There's the occasional print fleck early on, but I saw no problems to follow
amongst the glorious 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture so you can be
assured there's nothing to worry about.
The average bitrate is a middle-of-the-road 4.69Mb/s, briefly peaking over 7Mb/s.
Sound FX aplenty beginning with a lovely, resounding bang as Bond's opening
gunfire travels to the rear speakers, along with scores of opportunities to
impress as the film progresses.
Extras :
Chapters :
The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD
companies could take a lesson from this one.
Languages & Subtitles :
English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Digital 5.1 - and there are subtitles
in 11 languages: English (and hard of hearing), Dutch, Swedish, Finnish,
Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Hebrew and Turkish.
And there's more... :
There's not as many extras this time round as with some of the earlier
discs in the series.
Featurette: Inside The Living Daylights (34 mins): Another
documentary narrated by Patrick Macnee, with chat from many
of the usual suspects we've seen during this DVD series, including a look
at the screentests for who would play Bond in this film since Moore retired
after
A View To A Kill.
Those who tested for the role at the time included Sam Neill, Pierce
Brosnan, the latter who wanted to do it at the time but was
contractually-obliged to the TV show Remington Steele, so, of course,
it went to Timothy Dalton.
Featurette: Ian Fleming - 007 Creator (43 mins):
A look at the genius behind the action hero, again narrated by Patrick
Macnee and with interviews from all and sundry.
Music Video (4½ mins): A-Ha's single with the
same title as the film and this was the first time a non-UK singer or group
had been chosen to perform for a Bond film.
The Making of the Music Video (4 mins): A look behind the scenes
at the A-Ha video with comments from the band and John Barry.
Deleted Scene (1½ min): The Magic Carpet Ride, a scene
which should have been left in as it features some quite impressive stunts.
This extra is in 2.35:1 but non-anamorphic.
Three Trailers (4½ mins): All around the same length, the
Release Trailer and North American teaser are in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, while
the UK Teaser is in 16:9 and non-anamorphic.
Audio Commentary: from director John Glen and members
of the cast and crew.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, isn't exactly first-rate
in terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic quality
and all the interviews are clear enough.
The animated and scored main menu, plus similar treatment given to the swipes
between menus, is as rich and colourful as we've come to expect from this
series.
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL
The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order
with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
