Dragons Lair DVD Versions Compared.

[Analog-X]

Incase some of you want to buy any of the Dragons Lair DVD's that are floating out there I've quickly slapped a webpage here for 800x600 res or better.

http://www.geocities.com/x_ample/

To try and make the comparison screenshots as accurate as possible,
I have taken 2 screen captures from each version 00:06 Seconds and 00:08 Seconds into the game.

I used CyberLinks PowerDVD with VIVID Video Settings to get brighter and more detailed pictures however you will find that the 20th anniversary edition is still darker.


Here is what the filenames mean.
DL_DVDROM <------- Dragons Lair DVD-ROM Version
DL_DVDORG <------- Dragons Lair DVD Version
DL_DVD20th <------- Dragons Lair DVD 20th Anniversary

You will notice that in general the 20th Anniversary Edition is darker and therfore loses detail, also the bluriness is what I was complaining about, it is not MOTION Blurring. Also you will notice that DL_DVD20thIntro.jpg is much more blurry compared to the rest, this happens when the NEW Scenes selection is chosen from the Game Option menu.

A couple of other Differences that I noticed are. The Previous DL Releases were encoded at a Bitrate of 7.00Mbps

the 20th Anniversary edition is done at a Bitrate of 9.00Mbps.
also in the 20th Anniversary edition there is a noticably HIGH Hissing and Snap/Pop Artifacts During all Scenes

[cdbrown]

From the pics it would seem that we shouldn't go for the 20th Anniversary.  The plain DVD version looks the best.  What is the difference between the DVD and the DVD-Rom versions?

[Analog-X]

the DVD-ROM was first released as a PC ONLY, so it wont work on a stand alone DVD Player however the good side effect of this was, that you can simply do a FileCopy of .vob and .inf files to used to convert into .MPEG for Daphne Emulator.
 
The DVD Version will work for both PC and StandAlone Player, however you cannot simply copy the files like you can on the DVD-ROM.
 
The 20th Anniversary DVD has more interviews than the first 2 releases...however I find that they have Re-Encoded the video and made it worst.
 
as you can see with the screen shots the video is much darker and less detailed.  Also there is a lot of Hiss and Snaps and Pops in the audio.
 
I've got a little debate going on the dragons-lair-project website, but I think people there are a bit more biast and blind to the faults of the 20th Anniversary product.  Just because something has Dont Bluth and Dragons Lair slapped onto it, does not mean I'm going to like it regardless if its bad quality or not.
 
With todays technology I would expect a better product...I'm sure they can go back and use the original source material to come up with a better quality product.
 
I would pay the extra for the quality.

[Jakobud]

Ummm if you want to create MPEGs for Daphne just search for a tool called DVD2Daphne.  It will automatically take the DL or SA DVD's and create all the MPEGs, OGGs, and framefiles for you.  A lot easier than trying to do it all manually

Jakobud

[Xiaou2]

 Sorry to change the subject a tad... but has anyone get the new dlair 3d yet?  hows it play?  I saw it on the shelves, but want a decent review first.

[Analog-X]

I was at Electronic Boutiqe a local Source for New games, they told me they had 3 in stock but were so disorganized that they couldnt find me a copy.
 
Anyways, I've heard nothing but complaints from people about the Controls and how it compares to the first Lora Croft game jumping problems.
 
Also a lot of complaints on how the game ends.

[atog]

I bought the new dragons lair PC game.  It might be nice for running on a MAME cab that has a trackball.  Other than that, stick with the original.  I am selling my PC version, used for about 2 hours so it's mint.  Check it out if interested:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11047&item=1943861512