I still have not given up on a BluRay there. I mean why go through all the trouble of a restoration and offering an HD rental on iTunes, if you do not want to cash in on a BluRay releaseā¦ weird
Because nobody would buy it? I would, of course, but I have a feeling that spaghetti westerns simply donāt sell that well and that many that would buy it havenāt invested in a blu-ray player yet 
You could do a poll in here and check how many original spaghetti western releases people had on dvd and blu-ray and I think you would be disappointed in the result.
How many should one have?
I only buy the good ones, the ones with at least 6/10 on the entertainometer (of course a rule I broke several times). Iām not interested to own al these mediocre Spags which also exist, which also get releases.
If I have a good DVD of a Spag I will not upgrade to a Blu, untless I really have the feel that I need the higher resolution (which is rare).Or that the Blu offers something interesting the DVD misses.
For the lesser Spags an old VHS recording or a Tijuana version in whatever quality is often sufficient enough.
But actually, Blindman is one I would probably buy. The DVD picture quality is not the best on a 42" TV. And Blindman is one of the best.
My point is that if even the dedicated spaghetti western fan, such as yourself, do not feel the need to upgrade to blu-ray for other than very select titles that is exactly the reason why titles such as Blindman will not appear on blu-ray. If you check the (Italian) horror, giallo or crime āfollowersā you will not only see a bigger crowd, but also a crowd looking forward to even the most obscure titles on blu-ray. You are merely proving my point.
Yes but you are missing the point here: They already made the investment of producing a 2K-restoration, so an additional BluRay pressing is hardly much of an extra effort in order to recuperate those costs. The restoration is wasted on the low-resolution DVD. I would not spend any money on that DVD (I have the Koch disc), but to enjoy the movie in HD I would definitely consider purchasing it on BluRay
I canāt buy everything. I have already more discs than I need, I actually buy more discs than I have the time to watch. Which is a little bit absurd, in places.
You canāt expect fans only to buy for the shelf to cross finance DVD companys, so that they are able to release more Spags, of which some I donāt really want.
I see it the other way round. It is still amazing how many Spags get released (and it is even more amazing that El puro is not amongst them)
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Iām only jumping on a blu-ray release aswell. Still, I think you are missing the main point that I mentioned in my post, namely that many spaghetti western simply do not own a blu-ray player and the releasing company is aware of this fact. Then you will hit a wider crowd by releasing it on dvd.
I most state though that these are only things as they seem to me. I have conducted no research of what player hardware the average spaghetti western fan has but he does seem to be very conservative. Just the fact that the ancient Spaghetti Western Web Board still exists is proof of this
No they should buy them because they are of a better picture quality. If you canāt see any difference between (good) HD and SD there is no point of course but then you have other problems 
That said I have bunches of movies on my shelf left unwatched aswell. I plan to live to be at least 190 so no problem for me particularly.
Finally bought the ABKCO DVDā¦
The English audio quality on my Koch disc has always bugged me, so this release seems promising.
Which oneās the ABKCO release?
It came out last year, remastered and such:
I think thatās the one Iāve got (only got it a few months ago), havenāt got round to watching it yet though.
I love this DVD. The 5.1 audio track is amazing.
Iām grateful Kochās version included the English track, but it sounded awful. Not every Koch release is fantastic.
If anyone is interested Tony Anthony āBlindmanā on Encore Westerns tonight Thursday 4/27 at 9:50pm.
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Even though it sucks that the audio for old films is lackluster, fixing audio is pretty difficult. Seriously have you ever tried your hand at fixing one of the original Edison Diamond Disc recordings from the early 1900ās? Itās near impossible, even with noise reduction and careful editing! Because 3/4ās of the audio is buried under static, pops and crackles, and all of those imperfections are practically weaved into the actual audio!
Even with 60 years of progress in audio recording since Edison, film reels werenāt handled with a huge amount of care like music master tapes (and even they were subject to some horror stories, the soundtrack to Gentleman Joā¦ Uccidi was stored in a file cabinet before Claudio Fuiano saved it). Because of that they decayed, and with that decay not only did the picture quality suffered but the audio suffered even more, mainly because it was a teensy weensy little mono track that was laid by the side of the picture.
Kind of like this: 
All of those years of chemical decomposition and improper storage can really take a drag on the source material, and itās difficult to fix once thatās happened. They end up sounding a lot like the Edison Diamond Discs, because the perforation loses a lot of frequency information due to dust particles and such.
Sorry for the long post. Iām just pretty passionate about all of this.
I mentioned I needed to rewatch this and remembered why I didnāt get through it the first time. The idea of " mail order brides" really isnāt for me. perhaps a point or two for and creativity, but I found the ābathingā scene, where they get water dumped on them, as well the scene where chased in the sand not to my liking. other scenes like the scene where the blindman nearly eats a snake, and the scene where blindman ties the girl where the long dark hair to the pole are more traditionally exploitation then western, and the generals character is somewhat annoying, but the dinner scene ( where a ton of his fellow soldiers are killed was done well, and the amount of explosive scenes makes this a high action film, having more in common with the exploitation genre then anythingelse, but Iād watch it again. For me B- maybe C+.
Pretty good trailer
Not sure if this was mentioned in the DVD discussion, but the digital purchase option from ABKCO appears to be HD
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I think I prefer the warmer look on the Koch screenshots but the main flaw for me is the audio. I heard the audio is nice and clear on the ABKCO DVD, so I might double dip eventually.
Yeah in the screenshots I prefer the Koch transfer because the colors look more natural
But sometimes screenshots donāt convey the video particularly well. In this case, I think the video looks better in the HD transfer than the Koch DVD. There is a noticeable jump in video quality when watching