DVD comparisons
Below are thumbnail comparisons for 4 different sources of the 1986 film "Flight of the Navigator", click on any image for the original full-size PNG.
| Italian R2 DVD | The first column contains stills from the Italian R2 DVD release, unfortunately the English 2.0 soundtrack suffered from poor audio (too quiet and too much bass when you turn the volume up) and noticable temporal blurring, a side effect of removing grain from the image. Interestingly the UK broadcast & DVD were widescreen but have been cropped from the fullscreen film footage, as shown here by the fullscreen picture of the Italian release. |
| tv recorded VHS | The second column contains captured stills taken from the VHS I recorded off terrestial tv when the BBC last showed it at christmas a year or two ago. This one shows no sign of temporal blur due to noise reduction that the UK and Italian DVDs have when you look closely. |
| UK R2 DVD | The third column shows re-scaled thumbnails of the anamorphic UK R2 DVD release, click the images for the original non-scaled PNGs, this is by far the worst of the three in terms of picture quality, more grain than a silo after harvest season and really washed out colours. |
| US R1 DVD (best) |
The fourth column shows re-scaled thumbnails of the anamorphic US R1 DVD release, in terms of quality this is the winner, a decent anamorphic release which doesn't suffer any grain or temporal blurring with decent 2.0 audio. Just a shame they didn't include the fullscreen un-matted version on the other side. |
| Italian R2 DVD | tv recorded VHS | UK R2 DVD | US R1 DVD (best) |
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Format: DVD region 2 Video: PAL Country: Italy Aspect ratio: 4:3 fullscreen Audio: 2.0 English, 5.1 & 2.0 Italian Extras: None |
Format: VHS tv recording Video: PAL Country: UK Aspect ratio: 16:9 letterbox wide Audio: 2.0 English Extras: None |
Format: DVD region 2 Video: PAL Country: UK Aspect ratio: 16:9 anamorphic wide Audio: 2.0 English Extras: None |
Format: DVD region 1 Video: NTSC Country: North America Aspect ratio: 16:9 anamorphic wide Audio: 2.0 English Extras: None |
| As none of the DVDs have the original trailer, here it is, taken from my ex-rental VHS of SpaceCamp: FlightOfTheNavigator-VCD.mpg (12.3mb low quality mpeg version) FlightOfTheNavigator-DivX.avi (3.73mb low quality DivX version) FlightOfTheNavigator-DivXhi.avi (9.8mb high quality DivX version) The piece of music used in the trailer when David starts the ship is "Finally Found A Home" by Huey Lewis & The News, and yes Max does have a completely different voice in the trailer. |
fox@ridhughz.demon.co.uk
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