ha ha!!!! reviewers dont know what film is good or bad all about except trade value! so how would they know any thing regarding technical production...

I spent a bit of time watching the extra features on this DVD. If you check out the work that they did to restore the original image (befor colouring it) then this whole exercise has been worthwile. The difference between the original negative b/w shot compared with the restored b/w shot is mind-blowing.

Now I wonder if at any point they will re-release the original movie using the restored negative? At least - I hope that this will happen sometime in the future.

US Company sues UTV
By IndiaFM News Bureau, July 11th 2005 - 1215 hrs IST

UTV has sold the overseas DVD rights of the colorized version of Mughal-e-Azam to Eros that has landed them into legal trouble. Legend Films from USA have sent a legal notice to UTV claiming that UTV has violated its agreement with legend Films. Legend Films is the original inventor of the digital colorization process and holds the colorization patents in US and Canada. This patent prohibits any other company to release the colorized DVDs in US and Canada.

Even when UTV made the theatrical release of the Mughal-E-Azam in US and Canada it had to pay 7.5% of its earnings to Legend Films as the license fees.

do u guys think we will get a proper version of mea now? or the only thing they can do is sue them but not take out another version of the dvd? stupid utv they spoiled the chance of getting a good dvd for once

i dunno bout that..i thought there dvds of lakshya and swades werent that bad...

Restoration and coloring was done using computers. mhafner at one tine mentioned the process used "2K"?? or whatever, but it's a state of the art process. Each and every frame was restored and colored. Resolution must have been at least 800x600 and most likely better than 1280x768, the low end of PC resolutions. Even the crummiest 800x600 res is 4 times better than 640x240 NTSC resolution. Moreover the NTSC DVD is Field Averaged; no frame separation maintained. And hence the bad quality. Digital masters are good enough to make 35mm prints, then it's possible to make an exact NTSC Progressive DVD out of the digital master.

Only if they want to and know how to??
Digital master must be good enough to make a Progressive HD-DVD.

ok, lets wait for HDDVD OF COLORED MEA BY ZEROS ros!!!

2K resolution for 35mm 1.37:1 is 2048 X 1536. For comparison, HD 1.78:1 is 1920×1080.

http://www.celco.com/FormatResolutionTable4K.asp

I dunno abt others but pls pay attention to Nigar Sultana's hair



It is a clear case of an "air-brushed" image. It makes the image look so artificial.

So, they spent 10 crore rupees to make MEA to 2048x1536 but distribute a worst than 640x240 (worst than NTSC resolution as the DVD is field averaged). And in North American theatres they send in prints even worst than what EROS DVD has. On top, film prints in North America were vertically squished.

What a waste of Rs 10 crore

Pathetic!!! ignorance=incompetence

What I meant to say was, they had good intentions, did excellent work, but just because of incompetence of some people here in North America, we did not get to see the fruit of their labour.

Any news about the Shemaroo DVD?

I do not think Mike, Shemaroo will be giving us an apropriately authored piece either?

His award is being defended on basis of better than others and shown huge improvement in acting!!? Is he the only one?

It is the same way, that all GOOD films these days are GOOD because they are better than garden variety average crap!

For all us Cynics here comes a smart ass review

http://in.rediff.com/movies/2005/jul/14mughal.htm


Mughal-e-Azam is as classic a film as they come, and its colour incarnation is no different.

Rejuvenated painstakingly with a bright, rich palette, K Asif's classic film can now be seen in a special two-disc collector's edition. The first disc, that of the movie itself, is digitally remastered, complete with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a host of subtitle options. The second disc is full of what DVD aficionados really drool over -- the extras.

The digital remastering is excellent. Watching this film in theatres is an awesome experience; but up close, with pristine digital clarity, the colours come alive, and -- to paraphrase the big bad wolf -- it's all the better to see Madhubala with. The vivid colours and the film's scale stand out even on the small screen, and the grandeur makes this a definite must-watch.

The film's subtitles -- English, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali -- allow us lowly mortals not completely at ease with the royal Urdu used so poetically in the film to grasp the meaning of divine-sounding epithets we otherwise gloss over.

But this is a point of discontent: the English lines are disappointingly basic, and one wonders if a non-Hindi speaker would ever be able to completely grasp the nuances of this delicately worded screenplay. There are grammatical and spelling errors, but the lack of finesse in the wording jars when Prithviraj Kapoor delivers a long, stirring soliloquy, the English version considerably lacking eloquence and articulacy.

Mughal-e-AzamBut we nitpick. The first disc, the film itself, is sans dubbed alternate language soundtracks, something that -- if done very well -- could be a great idea for a film like this. A commentary track would also have been a superb addition, but we understand the dilemma the creators of the disc faced: the fact that almost all the people working on the mega production have passed away. Still, a commentary track by a good film critic or historian, in addition to legendary music director Naushad, would have been incredible.

The second disc, with the extras, is a bit of a disappointment. There is footage of the Grand Premiere, from the 2004 unveiling of the colour Mughal-e-Azam, the world's first theatrical release for a colourised film. This has the celebrities walking in, from Aishwarya Rai and Sridevi to Dilip Kumar himself. But the film's soundtrack plays instead of comments from the guests. Slipshod camerawork further makes this a rather avoidable extra.

There is a not-so-little featurette, Stars Speak, where Bollywood personalities -- Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Shashi, Kareena Kapoor et al -- talk about their feelings about the great epic. Aside from a couple of insights from Raza Murad and Amin Sayani, these are largely a predictable selection of standard soundbytes, not contributing much to our knowledge of the classic. Then again, it does show the incredible Urdu scroll which was the invitation card for the film's premiere. Wow.

There is an interesting 'How It Happened' documentary on the colourisation process, and this starts by focusing on the dynamic life of K Asif. This is a rather interesting watch for all those interested in the technical aspects of the film, and quite compelling in terms of content. While on the subject of extras, it's curious to note that selecting each featurette takes you to an intro screen for the same, which bewilderingly stays static for over 30 seconds. Thank God for the forward button.

Mughal-e-AzamThe extras disc concludes with the theatrical trailer, but this is disappointingly the version released for the new film. An old promotion for the original would have been invaluable, but did they even have trailers back then in 1960?

Overall, it's a good effort. The film does look superb in this new avatar, and the sound is great. The extras might not be things you actually want to sit through entirely, but they can make a half-hearted, quickly skipped-over half hour of decent viewing.

The lack of a commentary track is a glaring omission in a DVD set that surely deserves one. Also, it would have been fantastic to have a remastered version of the old classic in black and white as well, allowing viewers to flit back and forth between the original and the painted worlds. But these seem digital video dreams.

A fine collection to any movie library.