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Sanjay
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:18 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2001 1:14 pm
Posts: 2256
Location: National Capital Region (India)
Title: Kurbaan
Year: 2009
BD Release: June 2010
IMDB Rating: 5.4
Category: Action | Crime | Drama | Music | Romance | Thriller
Distributor: T-Series
Authoring House: ?
Region Coding: A/B/C
MRP: Rs 999/- <-- Price is way too high. T-Series seems to be following Eros in fleecing it's customers.
Media: Main Feature - 50GB BD
Running Time: 02:41:16 hrs
Chapters: 19
Video:
2.35:1, HD 1080p 16:9, AVC 24Hz
Peak Bitrate 37.1Mbps | Average Bitrate 33Mbps
Audio:
1/2 Hindi - Dolby Digital 5.1 (48Khz 640kbps) <-- Default Track
2/2 Hindi - DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48Khz)
Subtitles: <-- NOT 2.35:1 Screen Friendly (Positioned below the picture area)
1/1 English. <-- Subtitles are on by default :stupid:
Special Features:
NONE

Special Mention:
SHAME ON T-Series, for putting their highly distracting RED LOGO 'Watermark', for the duration of all songs and also several other times during the movie, for 'One' minute durations each time. <-- 'T-Series' has reached a NEW LOW in putting watermarks on a Blu-ray disk. T-Series continues to be the only company continuing with this abhorrent practise. Not only does this Blu-ray need to be boycotted for the 'watermarks' but now also for the excessively high price. We must all write to T-Series and let them know that we are boycotting this title for these reasons.
No Ring tones advertisement. <-- But this is only because, 'Sony Music' owns the rights to the music soundtrack and not T-Series.
No advertisements, forced or otherwise, during the movie. <-- All Bollywood Video companies, please take note.
No scrolling advertisements during songs. <-- All Bollywood Video companies, please take note.
Separate 'Song Menu' to allow direct selection of song. <-- This should be a no brainer for all Bollywood films.

Authoring/Encoding screw ups:
1. The English subtitles are turned on by default.
2. The lossy and totally redundant Dolby Digital audio track is the default selection.
3. The video is incorrectly encoded in 24 frames/s instead of the correct 23.976 frames/s.
4. The 'Songs Menu' links to a seperate audio/video stream, where all the songs are presented as one continuos title.
5. The seperate audio/video stream is encoded at higher bitrates than the 'primary' audio/video stream.
6. The 'audio mix' on the seperate audio/video stream is different from the main feature.
7. 'All dialogues' are incorrectly mixed into only the 'front left' channel, totally ruining the sound field.
8. The 'Chapter Menu' has all the chapters incorrectly titled 'one' number behind, what should be 'Chapter 2' is titled as 'Chapter 1'. Thus, the link for 'Chapter 1' brings up 'Chapter 2' and so and so forth.
9. The 'Pop Menu' closes only 20 seconds after making a selection instead of closing immediately upon making a selection.

Review:
'NOT RECOMMENDED'
Detailed Comments to follow.

ImageImageImageImage

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Screenshots Courtesy 'DDR'

My ratings: <-- Preliminary ratings based on a quick overview of the Blu-ray.
Movie: 3.0 out of 5.0
Video: 4.25 out of 5.0
Audio: 4.0 out of 5.0
Extras: 0 out of 5.0
Overall: 2.75 out of 5.0

Equipment used for testing:
Projector: Panasonic PT-AE2000U
Screen: Da-Lite 4:3 120" 'Model B' - White Matte
Viewing Distance: 11' 6"
A/V Receiver: Denon AVR5800
Speakers: 5.1
Front/Main: Paradigm Reference 100 v2
Center: Paradigm Reference Studio CC v2
Rear: Tannoy - Mercury M5
Subwoofer: Paradigm Reference Servo 15
BD Player:
Oppo BDP-83 (Hardware Modified 'Region Free' with 'BDP83-50-0424' firmware)
PS3 (80GB US 'Region A' with firmware v3.30)


Last edited by Sanjay on Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:30 am, edited 8 times in total.

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Zoran009
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:36 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2001 5:53 pm
Posts: 14989
With these kind of films running @ RS 1000, i do not see this crappy blue business running very long life! :shock:
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sasural
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:19 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Posts: 454
Location: USA
Zoran009 wrote:
With these kind of films running @ RS 1000, i do not see this crappy blue business running very long life! :shock:

That is because it is being replaced with 3D (will die before giving birth)
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Sanjay
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 6:47 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2001 1:14 pm
Posts: 2256
Location: National Capital Region (India)
I don't think 3D is an issue, but by laying a burden of such high prices, companies such as T-Series and Eros will surely kill this business. Although, T-Series seems to be simply trying to ape Eros on this one. But, without realizing that Eros's primary business comes from overseas, where Rs. 1000/ is only $22 and which is only a few dollars more than the price of a DVD. Thus Eros's policy simply stems from trying to protect their overseas business by keeping the same prices in India. But T-Series only caters to the Indian market, where an average new title on DVD costs between Rs. 100 - Rs 200. Thus pricing their Blu-rays at Rs 1000/- in India, is downright stupid. There is absolutely no doubtr left in my mind that companies such as T-Series are actually run by a bunch of dimwits, who have absolutely no brains whatsoever.
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Zoran009
PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 10:59 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2001 5:53 pm
Posts: 14989
Sanjay wrote:
I don't think 3D is an issue, but by laying a burden of such high prices, companies such as T-Series and Eros will surely kill this business. Although, T-Series seems to be simply trying to ape Eros on this one. But, without realizing that Eros's primary business comes from overseas, where Rs. 1000/ is only $22 and which is only a few dollars more than the price of a DVD. Thus Eros's policy simply stems from trying to protect their overseas business by keeping the same prices in India. But T-Series only caters to the Indian market, where an average new title on DVD costs between Rs. 100 - Rs 200. Thus pricing their Blu-rays at Rs 1000/- in India, is downright stupid. There is absolutely no doubtr left in my mind that companies such as T-Series are actually run by a bunch of dimwits, who have absolutely no brains whatsoever.

Sanjay, I doubt people pay $22 on average bluray here in USA, even hollywood releases, nevertheless, catalogue titles are always cheaper and dvd, bluray, same day, not after months, a lousy job, on a film, that does not even seem like a good family view! More so, in India people would like to not even pay RS 99 for dvds, bluray, might be RS 220! :D
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Sanjay
PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 2:37 am 
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Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2001 1:14 pm
Posts: 2256
Location: National Capital Region (India)
The admins or should I say one admin, namely 'pro bassonist', has taken offence to my posting links to reviews posted on Zulm.net. I am reproducing the related post here. In case he decides to censor/delete the post as is so common on that forum.
http://forum.blu-ray.com/3372007-post40.html
Quote:
kskies wrote:
Yes, same here. Thank you Sanjay for being the top reviewer in this sub-forum!
Apparently this post of yours has irked the management of this forum and it seems they now even have a problem, with 'links to reviews' being posted here. I am pasting below, the PM I received from 'pro-bassoonist' and my reply to it. Post (no pun intended) this exchange of PMs, 'my post' containing the link to 'the review', has now been deleted.

pro-bassoonist wrote:
Good afternoon,

The forum's rules and regulations restrict self-promotion.

You are welcome to post your "reviews" on the forum in the dedicated thread for each release.

Thank you.

Pro-B


sanjay0864 wrote:
Hello,

If your reference is to my posting a link to my review in the second thread "Kurbaan - Blu Ray - T-Series (ScreenShots)"; the only reason I did that was because the thread was directly relevant to the review of that title. In any case, the post was not made with any sort of self promotion in mind. Considering that I have nothing to gain, directly or indirectly by writing these reviews, I don't understand why I would need to self promote. Nor do I have any direct or indirect gain from the website that I am posting my reviews at. In fact, the only reason I am posting my reviews elsewhere instead of posting them here as I used to, is because you made it very evidently clear, that reviews other than the one's written by "Official Reviewers" were not welcome. At the very least you made it quite clear, that independent reviews were not encouraged and the conditions/requirements that you put forth, were more than just stifling. I am sure you are well aware of the time and effort that goes into writing a review. Thus, it is just not worthwhile to write and post reviews here, just to see them get lost in long meandering threads and therefore not even be accessible to most members. In fact members cannot even find or search for the reviews since there is nothing to even indicate that a review exists.

Anyhow, It's funny how others with clear commercial and personal gain are allowed to post here, while you have issues with my posting a link to my reviews. We are all aware of the absence of 'official reviews' for most Bollywood Blu-ray titles, or should I say the huge backlog of pending 'official reviews'. Considering that, why you would want to deny the members here, one of the only sources of feedback and insight into Blu-ray releases, is beyond me. I suppose as the owner/administrator of this forum, you are free to do as you wish.

Regards,
Sanjay
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desifreak
PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:02 am 
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Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 7:26 pm
Posts: 81
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/bio.php?ID=141
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mhafner
PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 7:32 am 
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Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2001 8:14 pm
Posts: 1086
Let's jus say Mr. Atanasov is not very good at handling opinions he does not agree with and he's more than willing to ban people from the site when they question his knowledge and judgement. :wink:
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Sanjay
PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:03 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2001 1:14 pm
Posts: 2256
Location: National Capital Region (India)
mhafner wrote:
Let's jus say Mr. Atanasov is not very good at handling opinions he does not agree with and he's more than willing to ban people from the site when they question his knowledge and judgement. :wink:
You are quite right about this. For, his problem with me is quite personal it seems. It started with my once having sent him a PM, correcting him on some errors in his 'Monsoon Wedding' review. He had in the review referred to the Hindi language as 'Hindu'. From the tone of his reply, it was quite evident that he did not like being corrected. Subsequent to that it has become very evident from his dealings with me that in his mind there is one and only one opinion which counts, which is his. His approach towards moderating the 'C section' of that forum, is nothing short of dictatorial. In fact, many a time his attitude and demeanor, has bordered on the verge of being classified as racist. Statements such as "the 'C section' needs to be dealt with differently from the rest of the forum, since you people are not capable of behaving yourself or with the same responsibility as the other sub-forums and therefore there are seperate rules for you guys".
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mhafner
PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 7:39 pm 
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Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2001 8:14 pm
Posts: 1086
Stills look uneven. Some look good, others show ugly artifacts from some kind of noise filter/DNR. :(
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