New DVD releases


Dadrian

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Welcome to the site bodie and thanks a lot for posting those screencaps. We've been wondering what the new transfers look like and some of those shots even on DVD look like a nice bump up especially color-wise. The shot of Crockett on the beach in the pilot is especially reassuring as not only the colors are better but the aspect ratio framing looks better and gives it a less compressed feeling. The shot of the flamingos is noticeably more vibrant as well even in the more faded opening of Hearts of Darkness. 

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Thanks, the site says I joined in 2012, but yeah, only posted a few times, hehe.

And yeah, absolutely. Look at the colour of the girl's bikini on that beach shot! I know the whole colour thing has been a big issue here and that ivoryjones has posted a load about it. Short version; it's clearly true that the colours were considerably out of whack on the versions that they put on DVD.

Bad news is, it looks like the majority of the episodes will retain their previous colouring - more or less - and that we're only seeing this correction on the pilot.

However, it has to be said, it does not account for the massive changes in opening logo ivoryjones has shown - as the new print of the pilot despite being so much better on the flamingos as you said agent 47, is still pretty much the same kind of logo... so there's more to that story, despite the massive change we can see in the colour management on that beach shot.

It's well talked about how particular the colours were for this series, but to remaster them all with actual reference to anything we would call definitive... I just can't see Universal paying for that level of restoration, when they already have these HD masters. As I say, it doesn't even look like the whole series has had the care the pilot has. More's the pity.

But, at least it's out there in a better form and coming in a more detailed one in a few months. And they've not done anything ruinous like crop it to widescreen or make major revisions they think people these days need... other series have not been so lucky there. So I'm happy to see it coming out in a form that will enable it to look and sound better to most folks. And give the hardcore some more stuff to notice :D

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Thanks for the screenshot comparisons! The colours do look less orangey on the pilot episode, with some cool colours like blues and pinks enhanced. I just hope they consider doing it for the rest, maybe Mill Creek could do something about it, unlikely though. They just want to get it out there and make money, I guess.

The quality kind of looks the same, but it's hard to tell since you resized the shots.

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1 hour ago, bodie said:

 

mv_keeper_03_zpsjkfaipyp.jpg~original

 

The colours in the pilot are the same as the HD version over on Hulu Plus. So they must be the same HD masters which Universal done. 

Here's a screenshot of a recording I have from Hulu:
vlcsnap2016070814h41.png


And I like to add a touch more saturation to give it better colours: 

ss20160708at024437.jpg

So that's pretty much a preview of what we'd be buying on Bluray, hopefully in 1080p or even 4K instead of the 720p which I have.  :p

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7 hours ago, James said:

Thanks for the screenshot comparisons! The colours do look less orangey on the pilot episode, with some cool colours like blues and pinks enhanced. I just hope they consider doing it for the rest, maybe Mill Creek could do something about it, unlikely though. They just want to get it out there and make money, I guess.

The quality kind of looks the same, but it's hard to tell since you resized the shots.

The shots are not resized, they are at original DVD resolution. If they're showing up small that will be your browser shrinking them to fit. If you right click any of them and 'view image' or 'save image' you will get the original full size file :)

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7 hours ago, James said:

The colours in the pilot are the same as the HD version over on Hulu Plus. So they must be the same HD masters which Universal done. 

Here's a screenshot of a recording I have from Hulu:
And I like to add a touch more saturation to give it better colours: 

So that's pretty much a preview of what we'd be buying on Bluray, hopefully in 1080p or even 4K instead of the 720p which I have.  :p

Thanks, good to know. So yeah, that will be the same master and the DVD is just that bit lower resolution than the Hulu. And the Blu-ray will of course be the highest yet.

4K scans of the original negatives would of course be an amazing thing, but I never thought we'd see them in HD at all, so I won't hold my breath waiting for them all to be 4K scanned. I can't think of a single TV series not shot on 4K that has had this treatment, but never say never. It's early days with 4K home format. But for now, really exciting to have these coming in 1080 :)

1 hour ago, SimplyMark said:

Great to see! Definitely waiting for that long missing Blu-ray release :D

Absolutely, just these DVD versions were so cheap, I thought what the hell, let's just have a look at what we can expect from the Blu-ray :)

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18 minutes ago, bodie said:

The shots are not resized, they are at original DVD resolution. If they're showing up small that will be your browser shrinking them to fit. If you right click any of them and 'view image' or 'save image' you will get the original full size file :)

Oh yeah, I forgot that American (NTSC) DVD's are slightly lower res than PAL DVD's. :)

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1 hour ago, James said:

Oh yeah, I forgot that American (NTSC) DVD's are slightly lower res than PAL DVD's.

They are posted at PAL resolution. Hence my comment that it's significant that the new US discs are holding up and actually showing more detail than a PAL set that is double the number of discs for the season too. All of that could well excuse them being less detailed in this SD comparison, but the good news is that they all show more detail on these new masters;

if you look at captures where writing is visible, like him firing at the end of Heart of Darkness, look at the writing on the container, so much clearer and sharper in the new version.

Equally, on the cap from Calderone's Return Part II where they are standing by the water, look at the rope at the bottom of the frame; on the PAL disc that is just a white line. On the new one, you can see the actual twists of the rope.

And of course in HD these details will not be compressed as they are here. So there's clearly a far greater detail level in these new masters. And the punchy stereo mixes, whereas before, the UK just had 5.1... did the previous US discs have a stereo option? :)

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9 hours ago, bodie said:

Absolutely, just these DVD versions were so cheap, I thought what the hell, let's just have a look at what we can expect from the Blu-ray

I'd buy them myself, that is if I lived anywhere near the US, since I didn't expect a Blu-ray release in the nearest 5 to 10 years, but the announcement came out of the blu... heheh ;)

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I'm in the UK, but even imported they were £10 GBP for the two seasons... that's the price of a single movie... I couldn't say no at that price ;)

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  • 10 months later...

I don't know enough about the process to confirm it, but the Mill Creek box-set DVDs have definitely been rescaled: check the awesome moiré sportcoat on what's-his-name in Honor Among Thieves? below:

S4E16_06.png

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