A Room With A View: Special Edition // HD DVD Review

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A Room With A View
Special Edition

Screencaps
December 20, 2008

A Room With A View: Introduction / The Movie • A Room With A View: Screencaps
A Room With A View: Features & Specifications • A Room With A View: Conclusion

A Room With A View
Special Edition
Features: DTS HD High Resolution 5.1 soundtrack and several additional extras which inlclude archive promotional appearances by Daniel Day Lewis and Simon Callow, BBC report on the film's success in the US, E.M. Forster remembered, Merchant-Ivory tribute, photo gallery and more.
Distributor: Warner Brothers (USA / Canada)
Movie Release: March 7, 1986
This Release: October 2, 2007
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 1 hr 57 mins
MSRP: $28.99
Current Price: Check Price / Purchase

The following are screencaps from A Room With A View: Special Edition on HD DVD. I've read a few comments and reviews on the net from those who don't particularly like the HD DVD transfer. Well, I have to say, after seeing it on DVD, this transfer looks fantastic. It's not a title which rivals anything I've ever viewed on HD, but it certainly is pretty darn good. We have to remember, the director wanted soft lighting throughout the film as this is a romantic comedy but also since this film takes place in a classical and vintage period of time. Director James Ivory also wanted the aperture of the filming to be very wide, making most of the picture naturally "blurry" in many instances. However, there are also scenes which are crisp. This is one of those titles which will require the viewer to be more understanding of the many filming characteristics involved.

A Room With A View HD DVD Screencaps

Shown below are screencaps from the HD DVD version of A Room With A View: Special Edition. While the movie is not as clear and doesn't jump out off the screen like some HD movies I've seen, it still is a good presentation and a significant upgrade over the DVD edition. This movie might be soft, but it's pristine in terms of dirt and other objects removed from the initial version.

A Room With A View: Special Edition - HD DVD
Click Here for full-res screencap

Colors are held back as we take a look at the screenshots above. Neutralizing is another word to describe what's going on. In some cases, we have a few colors getting through rather nicely, but this is a rarity. On a more positive note, being a 1.78:1 image which fills your entire HD television, it's not bad, either. On my 50" Panasonic Plasma ("768p") HD television, A Room With A View is fairly nice. On a smaller television, the image would look even better, and on a 32" HDTV, it would look impressive. Go the other way and view this film on a 65" or so, and it could be revolting without some really good tweaking of the television. So, my advice is, if you have an HDTV larger than 50", you're gonna need more tolerance. If you own an HDTV smaller than 50", you will probably be more impressed.

Overall, I think this is a pretty good transfer. Unfortunately, I don't think this is the best which can be done with it, however. Put this on a Blu-ray BD-50 disc, up the bitrate from the calculated 17.85 Mbps to 25 or even 30 Mbps, and we'd probably have a damn nice transfer worth drooling over. I doubt this will happen, as this title is also available on a Blu-ray BD-25 disc. So, what you see is what you're going to get unless 2 Entertain and BBC Video end up doing something at the request of fans.