Problems With the Blu-Ray Release!


Ferrariman

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Yeah, there will usually be at least two sets. If you have a scanner, just scan the data side of the three discs in question. Or, as you say, take a photo :)

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On 03/04/2017 at 6:50 AM, bodie said:

I know we have our own captures earlier from members here, but in case anyone thinks screenshotcomarison.com are showing something new here; it's just the difference in the HD masters compared to the DVD ones. So it's something consistent to both Blu-ray releases and to prove it, here are the screenshotcomarison.com frames matched to the same shot on the new Mill Creek DVDs, which are from the same masters as both Blu-ray sets, as you'll see, it matches - so whichever Blu-ray set you get, it has these colours;

vice_master.jpg

I think that's from the Mill Creek Bluray as well as the Mill Creek DVD. But wow, the grass isn't even green. A mistake when Universal were remastering the footage I guess. I wouldn't call that "mastered". :) 

 

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6 hours ago, James said:

I think that's from the Mill Creek Bluray as well as the Mill Creek DVD. But wow, the grass isn't even green. A mistake when Universal were remastering the footage I guess. I wouldn't call that "mastered". :) 

 

That's the point I went on to show in the post below that, with Tubbs in the Jeep, it's the same on both Blu-ray sets. As for the change, that's been chosen by someone on screenshotcomparison.com to show an extreme change in colour and light, we've seen plenty of others where the masters are much the same as they've always looked, just more detailed, and others like Brother's Keeper and Smuggler's Blues where the new master is a night and day improvement over the US DVD :)

Edited by bodie
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I don't know if this has some relevance on the current discussion, but apparently, at least particularly in the case of "The Prodigal Son", different sources were used for the Universal US DVD and for the Mill Creek BD. I didn't capture the following Prodigal Son pics, they come from the internet.

Notice the different placement of "Kevin Anderson"

BD

The%20Prodigal%20Son%2007b%20BD_zpsbserc

DVD

The%20Prodigal%20Son%2007a%20DVD_zpsytyk

So maybe Universal did use different prints for the BD masters. Would it have to do with the 2008 fire at Universal studios?

Miami Vice has always had different episodes prints running around, with credits and color differences (Hit List X Calderone's Return titles for instance, Deliver us From even with and without "To be continued").

I remember getting very different color results when comparing "Brother's Keeper" on NBC broadcast, MCA VHS and MCA Laserdisc (all those sources were contemporaries, circa 1984-1985, and all the pictures below came from the same VHS player, the same digital converter, all under the exact same settings):

NBC 1985 rerun

001-pilotnbc_zpsiodlrqdg.jpg

MCA VHS (first release, 1985)

001-pilot%20mca%20first%20vhsa_Philips_D

MCA Lasedisc (to me, this source with luxuriant pink or some other source very similar to it was also used for the BDs)

001-pilotlaserdisc2013%20RF%20capture_zp

 

 

 

Edited by ivoryjones
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I doubt it had anything to do with the supposed fire. It's just the way they mastered it, they stuffed up. Because I could edit that footage and correct it myself, so if I can do that, they could've done that.

It's also possible that they done it the lazy way and used one setting for the whole episode, compromised that scene for the benefit of the other majority of the episode. Instead of going scene by scene, seeing how it's a pretty long series with 115 episodes. To quote an old meme, "Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!". Yeah I think that's what they actually done, as evident by the fact that the logo looks different in every episode. Sometimes it's right, and other times it's golden. 

But honestly, all that scene with the plane really needs is a colour boost. The hue's are correct, just needs more saturation. 

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1 hour ago, ivoryjones said:

I don't know if this has some relevance on the current discussion, but apparently, at least particularly in the case of "The Prodigal Son", different sources were used for the Universal US DVD and for the Mill Creek BD.

Yes, that is the whole point that my three image comparison was making - the difference between the previous master of that episode and that of the HD master used on both Blu-ray releases. As James says, it's a difference in saturation and as I said in my last, light.

End of the day, there is a lot more detail in the HD master, as you'd expect, so the size of those screenshotcomparison.com Prodigal Son frames is unhelpful* as they are both presented at such a small size you cannot really appreciate the lack of detail in the DVD and the presence of it on the HD master the same as you absolutely will on a modern screen.

Which is of course the point of all this, to make Miami Vice sit happily on screens in the current era, not look all warm and fuzzy like the DVDs :)

*they also are not the same frames, which is unhelpful, our captures here, not least from ivoryjones are totally accurate, so let's not give screenshotcomparison.com too much attention here, beyond what we've already noted ;)

Edited by bodie
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I'm still happy with my Universal DVD series from 2005. I don't have a Blu-Ray player so the quality is fine for me. The only bad feature is the double sided discs.

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23 minutes ago, Tony D. said:

I'm still happy with my Universal DVD series from 2005. I don't have a Blu-Ray player so the quality is fine for me. The only bad feature is the double sided discs.

Depends on your screen. If you have a 42" or larger HD screen you would very likely see the limitations of DVD as a side effect as it were of the equipment being capable of showing much higher quality images. The technology reveals previously unseen limitations.

I'm sure many of us recall the days when video tape was perfectly acceptable, because when used on the screens it was designed for (the old CRT tubes) it looked absolutely fine. It was the flat screen era that brought in DVD. And then HD screens brought Blu-ray and now 4K screens have 4K streaming services and Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray for them.

Each to their own according to what's important... some people have actual cinemas in their homes, so need all the quality they can get. I've seen a good few Miami Vice projected from the highest quality sources at the time, PAL DVD, and they are pretty impressive blown up. But there's no question how much better they will look in the higher HD quality at that kind of size :)

Edited by bodie
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VHS tapes were perfectly fine, but I was glad DVD replaced them because of the smaller size & ease of finding something on the middle of a disc.

I still watch some of my old tapes of shows I don't have on DVD.

Some of the photos posted on this thread show quality differences so minute that it isn't worth the discussion. Example: A dark picture of the airplane in the swamp. The Mill Creek has deeper color & a little more swamp grass at the bottom.........but when you watch an episode who's going to pause the disc in the swamp & study the scene? I want to get to the point of the episode.

   Like I said....I'll stay with my DVD's until there is a valid reason to make the change.

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On 2/4/2017 at 9:59 PM, bodie said:

Below I'll quote the video that shows the sound errors on the 5.1 - both Blu-ray sets are from the same masters, so they both have these 5.1 problems, just Mill Creek has more audio issues because they also included the original stereo audio for the episodes, and there are faults on those too, but Fabulous does not have the stereo tracks at all - that doesn't make the Fabulous more correct, whatever 5.1 errors are on the Mill Creek are the same on the Fabulous.

But the only 5.1 audio issues on the Fabulous Films release so far are the episodes "Heart of Darkness" and "The Great McCarthy" in Season 1 as mentioned by James.

That doesn't exactly match with Mill Creeks 5.1 audio errors, from what I've read by the post posted yesterday, if I'm not mistaken? :)

Like for instance the episode "Evan" with the 5.1 sound was not affected by audio errors on the Fabulous Films release, so could they have fixed some of them?

 

Edited by summer84
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9 minutes ago, summer84 said:

But the only 5.1 audio issues on the Fabulous Films release so far are the episodes "Heart of Darkness" and "The Great McCarthy" in Season 1 as mentioned by James.

That doesn't exactly match with Mill Creeks 5.1 audio errors, from what I've read by the post posted yesterday, if I'm not mistaken? :)

Like for instance the episode "Evan" with the 5.1 sound was not affected by audio errors on the Fabulous Films release, so could they have fixed some of them?

 

Fabulous have undertaken no work of any kind on the series. So anything on the 5.1 track of either release should be there on both, now that Mill Creek have finished their corrections.

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1 hour ago, Tony D. said:

VHS tapes were perfectly fine, but I was glad DVD replaced them because of the smaller size & ease of finding something on the middle of a disc.

I still watch some of my old tapes of shows I don't have on DVD.

Some of the photos posted on this thread show quality differences so minute that it isn't worth the discussion. Example: A dark picture of the airplane in the swamp. The Mill Creek has deeper color & a little more swamp grass at the bottom.........but when you watch an episode who's going to pause the disc in the swamp & study the scene? I want to get to the point of the episode.

   Like I said....I'll stay with my DVD's until there is a valid reason to make the change.

Ah well it's worth the discussion to those of us that care. I quite understand why you don't, which is why I said "Each to their own according to what's important" :)

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16 minutes ago, bodie said:

Fabulous have undertaken no work of any kind on the series. So anything on the 5.1 track of either release should be there on both, now that Mill Creek have finished their corrections.

Yeah, but that still doesn't explain the differences in the 5.1 audio errors like with the example, I mentioned with the "Evan" audio errors on the 5.1 track, which Fabulous Films doesn't have. So I was just wondering about that. :) Because you said that the errors were the same on both releases with the 5.1 audio. Quote:  whatever 5.1 errors are on the Mill Creek are the same on the Fabulous.

Edited by summer84
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5 minutes ago, summer84 said:

Yeah, but that still doesn't explain the differences in the 5.1 audio errors like with the example, I mentioned with the "Evan" audio errors on the 5.1 track, which Fabulous Films doesn't have. So I was just wondering about that. :)

That's why I said "anything on the 5.1 track of either release should be there on both, now that Mill Creek have finished their corrections." :)

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37 minutes ago, bodie said:

That's why I said "anything on the 5.1 track of either release should be there on both, now that Mill Creek have finished their corrections." :)

I understand. I was only wondering, why the differences were there in the 5.1 audio tracks between Fabulous Films and Mill Creeks Blu-ray release. Because the exact same episodes weren't affected by audio issues. 

Edited by summer84
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Absolutely. I think if either company had a better idea about this themselves that would be ideal as Mill Creek seem now to have stopped taking responsibility for the errors and are blaming what Universal gave them. Which is what Fabulous have said all along, but not offered to fix anything.

The fact remains that Mill Creek's own recent DVDs from the HD masters do not have the audio faults, so it's something recent enough that Universal should fix and supply corrected copied to these labels. And that may be exactly what's happened, just Mill Creek have done something about it and Fabulous have not.

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On 17/1/2017 at 3:43 PM, summer84 said:

"For Season 1, all episodes (except the pilot) were created as a pseudo 5.1 mix from the original mono master (and thus have identical information across the L/C/R channels).  Some degree of sync issues / slipping appear to exist in these remixes and they are not perfect by any means. These remixes were all done about 10 or so years ago and were created and approved by NBC on a limited budget.  There are no current remixes being done for any episodes of Miami Vice."

That is the answer, I got from Fabulous Films, when I asked about the audio issues and if it would be looked into and fixed. 

Edited by summer84
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15 minutes ago, summer84 said:

That is the answer, I got from Fabulous Films, when I asked about the audio issues and if it would be looked into and fixed. 

Exactly what I was saying, and it's the same stance Mill Creek are now taking - they are blaming what they were supplied with, rather than Mill Creek's initial good work in trying to make good.

Of course, one must understand that these companies have to make a profit, and it seems that Mill Creek had a little leeway to make good, but that's now up. And Fabulous never had any.

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I understand from some of bodie's previous messages that Koch would be a great option. I'd sure be glad to learn about a third BD set coming up.

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9 hours ago, summer84 said:

But the only 5.1 audio issues on the Fabulous Films release so far are the episodes "Heart of Darkness" and "The Great McCarthy" in Season 1 as mentioned by James.

That doesn't exactly match with Mill Creeks 5.1 audio errors, from what I've read by the post posted yesterday, if I'm not mistaken? :)

Like for instance the episode "Evan" with the 5.1 sound was not affected by audio errors on the Fabulous Films release, so could they have fixed some of them?

 

I don't think Fabulous Films fixed anything, I think it's more likely that Mill Creek broke it themselves. :p But it is odd that the audio errors don't match, we have to assume that Universal gave both companies identical versions. 

 

8 hours ago, summer84 said:

That is the answer, I got from Fabulous Films, when I asked about the audio issues and if it would be looked into and fixed. 

Yup. What it is, is 5.1 mix has 5 audio channels right, so whoever edited them made the mistakes. Like with Heart of Darkness it sounds like to me that they made a duplicate of the voice channel, and moved the second one over slightly so it's out of sync. Maybe left channel and right channel, something like that? With The Great McCarthy they forgot to add in some of the dialogue, probably rushed, not completed at the time of encoding. Amateur mistakes on both of them. I don't understand how it could've been acceptable, surely the audio editor(s) would've played back every thing they done and heard it. 

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You've hit the nail on the head James - the problem is we are dealing with companies who haven't got the time/money for quality checking this much material. We the fans have basically been the first people to seriously watch through all this material and snag issues.

And yes ivoryjones, absolutely hoping we get a viable third way. And if we don't I'm seriously considering a fan effort, as we have enough raw materials here to actually fix this ourselves if nothing comes on the market to do the series justice. But that's a lot of work, so I hope it won't be necessary. We've waited this long for any HD versions, so I've still got a bit of patience :)

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On ‎4‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 3:22 PM, bodie said:

Many thanks. The codes are round the hub on the data side (see image below) - we need all the codes written there, there are usually at least two sets. You will need good light and probably easiest to scan them or use a phone camera, unless you have a magnifying glass. Those are what we need to know for the fixed discs :)

Sorry, I took several camera shots of the Disc Data sides and there is too much reflection to get any good views. And my printer scanner isn't functioning at the moment due to a bad cartridge. So I can try again once I order and receive a new cartridge pack.  

Though on reflection I think the best solution is to order through a reputable source such as Amazon and if any of the few defects I noted above on any of the 3 discs are found, just return for an exchange. Not sure how many in here will actually try and view these very small and hard to see codes in any case.

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1 hour ago, Sonny-Burnett said:

Sorry, I took several camera shots of the Disc Data sides and there is too much reflection to get any good views. And my printer scanner isn't functioning at the moment due to a bad cartridge. So I can try again once I order and receive a new cartridge pack.  

Though on reflection I think the best solution is to order through a reputable source such as Amazon and if any of the few defects I noted above on any of the 3 discs are found, just return for an exchange. Not sure how many in here will actually try and view these very small and hard to see codes in any case.

Thanks for trying. A number of us here are international buyers, so being aware of the correct product codes is essential as Mill Creek will not send copies outside of the US and amazon make no guarantees about what stock they're selling you. We still don't know if corrected stock is even out with retailers. It seems unlikely bad stock was recalled as there would then be no continuing need for people to write in to Mill Creek all this time later. So basically, the corrected copies are with them until you ask for one. But if we at least know what those copies are, by their unique codes, it gives a chance of knowing what we're after. So yeah, when your scanner is back up and running, scans of the data side would be very helpful :)

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50 minutes ago, bodie said:

Thanks for trying. A number of us here are international buyers, so being aware of the correct product codes is essential as Mill Creek will not send copies outside of the US and amazon make no guarantees about what stock they're selling you. We still don't know if corrected stock is even out with retailers. It seems unlikely bad stock was recalled as there would then be no continuing need for people to write in to Mill Creek all this time later. So basically, the corrected copies are with them until you ask for one. But if we at least know what those copies are, by their unique codes, it gives a chance of knowing what we're after. So yeah, when your scanner is back up and running, scans of the data side would be very helpful :)

OK so after working with the scanner/printer a bit I now can scan but not print.  I have scanned all 3 discs onto 2 photos. I can either upload to photobucket and link them here, or I can transcribe the codes as I see them. Which do you prefer?

Edit: on second thought, after uploading to Photobucket I don't think the resolution is sufficient for you to be able to see/transcribe the codes. So I will attempt to list them here:

S1DI:   OUTER BAND:  IFPILV80          (598811)   63260DO1R1    O1E     010001

             INNER BAND:  IFPILV80           (598812)   63260D01R1    O1E      020001

S1D4:  OUTER BAND:  IFPILV79           (598814)   63260D04R1    O1E      040001

            INNER BAND:   IFPILV79            (598815)   63260D04R1    01E       050001  

S4D4:  OUTER BAND:  IFPILV80            (600161)   6326OD16R1   O1E      020001 

             INNER BAND:  IFPILV80            (600162)    63260D16R1    O1E     020001

Hope this helps......

 

Edited by Sonny-Burnett
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Just my personal solution in order to get Mill Creek set and replacements even if you're out of USA: buy from a store (in my case it was Amazon.com) and have your BD set shipped to an address furnished by a package forwarding service (shipito in my case). Your store invoice will show a USA address and that will qualify as proof or purchase for the replacement. I hope I have written a line previously about the subject here or on the other earlier thread about BD, otherwise I'll feel guilty I haven't. If anyone needs any help on this, please feel free to PM me! I've lost count on how many times I had Miami Vice media shipped from and to USA (VHSs, CDs, Laserdiscs, DVDs, BDs), it is always a pleasure to have MV going or coming!

Edited by ivoryjones
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