Which dvd editions of Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter are the best quality?

May 24, 2012 11:47 AM

I am looking for the best DVD (not Blu-Ray) prints of Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter. I know Lambs had a Criterion issue and regular issue, a 2-disc issue and perhaps more. Manhunter had a 2-disc issue (orange cover), a single issue, and perhaps others. I currently have the Hannibal Lector trilogy, which is all three movies in slimline cases with no extras. I am not sure if they are the same prints that come in single issue cases or if my prints are the high quality. When I say "best", I am referring to best picture quality first and then extras. I am not sure if newer issues lime my slimline set necessarily have the best picture or not simply because they are newer. My slimline set is just the bare bones movies, btw. So best print and if any extras that would be great. I know Criterion has commentary on Silence.
posted by snap_dragon to media & arts (6 answers total)

Have you seen this? DVDBeaver are usually really on the ball about this sort of thing.
posted by griphus at 11:56 AM on May 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

@griphus, that is really helpful. It looks like the 2-disc and not the Criterion is the best way to go for Silence, which surprised me though I guess technology has gotten better since the Criterion release. I looked on DVD Beaver site for Manhunter and only saw the blu-ray review of my slimcase versions but not any breakdowns on the various Manhunter dvds.

Any ideas or am I just a shitty searcher (don't answer the second question...)

I have to laugh because the most obvious answer is for me to get Blu-ray player but that is not happening for quite awhile.
posted by snap_dragon at 12:19 PM on May 24, 2012

Yeah, I looked around and couldn't find anything for Manhunter. DVDBeaver is my go-to for stuff like this and I don't know anyone else who does it, unfortunately.
posted by griphus at 12:35 PM on May 24, 2012

The feature master for the Anchor Bay Manhunter was created under Michael Mann's supervision and was personally approved by him. It was encoded on a good-but-not-great encoder. I don't know the technical details of later DVD releases, but that particular release received a lot of care and attention.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:14 PM on May 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Not an answer to your question, but I'm in the middle of spring cleaning and was just about to throw out my copy of the Silence of the Lambs (Criterion edition).

Not worth shipping, but if you happen to live in NYC, you can have it for free.
posted by User7 at 3:13 PM on May 24, 2012

@User7 - Thanks and much appreciated...I would love to live in NYC but alas am in Indiana. I just bought the Anchor Bay Manhunter on ebay and suppose i will get the 2-disc Lambs. Thank you for such a nice gesture, though.
posted by snap_dragon at 4:58 PM on May 24, 2012