Looks like the Cult Media is Region B, and I assume the Koch releases are region free as per usual, but I’m not sure.
All are English friendly and have the Italian & German dubs.
AR & runtime looks to be the same on all three.
The original Koch release lists extras: Featurettes, trailers, gallery, booklet
and the Koch re-release & Italian release list just trailers and image gallery.
So, now that is all out of the way, what I am mainly wondering about is if there are any big differences in picture quality or the actual film like the messed up first scenes on past MGM release.
I was just getting ready to order the Koch release but the Italian is a bit cheaper.
Not seeing any comparisons or reviews of these discs on the internet yet. I like the new Koch artwork, but is it just a reissue of the same transfer, and less extras/no booklet?
I doubt there is a difference. I would think they all used the same transfer MGM provided, but of course it is possible they did something to the transfers themselves. I have the older Koch release and as far as picture quality goes it was just fine (probably as good as it could be without a new scan, it uses the same that was done for the MGM [and other] DVD releases several years earlier).
Besides the old Japanese Stingray disc, Koch was the only company that fixed the English audio sync in the beginning (so the music was at the right place) for the DVD releases but the Blu-Ray (the first one but they probably just copied the disc for the second release) has it incorrectly again.
And as far as I know the Japanese DVD release is still the only one with correctly(?) tinted day-to-night (and maybe some other) scenes. But yeah, I haven’t seen the Italian Blu or the newer Koch.
Screenshots, Stingray DVD vs Koch Media DVD (first Blu-Ray is the same) vs vs vs vs
I guess this didn’t help much on deciding which BR to buy… Maybe you can be the guinea pig and check out the Italian disc?
Hmmm… I actually have the Koch DVD, as well as the MGM DVD, and even a copy of the Stingray. I’m selling and replacing with blu ray, was going to go ahead and get the first Koch release but now I am interested to hear if there is any difference with the new release (although I doubt there is).
I may get the Italian disc but I don’t think my current blu ray player supports all regions (it does do region free PAL blus like the Koch Silver Saddle), so I wouldn’t be able to watch it until I buy a multi-region player (probably will be a while).
Still digging around, can’t find anything at all about that Italian disc.
Here is some additional details on the Koch release which aren’t listed in the DB entry. Also, according to what I’m reading, the Koch disc is region B and not region free. Can anyone confirm this?
Extras:
“An Indian Named Joe” featurette (11:38, SD, Italian with forced German subtitles)
“On Behalf of American Indians” featurette (29:54, SD, Italian with forced German subtitles)
“Drehorte – Damals und heute” featurette (6:02, SD)
Photo Gallery (85 stills)
German Trailer (2:55, SD)
English Trailer (1:46, SD)
32-page booklet in German written by Steffen Wulf
Picture Format:
MPEG-4 AVC Video 23969 kbps 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Well, looks like its going to be impossible to find any info on the Italian Cult Media release without blind buying.
Can’t really even find any info about this company.
I did find a few brief notes about some other releases they’ve done, and these notes didn’t inspire much confidence. Some of them had incorrectly encoded aspect ratio, forced Italian subs on English dub, out of synch audio…
Not sure I’ll be up for blind buying on that one, although I am curious
Was all set to finally buy the Koch blu ray but decided to do some screen cap comparisons first since I already have the dvd.
Now I am not so sure, they look almost identical. It seems the main advantage to the bu ray is the additional resolution and not much else. Not sure if the resolution alone would make a very appreciable difference in this case.
KOCH Blu-Ray vs DVD Screen Shot Comparison (album):
Blu-Ray (Top)
DVD (Bottom) http://imgur.com/a/OoF5n
Tried to find some matching screens from the Koch blu for comparison, but couldn’t find any. I may pop the DVD in to take some matching screenshots just to see, since the Koch DVD looks mostly the same as the blu except more detail being present in the blu. I’ve read that the Koch blu is better, but nothing as to why.
I remember buying the Koch DVD a while ago for the correct audio sync at the beginning and never upgrading to blu-ray because it had weirdly reverted back to the incorrect version as you noted.
Was there ever a blu-ray release with the correct audio sync? How about the Japanese Blu-ray? It’s staggering how many releases got it wrong!
I have a copy of ‘Navajo Joe’ on a cheapo disc, which has ‘Pancho Villa’ squeezed on too - it’s from a Canadian company called Direct source … it’s Pan Scan, but the audio is synced correctly.
Not that I want to watch a 4.3 version these days … but what is the problem with official releases messing up something this fundamental ?
Thanks. I still marvel at how Koch got it right for the DVD and then messed it up on the Blu-ray. I suppose the Japanese blu-ray might be the last hope then…
vs 
Maybe you can be the guinea pig and check out the Italian disc? 
