BEWARE: Do not buy this blu-ray. 'BIG Home Video' needs to recall this blu-ray immediately due to major authoring issues.

Considering the importance of this title, probably the most eagerly awaited and most prestigious bollywood blu-ray to be released so far, stating that this blu-ray is a dissapointment would be grossly understating the magnitude of this disaster. How can 'BIG Home Video' and the 'authoring company' have screwed up this blu-ray so much, is beyond my comprehension. Does no one at these companies even bother to view a check disk before sending it for replication? How 'BIG Home Video' has treated their most successful title, both commercially and critically, with such disdain and callousness is totally unforgiveable. What makes this even more surprising and even shocking is that this title features Aamir Khan, who generally is known to very actively and personally overlook the video releases of his movies. Although, it could be that this not being his own production, he may not have had much say or participation in this blu-ray release. But then again, both Raju Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra are not the typical bollywood director/producer who one would expect to not be involved in anything related to their movie.

The audio/video quality of the blu-ray is dissapointing, but it is the authoring issues that are absolutely shocking. None of the options, other than 'Main Menu', in the pop-up menus work. Also, from the 'Main Menu', if you go into any of the sub menus, Chapters/Songs/Setup, not only are you not able to select any option, but you also cannot even go back to the main menu, or play the movie. Your only option is to press 'stop' and start all over again. To make matters worse, in what can only be termed as totally regressive, 'BIG Home Video' has decided to revert back to the practise of making DD 5.1, in the DVD standard 448 kbps, as the default audio. Luckily one can switch to the DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track with the 'Audio' button on the remote, but not before having to skip thru another totally regressive option, that of PCM 2.0 audio. The authoring screw ups are so major that it almost leads me to believe as if the project has been sabotaged and the problems created on purpose. Bottom line is, that this is the most poorly authored blu-ray to have been released so far.

PS: I have played the disc in two seperate blu-ray players, a PS3 and the Oppo BDP-83, to confirm that the menu issues are actually authoring problems.

Title: 3 Idiots
Year: 2009
BD Release: 2010
IMDB Rating: 8.3
Category: Comedy | Drama | Musical
Distributor: BIG Home Video
Authoring House: ?
Region Coding: A/B/C
MRP: Rs. 899/-
Media: Main Feature - 50GB BD
Running Time: 02:51:07 hrs
Chapters: 27
Video:
2.35:1, HD 1080p 16:9, AVC 24Hz
Peak Bitrate 33.9 Mbps | Average Bitrate ? Mbps
Audio:
1/4 Hindi - Dolby Digital 5.1 (48khz 448 kbps) <-- Default Track
1/2 Hindi - DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48khz 3.4 mbps peak bitrate)
Subtitles: <-- NOT 2.35:1 Screen Friendly (Positioned partly out of the picture area at the bottom)
1/7 English
2/7 Arabic
3/7 Dutch
4/7 French
5/7 Portugese
6/7 Malay
7/7 Spanish

Special Features:
1. Audio: Director's Commentary

Special Mention:
NA

Authoring issues:
Too Many

Review:
As much as I like this movie, I find it impossible to recommend buying a defective and very poorly authored blu-ray. Also, I am still trying to gather up the enthusiasm, to write a full fledged review of this very dissapointing blu-ray.
NOT RECOMMENDED

My ratings: (out of 5.0)
Movie: 4.25
Video: 3.7
Audio: 4.0
Extras: 1.5
Misc.: 0
Overall: 0 <-- The blu-ray is defective and deserves to be recalled. Therefore, I cannot bring myself to award it any points at all.






Screen shots Courtesy: DDR

Equipment used for testing:
Projector: Panasonic PT-AE2000U
Screen: Da-Lite 4:3 120" 'Model B' - White Matte
Viewing Distance: 11' 6"
A/V Receiver: Denon AVR5800
Speakers: 5.1
Front/Main: Paradigm Reference 100 v2
Center: Paradigm Reference Studio CC v2
Rear: Tannoy - Mercury M5
Subwoofer: Paradigm Reference Servo 15
BD Player:
Oppo BDP-83 (Firmware: 'BDP83-50-0424' | Hardware Modified 'Region Free')
PS3 (80GB US 'Region A' with firmware v3.50)

Sanjay, look forward to your review.

thats amazing. reely BREAKING NEWS.....hoping it to not be like kites and ouatim....!!!

Sorry guys but the review will have to wait until tomorrow. The reason for the delay is, that although I did sit down to watch and review the '3 Idiots' blu-ray, I decided to take a peek at the 'Dabangg' blu-ray first. I got so involved in watching 'Dabangg' that I ended up watching the whole film and then the extras on the blu-ray too. By the time I got done watching 'Dabangg' it was 9:00 PM, ie. my son's bed time on a school night. What, you may ask, has my son's bedtime got to do with anything. Well, on several occassions when '3 Idiots' has been showing on TV, I had stopped him from watching the film, stating that we will watch it together when the blu-ray is released. As irritated as he would get each time, due to numerous and endless delays in the release of the blu-ray, he had respected my wishes and thus I would feel very guilty watching it now without him.

sweet can wait to get this, and looking forward to your review Sanjay.

Can u confirm if there is any special features since you cant post review tonight

Sorry to say there are no extras/special features. Considering the length of the film, it is a wise decision not to include the extras on the blu-ray containing the main feature film. But, specially considering the higher, than average price of the blu-ray, Rs. 899/-, 'BIG Home Video' should have included a seperate DVD with all the extras that were included with the much cheaper DVD release.

thats what i was hoping that they would have included the extra on a separate dvd considering the price compared to their other blu-ray releases.

BEWARE: Do not buy this blu-ray. 'BIG Home Video' needs to recall this blu-ray immediately due to major authoring issues.

Due to last minute family obligations, I am unable to view the whole movie today. Therefore I have posted a preliminary review based on a quick view of the blu-ray.

these authoring isssues of menu etc dont bother me as far as the main movie the pq and aq are good......iam getting this blu ray tommorow positively so its urgent do you recomend the basic pq and aq of movie acceptable?? plzz reply fast......

I strongly recommend that people not buy this blu-ray. For, if you do so inspite of the serious authoring issues, you will be sending a very wrong message to the video companies. This blu-ray needs to be recalled, re-mastered and re-authored before a re-release. Having already waited this long, I am sure we can wait some more. If we accept such crappy products now, then I assure you, be prepared for more of the same, if not even worse. It is because we accepted crappy DVDs in the begining, that Indian DVDs progressively got worse. On the other hand with blu-rays, because we did not accept shoddy work right from the beginning, we were able to force companies to stop putting logo 'watermarks' and promos on Indian blu-rays. In fact we were successful in even forcing a company such as Moser Baer, to recall their initial set of blu-ray releases and atleast today their quality although not great, is still relatively acceptable. With 'BIG Home Video' on the other hand, the opposite seems to be happening, with their quality regressing to this level.

The irony is that BIG Home Video has deemed this, their worse blu-ray so far, worthy of a premium price. This too without any of the special packaging or special features included with the DVD. It's obvious that 'BIG Home Video' takes us customers for granted, and they think of us as idiots who will take whatever is offered to us, at whatever price. Personally, I say it's time we took a stand and made it unequivocally clear to them, that we will not be taken for granted, irrespective of how much we may want a particular title. As I see it, if you really cannot do without the movie, then buy the DVD, which is atleast a far better value for money. In any case, it's not like the audio/video quality of this BD is great.

PS: I for one, plan on returning the disc and demand my money back.

Well said. I have not seen this movie yet. I thought of seeing this movie in blu-ray first time. After all the delays my interest in this movie reduced. Now after seeing your review I am not planning to buy this movie. I don't want to pay for something defective. I will just buy the dvd. Is there an email address for Big home videos, where you can complain about this?

Try BIG Home Video.

+1
Very bad PQ. Authoring seems to be done by some new company not by Digital Entertainment. They have already authored a lots of title and I trust they cant author like this blindly.

As far as I know and I am quite sure that all BIG Home Video blu-rays are authored by Digital Entertainment. I would be glad to be wrong about this, because I certainly expect much better from Digital Entertainment. In any case, if it is not their work I am sure they will clarify it.

Sanjay ,

apart from the issues with menu and navigation could you please post your thoughts on the actual PQ and AQ. The DVD version was not bad for a DVD but I was expecting a lot better on BD.

Appreciate if you can share your thoughts on PQ and AQ only.

Edit: Chandna has confirmed in bluray.com that they have not authored this BD and honestly I was thinking the same after hearing the goofups. BHV has done a big mistake in not giving the work to DEI.