8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Movie Selection - Poor Video Quality, May 25, 2009
This review is from: Legends of the West - 8 Movie Collection (Johnny Yuma / Joshua / The Legend of Alfred Packer / Gatling Gun / Big Bad John / Find A Place To Die / Grand Duel / China 9, Liberty 37) (DVD)
When I found the Legends of the West 8 Movie Collection on DVD it looked like I had found a gem. While none of the titles in the collection will be confused with The Searchers or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, there are some decent (if somewhat obscure) movies in the set. From low budget American made Westerns from the 70's to Spaghetti Westerns this set has some decent titles (and a couple lesser titles as well).
So I picked up the set hoping that BCI/Brentwood made sure that the quality of the prints and encoding/mastering was at least passable. After BCI's job on legitimately licensed titles over the last 5 years I thought that was at least a strong possibility.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, this set is barely watchable at all. Washed out color and contrast on most titles is the first problem. Pronounced compression artifacting is another major problem, along with slightly muffled sound. Putting the 8 movies on 2 double sided discs is part of the problem.
Title by title this is the scorecard...
Johnny Yuma - Non Anamorphic widescreen, non-progressive (showing combing or interlacing), washed out color and contrast, serious compression artifacting, somewhat muffled sound.
Joshua - Non Anamorphic/Non-Progressive widescreen, color and contrast are marginally better than Johnny Yuma, but again there is significant compression artifcacting and muffled sound.
The Gatling Gun - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, washed out color and contrast, serious compression artifacts, muffled sound.
The Legend of Alfred Packer - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, strong compression artifacts, muffled sound.
Find A Place To Die - Non Anamorphic/Non-Progressive widescreen, serious compression artifacting, muffled sound, dark print, poor contrast & color - VERY hard to watch.
Big Bad John - (Not even a true Western as it takes place in modern Day) - Full Screen TV movie, better color and contrast, but still showing serious compression artifacting. The sound on this one is also better than the rest - significantly better.
The Grand Duel - Anamorphic Widescreen, but non-progressive. VERY washed out picture with pronounced compression artifcacting. The sound is, again, muffled.
China 9, Liberty 27 - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, washed out color and contrast, seriously muffled sound, and the most pronounced compression artifacting in the set. Almost completely unwatchable.
BCI was shut down at the end of 2008 by their parent company, and many people lamented their loss as they had built up quite a catalog of legitimately licensed titles that were mastered/authored with great care. This DVD set goes against the grain of what BCI had become over the last 5 years - a company that released high quality DVD's of hard to find titles.
If there is a title on this set that you cannot find anywhere else that you have wanted to watch for years then that would be the only reason to buy this set. The quality is very, very poor.
3 stars for the movies (some good, some bad, most in the middle), and only 1 star for the quality of the prints & mastering.
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