Jodhaa Akbar has been released on DVD by BIG HOME VIDEO in India.
This too is a 3-disc set, and maybe the same transfer as the UTV released abroad.

Geez dude, bad time of the month or something?

Ali

This too, sadly, is non-anamorphic. Some shots from the Big Home Video / Big Music And Home Entertainment DVD:







who's nasreen?

No...some people just have no honour - that's all that referred to.

Nasreen Munni Kabir is an Indian/British documentary filmmaker and producer. She directed 'The Inner & Outer World Of Shah Rukh Khan' and produces an annual season of Indian films for the UK's Channel 4, all of which she subtitles herself.

She is an excellent subtitler and this is tremendous news that finally an Indian DVD will have a professional English translation. It's such a shame though that the DVD in question is also one of the most otherwise backwards in recent years thanks to this non-anamorphic rubbish.

thanks stephen! for the info on nasreen munni kabeer.
yes, sad that jodhaa akbar has been released non-anamorphic letterbox on dvd. very disappointing indeed!

nevertheless, here are a couple of JANAMASHTAMI (being celebrated today/tomorrow) special shots from the BIG HOME VIDEO dvd of Jodhaa Akbar:

REGRESSIVE FOOLS!

thanks.. hehe.. you make me laugh!!

regards

The price of this DVD is really low compared with other new releases. I wonder if UTV were fully aware of the screw-up earlier in the process and hence have priced it accordingly. Either that or they are ensuring that anyone who buys will double dip if a BD is released.

I haven't seen the movie yet - but I'm in no hurry to get this DVD as it's not worth wasting 3.5 hours watching a poor quality image (unless it's a Guru Dutt movie or someting very rare) - oh and UTV are a bunch of knobs for letting this movie get released in such a shoddy way.

If this movie gets released on Blu Ray while leaving the UTV version as the only DVD option, does anyone think this is a conspiracy between Sony and UTV to get Indians to convert to Blu Ray? Here is one of the most professionally-made epic Indian films in recent times - it's a pretty good title to get people to convert....ironically, the idea of "technology conversion" would be hippocritical due to the theme of this movie - let all religions/people live together in peace - come on, let DVD and Blu Ray live together in peace!;)

That's right on the money. Unless the material presented is 4x3 there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever make a DVD without anamorphic. UTV & BIG Home Video have really screwed up this DVD big time. Watching this on a 106" screen is absolutely painful. Compared to this crap from UTV, even the normal Yash Raj DVDs look very good. It is a real shame when companies like BIG Home Video, a company owned by Anil Ambani no less, cannot put out a half decent product. After all it's not like they don't have the funds to compete with the best, if only they had that desire.

Another thing, the audio seems too front centric to be correct. The surround speakers are active for no more than maybe 5 minutes in this 210 minute plus movie. I find it hard to believe that a movie of this scale could have such a poor audio mix. In fact, the music mix by A.R. Rehman in most films, makes excellent use of 5.1. Whereas, atleast on this DVD, there is absolutely ZERO use of the surround channels in any of the songs, including 'Azeem O Shaan Shahenshah'. I must say I have not been this dissapointed in a DVD, in a very, very long time. So is it just a poor job of transferring to DVD or does the sound mix of the movie really suck big time?

So I suppose, you are championing the typical Indian mentality of catering to the lowest common denominator. Based on your logic, we should be prepared to be watching non-anamorphic Indian DVDs with mono sound, until the very last 4x3 tv incapable of a vertical squeeze mode exists. Which presumably would be for atleast another 10-15 yrs in a country like in India. Or better yet, they should be releasing the DVDs in Black & White, after all there are still quite a few of those around in India and as you must be well aware a B&W video is much better on a B&W tv, compared to colour video on a B&W tv. I suppose you must be a very happy man with the excrutiatingly loud 5.0 mono Indian DVDs which have audio mastered catering to the low end television sets in India.

Bottom line is, on a 19"-21" tv, the most common size of tvs in India, does it really matter about a few lines of resolution. I don't think so. Anyhow, without getting into the nitty gritty technical details, you really don't lose very much, if at all, with an anamorphic DVD on a 4x3 tv without vertical compression. That is simply because the non-anamorphic DVD has far less lines of resolution than the anamorphic DVD. Thus with an anamorphic dvd played on a 4x3 tv even without vertical compression, you still end up with approximately the same lines of resolution in the picture area, as you would get from a non-anamorphic DVD. The dropped lines are basically the ones that had been gained from the anamorphic transfer which utilizes the resolution of the entire 4x3 frame unlike the non-anamorphic DVD. Basically there is no real difference for the 4x3 tv without linear compression, the only difference being between losing the resolution at the time of transfer or losing it at the time of playback.

no i am not championing anything -- i am as disappointed by the jodhaa akbar dvd as any other zulmi. What i was saying was it's always good to be well informed before taking up sides or trashing something -- which is not to say that bad products should not be trashed -- yes they should be -- but we should be well informed on what we are fighting for...

DCH BR not before spring 09. UTV is not involved.

looks like the dvd authoring was neither done by utv nor by BIG -- it was Ashutosh G's decision all the way... and both have used the same source material.