Problems With the Blu-Ray Release!


Ferrariman

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On 02/02/2017 at 9:09 AM, James said:

That's for the Mill Creek (US/Region 1) release, Summer84 and I were talking about the Fabulous Films version. 

In my opinion, the picture for Fabulous Films looks a lot better than Mill Creek also. Better colours. 

Oh and guys! - One thing I forgot to mention is the ordering of seaosn 5 on the Fabulous Films release - The cut episodes are in the order they later aired in, so they're AFTER Freefall. 

I was reading this and James says the Fabulous Films version looks better than the Mill Creek set?!

Edited by Matt5
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3 hours ago, Matt5 said:

I was reading this and James says the Fabulous Films version looks better than the Mill Creek set?!

I guess it's all opinion. Plus I was watching it on a TV which is different to viewing it on a PC. I just thought that Mill Creek's sort of had that faded colour washed look you get from old film, where Fabulous Films looked like they restored the colour levels to where they should be (grass being the right green, Crockett's light blue shirts actually look light blue instead of aqua, etc.).

Only downside - Which I did mention in my original review is that they added a little too much contrast - Which is what bodie also mentioned with the "output range" thing. To me it looks like too much contrast, I done the same thing when messing with the levels on the old Hulu versions I used to watch. 

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7 hours ago, James said:

I guess it's all opinion. Plus I was watching it on a TV which is different to viewing it on a PC. I just thought that Mill Creek's sort of had that faded colour washed look you get from old film, where Fabulous Films looked like they restored the colour levels to where they should be (grass being the right green, Crockett's light blue shirts actually look light blue instead of aqua, etc.).

Only downside - Which I did mention in my original review is that they added a little too much contrast - Which is what bodie also mentioned with the "output range" thing. To me it looks like too much contrast, I done the same thing when messing with the levels on the old Hulu versions I used to watch. 

Yeah if you change the levels on the Fabulous version back to the output range they should be at, it becomes clear that these are exactly the same as the Mill Creek:

So here's the ivoryjones capture of the Mill Creek;

ivoryjones_millcreek.jpg

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and now the Fabulous with the output range altered to what should be wrong, but hey, it fixes it and makes it look like the Mill Creek (the first image of the three), look at the detail in the hair again;

darkness_demo_adj.png

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Fabulous have not undertaken any restoration, they've just put the same masters as Mill Creek on disc, just they did it incorrectly and Mill Creek have done it right. And Mill Creek have the original stereo tracks (previously discussed errors aside) and Fabulous just have the 5.1 with the drawbacks of that you can see in the video in my last post (which affect the Mill Creek 5.1 too of course). At least the Mill Creek has a choice of audio, and is much cheaper :)

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Sorry but I don't understand because everything is all digital these days, so if Universal gave them the same masters, and they got those same masters burnt to the discs untouched, shouldn't they look the same?

I don't know if it's different at disc printers, but when I burn a DVD disc on my computer, you just import the video and menu files into the program and it burns it. There isn't any mastering involved and there's no wrong way of doing it, only one way. So, I'm confused as to what you mean by "incorrectly" doing it. They had to have be altered manually by somebody before getting the discs made.

But anyway - Maybe later I'll play with my TV and see if I can do this same reversal on that. 
 

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This was a fantastic analysis, bodie!

I have the Mill Creek set and I was seriously considering buying FFilms set, too, hoping it could come from different prints/masters. Paying for both sets and (in my case) 2 international shipments, at the end it would be a lot of bucks spent. But now I don't think I'll need to do it, thanks to you!

Considering all that has been discussed, now makes sense to me that, if you want to have Miami Vice on Blu-Ray, even if you are a hardcore fan, it's probably best to have only one of the 2 sets, regardless of which, as there are ways to make them twins with some minor differences (stereo audio on MC, probably less compression on FF). In my case, it was the Mill Creek set (mainly because it was the first to hit the stores), but If I had the FFilms I would stick to it and would not buy Mill Creek.

I still resent that neither of the sets brought the old vibrant colors (just to give one example, you'll never see the blue/pink logo of Seasons 3-5 on Blu-Ray, instead you're gonna have that IMO awful "snooker green"/purple!). Maybe one day in the future, finally, we can have the best of the 2 worlds: top picture quality and uncompromising faithful look, but that's an entirely different discussion (maybe that would even need Michael Mann's supervision, as I believe it happened with the fantastic BD release of "Thief"). If things were a bit like in the early '00s, in which different countries would release DVD titles from different prints/masters and at the end you could have a favorite movie of yours looking dramatically different if you bought it from US/UK/German/Japan, if things were still like that, but now on Blu-Ray, we would have a chance of finding "the" release somewhere in the world. But already in 2005, with the complete 1st Season on DVD, Universal had pretty much the same master released in every continent. But again, that's a different discussion from the main topic here.

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5 hours ago, ivoryjones said:

This was a fantastic analysis, bodie!

I have the Mill Creek set and I was seriously considering buying FFilms set, too, hoping it could come from different prints/masters. Paying for both sets and (in my case) 2 international shipments, at the end it would be a lot of bucks spent. But now I don't think I'll need to do it, thanks to you!

Considering all that has been discussed, now makes sense to me that, if you want to have Miami Vice on Blu-Ray, even if you are a hardcore fan, it's probably best to have only one of the 2 sets, regardless of which, as there are ways to make them twins with some minor differences (stereo audio on MC, probably less compression on FF). In my case, it was the Mill Creek set (mainly because it was the first to hit the stores), but If I had the FFilms I would stick to it and would not buy Mill Creek.

I still resent that neither of the sets brought the old vibrant colors (just to give one example, you'll never see the blue/pink logo of Seasons 3-5 on Blu-Ray, instead you're gonna have that IMO awful "snooker green"/purple!). Maybe one day in the future, finally, we can have the best of the 2 worlds: top picture quality and uncompromising faithful look, but that's an entirely different discussion (maybe that would even need Michael Mann's supervision, as I believe it happened with the fantastic BD release of "Thief"). If things were a bit like in the early '00s, in which different countries would release DVD titles from different prints/masters and at the end you could have a favorite movie of yours looking dramatically different if you bought it from US/UK/German/Japan, if things were still like that, but now on Blu-Ray, we would have a chance of finding "the" release somewhere in the world. But already in 2005, with the complete 1st Season on DVD, Universal had pretty much the same master released in every continent. But again, that's a different discussion from the main topic here.

Yeah. With Thief there is a great set from Arrow which has the remaster and a more conventional presentation of it in the same package - both in HD.

With Vice, I'd say a keen fan would get the recent DVD not Blu-ray from Mill Creek as Season 1 and 2 were released individually. They are from the HD masters and they don't have any of the faults so far anyway, and they're dirt cheap.

With Blu-ray, I'm waiting to see if another company releases it without errors, like Koch in Germany who rescued Airwolf when Fabulous had already released a less than ideal set.

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5 hours ago, James said:

Sorry but I don't understand because everything is all digital these days, so if Universal gave them the same masters, and they got those same masters burnt to the discs untouched, shouldn't they look the same?

I don't know if it's different at disc printers, but when I burn a DVD disc on my computer, you just import the video and menu files into the program and it burns it. There isn't any mastering involved and there's no wrong way of doing it, only one way. So, I'm confused as to what you mean by "incorrectly" doing it. They had to have be altered manually by somebody before getting the discs made.

But anyway - Maybe later I'll play with my TV and see if I can do this same reversal on that. 
 

No worries, it is confusing. It's not like burning a copy at home, Blu-ray discs have to conform to an industry standard for the format. If they didn't people would find discs and players constantly incompatible as there would be no agreed standard.

So every disc you get has to be authored to be a retail Blu-ray disc and that's where Fabulous has fallen down, they got the same masters from Universal of Miami Vice, but when preparing the disc master nobody spotted that they had been incorrectly authored with the wrong settings.

Fabulous have previous on this, even if they use the same authoring house as others, they don't have quality control procedures in place to catch these issues before production. And, worse, unlike Mill Creek who've tried to do the right thing and make good to some extent, Fabulous tend generally to just shrug things off, as they have with these Vice issues, where they've yet to fix anything.

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11 hours ago, bodie said:

and now the Fabulous with the output range altered to what should be wrong, but hey, it fixes it and makes it look like the Mill Creek (the first image of the three), look at the detail in the hair again;

darkness_demo_adj.png

Is it easy to change the contrast on the Fabulous Films set you mean manually on your TV/ blu ray ?!

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19 hours ago, James said:

I guess it's all opinion. Plus I was watching it on a TV which is different to viewing it on a PC. I just thought that Mill Creek's sort of had that faded colour washed look you get from old film, where Fabulous Films looked like they restored the colour levels to where they should be (grass being the right green, Crockett's light blue shirts actually look light blue instead of aqua, etc.).

Only downside - Which I did mention in my original review is that they added a little too much contrast - Which is what bodie also mentioned with the "output range" thing. To me it looks like too much contrast, I done the same thing when messing with the levels on the old Hulu versions I used to watch. 

Good to know thankyou 

I like the fact the FF set has 25 discs as opposed to the MC set which has 20 so less compression on the FF set !:done:

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12 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Is it easy to change the contrast on the Fabulous Films set you mean manually on your TV/ blu ray ?!

You could, but unless your screen has adjustable HDMI Black Level you're never actually going to get the levels right with the Fabulous unless you do what was being described above with software playback via MPC-HC or something else that allows the output range to be shifted.

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12 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Good to know thankyou 

I like the fact the FF set has 25 discs as opposed to the MC set which has 20 so less compression on the FF set !:done:

That was an attraction initially, but then they didn't include the stereo mixes, have stuffed up the picture levels (as recently discussed), haven't yet dealt with any of the errors Mill Creek have, and are charging over three times the price. Hard to justify imho.

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20 hours ago, Matt5 said:

I'll be interested to see if Summer buys the Fabulous Films release:thumbsup::fireworks:

Well... :)   Maybe when the price is right/reasonable enough for me. 

Are you going to buy the set?

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1 hour ago, summer84 said:

Well... :)   Maybe when the price is right/reasonable enough for me. 

Are you going to buy the set?

I have the Millcreek version also looking for The FF set but the price is high :done:

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7 minutes ago, Matt5 said:

I have the Millcreek version also looking for The FF set but the price is high :done:

Ok, so you already have the Mill Creeks Blu-ray set. Nice! That set is also much more cheaper. 

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Yeah. Just yesterday the Fabulous Films Blu-ray set cost £126.08, but is now back to, what I think was the standard price of £169.70 on Amazon.uk.

And on that site also the cheapest set cost £120.00 by third party sellers. 

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21 minutes ago, summer84 said:

Yeah. Just yesterday the Fabulous Films Blu-ray set cost £126.08, but is now back to, what I think was the standard price of £169.70 on Amazon.uk.

And on that site also the cheapest set cost £120.00 by third party sellers. 

I wonder if this set will ever come down much below £120 on Amazon ?!

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20 minutes ago, Matt5 said:

I wonder if this set will ever come down much below £120 on Amazon ?!

Haha, I have been thinking the same thing. That's what I'm hoping for at some point, that the FF's price gets close to what the Mill Creeks cheapest set cost. :thumbsup:

 

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33 minutes ago, summer84 said:

Haha, I have been thinking the same thing. That's what I'm hoping for at some point, that the FF's price gets close to what the Mill Creeks cheapest set cost. :thumbsup:

 

Yes I see what you mean - but sometimes with a show like Vice particularly on blu ray think of all the months of enjoyment you would get before price fell that low . Even then there is no guarantee it would fall that low summer:done::thumbsup:

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2 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Yes I see what you mean - but sometimes with a show like Vice particularly on blu ray think of all the months of enjoyment you would get before price fell that low . Even then there is no guarantee it would fall that low summer:done::thumbsup:

I do remember it was either this or last month to my surprise Amazon offered the set for 90£, but that was just a limited 1 day offer and there were many buyers. That's the lowest it has been since the release the 12th of Dec. 2016.

I must say the recent posts on the forum with the review of episodes has gotten me back into watching MV. So I'm looking forward to that, since I didn't really watch much last year. :fireworks: 

Edited by summer84
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43 minutes ago, summer84 said:

I do remember it was either this or last month to my surprise Amazon offered the set for 90£, but that was just a limited 1 day offer and there were many buyers. That's the lowest it has been since the release the 12th of Dec. 2016.

I must say the recent posts on the forum with the review of episodes has gotten me back into watching MV. So I'm looking forward to that, since I didn't really watch much last year. :fireworks: 

£9o is very good price indeed !

Glad you are getting into the show again- I think the blu rays , although flawed , will enhance your viewing considerably :dance:

Edited by Matt5
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