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OK. Wow is all I can say. Just received New Wave's Headless Woman disc. Not only is it single-layered, but it is cropped to 16:9!

what should be this:



is this:



After the Straub/Huillet set and now this, I'm on the brink with this company. Unacceptable is putting it as lightly as possible.

Are you 100% sure it's not something with your player?
I'd find it strange they'd make it 16:9 when the images on their website are all 'Scope, and the press release for the dvd says 1.2.35

I know newwave posts here occasionally so could you comment on this?

Oh and by the way I think the Straub/Huillet disk is great, not sure what problem you had with it other than the picture boxing (which was also on the New Yorker). Great transfers and subs.

believe me, I tried it on VLC and DVD player apps on my mac, the DVD is cropped.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and waste your own money to find out for yourself (I'd say check a review on the web, but there are conspicuously none :-k )

Edit: Also, the back of the box beautifully fails to mention anything about aspect ratio. Just checked amazon.co.uk, which confirms the 16:9 - 1:1.78 ratio. I guess in 2010, you still can't be too careful! Will be waiting for reviews from now on for New Wave/Drakes Ave. discs.

No, I believe you, but I think they must have printed a faulty batch then, have you tried emailing them?

I did a few minutes ago. Definitely anticipating a reply. Sorry for my tone in my response, but coupled with an absurd customs charge, and having put off a purchase of the Strand disc for months, I'm pretty livid right now.

Sadly I can also confirm the 1.78:1 ratio on the New Wave Films disc. Extremely annoying, but I suppose at least they did put the Strand Releasing trailer in 2.35:1 on the disc! How generous of them!

(Add me to those annoyed for having waited instead of getting the Region 1 in the first place #-o )

What poor show. I'm massively disappointed in New Wave over this, especially given that the images which Fierias and Peacock drew attention to on the NWF website add a somewhat embarrassing point of reference. There goes my 24 City pre-order.

Doesn't bode well for their DVD of Uncle Boonmee does it? Given that it's Strand in the US, I think we'll have to hope the French put it out on an English-friendly DVD and Blu-Ray.

Mr Finch wrote:Doesn't bode well for their DVD of Uncle Boonmee does it?

Though at least Uncle Boonmee is 16:9, so they won't screw that part up! (knock...)
Did Strand pick it up? I must have missed that. They need to leave Joe alone and let someone else distribute his films.

I think Matt mentioned somewhere in the New Films subforum it was Strand who got the US rights (unless I misremember this).

A company called Drakes Avenue seems to produce/author the discs for New Wave. Drakes Avenue used to do the terrible barebones, ingrained subs, nightmare discs that ICA Films used to put out. There's absolutely no excuse for it, just laziness and sloppiness.

I'm dreading what they'll do to my beloved Dumont's HADEWIJCH.

Both HADEWIJCH and BOONMEE would make eyepopping BDs -- we'll have to wait another licence cycle for that, if we're lucky

I just received this email from New Wave about their Headless Woman disc:

Sorry for the delay in answering, but we had to check what had happened. The wrong master was used somehow, and we will re-master the DVDs in 2.35 now we have the correct master. We'll send you a replacement once this is ready - in 3 or 4 weeks. Apologies for the inconvenience.

good news! Hopefully they will not make any mistakes like this in the future.

It's good to know they do at least regard it as a mistake and are correcting it.

Fierias wrote:I just received this email from New Wave about their Headless Woman disc:

Sorry for the delay in answering, but we had to check what had happened. The wrong master was used somehow, and we will re-master the DVDs in 2.35 now we have the correct master. We'll send you a replacement once this is ready - in 3 or 4 weeks. Apologies for the inconvenience.

good news! Hopefully they will not make any mistakes like this in the future.

Great please post when you receive the replacement, wonder if Amazon will be pulling their stock out.

Fierias wrote:I just received this email from New Wave about their Headless Woman disc:

Sorry for the delay in answering, but we had to check what had happened. The wrong master was used somehow, and we will re-master the DVDs in 2.35 now we have the correct master. We'll send you a replacement once this is ready - in 3 or 4 weeks. Apologies for the inconvenience.

good news! Hopefully they will not make any mistakes like this in the future.

So, what happened? Did they re-master it? Amazon and others are still listing it as 16:9/1.78:1.

On Sept. 30 I asked if there were any updates on this, and the next day (Oct. 1) I received this reply:

New Wave Films wrote:Master re-done, waiting for actual DVDs - they're being very slow

OK, then, speak of the devil! I just received my replacement copy from New Wave!

Good news is the aspect ratio issue is indeed fixed. Bad news is that the disc is still single-layered, takes up only 3.88GB (it looks pretty much identical to the Beaver's caps of Strand's disc). In full-screen mode on my 23-inch computer monitor, there are more compression artifacts and digital noise than I prefer. Anyway, the biggest problem with this release has been resolved.

Do they have replaced old stock from all retailers with the remastered disc?

I have no way of knowing that. Also, they didn't change the box in any way (still no mention of AR), so good luck on picking out one from the other in a store. I'm sure if you bought a 1.78:1 version you could tell New Wave and have a correct one shipped to you. I'd suggest getting the Strand Release for the security of knowing it will be the correct AR, and for the slightly higher bitrate.

Does the Strand disk have a higher bitrate? Judging by the cropped images above, the New Wave has more detail..

The above comments by Fierias are the reasons behind my own 'gifting' of the New Wave disc to someone who doesn't have the same 'original aspect ratio' issues that I do, and buying the Strand one instead just to be assured of getting the correct version.

Peacock wrote:Does the Strand disk have a higher bitrate? Judging by the cropped images above, the New Wave has more detail.

That is true, but for a logical reason: just like how a pan-and-scan release of a film will have more detail than an OAR release, the cropping allows for a higher resolution of the area shown. It is not fair to compare how fine the woman's hair looks in the Strand cap vs. the New Wave cap, because the New Wave cap has more pixels to dedicate to her hair due to the improper cropping.

peerpee wrote:I'm dreading what they'll do to my beloved Dumont's HADEWIJCH.

Both HADEWIJCH and BOONMEE would make eyepopping BDs -- we'll have to wait another licence cycle for that, if we're lucky

I asked them about both of these, I was getting tired of waiting for Hadewijch, and was worried about not getting uncle Boonme on Blu.

Me: "When are you releasing Hadewijch? Also, when are you going to start releasing titles on bluray? It would be a crime to only release Uncle Boonme and How I ended this Summer in just standard DVD format."

New Wave: "Not sure yet, probably kick of with Boonmee bluray soon and release Hadewijch after How I Ended This Summer in the next couple of months."

So at least we know they are planing on releasing Uncle Boonme on BD, but the wait for Hadewijch continues.

Wonderful news! The dread has lifted.