Tamil DVD Review: Karnan

Company: Pyramid
Mono sound panned to 5.1
1:33:1 original aspect ratio
Special Features: English subtitles, 30 minute tribute to Sivaji Ganesan after his passing

Video
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Another classic ruined by Pyramid. The picture is dull, colors are lifeless, sharpness, what sharpness? Everytime there is an optical like a wipe or a dissolve, the picture quality suddenly degrades, though this is probably a print problem. There seems to be a dark fog over the image. Artifacting is always seen, particularly in the backgrounds. In the bottom left corner of the image, Pyramid has placed a Pyramid logo, which is covering up a VGP logo! Apparently, Pyramid has either used the VGP VHS copy to make this DVD or they have used the master VGP used. Either way, the results are crap!

Sound
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Sound is somewhat clear, though it is muffled. The mono is panned to 5.1 channels, thereby wasting precious bits that could have gone to the picture. But when the video source is analog, what difference does a few bits make?

Extras
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English subtitles, including songs have been included. They are often too wordy, don't stay on the screen long enough, and the song translations are kind of silly.

A 30 minute tribute to the late Sivaji Ganesan is included. I assume Pyramid themselves produced this, as they include "This has been a Pyramid Presentation" at the end. The feature includes clips of Sivaji's films and interviews with people, though the people being interviewed aren't people he worked with or anything, just people, hehe. Not realy worth anything except for the clips from older films.

Overall
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AVOID!