yukichigai
Mar 2005
Video Tech Geek
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Meh
After having nothing to watch but the godawful RUSTLERS TS this version seems like a miracle. It has its issues, no doubt, but it could definitely be worse.
Video: 7 - First off, the release title doesn't appear to be properly tagged, but this is a Fullscreen (4:3) Release. It has the usual pan & scan issues, so bear that in mind. Anyway, as with all VHS Screeners it's hard to determine what's from the actual tape versus the equipment it was captured with. There's a small amount of minor alignment issues, one- or two-pixel sections shifting back and forth and whatnot, throughout the movie. Nothing too distracting so long as you're watching on a standard TV rather than a computer monitor, but nonetheless there. Either the tape BMB got was played a lot, or the equipment they used was not so good. Fortunately there's no dot crawl or anything else which would seem to indicate a crappy capture job. The only suspect issue that would be on their end is the contrast, which is a herculean task to adjust manually. It makes some of the finer dark detail disappear in a few of the scenes, but nothing important appears to be missing. Par for the course with VHS, I suppose. The only other issue is the watermark towards the bottom-left of the screen. While it has been blurred out properly for the most part, occasionally you'll see a 1-pixel strip on the left peek out of what must be the edge of the blur area. Considering it is at the very left of the picture it could very likely go unnoticed, but it is still there and still somewhat maddening if you're watching on a computer screen.
Audio: 7 - The audio initially seems great; the opening music is crisp, full, clear, and easy to understand. Unfortunately there appears to have been some sort of capture issue, as many of the high frequency sounds have a modulated quality that is directly indicative of a sampling conversion issue. There is a slim possibility that it is part of the VHS source, but more than likely the audio was captured at one sampling rate (from the sound of the modulation I'd guess 32kHz, though I can't imagine why) and then converted to 44.1kHz. This makes absolutely no sense to me in terms of why BMB would do that, but nonetheless the audio bears the distinct fingerprints of a shoddy sampling rate conversion. Fortunately it isn't too frequent or even particularly annoying, but you will notice it.
Movie: 6 - Eh, hit and miss. Funny sometimes, pathetic at other times. Also has a lot of underused actors in it.
Bottom Line: If you have any interest in seeing this film this would be the release to get. Despite the fact that it is Fullscreen it is miles better than the existing RUSTLERS release.
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