Viy (1967) Blu-rays UPDATED

[Darrel_Griffin]

Viy (1967)

Severin single disc Blu-ray
vs
Severin box set Blu-ray


---
On the single disc Blu-ray:


1. Runtime correction:

"From the Woods to the Cosmos: John Leman Riley on the History of Soviet Fantasy and Sci-Fi Film" 2019 interview (34:46)


2. Re-ordering of silent films, noting that they are excerpts only (I have also removed the word 'Short', as only 1 of them is a short film), addition of
intertitle info and release years, slight runtime corrections, and that they are SD (note that, unlike on the box set release, there is no 'Play All' option) :

Silent Film Excerpts (Russian intertitles with English subtitles):
- "The Portrait" (1915) (7:53, 480i)
- "The Queen of Spades" (1916) (16:30, 480i)
- "Satan Exultant" (1917) (19:30, 480i)

(this is the order they appear in the menu, and is also the chronological order of release)


3. Addition to notes:

The image ends at 75:32 with score playing out over black screen till 76:34.

(i.e. the same as for the box set release)



Source: I own it


---
On the box set Blu-ray:


I don't yet own the box set (I have ordered it), but the runtimes for the silent film excerpts appear to have been misapplied.
I think they should be as follows (I have also noted that they are excerpts only, removed the word 'Short' and added the release years):


Silent Film Excerpts (Russian intertitles with English subtitles) (Play All - 35:07):
- "The Portrait" (1915) (6:19, 480i)
- "The Queen of Spades" (1916) (13:12, 480i)
- "Satan Exultant" (1917) (15:36, 480i)


The reason I think this is because then they correspond with the runtimes on the single disc Blu-ray - in each case, the runtime is almost exactly
0.8 x the runtime on the single disc Blu-ray (see also next section).


---
Why the difference between the runtimes of the silent films on each disc?


It is hard to tell what the original frame rate was for these silent films. Using my Panasonic player, on the single disc Blu-ray, during playback
they run at 60Hz i.e. 30fps, but in freeze frame mode there are 24 frames for each second, and some of these are blended frames (in the source material).
I tried to count them, but the image quality is too poor to be certain how many frames are blended per second. However, my best guess is that the films
were orignally 18fps, and frames have been blended to create additional frames, inceasing it to 24fps while maintaining the same runtime.

Anyway, not being an expert in Blu-ray video encoding, my guess is that on the single disc Blu-ray, the frames are stored as 24fps,
then played back at 30fps with real-time 3:2 pulldown. I don't actually know if this is allowed within the Blu-ray standards, but that is the
only explanation I can think of as to why in freeze frame mode there are 24 frames for each second and not 30.

As I said, I don't yet own the box set release, but my guess is that on this release the same frames are used, but stored as 30fps (or 60 fields),
meaning that no pulldown is applied. This would mean that they run at 30/24 = 1.25 times the speed, and that the runtimes are therefore
24/30 = 0.8 times as long.



---
Note:

According to IMDb, the complete runtimes for the silent films are as follows:

"The Portrait" (1915) : 44min
"The Queen of Spades" (1916) : 63min
"Satan Exultant" (1917) : 87min

[Eric_Cotenas]

Fixed.

[Darrel_Griffin]

Thanks Eric.

A few things:

1. It seems you have removed the '(Play All - 35:07)' option for the box set - I don't yet own the box set, so I don't know if it has this option (the single disc release doesn't), but I assumed Åsmund_Utvik knew about it and had included it. Perhaps it should be reinstated (although I guess it's not that important).

2. I forgot to mention the typo in the "Overall" section: teh -> the

3. The box set entry on the page for Witchhammer (1970) also needs the same updates (this is the other movie on the same disc in the box set).

[Eric_Cotenas]

Play all wasn’t in the original submission. It was added by someone who tends to do that even when there is no option (including play alls for bonus trailers either selectable separately or shows where the menus have no play all option and ones where play all programs each episode to play as one titleset after the other rather than displaying a combined playback time).

[Darrel_Griffin]

Adding 'Play All' info when no such option exists seems quite a bizarre thing to do!

In the case of a 'Play All' that just plays one separate item after another, I guess if I were submitting details, I would probably mention the 'Play All' option but not give a combined runtime - but maybe this is incorrect. I can't remember if I have ever done this in the past - I know I have some releases with this characteristic (although I can't remember any specific titles), but I don't know if I have submitted the details for any of them.

Anyway, everything looks good now - thanks again

[Eric_Cotenas]

I’ve always done (with "Play All" option; mm:ss): or (with "Play All" option):

[Eric_Cotenas]

EYES OF FIRE in the set has "Play All" for the shorts but does not display total run time but the running time of each title as it plays so I have resinstated the "Play All" option but not the calculated total.