Witness Blu-ray - Kelly McGillis

Firstly, a massive thank you to our Patreon supporters. Your generosity touches me deeply. These supporters have become the single biggest contributing factor to the survival of DVDBeaver. Your assistance has become essential.

What do Patrons receive, that you don't?

1) Our weekly Newsletter sent to your Inbox every Monday morning!
2) Patron-only Silent Auctions - so far over 30 Out-of-Print titles have moved to deserved, appreciative, hands!
3) Access to over 50,000 unpublished screen captures in lossless high-resolution format!

Please consider keeping us in existence with a couple of dollars or more each month (your pocket change!) so we can continue to do our best in giving you timely, thorough reviews, calendar updates and detailed comparisons. Thank you very much.

Search DVDBeaver

S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Called Home" )

directed by Peter Weir
USA 1985

The 4K UHD of Witness is reviewed/compared HERE

In Peter Weir's thriller Witness, Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy, witnesses a murder in the restroom of a Philadelphia bus station. Harrison Ford stars as John Book, the police detective investigating the murder. When Book discovers that the crime was part of a conspiracy involving several officials in his department, he flees Philadelphia to the Amish community where Samuel lives with his widowed mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis). Slowly assimilating himself into the Amish community, Book eventually finds himself falling in love with Rachel in the midst of his investigation. Eventually, the corrupt police track Book down, and he is forced to confront them, while also trying to protect Rachel and Samuel

Posters

Theatrical Release: February 8th, 1985

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Comparison:

Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Paramount (Collector's Edition) - Region 1 - NTSC vs. Paramount - Region FREE - Blu-ray

1) Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC - LEFT

2) Paramount (CE) - Region 1 - NTSC - MIDDLE

3) Paramount - Region FREE - Blu-ray - RIGHT

Box Covers
			Released on Blu-ray in the US October 13th, 2015:
Distribution	Paramount Home Video Region 1 - NTSC	Paramount Home Video (Collector's Edition) Region 1 - NTSC	Paramount - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:52:16	1:52:16	1:52:24.696
Video	1.74:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 8.63 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.67 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 36,276,427,148 bytes Feature: 35,784,290,304 bytes Video Bitrate: 33.95 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Paramount
Bitrate: Paramount (CE)
Bitrate: Blu-ray
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), DUB: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby)	English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), DUB: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby)	Dolby TrueHD Audio English 2832 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 2832 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -4dB) Dolby Digital Audio German 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio French 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio Italian 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB Dolby Digital Audio Portuguese 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / DN -4dB
Subtitles	French and none	English, Spanish, French, none	Chinese, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, English (SDH), Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Paramount Home Video Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.74:1 Edition Details: • Interview with Peter Weir (7:05) • Theatrical trailer (1:31) DVD Release Date: January 8th, 2002 Keep Case Chapters 17	Release Information: Studio: Paramount Home Video Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1 Edition Details: • 5-Part Documentary: Between Two Worlds: The Making of Witness (32:47) • Deleted Scene (4:10) • 4x3 Theatrical Trailer (1:32) • Three TV Spots DVD Release Date: August 23rd, 2005 Double-lock Keep Case Chapters: 17	Release Information: Studio: Paramount Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.78:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 36,276,427,148 bytes Feature: 35,784,290,304 bytes Video Bitrate: 33.95 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • None Blu-ray Release Date: February 19th, 2014 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters: 17

Comments

The 4K UHD of Witness is reviewed/compared HERE

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were obtained directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Paramount - Region FREE Blu-ray - March 2014: The new bare-bones Paramount Blu-ray - available at Amazon France, and coming to Amazon in Germany - still looks DNR'ed to me. I see it as no where near as bad as the CE DVD, but the image has some less-natural softening and waxiness to the visuals. Colors can look artificially bright (nature's greens), but overall I have to say it is an improvement, on my system, over the flawed SDs. The higher resolution and layered contrast has helped bring up detail and texture is apparent. Despite the dual-layering and high bitrate there are still instances of noise in the darker sequences. There is a bit of depth. Maybe this is the best the film will, or can, ever look on this medium. Perhaps Witness is not conducive to being transferred to digital. Not all films are. Imperfect but on my 60" it gave me an only adequate presentation. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Some may appreciate the video presentation more than I did.

The audio is transferred via a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround at 2832 kbps. This is quite solid - notably in the excellent score by Maurice Jarre (The Tin Drum, The Man Who Would Be King, The Damned). Clicking horse hooves on pavement tickle to the rear speakers in separation. There are a mass of DUBS and subtitle options - perhaps the most I have ever seen - and it is, obviously, region FREE.

Aside from my complaining - and high hopes - I still enjoyed the film, it's cultural exposure, and the thriller aspects. It remains very in testing and totally re-watchable. This will be the best it will look in your home theatre.

***

ON THE DVDs: NOTE: The original edition advertises French subtitles (as the only subtitle option) but I could not get them to display for me.

The image on the new edition has been DNR'ed to death - all grain and textures washed away - digitally over-processed. You can see the old release is cropped on all 4 sides (or the new is opened up a shade). I see the usual over-digitizing of the Collector's Edition image making it generally softer than the first issue, but colors are far dimmer, and presumably more accurate in the new DVD and it has been cleaned of the minor dust and dirt that appeared in the 2002 release. Audio options are identical. The CE has some bright yellow subtitle options (English, French and Spanish). The big area of improvement is in the extras where the new DVD offers a 5-Part 30 minute Documentary: entitled Between Two Worlds: The Making of Witness that examines many production aspects with snipits from Weir and Ford on the filming of "Witness". I also enjoyed the brief Weir interview in the original release but the new featurette obvious contains more relevant information. I've stated many times that I am not the biggest fan of over-digitizing and image, in any form, and the minor grain (or possibly noise?) in the original wasn't distracting for me. I am, however, a big fan or subtitles (almost always have them on, even with the audio in my native English) and of course for further appreciation of the film, featurettes, interviews etc. with the principals involved are always welcome. I didn't really compare the audio but I'll make the assumption that it has not been improved.

NOTE: The deleted scene in the new CE is the kitchen scene in Book's sisters house that was in the TV version.

Pass on both DVDs.

Menus

(Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Paramount (CE) - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)