Shawshank Redemption, The (Australia)

As stated in my review of the R2 disc, Shawshank is probably my favourite film. I was horrified with the transfer on the R2 disc; trying to squeeze a two-hour plus film, and the extras, onto a single side of a DVD10 had an extremely detrimental effect on the picture quality.

I`d heard good things about the R4 disc, and that`s what prompted this upgrade. Well, let me just say that the picture is worlds better. Gone are the shimmering scenery, the pixelisation and the grain. The image is very good throughout, with only one noticeable instance of aliasing. The colours can look a bit washed out in certain outdoor scenes, but it was the same on the R2 disc, and I`m sure it`s intentional.

Audio comes in Dolby 5.1 and surround flavours. The R2 disc had a pretty good surround track to begin with, so I was looking forward to the 5.1 mix. To be honest though, Shawshank is such a dialogue heavy film that the rear channels don`t get much of a look in. That said the whole mix sounds better than the R2 effort, and there`s some nice use of the rear speakers during key moments and to highlight the excellent score.

Extras are fairly thin on the ground. We get a bog standard featurette, which is nothing speacial. There are some interviews with the cast, but these are mostly repeated from the featurette. We also get some biographies and a theatrical trailer.

The R4 disc is far superior to the R2 disc, with greatly improved video, a richer audio experience, and a reasonable smattering of extras. It`s also cheap to import, about £13. One other thing worth noting is that the menus don`t give away the ending of the film like the R2 disc did!

Quite simply one of the best films ever made. A modern classic.

Very sad that the R1&2 discs are so shockingly shoddy and disrespectful to the film`s known potential. Makes you sad to the see the effort put into tripe like A.I. when Shawshank is just thrown out on something barely better than VHS. However our friends down under have come to the rescue because they know a good film when they see one and have put together a DVD to do it justice. Everything about the R4 version is vastly superior.

Picture: 1.85 anamorphic, good quality, clear and crisp.

Sound: DD 5.1 at last!

Extras: Run off the mill normal sort of things.

Overall: You must go and order your R4 copy now. Current exchange rates will see it on your doorstep for about £12 and within the week. You`d be a fool not to!