DVD R2 Germany - Robocop: Prime Directives ADDED

[Christian_Bütikofer]

Title: Robocop: Prime Directives
Country: Germany
Region: R2
Releasing Studio: KSM
Case Type: Keep Case
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Anamorphic?: Yes
PAL or NTSC?: PAL
Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, German Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: None
Cuts: Yes, seems to be cut (3rd/4th episodes)
Commentaries: -
Extras:

DISC ONE
Dark Justice (94:54)
Meltdown (94:38)

DISC TWO
Resurrection (89:24)
Crash & Burn (91:00)

Notes: Disc One has an awful picture quality - it seems to be an authoring error. Other German versions are way better.
Easter Eggs: -
Amazon ASIN: B00JWG8UGE
Source: Own it.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

With Yes, seems to be cut (3rd/4th episodes), is that because the runtimes are shorter than the US releases?

It seems that the episodes on disc one are NTSC to PAL conversions, judging from the runtimes are close to the US NTSC releases, and that could be the reason the picture quality is bad.
It's possible the second disc has proper PAL transfers, so they are shorter than the US NTSC releases and have a better picture.

[Christian_Bütikofer]

I took the information about the second disc being cut from Schnittberichte.com. Take "Resurrection": https://www.schnittberichte.com/ticker.php?ID=875. This is the part about the cut: "Da die Box mit einer 18er-Kennzeichnung versehen ist, sind nur Dark Justice (FSK 16) und Meltdown (KJ) ungekürzt, Resurrection und Crash & Burn dagegen gekürzt."

The Sunfilm release seems to be uncut: https://www.schnittberichte.com/svds.ph ... ng&ID=9136. This makes sense if one looks at the runtime (95min) declared on amazon.de (https://www.amazon.de/RoboCop-Prime-Dir ... Directives) compared to this release (90min).

About the picture quality: I guess you are right. Is there any way to figure out if a transfer is not "real" but a NTSC to PAL conversion?

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

A NTSC to PAL or vice versa transfer will have issues with ghosting and/or combing by going frame by frame.

Review of "Homebound" which have some examples of combing and ghosting in the last two frames. combing looks like the there are hair combs in the image, from being interlaced. Ghosting is when there is a frame remaining from the previous image remains because it was not properly transferred 1:1.

Thanks for the links. Will note that 3 and 4 are cut for now.

[Christian_Bütikofer]

Another question: Is there any sense to to do a NTSC-PAL or viceversa conversion? Has it something to do with licensing issues? Or is it just much cheaper? I am pretty sure the German Robocop - Prime Directives issue is what you told me: A (partial) conversion.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

It's usually a cost issue, having to make a new transfer altogether