Wah re wah!

German label Rapid Eye Movies have just released a 3-disc collector's box set of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham - and it's fantastic! The film is split over two discs (with the extras on the third) and boasts a brand new 25fps PAL transfer that's sharp, clean and has glorious colour grading. Best of all is the bitrate, which never goes below 7 mbps and has an average rate of 8.75. The Hindi 5.1 audio is also first class with no distortion that I could hear - and it has not been pitch-corrected.

Regarding the packaging, I normally don't care whether it's flashy or not, but even this is impressive...



I can't think of any other Bollywood film that's been given this good a treatment on DVD before. I'd say only the Excel release of Parineeta comes close to bettering it. So kudos to REM! It almost makes me forgive all those crappy DVDs they released before now.

Screenshots:

Here are 2 comparison shots from the REM release for Best of Bollywood .

Great to see new version. I placed an order for this DVD upon seeing the screenshots! 38 euros including shipping.

thank you! makes for an excellent gift.

38 euros? eek. I gotta check ebay for there euro discs for better prices.

At the end of the day, the movie on these discs is still K3G

That does look like a quality package. The shots are impressive. I hope REM can do that for other BW films.

Exactly my first thought, couldn't they have picked a better movie to showcase this kind of transfer

Ali

If only they had re-done Dil Se - I would have been over the moon!

wow!!!
Congrats Stephen for this wonderful discovery!!

Stephen, the title is perhaps revise-able as
K3G 3-disc REM set: Best ever Indian-Movie DVD? [DVD shots]
It's not really an Indian DVD

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About pitch-correction -- it's not an eevil if done properly -- and if done properly, it's great to have -- several PAL discs in Europe, especially of musicals, do fabulous pitch correction, as do some other great movies such as Lord Of The Rings -- I have a PAL pitch-corrected set, and it's flawless... (except for the faint "pops" some people hear on pitch-corrected transfers).

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Was K3G 2.40:1? These shots are 2.38 AR...

True enough, but it's not as catchy. How about 'Bollywood DVD'?



Those faint pops are noticable to me as well and are enough to put me off.



Yup, looks like it.

You are right Stephen, the "Indian-Movie" phrase is not as catchy -- but yes, the "Bollywood DVD" phrase sounds nice

Maybe Yashraj can learn a lesson from this
JAT

Seems they already have. Their DVDs of Chak De India and LCMD have both been very good.

And Dor... no?
I'd say Lagaan too, but clearly some bloggers have questioned the colour hue/tint on the same.

I forgot about Dor - yes, that's another one with comparable quality.

As for Lagaan, I certainly found the colour grading questionable. Sharpness should have been better too since it was meant to be HD-sourced.

my personal pick is R2 asoka, if split on two discs with high bit rate and DTS sound will be amazing dvd!