Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Music, Comedy, Fantasy, TV Movie • 52m
Directors: George Harrison & Ringo Starr & Bernard Knowles & John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Cast: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Vivian Stanshall, Neil Innes, Roger Ruskin Spear, 'Legs' Larry Smith, Sam Spoons, Rodney Slater, Jan Carson, George Claydon, Ivor Cutler, Shirley Evans, Nat Jackley, Nichola, Jessie Robins, Derek Royle, Victor Spinetti, Miranda Forbes, Maggie Wright, Alexis Mardas, Vernon Dudley Bowhay Nowell, Mal Evans, Linda Lawson, Cynthia Lennon, Julian Lennon, Angelo Muscat
2012 Blu-ray
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 5 months ago
Overview
While on a coach tour, The Beatles and a few dozen friends experience strange happenings caused by magicians.
More Music on Blu-ray
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Shout Factory Blu-ray
Shout's BD has both cuts of the film in addition to the 3.0 stereo and 2.0 mono mixes making it the first time the full theatrical cut is available with the 3.0 mix. The new commentary is good. The 3.0 stereo sounds wonderful and the mono sounds solid.
That's where the positives end. This is the same terrible Universal DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc with a terrible encode making both versions share the disc separately taking up more space. This master was already poor for DVD and is nearly unwatchable here on the Shout disc. It looks virtually identical to the upscaled DVD most of the time with only a bit less noise due to it being 1080p. This is one of the most appalling cases of "DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc" you can possibly find. Absolutely shameful video presentation. This should have never been released this way. Sadly it's still ever so slightly better than the DVD and the only way you get the proper theatrical cut with lossless 3.0 stereo. This is still the best source we have for the film.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
Director: Sian Heder
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Apple TV 4K Blu-ray with Atmos
(Eagle Pictures is 5.1)
Director: Miloš Forman
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray: Huge improvement in colors and detail. The restoration was done by the Academy instead of WB MPI which explains that there’s no grain management or issues with colors. They also accessed the original credit optical and scanned that one instead of recreating them digitally
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray, according to Saentz, the 5.0 is a recreation of the original and subsequently 70mm mix from original elements.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray replacement disc for fixed audio (there were some dialogues missing)
While the video on the replacement disc is exactly the same as the original release, the Atmos with missing lines has been corrected as it was also corrected on the Criterion commentary. Criterion also included the 6-track which is almost identical to the PAL track; It’s 4.0 in a 5.1 container. This 6-track is slightly better than the PAL DVD track as the PAL has some flutter on some parts that Criterion doesn’t have.
The Atmos on the replacement is identical to the Imprint AUS Blu-ray track which also has all the lines. The compatibility track is also the same,
It is worth mentioning the Imprint only has the Atmos and no 6-track. The 5.1 surround is with LFE and split surrounds and it’s just a downmix of the Atmos. Ditto for the LPCM 2.0 on said Blu-ray.
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