Watchmen - Warner (DC) vs Paramount (TC) Blu-ray comparison PIX - Page 5

I notice marginally more grain (between the Warner Director's Cut and the VUDU) in the first comparison, assuming that's really grain and not noise. The amount of picture detail otherwise doesn't seem too appreciably different to me. As I said, an alleged 1% improvement in picture quality, that you won't really be able to discern by the time you take the Blu-ray out of the player, fire up the VUDU copy and cue it up to the same scene.

Some of you people are acting like the Warner disc is unwatchably wretched.

For a new movie, it's pretty wretched. Compression mush everywhere.

Pretty amazing how terrible Warner's VC1 encodes were. Vudu's improvement over it with less bitrate is staggering.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294
Is this the Uk version with the best picture quality quality?

If it isn't, can anyone show me link to the best quality?

Yes, that's the best version of the movie. It's region free.

Thanks. So aside form the picture quality what are the other difference does the uk have over the US version? is the more special features on the Us version?

Depends on which version of WATCHMEN. The American Ultimate Cut has the best PQ of any releases. It also has 2 commentaries with Snyder and Dave Gibbons. The director's cut does not have the commentary, but instead has the In-Movie option. Other extras on the UC:

UNDER THE HOOD
THE BOOKS OF WATCHMEN
REAL SUOER HEROES
THE COMIC THAT CHANGED COMICS
TECHNOLOGIES OF A FANTASTIC WORLD
11 WATCHMEN VIDEO JOURNALS
My Chemical Romance MUSIC VIDEO
The Complete Motion Comic (12)

Depends on which version of WATCHMEN. The American Ultimate Cut has the best PQ of any releases. It also has 2 commentaries with Snyder and Dave Gibbons. The director's cut does not have the commentary, but instead has the In-Movie option. Other extras on the UC:

UNDER THE HOOD
THE BOOKS OF WATCHMEN
REAL SUPER HEROES
THE COMIC THAT CHANGED COMICS
TECHNOLOGIES OF A FANTASTIC WORLD
11 WATCHMEN VIDEO JOURNALS
My Chemical Romance MUSIC VIDEO
The Complete Motion Comic (12)

I don't think the US Ultimate Cut has the best PQ. At best its on par with the UK versions. The UK DC has a Snyder and Gibbons commentaries, which I much prefer over the IME on the US release. I made my own personal Ultimate Edition with the UK Theatrical Disc, UK Director's Cut, US Director's Cut, and Special Features disc in a four-disc case.

Can anyone confirm if the UK Director's Cut audio has sync problems like the US Director's Cut? I have the US version and I've noticed that the audio seems to be a fraction of a second ahead of the video in some, if not most scenes. I have tried two different copies of the disc on two completely different setups with the exact same result. Thanks for your help.

I didn't notice anything odd when I watched it, but I'm not really an audio guy. If you have any timecodes where you think it's particularly noticeable I could check again.

One of the most obvious spots to me is at 00:02:01 when the news director snaps his fingers and points to the monitor. On both my living room and HT room setups, I hear the snap of his fingers before I see it. I have the US Director's Cut. Which version do you have? Thanks again.
Edited by bigdrummy - 11/25/12 at 4:47pm

I have the UK director's cut and it's in perfect sync.

I know what you mean about the US version. On my player, it started out fine and gradually got worse. So, I sold it.

Thanks for your help. I figure since the UK director's cut is supposed to have slightly more detail, which should make a fairly noticeable difference on my 130" pj screen, and the audio is perfectly in sync, it's a double step up. Thanks again.

I've had the single disk Paramount DC for the past year. Watched it again a couple of nights ago and noticed PQ is quite "over-the top"; bloody brilliant.

Sound quality is excellent as well. Much better now as I upgraded my sub-woofer at beginning of year.

BTW, I see reference to a 2-disk Paramount DC here. When I ordered my copy from Amazon, I didn't see that offered for sale. What's on disk 2?

The Ultimate Cut has finally been re-released in the U.S.. The original UC release (which was selling on Ebay for $100 - $200!!!) had a better transfer than the DC, so, assuming it is the same transfer, that might be the way to go for the best PQ. (as well as best version of the film, IMHO).

Quite difficult to see how the PQ of Paramount DC could be matched by anything.

Obviously there's a very good reason it's ranked as tier 0, whilst the UC is only at tier 1 on the PQ tier rating thread in this forum.

Sorry, should have clarified. I was comparing to the Warners DC. Have never seen the Paramount disc.

The Paramount disc and Warner's ultimate cut are very, very close in picture quality. It seems Warner improved their encoding standards or possibly changed hardware in the period from their first Watchmen release to the release of the Ultimate Cut. The Ultimate Cut could possibly qualify for Tier 0, I might give it another look in the near future.

Perhaps the improvement might also have been due to the addition of the additional footage (both live action and animation) requiring a new transfer. Fortunately for fans, at least now everyone has a chance to see the Ultimate Cut.