MovieChat Forums > Explorers (1985) Discussion > The UK DVD release - also bad aspect rat...

The UK DVD release - also bad aspect ratio

posted 20 years ago by apathetic
4 replies | jump to latest

3 kids with squashed heads flying round in an oval bubble...

I now have both the UK R2 and US R1 DVD releases of Explorers, they are virtually identical, each have the two extra scenes added in the 'special features' section and each are 16:9 anamorphic with slightly screwed aspect ratios making the bubble an oval.

The only differences between the releases are that the US has 5.1 & 2.0 English audio tracks whilst the UK has 5.1 English & 2.0 French/German/Italian/Spanish audio along with a slew of subtitles for European countries.

With the 2 extra scenes the US DVD has it in normal NTSC film format (3:2 pulldown done by the player) with 5.1 & 2.0 English audio, whilst the 2 scenes on the UK DVD have been converted from the 3:2 pulldown NTSC footage (so smooth motion has been ruined) and only 2.0 audio.

Paramount stuffed up both releases :( however I remastered my own PAL disc using the video from the US disc, correcting the aspect ratio so the bubble is round and using the audio from the UK disc, I also seamlessly inserted the two extra scenes from the US disc back into the film, ending up with a 5.1 audio 16:9 video PAL DVD - it wasn't rocket science so why couldn't Paramount have done this from the start?

If you're looking for the UK DVD you'll find most online sites either say it's deleted/not available or there's no release date, I don't know why this is, I pre-ordered mine from Play.com and they shipped it just before the original 8th Nov release date. However HMV's website says it's an HMV exclusive and they have it for order, wether you can get it from them I don't know.

[–] Phinn 20 years ago

Don't suppose you could tell us how you did the remastering? e.g. correct the aspect ratio, inserting the extra scenes, etc... TIA

[–] apathetic 20 years ago

It wasn't rocket science to make my own version with the scenes integrated back into the film, but it's too difficult to explain in a simple post, you need to know how to extract the mpeg2 & ac3 from the DVD, split them up, integrate the extra scenes back in, vertically stretch the video and re-encode to mpeg2 then finally author. Not a process for someone who doesn't know precicely what's required (especially when converting the NTSC DVD to PAL), or have some stupidly expensive video editing software :)

[–] 20 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Phinn 20 years ago

I'm fairly savvy with mucking about with video editing :) If I read your previous post correctly and if I'm not bothered about creating a PAL version, all is required is the US DVD - reintegrate the deleted scenes and fix the AR and you end up with a 16:9 5.1 NTSC version?