I was sitting here staring at a pencil thinking about nothing and then it hit me......I still don't have The Elephant Man on DVD!!!!  Well, I quickly went over to Amazon and saw that they still only have that same old edition that's been out for years and so I hesitated.  I thought I'd come here and ask you guys what you think about that edition first.  So....

Any problems with it?  Is there a better edition out there?  Is it the greatest DVD ever?  The worst???

Oh and one more thing.  I'm one of those nerds who likes those plastic "snap-shell" cases or whatever you call em.  I can't stand those paper ones.  Please tell me it's not the paper one! 

Afaik there's just this one edition. It's not very good, they should make a new edition of this DVD.

Paper cases are somewhat rare and a bit special, so don't worry, this one is served with good ol' plastic. Hey, being a DL fan it's understandable to like having your DVDs *wrapped in plastic* ;)

is this one good? 

Yes, that is a very nice edition. Buy it at your nearest convenience

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Thanks for the input everyone.  Sorry I forgot to mention the region but yeah I was talking about the U.S. region 1 edition.

So it's decent then?  Well, guess I'll just have to pick it up!

I finally ordered this DVD a few days ago.  I'm really happy to hear all these good things about it.  :)

And it has a featurette?  Cool. :) 

 That is great to know, because you're not credited on the DVD (I have the US region 1 DVD, because the transfer of the various European region 2 are worse). I was wondering who had done it. It's great. I'm not a fan of demonstrative mixes such as action movies. I like subtle mixes which emerges you in the mood of the movie. This requires a lot more of imagination.

I'm a big fan of surround (especially in music, I'm a member of this crazy community http://www.quadraphonicquad.com) and quality of 5.1 mixes is as much important to me as the picture quality when I review a DVD. I think that masses have greatly underrated one of the hugest contribution of DVD (well, LaserDisc before) : the quality of the sound. Picture was obvious, but people tend to forget that what makes movies magical in theaters is the fact that the sound surrounds you.

John, so far, how many Lynch soundtracks have you done in 5.1 ? I'm afraid IMDb isn't accurate on that one. So far I'm just sure you did the 5.1 mixes for those DVD's :

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Blue Velvet
The Elephant Man

Are you as well behind the surround mixes of the recent collector/ultimate editions of Lost Highway, Wild At Heart, Dune ? (Lost Highway is my personal favorite - in its full DTS glory, it's simply jaw-dropping).

What about The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive (who both received quite cheap DVD editions) ?

When you do a surround mix for the theaters, is it edited again for its DVD formats (Dolby Digital & DTS) ?

 Sorry for those questions... I know you're asked a lot of questions on this forum, if you can't reply, just ignore my post, it's OK

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Although it's unclear, I assume you're talking to me.

First, where did I complain ? I don't see.

Secondly, if your Elephant Man R2 DVD is fine by you, great. Stick with it, don't bother.

Thirdly, for beginners, only R1 has :

- a 5.1 soundtrack (Dolby Digital only, no DTS). All R2 have the original English soundtrack as stereo (Dolby Digital). Elephant Man is NOT an action movie but only lame people still think that surround is designed for action movies & blockbusters. That's why I wanted to hightlight John's work with his remix of the movie soundtrack in 5.1. It wasn't an easy one I guess. Because although I'm a surround supporter, in many cases the original mono or stereo is better. Not here IMHO.

- a real decent (video) transfer. R2 have a different transfer which is from a not very clean master. This will be obvious to anyone who is not half-blind. When I got my R1 copy, I just sent my R2 copy to the bin. So if you haven't seen the R1 version, you're missing something, unless you don't care that much about cleanliness of the master (and as you seem happy if the R2 DVD, stick with it, once again, I don't mind of course !).

Sorry guys that I had to justify all of this

ps: R2 has also a different framing of the picture from time to time, and only R1 is Lynch-approved as far as I know. Here are two screenshots :

R2 :

R1:

Frankly, I don't see any difference between the two shots.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Then your case is helpless

Frankly, if you don't see anything any difference in the framing (not the quality ! you can't see anything with small screenshots, and anyway R2 suffers from many scratches in the master, you have to directly compare the DVD's playing, not still screenshots to see that), you probably need new glasses, or, better, nevermind and stop pretending you're dumb 

I can see where you're coming from. I already bought several versions as well, and I wish someone had told me before for the Elephant Man...

Well, in the case of Elephant Man, R1 is the way to go, there is no question.

Anyway, even if R1 shows a much cleaner master, the real added value is in the 5.1 soundtrack IMHO.

So as usual it all depends how keen you are on the technical aspects, as long as you have the hardware to fully enjoy them of course.

By the way, I found again this very useful site (dvdcompare.net), which lists all the specs of virtually any version of any movie DVD. In the end they summarize which region/country has the best version, just from the specs, they don't judge the video quality.

Just from the specs, you can see that R1 is the "winner" for Elephant Man, and they don't even talk about the quality of the picture. Again, no question anyway. And Elephant Man is extremely cheap in the US. That's great !

=> http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=1186 

Oh, Thank you Gordon... Finally someone on my side!

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Like it is what... ? A competition ?

I don't get your posts, Mr. Silencio. I never wrote that R2 DVD's for Elephant Man were bad. You always seem to miss the point.

The transfer is not as good as R1's... that's about it.

If you haven't looked at it, haven't been able to do the comparison between R1 and R2 copies, then I understand your position. R2 is fine, really but R1 is really better because the master is much cleaner (no scratches here and there)... It's all about comparing two products.

Anyone who had the two versions in hand, and being not too blind will tell you the same. And trust me, I wish I could have saved buying R1, even if it is actually cheaper !

Again, before posting, please try to fully read and understand what people writes. About the two screenshots above, I'm still in awe of you having not seen the difference of framing, not quality (which you can't tell on this specific example).

And cheers to Italy... Have many friends there. Just like you, sometimes they write or talk too fast and are scatterbrained, but I love them

@Tero : if you don't have a 5.1 system, then you don't need to buy R1 just for the quality gap in the picture I think... R1 is undeniably essential merely for this surround track (not available on ANY other region unfortunately...).

Anyway, as someone said before, Elephant Man does need a real collector or "ultimate" edition to be up to nowadays quality standards... Maybe it will for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs. 

"John, so far, how many Lynch soundtracks have you done in 5.1 ? I'm afraid IMDb isn't accurate on that one. So far I'm just sure you did the 5.1 mixes for those DVD's :

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Blue Velvet The Elephant Man

Are you as well behind the surround mixes of the recent collector/ultimate editions of Lost Highway, Wild At Heart, Dune ? (Lost Highway is my personal favorite - in its full DTS glory, it's simply jaw-dropping).

What about The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive (who both received quite cheap DVD editions) ?

When you do a surround mix for the theaters, is it edited again for its DVD formats (Dolby Digital & DTS) ?"

DVDs I have done, in order; "Twin Peaks: Fire, Walk With Me" "The Elephant Man" - Paramount would not give me a credit. "Blue Velvet" "Eraserhead" - stereo only, restoration and edits (for noise) "Wild At Heart"

"Lost Highway" was a direct transfer of the theatrical 5.1 mix done by John Ross. "Dune" is something David will never touch again. Don't know who did it.

"The Straight Story" and "Mulholland Drive" were mixed by David and myself in his theatre/studio, and the theatrical soundtracks were used for the DVDs.

5.1 Soundtracks done for theatrical are rarely re-done for home theatre. Some are. Old mono and stereo mixes are re-created as best they can for 5.1 to match the original balances, but modernized for better frequency response and dynamic range, when you have access to original elements, as I have been lucky enough to get for a few of the films.

Thanks for the accurate answers, John. I had been really wondering about all of this.

I hope you will will mix the theatrical surround track for Inland Empire. Cheers ! 

All smart alecks around here...

Why don't you just stop for a little second?

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Well, I finally got my R1 Elephant Man DVD in the mail the other day and watched it the same night.  I was very pleased with the quality.  I feel like an idiot for not getting it sooner!

Another surprise was that the extras weren't that bad at all.  They were pretty darn short but what was there was very informative.:)

The Elephant Man will be released on HD-DVD in France on Nov. 20th, 2006, by Studio Canal (of course).

I remember we already talked about DL movies in HD, but couldn't find where.

Source : http://www.dvdrama.com/news.php?16094 (in French)