A Hard Day’s Night review
No, it’s not my review but the guy who is doing Beatles-reviews over at DvdBeaver knows his stuff, and compares the new release with those older editions. Apart from that, we have heard that some buyers are experiencing synchronisation problems between audio and picture.
Great review and comparison of the different versions. It does beg the question, though, why we've never had a release that shows the entire picture. If you compare the images in his list of version comparisons it appears that while we get a wider shot in the Criterion version, on both it and the previous Alliance versions the top and bottom of the frames are cut. Please, someone, 'splain it to me!
My explanation – flawed though it may be. This cropped ratio was the intended ratio for the cinema screen. However – at the time – films were often shot 'full gate' – allowing an easy 4:3 version to be created for later television release. Now that TV's are 16:9 – the cinema 'crop' is closer to what the film maker intended…
People have been asking here about whether the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray is region coded or not since the release was announced. This review was the first spot where I saw a region coding being mentioned (though I see the amazon.com product page also lists it as region coded). As I received my copy today, I can confirm that, indeed, it does in fact sadly seem to be region coded.
Oh well… I'll watch the DVD contents for the time being (region coding won't matter much there) and order the UK Blu-Ray release at a later time (and probably put it into my Criterion Collection box to save some shelf space).