An Objective Comparison of Two Onibaba DVDs (Shindo, 1965)

Masters of Cinema... An Objective Comparison of Two Onibaba DVDs (Shindo, 1965) by Trond S. Trondsen. Criterion (R1) vs. Asmik Ace (R2). "...The overarching goal here is to inspire DVD manufacturers to strive for even higher standards in preparing source materials and authoring DVDs. So, for the purpose of testing a few possible techniques, we conducted a trial comparison between the demultiplexed video streams of Criterion's Onibaba DVD released in 2004 (R1/NTSC), and Asmik Ace's DVD released in Japan in 2003 (R2/NTSC), both of which come in an excellent anamorphic transfer. Since the outcome of our (albeit hopelessly incomplete) review may be of interest to a very specific subset of our audience, we hereby submit it to you. In particular, we touch upon the issue of Criterion's infamous cropping practices, as well the artificially added 7.5 IRE setup often found on R2/Japan DVDs."