Casablanca

[TMDaines]

Has anyone seen anything about this coming to the UK? Not so much the boxset but rather the new restoration.

Here is the bluray.com review.

The lossless audio is huge here, but does anyone think the PQ difference between this and the 2008 disc is substantial?

I think Robert Harris said something about it only being noticable on 50" screens and above.

[Brian C]

I think Robert Harris said something about it only being noticable on 50" screens and above.

His exact words:

The quality, or at least the grain level, as resolution and detail are minimally affected, if at all, and looked fine on the earlier incarnation, is better than the 2008 counterpart. Those who run their films via projection will appreciate this. Those with 50" screens and less will probably not notice it.

[eerik]

Has anyone seen anything about this coming to the UK? Not so much the boxset but rather the new restoration.

2-disc version is coming out in the Nordic countries so I expect it to be released in the rest of the Europe as well.

[cdnchris]

I don't recall seeing this posted anywhere but I picked up a single-disc version with the new transfer at Target for $14. I don't recall seeing it there last week so I'm not sure if they just got them in this week. I didn't own the other Blu-ray so picked it up, couldn't complain at that price. I'm not sure how much of an upgrade it is over the old one but this one looks damn nice on first glance.

[artfilmfan]

The sticker on the 1-disc Blu-ray of Casablanca sold at Target says "5 hours of bonus content and two all-new documentaries". I wonder if the disc space taken up by all the extra materials compromises the image quality of new remaster of the film.

[Brian C]

One assumes it's the same disc that's in the box set, right? If there's 2 commentaries, that's over three hours of bonus content right there.

[artfilmfan]

I couldn't find information to indicate whether it's the same disc in the boxset or not.

[cdnchris]

At Target I actually pulled the set and compared since the set listed what each disc had on it. The first disc of the set and the features on here looked to match exactly. The second disc had a Warners documentary I believe, which I think was a few hours long (probably would be interesting) and a couple of other items which I can't recall. The third disc was a DVD version of the film/coaster.

I haven't looked at the features yet but since most of them come from the 2-disc DVD I'm going to take a wild guess most of them are in 480i/p.

[artfilmfan]

Thanks for the confirmation. The price and the improvement in the picture quality over the previous version make it hard to resist. I'll be buying a copy.

[dx23]

From what I've read in different forums, the Target 1-disc is just the first disc of the 3-disc boxset. Like Chris mentioned, the third disc is a DVD copy, so the purchase depends on how much people value the extras included in the second disc, which I've heard that they are pretty good. I don't get why Warner didn't release a 2 disc set like they've done with many other recent re-releases that have elaborate (unnecessary crap) sets.

[Napier]

I'm not usually a fan of the "junk" sets but this one is pretty cool. The coasters are very well made, laminated tops with cork bottoms. I put the hardcover book out on the coffee table as a little experiment and everyone picks it up. And I'm going to have the poster framed. For $40-45 it's pretty sweet.

[triodelover]

Please, God, no.