Rental Copy of DVDS - Quality ?

[ha13may]

Hi!

I do not know where to post this topic. I occasionally rent DVD movies here in the uk from my local video store.

My question, is there any difference in quality between the rental and retail releases. Has anyone ever noticed any?

It is a silly question but quite important. Any feedback or comments welcome. Thanks in advance!

[FOO]

Why is it quite important ? enquiring minds wanna know .
You don't really think they make a different version
just for the rentals do you ?

[j1d10t]

Actually, I think they do. Not specifically different in "quality", but I heard somewhere (I think that it was in another topic here, actually) that they sometimes do make edited versions for rental. If the edited version is shorter, maybe the quality is different, because they have more room to play with?

[BJ_M]

blockbuster in the usa only (i think) has some which are editing for content as they will not carry nc18 dvd's ... i think its only in the usa ..as they do have them in canada (i think) or they are unrated here .. some stuff here gets a pg13 rating while in the usa its rated nc18 ...

they are not edited to fit more on a disk ...

kinda like that lame "turner superstation" where some of the movies are so edited they make no sense .. (blockbuster not that bad)

[lordsmurf]

blockbuster in the usa only (i think) has some which are editing for content as they will not carry nc18 dvd's ... i think its only in the usa ..as they do have them in canada (i think) or they are unrated here .. some stuff here gets a pg13 rating while in the usa its rated nc18 ...

they are not edited to fit more on a disk ...

NC-17

[BJ_M]

oh nc-17 .... whatever ... same idea ....

you know more than i even located in "Abu Dhabi, Borneo"

[overloaded_ide]

I don't think that's the case here in the USA. A rental is same as retail most likely. However you can get different version of a movie sometimes, so that would depend what version the rental store has.

Like Two Towers, I went out and bought that, now I hear soon there is a another version with about 20 minutes extra movie not on the first.
So something like that would depend which version you rent!
I was ripped off! I bought the Two Towers movie expecting to get the real full movie! The package did not say limited short version or anything else!
I buy what I want, I get ripped off, I'll rip em right back off!

Now as far as tapes, VHS rental tapes are often better quality tapes for longer life and more use. Retail tapes are of lower quailty and wear out faster then real rental tapes. That depends if the store is renting REAL rental tapes, or if they bought retail tapes and started renting those!
Some smaller stores have been know to rent retail tapes!
Rental tapes cost about 3-4 times more, mostly because they are new releases, but a small part is for higher quality tapes

When you find rental tapes being sold used, it is often a far better deal than buying new retail tapes because of the extra quality of the media!
Course that also depnds how well it has been treated durring it's use, and how much it has been used.

DVD is DVD, I beleave the Media is the same either way.

[lordsmurf]

I'm pretty sure tape is tape. Many commerical grade tapes are BASF, rental or retail.

[g_shocker182]

When Pizza Hut had the free DVD with Pizza purchase deal the DVD I got was of a noticeably lower quality.

[FOO]

That just demonstrates that pizza is even more
bad for you than we thought.

[j1d10t]

they are not edited to fit more on a disk ...

I didn't mean that they would edit the movie to make it have better visual quality, I just meant that since it is edited, maybe it might have better quality overall, since there is less on the DVD. And I could be horribly wrong

And as far as version go, I know they get different version of movies in different countries, because of the rating system employed by that country, or they get the full movie, with a different rating. I remember hearing that Star Wars Episode II was going to be different in (I think) the UK - there was a shot where Obi-Wan gives Jango a head-but during the fight in the rain in the US version, but I believe I remember hearing that that part of the scene was cut out, to keep the PG rating in some other countries. And I have rented movies that have a different version than the one I end up buying - it may be something as simple as one line of dialog, or a scene may be cut before/after one line of dialog, or have a very small scene cut out totally. Of course I can't remember which movies they were, and there have only been a couple, but I do remember the changes. And I don't use Blockbuster. I used Hollywood Video, and now Netflix. I can't remember seeing any difference in the movies from Netflix, so I think it was just Hollywood Video. It may also be that I've rented an older release of the movie, and end up buying a re-release of the movie, I'm not sure.

And I'm not sure about VHS tapes - granted, I'm nowhere near an expert, but I have some VHS tapes (bought with the movie on them) that are about 20 years old, and they have held up better than the blank VHS tapes (that were bought around that same time) that then had something recorded on them in the SP mode. Granted, you have to look at the source - the original studio release tapes came from a better source, but they haven't degraded as much as the blank tapes that my dad recorded on.

[housepig]

Like Two Towers, I went out and bought that, now I hear soon there is a another version with about 20 minutes extra movie not on the first.
...
I was ripped off! I bought the Two Towers movie expecting to get the real full movie!

you got the real, full movie - the next version is an extended version, with extra footage not found in the real, full (shown in the theaters) version.

did you not notice the 4-disc extended set of LOTR:FOTR that's been floating around for almost a year? Did you not expect them to do the same thing with this movie, and the next?

....caveat emptor....

[fbreve]

Here in Brazil, some movies are being released in "Exclusive for Rental" versions.
The differences are:
- Rental versions are released earlier than retail versions.
- Rental versions usually have trailers (like VHS tapes), they play by default when you put the disc and press play. After the trailers you'll see the movie menu. (Yes, you can skip the trailers)
- Rental versions usually have no extras, just the movie. (yes, if you like the movie, you'll have to buy the retail version to see the extras. Unless, of course, your rentail store is locating the retail version).
- The cover has a "Exclusivo para Locação" (Exclusive for Rental) tag.
- You cannot buy rental versions in retail stores (of course)

Some movies that were released this way:
- 007 - Die Another Day: Rental has some extras, but not all. It has trailers as well.
- Road To Perdition: Rental version has no extras at all.
- The Call: no difference, just the tag

I don't know about differences in quality though

[BJ_M]

UK dvd's (all - not just rentals) are also slightly edited for content as they can't show something like beating someone to death with Nunchucks -- 28days was also edited (slighltly - about 5 sec removed for UK)


funny how in usa they can show anything violent w/ no problem but a little nudity and the rating boards get all knacked out of shape ...

[Gees]

Yeah, even changed the name of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here. :co

Never understood the nunchuck thing. :c* Why single out one weapon?

[Tommyknocker]

Like Two Towers, I went out and bought that, now I hear soon there is a another version with about 20 minutes extra movie not on the first.
...
I was ripped off! I bought the Two Towers movie expecting to get the real full movie!

you got the real, full movie - the next version is an extended version, with extra footage not found in the real, full (shown in the theaters) version.

did you not notice the 4-disc extended set of LOTR:FOTR that's been floating around for almost a year? Did you not expect them to do the same thing with this movie, and the next?

....caveat emptor....

I agree with the resident swine. I ordered the extended version of The Two Towers in advance, and when the full movie hit, I bought it too. I know there are more scenes in the version being released this November, but I was not going to wait that long to watch this movie in the comfort of my home. I do not feel I was ripped off. I got what I paid for, and with this trilogy, I plan to do the same with The Return of King. I know this is what Hollywood wants and expect, but as far as these movies are concerned, we have come to terms.

[The village idiot]

New Line Pictures isn't one of the big Hollywood companies is it? You know, the ones that will not be sending screens out anymore.

[Tommyknocker]

I wish I knew. I really would hate to have to boycott them, but when I consider what has just happened recently with screeners debacle, I am considering very seriously "taking it on the chin".

[j1d10t]

Hey Gees, what did they change the name to?

[Tommyknocker]

Not really Gees, they edit lots of movies here that get too gory or racy. A lot of us never saw Rosemary's baby. The cut and recut Scarface, and the list goes on and on.

[The village idiot]

I wish I knew. I really would hate to have to boycott them, but when I consider what has just happened recently with screeners debacle, I am considering very seriously "taking it on the chin".

The following are the companies involved:


DreamWorks
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
New Line
Paramount Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Twentieth Century Fox
Universal Studios
The Walt Disney Company
Warner Bros. Pictures

This is bad!

[MachineMan]

One obvious difference is that Rentals are usaully in bad shape. Scratches, smudges....... Things that can cuase skipping and reading problems resulting in intermittent bad quality.

[RabidDog]

The original point being asked tho, are they re-encoded for better quality as there is less on the disc?. A resounding no. What I have noticed tho is that here in the uk when you rent from a postal source you get a single disc. I think if you rent from Blockbuster, apollo (high street) you get both discs??
re gshocker perhaps the reason the offer was on was because they had "cooked up" a bad batch of dvds which were sold off cheap to HUT.

[MachineMan]

I rented Pearl Harbor from the Wal-Mart online rental service and it came with both discs. Quality and content seemed origonal. Maybe as said before certain places have discs modified. Needs more research

[JMO]

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, but the name change was only for the cartoon series shown on the BBC.



In the UK, what rental-only titles there are usually come as just the movie without the extras, sometimes with locked-in trailers (BVHE, who else?). It looks like all the studios are heading towards day/date releases on rental/retail so they only need to master the discs once. However, the Studios' tiny minds are obsessed with getting their pound of flesh, so rental copies differ from retail in that they have little warning signs on them that they're not to be sold and cost the rental shops £35 ($58 ), while the retail copies cost £16 ($27) and have a sticker that says they're not to be rented out. The studios want people renting movies to rat on any shop renting out a retail copy so they can sue the cheapskate for everything he owns.

Otherwise rental and retail copies are technically identical

[aero]

blockbuster in the usa only (i think) has some which are editing for content as they will not carry nc18 dvd's ...

No, blockbusters in Washington DC carry many NC-17's. They don't carry xxx, but carry a whole lot of NC-17's. They place a yellow sticker on them. I just rented got the full cut of Greenaway's "the cook, the thief..." A few years back they only had the R version.

In terms of run length etc,, if you look at imdb, for many years most films had half a dozen different cuts, say an nc-17, an r, a broadcast tv for content and broadcast for time, etc. Even on amazon (and I am not talking the "directors cut" or "extended" phenomena which is a marketing method to sell the film twice) you can see different versions varying by two or three minutes. this represents different cuts.

UK dvd's (all - not just rentals) are also slightly edited for content as they can't show something like beating someone to death with Nunchucks -- 28days was also edited (slighltly - about 5 sec removed for UK)
funny how in usa they can show anything violent w/ no problem but a little nudity and the rating boards get all knacked out of shape ...

Not exactly, in the US, theatrical release and television censorship, which is industry self censorship is one thing, but you can buy or rent the totally uncut version of almost anything. Right now graphic beastiality is about the only no no, and that is covered by criminal obscenity statutes, not by ratings boards.

If you want to know about the evolution of this in the UK the case study of pasolini's 180 days of sodom is interesting: http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/salo/history.html

Pasolini's Decameron is more my taste but after navigating the dozen different cuts of any Greenaway flick I learned a bit about this. Practically every country has a different minute of objectionable content cut in certain films years ago.

this occurs with films never originally marketed on dvd quite often. In the US you can get a region one coded dvd of a cut made to sell in the UK with the sex but not the violence, you might get a region one coded japanese cut with all scenes included but genitals pixulated, or you might get an austrian version with everything but with embedded unremovable subtitles. all of these might be of radically varying transfer quality. one company, criterion, has made a name with high quality transfers of orginal footage.

Back to today's cuts, they are based now on marketing, not regional obscenity. But I am trying to understand how anyone is suprised at The Two towers versions when exactly the same thing occured with the first movie, "The Fellowship of the Ring." Three versions of each of the three episodes 1) theatrical release b) first dvd with a few extras, c) second dvd with a mess of extras. this is an evolution of the earlier marketing ploy on vhs, and original release freshened up with a "director cut."

Most products aren't going to see asix month differential between two marketing versions, but Lord of the Rings was a special case as there was a profound interest in the extra material.

[vitualis]

In Australia, the rental version is usually the retail version. On a few rare occasions, there is a different version for rental (off the top of my head, I can only think of one -- The Scorpion King). As to what was different about it, I don't know, but I think that it had less additional content.

Regards.

[BJ_M]

aero - all i can tell you is that when i encode some movies --i have to do different versions and many of the nc17 or whatever (i dont see the final packaging) are edited for content (not mater what the rating still says on the box) for rental chain A and rental chain B and country A , country B and so forth ...

on the ratings boards - i was refering to prime time tv and theater in the USa which act stupid IMO on ratings -- they dont allow nude primetime and major networks and have harder ratings on nudity in theater than any other country (well many other countrys) .. its not as bad as disks and films i work on for some countrys like china ...

[adam]

aero it various from city to city. I've never seen an edited DVD or VHS at blockbuster in any of the cities I've ever lived in either, but its a well known fact that Block Buster does edit/have someone edit certain movies rented out in some of their stores. Generally speaking though, the DVD in the rental shop is probably identical to the one you would find in the store.

Warning! As someone already mentioned, those promotional DVDs that Pizza Hut had and even those DVDs you find in the huge bargain bin at Walmart are not necessarily the retail version. My Pizza Hut DVD had mono audio, a single menu, and about 10 mins worth of commercials which mostly involved pizza. BTW it was packaged in a paper sleeve too.

Also, I bought Johnny Mnemonic from the bargain bin at walmart and despite what the cover art said, the disk was DVD5 and only contained the FS version. I checked several sources and it turns out that Johnny Mnemonic was never released in region 1 on a DVD5 or in FS only. I think Walmart must have some deals with some production studios for at least some of these movies, where they re-release very stripped down versions of these movies so that they can sell them at reduced rates.

[lordsmurf]

they dont allow nude primetime and major networks and have harder ratings on nudity in theater than any other country (well many other countrys) .. its not as bad as disks and films i work on for some countrys like china ...

I like Pamela Anderson's take on nudity. She was in an interview not too long ago. She said she'd rather have her kids see nudity over violence. At least nudity is natural (does not need to be sexual), and violence is unnatural and cruel.

As far as the ability to get anything in the USA, that's just not true. I've had to buy movies overseas several times because the cut version is all that was released in the USA. R4 (Aussie) actually gets the most uncut movies from my experience, and not Europe or the USA as many think.