see the clouds - the YRF clearly shows the details of grey shades n the clouds where as in Bodega they are milky white.




Another in depth eg of accuracy of contrast level - If u look closely enough, u shd be able to see a mountain range above the slanting treeline from the left of Aishwarya to the left end of the frame. In Bodega the whole part is totally white giving no difference between sky and this mountain range.




The lights at the Back and costumes reflect Vivid colours provided by Bodega- Lacking in YRF but can be forgiven by reason of orginal color reproduction done by YRF.


The DVD is PAL and with 4% PAL speed up the duration at the back of cover says 207 mins as opposed to actual 216 mins on YRF NTSC. I cud easily solve this problem by playing the DVD in win DVD 6 and checking the box of 'Pal tru speed playback' in set up. Thereafter the PAL DVD plays in normal NTSC speed.

Stephen please comment? Where is Fred?

That's a job well done Anurag! Welcome to Zulm

One note -- when you play in win dvd 6 at tru speed for PAL, doesn't the audio go for a toss? It fluctuates wildly between left and right channels, doesn't it?

I'd say the Bodega does have vivid colours but YRF appears to have better contrast...

Thanks for the compliment New Deep. That makes me feel that I have perhaps passed the beginners test among the expert zulmis.

I have till now listened to the Bodega DVD 3-4 times fully on Headphones at varied volume levels and I did not find any such flaw in the audio that u r referring to. The only distractions I can recall could be some jerks at couple of places when listening in tru pal otherwise the audio was well timed. But anyway, I ll listen carefully again and let u know by tom.

Even I have a feel tht YRF is more near to cinematic exhibition but as i said in the Sunlight shot, in some instances, the vivid colors and high contrast seem to gel with the poetic storyline represented thru nature elements. This is ofcourse not true for the whole of the movie.

Many thanks for the screenshots and excellent analysis, Anurag!

This would seem to be identical to the German DVD release by REM (both Bodega and REM have most of their discs authored by a company called Group Of Pictures).

The DVD is a PAL conversion from YRF/Super Digital's NTSC telecine, but done without field-averaging hence the PAL speed-up. YRF's DVD is clearly the better of the two, as the Bodega disc has all the same problems as the Euro versions of KHNH, Swades etc. - over-saturated colours, heavy contrast and soft picture.

Actually, YRF Mohabbatein was one of the better YRF DVDs. It's Progressive, DD 5.1 and Anamorphic. As far as I remember, its bit rate varies a lot, mostly staying at low level, higher for songs. Well, what else can you expect when you try to fit 200 min of video on one disc. Main feature needs to be on 2 DVD-9s or on one DVD-9 and one DVD-5 and then results will be better as a higher bit rate could be used.

Looks like, Bodega too fitted the whole 200 min on 1 DVD, including bit hungry DTS track and hence must be even lower bit rate for video.

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I have yet to see audio deserving or real Digital directional from any of YRF produced films. Hence, whether DD or DTS, means nothing. There may be subtle surrounds, but no deserving directional sounds.

Stephen, can you please comment DTS vs DD soundtrack?

The DTS track wasn't on the German DVD, it's just on the French one which I haven't got. However, so far, all these so-called DTS tracks on the French discs have just been re-encoded from the DD tracks. I'm sure of it, because they never sound any different to me.

DHOOM :idea:

Stephen u can read in the begining of the shots I have written that Bodega has actually split the Film into 2 Discs. But the results were still not successful. One of the main reasons was I think that Mohabbatein just had too many special features on the second YRF disc and Bodega has retained all of them on both the discs. In the effort of fitting it all together, the Bit rate for the main feature has again got messed up.

Simply put, the size of the movie (leaving the menu size)is still less than 8 GB and so therefore splitting on 2 discs does not make any sense unless u give the full freedom to the movie to carry the maximum Bit rate.

The best referene that can be given in this regard is the recent Titanic Collectors edition- The movie being 3 Hr long (ie shorter than Mohabbatein) , was split in 2 discs and thereafter the total movie size from both the discs was somewhere around 12.5 GB. Thats the way it shd be and thats the way Hindi Movies need to be treated.

According to me, The most important reason for the inferior quality of Bodega even after splitting in 2 is this.... When u select the songs from the songs menu, initially everybody thinks that it takes u to the song chapter in the movie. But hell no.... On analysing the discs in DVD shrink I discovered that the guys at Bodega have created a separate title!! for each of the songs and that has infact eaten up more than 1 GB of space on each disc.

The song menu takes u to these titles when the same cud have been done by an appropriate chapter jump. This is blunder when infact the same space could have been used up by the main feature resulting in higher bitrate and better quality.

With practical hearing experience of this DVD in both DTS and Dolby, I 100% agree to what Stephen said. I just found a slight boost in volume but everything else in sound quality was the same in DTS.

You are absolutely right, Newdeep. Dhoom had excellent directional sounds. I had forgotten about it. Sure there are a few other too. Mangal Pandey (not YRF Production though) too had excellent directional sounds. .
But, in majority of YRF produced films, there hardly are any directional sounds even though scenery and 'cost/ prestige of the film' demands it ??. Why to make any extra effort when 99.9% of audience, for the lack of knowing what they are missing, doesn't even notice it. Audiences do notice SRK, AB etc and YRF makes no compromises there.

How does it work? Slower read out from the disc? Is this progressive with any kind of pulldown, or no pulldown?

Thanks Anurag1700, nice comparison I've copied the screen shots onto zulm server. Plus here the same screen shots with the same resolution (Bodega resized using bicubic resampling on Paint Shop Pro);






















Ali