Problems With the Blu-Ray Release!


Ferrariman

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11 hours ago, Jay1984 said:

I didn't check when i posted the pic, i checked now and both discs are identical....... i even started the intro scenes of el viejo, streetwise and down for the count part 1 on both. Same exact disc data............ Incredible... :wuerg:

 

After this i checked Season 4 and 5, all fine. Just season 3 has this issue.... 

 

Aww, that sucks! I'd get on to your retailer immediately for a replacement set as I bet the fixed discs Mill Creek are doing will not be through retailers, it'll be something they handle for people through the mail direct with them. So I don't think you will be able to deal with both these issues (the faulty discs and your missing/double disc) with a single return - and I think waiting for retailers to have fixed sets in before you raise this separate issue might get complicated.

I'm sure once Amazon have corrected stock it will be safe for people to buy the set from them direct, but there will still be loads of faulty copies out there with amazon third party sellers and other retailers, especially eBay. So buyer beware!

Edited by bodie
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I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but maybe we could also open a thread focusing on the Blu-Ray discs replacement process offered by Mill Creek (more about it here). I already contacted their customer support, and it seems they won't disappoint customers.

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1 hour ago, ivoryjones said:

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but maybe we could also open a thread focusing on the Blu-Ray discs replacement process offered by Mill Creek (more about it here). I already contacted their customer support, and it seems they won't disappoint customers.

Good to know - Im very interested now in the quality of the UK blu ray set coming out on December 12th and the European ones which will follow :D:shout:

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6 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Good to know - Im very interested now in the quality of the UK blu ray set coming out on December 12th and the European ones which will follow :D:shout:

Hopefully Fabulous Films have seen Mill Creek's mishaps and fixed it for their own releases. 

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17 hours ago, James said:

Hopefully Fabulous Films have seen Mill Creek's mishaps and fixed it for their own releases. 

They have not done so yet - checkdiscs went out with the same audio errors that Mill Creek had (of course, it's all the same material from Universal). But Fabulous are not including the stereo tracks, so no workaround with theirs. They may fix it before release but I would advise anyone considering it to hang fire until that is confirmed, especially considering the price compared to the US ones.

However, they have ported over the old DVD extras (The Vibe of Vice - Building the Perfect Vice - The Style of Vice - The Music of Vice - Miami After Vice) and present the episodes on more discs; 25 vs. Mill Creek's 20 (so likely less compressed).

It will be interesting to see if any other publisher includes the stereo tracks as European variants often have to include local dialogue tracks which all take space on the discs, so that's often a reason alternate English audio and commentaries are lost on some European releases. I for one will be keeping an eye on Koch in Germany who produced a much better spec Airwolf set than Fabulous did.

Edited by bodie
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5 hours ago, bodie said:

They have not done so yet - checkdiscs went out with the same audio errors that Mill Creek had (of course, it's all the same material from Universal). But Fabulous are not including the stereo tracks, so no workaround with theirs. They may fix it before release but I would advise anyone considering it to hang fire until that is confirmed, especially considering the price compared to the US ones.

However, they have ported over the old DVD extras (The Vibe of Vice - Building the Perfect Vice - The Style of Vice - The Music of Vice - Miami After Vice) and present the episodes on more discs; 25 vs. Mill Creek's 20 (so likely less compressed).

It will be interesting to see if any other publisher includes the stereo tracks as European variants often have to include local dialogue tracks which all take space on the discs, so that's often a reason alternate English audio and commentaries are lost on some European releases. I for one will be keeping an eye on Koch in Germany who produced a much better spec Airwolf set than Fabulous did.

Yeah, Universal really made a mess of these "HD masters"... 

I also feel like they didn't go back to the original raw film for multiple reasons - one being that the HD versions still have the original fonts and titles, the Bluray's for American Graffiti has new text for the starting credits. So obviously it was re-edited. 
Original:

vlcsnap-2016-10-25-15h00m50s221.png

Bluray:
Untitled_2.png

And Scarface looks absolutely amazing. Hard to say whether that was re-edited too because it doesn't have any text over the footage. But the colours are still good, and the quality is fantastic, picture is clear (minus film grain), but it's much more sharp than Miami Vice.

vlcsnap-2016-11-09-14h45m05s202.png

I'm sure Miami Vice could've gotten the same treatment if they actually went back to the original film.

My point is - I think that they actually rescanned the final edits, rather than the original film - For whatever reason (Probably time/money), and maybe the copies are on what we'd call in the digital age, a lower resolution film. I mean, I don't know how it works, but one would assume that they'd make copies of the original film before editing because back in the day they used to actually cut the film into pieces. 

It could also be possible that the rumour that a fire destroyed the original raw film is in fact true, so they couldn't do a proper HD master even if they wanted to.

Again - I don't know how it works, this is just a theory of mine. Because I feel like there's no reason why Miami Vice couldn't have gotten the Scarface treatment. It's the only explanation I can think of.

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i remember when Time Life was issuing "The Six Million Dollar Man" it was said that the original recordings were in the fire & duplicates had to be found. It may have only been some episodes I'm not sure. It's highly possible the original Vice recordings were lost. 

Edited by Noggie
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In any case, Vice is far from alone in being a series Universal prepared these masters for many years ago. Scarface is one feature and a guaranteed return for Universal - five seasons of television are a much bigger ask.

I wouldn't read too much in to the archive holdings based on this wave of releases as it's the same for Universal's Buck Rogers, The Incredible Hulk and Knight Rider releases, all sourced from the same kind of masters.

In the now deleted 14 page Blu-ray thread I was saying that I think we have to be realistic about the physical market and how much could reasonably be charged for this. And I used Paramount and Star Trek: The Next Generation as an example of where exhaustive new HD remasters from the original negatives meant high price points on individual season sets. People met that by waiting for reductions and for a complete series set, which did not encourage the work to continue.

I also said I would have hated for Vice to be in a situation where a pixel perfect HD remaster of Season 1 came out for $65 and people just shrugged it off, waited for the price to come down and we never saw the rest of the series in HD. I think Universal is right to just licence their current copies out in such a way that people can market a complete series Blu-ray set for $50 as Mill Creek have.

Sure, there will be dedicated fans like us who know that the series could look better. But are there enough of us to make it commercially viable to have a new full series remaster from the negatives? I very much doubt it, love the show though I do.

On a practical note, I see Amazon have the Mill Creek set back up on sale now, but a week is far too soon for this to be corrected stock, surely? I think they're probably just selling what they have again knowing that anyone who cares can contact Mill Creek. They really should have a notice up on the listing to that effect if so though, as international purchasers would have a nasty surprise trying to get replacement discs from Mill Creek.

Edited by bodie
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1 hour ago, bodie said:

In any case, Vice is far from alone in being a series Universal prepared these masters for many years ago. Scarface is one feature and a guaranteed return for Universal - five seasons of television are a much bigger ask.

I wouldn't read too much in to the archive holdings based on this wave of releases as it's the same for Universal's Buck Rogers, The Incredible Hulk and Knight Rider releases, all sourced from the same kind of masters.

In the now deleted 14 page Blu-ray thread I was saying that I think we have to be realistic about the physical market and how much could reasonably be charged for this. And I used Paramount and Star Trek: The Next Generation as an example of where exhaustive new HD remasters from the original negatives meant high price points on individual season sets. People met that by waiting for reductions and for a complete series set, which did not encourage the work to continue.

I also said I would have hated for Vice to be in a situation where a pixel perfect HD remaster of Season 1 came out for $65 and people just shrugged it off, waited for the price to come down and we never saw the rest of the series in HD. I think Universal is right to just licence their current copies out in such a way that people can market a complete series Blu-ray set for $50 as Mill Creek have.

Sure, there will be dedicated fans like us who know that the series could look better. But are there enough of us to make it commercially viable to have a new full series remaster from the negatives? I very much doubt it, love the show though I do.

On a practical note, I see Amazon have the Mill Creek set back up on sale now, but a week is far too soon for this to be corrected stock, surely? I think they're probably just selling what they have again knowing that anyone who cares can contact Mill Creek. They really should have a notice up on the listing to that effect if so though, as international purchasers would have a nasty surprise trying to get replacement discs from Mill Creek.

Great info thanks!

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Interesting info, going to the raw files would've been awesome since i notice a lot of image deteriorating in any shots with credit text or dissolves compared to shots without em.  If they scanned the original camera negatives dailies and put the text digitally then there wouldnt be any deteriorating but of course that is a lot of work and money that NBC would have to put in. Is also obvious looking at the intros  sequence that they didn't remove any dirt or scratches. 

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Yeah that's it exactly, a scan of the programme as made, not a scan of all the negatives and then reassembling them - as you rightly put it in your post above. One takes far more time, and thus money, than the other. If these were not commercial products that need to make money, then of course in an ideal world, the sky's the limit on what we the fans think the programme deserves. But we have to be real and for the longest time it looked like the show would never be on Blu-ray, so glass half full rather than half empty I say :)

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2 hours ago, bodie said:

Yeah that's it exactly, a scan of the programme as made, not a scan of all the negatives and then reassembling them - as you rightly put it in your post above. One takes far more time, and thus money, than the other. If these were not commercial products that need to make money, then of course in an ideal world, the sky's the limit on what we the fans think the programme deserves. But we have to be real and for the longest time it looked like the show would never be on Blu-ray, so glass half full rather than half empty I say :)

Thank you! That is EXACTLY what happened here!

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2 hours ago, bodie said:

Yeah that's it exactly, a scan of the programme as made, not a scan of all the negatives and then reassembling them - as you rightly put it in your post above. One takes far more time, and thus money, than the other. If these were not commercial products that need to make money, then of course in an ideal world, the sky's the limit on what we the fans think the programme deserves. But we have to be real and for the longest time it looked like the show would never be on Blu-ray, so glass half full rather than half empty I say :)

yeah doesnt surprise me really, and its one of the funny things really, its always best to keep the originals around as theirs certain effects and things like that get washed out or digitally removed unintentionally latter on with these remasters, as the same thing is happening with a TV show I grew up with, TNG of all things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtDJjr44d1U

Note the engines, they were blue with a purple glow to it that better matched the ships design, and meshes with the red abit better as seen in the intro, which was purely by accident as that was a side effect of the filmography back then, same thing with the paint job of the ship itself actually as it was designed to match the TOS version, except that with modern film it gave it that blue green look.

and the digital remasters remove that and thus it doesnt flow into the design quite as well and it causes a clown shoe effect, which is probably why alot of people really hate CGI, its so controlled that some of the cool natural effects you would get by that are now gone and it looks so shiney its unrealistic looking, and thus you cant fool yourself into thinking its real.

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Yeah I mentioned TNG above. That is the poster boy for this because as you say, they needed to render all the effects again in HD and of course being the kind of show it is, that was a ton of very expensive work and they really needed to have that rewarded by people buying them at the original asking price as the seasons came out.

With Vice, there are very few examples of things added in post production to anything like the same extent. So much of the beauty of the show is what they achieved in camera on the day with lights and lenses - not like today when the raw footage of shows is completely different to what we see once it's all been digitally colour timed.

There will always be people who are wedded to how they first saw these things presented. But that's always going to be a minority compared to those that think it's a case of TNG or The X-Files finally being scrubbed up to the standard of other HD TV and movies they watch today.

Which is the point really, it's about these shows and movies living on beyond those old tapes and people who fondly remember it first time around. I for one know someone who has only ever seen some of Vice with me on DVD who is going to get the Blu-ray set and enjoy the majority of the show for the first time. And that's the main point, keeping it alive and out there for people to discover and enjoy.

I think these HD copies do that to the best extent any home versions have done, though of course we know a TNG style remaster would be amazing, at least we've got something and it's the highest quality picture and sound for the show yet :)

Edited by bodie
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yeah and the other thing is the more people we get in, the greater the chance of a sympathetic restoration of all of the old film negatives to how they were shown back in the day, and the rest we can do ourselves.

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As to the timing of when Mill Creek will send out the replacement S1 discs, I just received this reply from them:

" The replacement discs are currently being authored and manufactured. We do not have a projected date for when they will be ready."

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On 11/8/2016 at 10:51 PM, James said:

And Scarface looks absolutely amazing. Hard to say whether that was re-edited too because it doesn't have any text over the footage. But the colours are still good, and the quality is fantastic, picture is clear (minus film grain), but it's much more sharp than Miami Vice.

vlcsnap-2016-11-09-14h45m05s202.png

I'm sure Miami Vice could've gotten the same treatment if they actually went back to the original film.

I have the Scarface Blu-ray as well and it is a great release. I don't have any articles or anything on hand but I believe the Blu-ray was sourced from a remaster done back in 2003 for the film's 20th anniversary. I believe Universal did try to make changes to Scarface but Director Brian DePalma put his foot down (one change reportedly was they wanted to replace the music in the 2003 remaster with rap music :p). The only altered thing that DePalma approved of for the 20th anniversary was redoing the gunshots with modern-sounding ones and enhanced the music. The Blu-ray's 7.1 mix is taken from the newer mix with the new gunshots and the 2.0 DTS mix is the film's original mix with the old school "ratatata" sounding gunshots still intact. 

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20 hours ago, agent 47 said:

I have the Scarface Blu-ray as well and it is a great release. I don't have any articles or anything on hand but I believe the Blu-ray was sourced from a remaster done back in 2003 for the film's 20th anniversary. I believe Universal did try to make changes to Scarface but Director Brian DePalma put his foot down (one change reportedly was they wanted to replace the music in the 2003 remaster with rap music :p). The only altered thing that DePalma approved of for the 20th anniversary was redoing the gunshots with modern-sounding ones and enhanced the music. The Blu-ray's 7.1 mix is taken from the newer mix with the new gunshots and the 2.0 DTS mix is the film's original mix with the old school "ratatata" sounding gunshots still intact. 

Good information and detail  - thankyou !:D

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=4483

Here's another review with some detail on the UK set. Afraid the U.K. set doesn't include the 2.0 Stereo tracks the U.S. set has which sucks as 

Quote

I gave up on that one at that point. Faulty and annoying; sounds like you're watching in a large church hall. Lets hope that Fabulous correct the fault and repress Disc 1 before the set is released.

it sounds like the U.K. one also has echo issues on Heart of Darkness' 5.1 mix like the U.S. set does. Guess it pretty much confirms that these companies are just supplying what was licensed to them and take the brunt of what problems Universal made. On the bright side the small amount of extras from the old DVD are ported over for the U.K. set. 

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On 01/12/2016 at 2:39 AM, agent 47 said:

http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=4483

Here's another review with some detail on the UK set. Afraid the U.K. set doesn't include the 2.0 Stereo tracks the U.S. set has which sucks as 

it sounds like the U.K. one also has echo issues on Heart of Darkness' 5.1 mix like the U.S. set does. Guess it pretty much confirms that these companies are just supplying what was licensed to them and take the brunt of what problems Universal made. On the bright side the small amount of extras from the old DVD are ported over for the U.K. set. 

Shame - again a faulty set which at over $200 for this set isn't good enough really

But as you said FF just putting out what Universal made!:done::D

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