I finally watched it. The picture quality was pretty good, most of the added footage was unnecessary, so you can watch the movie without it. I thought the movie itself was pretty bad though. I think only The Phantom of the Opera is worse, from the movies he directed.

I agree about the Italian trailer. I think I like it better than the movie.

I'm curious how the data size ended up being as low as it is on this. HORROR EXPRESS from Severin also had this issue and would've benefited from higher bitrates, etc. Now, I haven't watched more than about the first ten mins of it, so I can't comment too much on my own experiences -- I'm not damning it at all. I got either the flu, a stomach virus or food poisoning over the weekend and didn't get to watch it in entirety. But I am curious if it was kept low to fit onto a single layer disc to save money or if that's all the Italians provided to Shameless (not another case like THE BEYOND, is it ..?).

Bit of contradiction on that review. The text review states a single layer disc but the spec sheet says dual layered.

Just popped the disc in the computer. It is indeed a single layer disc, maxed out at 22.51gb

So are there actually TWO complete diffrent versions on the single layer disc, or did they use branching for all the extra scenes?

Sure hope so or they really are pushing it way to far for a single layered disc ;)

Branching :)

When they first realised they had extra lesser-quality scenes that could be included Shamless asked via this forum if we would prefer them as deleted scenes or integrated into the actual film. The response was a largely the latter but only if they were included via seamless branching so the original film could also be watched in full HD and Shameless obliged.

I have only had a quick flick through the disc but the quality's pretty damn good, certainly the best this film will look I suspect

I've got to chime in here with my own thoughts. PQ generally very good. I know people are talking about low bitrates and single layered etc but to me that only really comes into play if it's a lousy encode, which this isn't.

Now... The audio....

For the most part great BUT those digital distortion glitches near the end are painful and I can't figure out why they happened as they're not on the Italian audio track. I often watch with headphones as I watch quite a lot in the early hours but I'm glad I didn't with this. Digital distortion is quite dangerous to hearing as it's all high frequency and having those turned up on headphones would have been quite nasty. I actually think it's an issue that is worth looking at.