Problems With the Blu-Ray Release!


Ferrariman

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12 hours ago, summer84 said:

I found out yesterday, that there is this website, which gives a good overview of how the prices have changed through a period of time for Fabulous Films Blu-ray release of Miami Vice. I thought you had bought yours from Amazon. I didn't know there also was a third party store, until I saw this link with price history: http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Miami-Vice-Complete-Don-Johnson/product/B01MFC5GBK?context=browse I couldn't figure out, which online store that is?

Great to know, that most of the episodes on Season 1 are flawless and I'm expecting the last five are going to be as well. :thumbsup:

And yeah you're right it is kind of a "Leap of Faith" decision. I almost got tempted to buy the set, when I read that, but it's just still too expensive for me. :)

Would love to see some screenshots! And how are the night scenes picture quality?

 

Yeah, some book stores and online stores in the UK have them and they're selling them cheaper than the official Fabulous Films Amazon store was.

I got mine off eBay because Amazon doesn't have PayPal.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/351935313751

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On 24/01/2017 at 11:47 AM, summer84 said:

So that means, so far only two episodes in Season 1 have these sound issues. What about Brother's Keeper?

I would love to watch Miami Vice with great picture quality, but now reading about those errors in "Great McCarthy" kind of makes me doubt... :)

I've heard nothing ref sound quality on the Pilot but have seen some reviewers post the picture quality in some areas on the landmark episode could have been better ?!

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15 hours ago, Matt5 said:

I've heard nothing ref sound quality on the Pilot but have seen some reviewers post the picture quality in some areas on the landmark episode could have been better ?!

I'm not entirely sure, but I think those reviews about the picture quality in "The Pilot" were of Mill Creeks Blu-ray release, which wasn't perfect, had some grain in night scenes and stuff, from what I can remember. 

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7 hours ago, summer84 said:

I'm not entirely sure, but I think those reviews about the picture quality in "The Pilot" were of Mill Creeks Blu-ray release, which wasn't perfect, had some grain in night scenes and stuff, from what I can remember. 

Yes thankyou - that rings true , that's where I saw it ref. the region 1 release :done:

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It's the same master for each. Ditto the rest of the series, all from Universal. And the first episode is a much better master than the rest, as we saw here back in July before the Blu-rays were even out. And as was said thereafter, the difference between releases is the price, how many episodes per disc and the sound options, all of which impact the size of the encode.

If people are seeing grain, that's good, that's what you pay for, grain is where the detail lives in film. But there's no way people will be seeing night and day differences between different encodes of the same source. That will be down to their expectations and familiarity with material like this and what their viewing setup is and how it's calibrated.

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I just finished watching season 1 of the Fabulous Films release so here's my overall review of it:

Sound: The only issues were with Heart of Darkness (echoing) and The Great McCarthy (a few pieces of dialogue missing, assuming it was rushed and the editor forgot to complete it). Every episode after that was perfectly fine sound-wise, I didn't notice any issues. Quality sounded fine, though I was using TV speakers, and they weren't very good speakers so it's hard to tell.

Picture: Didn't see any problems picture-wise. Some grain, but it's natural and you can only notice it really when you're close up. Some night time scenes make the grain more visible, but it's what you'd expect from something filmed on film. It's crisp and clear, you can see individual strands of stubble and hair, and less of a digitised effect which the old DVD's had.

Season 2 will kick off tonight with The Prodigal Son - Which I'm really looking forward to as I haven't experienced these masters of season 2 yet. I had already experienced season 1's HD masters with the Hulu releases, so it wasn't really a new experience for me. 

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On 07/02/2017 at 5:25 AM, James said:

I just finished watching season 1 of the Fabulous Films release so here's my overall review of it:

Sound: The only issues were with Heart of Darkness (echoing) and The Great McCarthy (a few pieces of dialogue missing, assuming it was rushed and the editor forgot to complete it). Every episode after that was perfectly fine sound-wise, I didn't notice any issues. Quality sounded fine, though I was using TV speakers, and they weren't very good speakers so it's hard to tell.

Picture: Didn't see any problems picture-wise. Some grain, but it's natural and you can only notice it really when you're close up. Some night time scenes make the grain more visible, but it's what you'd expect from something filmed on film. It's crisp and clear, you can see individual strands of stubble and hair, and less of a digitised effect which the old DVD's had.

Season 2 will kick off tonight with The Prodigal Son - Which I'm really looking forward to as I haven't experienced these masters of season 2 yet. I had already experienced season 1's HD masters with the Hulu releases, so it wasn't really a new experience for me. 

Great info thankyou - look forward to hearing what you think of Season 2.!

So the Pilot looked / sounded good in the blu ray release from Fabulous Films ?! :D

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On 09/02/2017 at 0:02 PM, Matt5 said:

Great info thankyou - look forward to hearing what you think of Season 2.!

So the Pilot looked / sounded good in the blu ray release from Fabulous Films ?! :D

Yup. it was pretty much perfect. 

I watched The Prodigal Son, Whatever Works, Out Where the Busses Don't Run:

The Prodigal Son - Intro scene in Bogota looked kind of low quality. More like the DVD's, and a bit of blur. After the title sequence the quality was pretty good for the remainder of the episode, also didn't notice any sound issues.

Whatever Works - Good picture quality, good sound quality.

Out Where the Busses Don't Run - Great picture quality, good sound quality. The dark scenes are really good, you can hardly notice the film grain. Usually film grain stands out more in dark scenes, but with this episode it was excellent. I wonder if they upgraded their film equipment for season 2.

So no issues so far.

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Yeah, that's all down to original shooting variations (and equipment, like you say), the Blu-ray encodes will not differ that much within the same episode that you should notice anything. So scenes in low light are usually noisier as a rule, because of how lenses and film work, not because of Blu-ray. But as I said in my previous, consistent visible grain in any scene means your equipment is showing a nice detailed HD image. Film is grainy but, crucially, it's low quality digital broadcast, DVD and badly compressed Blu-ray that is incapable of showing it. Hence why so many people incorrectly view it as an evil introduced by Blu-ray that should not be there, when actually it's the definition that you're paying for :)

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Also, I mentioned calibration before; to get the best from any Blu-ray or DVD, you want to ensure that your player and your screen have any enhancement or noise reduction settings turned off.

This can often be a big shock for people used to watching their screens with these on, but really, a screen should be on a setting like 'True Cinema' or equivalent, that all good HD panels offer these days. That's as opposed to any setting which cooks the image up to make it pop, you want the gentlest, truest setting on a screen.

Noise reduction and motion "enhancement" settings and the like, anything that promises to improve the image, just serve to detract from the original image. You want to see, truly, what's on the disc, not your equipment's idea of a "better" version of it. As you can't invent things that are not on the original disc, so for everything it's doing to process, you'll often find negative effects elsewhere - frequently in the motion, as equipment struggles to process all the image settings in real time and the screen too can be baffled by combinations of player settings and its own.

I noticed this again recently when putting a Vice disc into a new player and the whole thing being incredibly noisy and ridiculously bright and sure enough, the default settings were to sharpen and boost the levels massively;

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So there, the one on the right looks initially more attractive, but the source is the same DVD, so that sharpness is artificially achieved by adding black lines around all the details to pick them out more strongly. The colour is wrong and overcooked, and it's all introduced digital artefacts, particularly noticeable on the face, as it's pushing the image far harder than is intended and revealing encoding issues that should not be visible when viewed correctly, with no artificial settings on.

All of these modes are designed to be the defaults in order to stand out on the shop floor, to make people pick what they think is the best equipment. When actually, the true test, is which gives the best result with all that artificial stuff turned off. The same applies with high end audio, it should be nothing to do with artificial boosting, you want your music and films how the makers intended and how good media presents them - not how equipment presents them by default to attract attention on the shop floor :)

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Alright, Finally picked up a blu-ray player to watch the Mill Creek set.:cool:

 I just finished watching the pilot and the quality has been pretty good so far, don't know if it was because my expectations were so low from the horror story reviews but it surpassed them immensely. The show looks so "filmic" and gorgeous now. Seriously there's shots in here that wouldn't look out of place in Michael Mann's "Thief" or "Heat". This has gotta be how the show was intended to look 30 years ago, you get the sense of the real locations, the production values, the beads of sweat on people's faces etc. The night-time scenes with the grain now have a grittiness that is almost "The French Connection"-esque.:thumbsup: Anyways, all good so far.

I don't know whether to watch the show in order like James or skip around a bit and see how good "Out where the buses.." and "Payback" look. Tough call.

Edited by Vincent Hanna
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On 10/02/2017 at 5:53 AM, James said:

Yup. it was pretty much perfect. 

I watched The Prodigal Son, Whatever Works, Out Where the Busses Don't Run:

The Prodigal Son - Intro scene in Bogota looked kind of low quality. More like the DVD's, and a bit of blur. After the title sequence the quality was pretty good for the remainder of the episode, also didn't notice any sound issues.

Whatever Works - Good picture quality, good sound quality.

Out Where the Busses Don't Run - Great picture quality, good sound quality. The dark scenes are really good, you can hardly notice the film grain. Usually film grain stands out more in dark scenes, but with this episode it was excellent. I wonder if they upgraded their film equipment for season 2.

So no issues so far.

Great to know James thankyou- sounds good !:D

What did you pay for the set ?

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On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 11:51 AM, bodie said:

Also, I mentioned calibration before; to get the best from any Blu-ray or DVD, you want to ensure that your player and your screen have any enhancement or noise reduction settings turned off.

This can often be a big shock for people used to watching their screens with these on, but really, a screen should be on a setting like 'True Cinema' or equivalent, that all good HD panels offer these days. That's as opposed to any setting which cooks the image up to make it pop, you want the gentlest, truest setting on a screen.

Noise reduction and motion "enhancement" settings and the like, anything that promises to improve the image, just serve to detract from the original image. You want to see, truly, what's on the disc, not your equipment's idea of a "better" version of it. As you can't invent things that are not on the original disc, so for everything it's doing to process, you'll often find negative effects elsewhere - frequently in the motion, as equipment struggles to process all the image settings in real time and the screen too can be baffled by combinations of player settings and its own.

 

Good advice...thanks. I neglected to check my Blu-ray player settings to see if the player itself has enhancement or noise reduction settings so that's my next step. I did reset my TV AV settings to lower the 'pop' effect when watching Vice, though my Cinema setting actually creates a darker and somewhat fuzzy viewing experience. So I've been experimenting with around 20 or so settings to tailor the effect.

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Yeah, usually a setting intended for dark room viewing is best. If nothing else it will extend the life of your screen by not burning it so hard. Rule of thumb; you want to see what's on the disc, so anything additional or 'improving' is going against what the makers intended. Just look at his shirt in the example above, if you went out to get a shirt just like it and came back with the one on the right, you'd be way off. Difference between the pastel hues of the first two seasons and the neon zing of the third and fourth :)

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22 minutes ago, bodie said:

Yeah, usually a setting intended for dark room viewing is best. If nothing else it will extend the life of your screen by not burning it so hard. Rule of thumb; you want to see what's on the disc, so anything additional or 'improving' is going against what the makers intended. Just look at his shirt in the example above, if you went out to get a shirt just like it and came back with the one on the right, you'd be way off. Difference between the pastel hues of the first two seasons and the neon zing of the third and fourth :)

Very good example about the shirt bodie :):fireworks:

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7 hours ago, bodie said:

Yeah, usually a setting intended for dark room viewing is best. If nothing else it will extend the life of your screen by not burning it so hard. Rule of thumb; you want to see what's on the disc, so anything additional or 'improving' is going against what the makers intended. Just look at his shirt in the example above, if you went out to get a shirt just like it and came back with the one on the right, you'd be way off. Difference between the pastel hues of the first two seasons and the neon zing of the third and fourth :)

Thanks for the reminder. Checked the tv in the living room and some a-hole set the sharpness to 100%. :wuerg: Was wondering why everything looked so jagged.

4 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Did you buy the blu ray release ?! I'm just wondering if this set is as good as it gets ?:)

The bluray looks pretty damn good imo. Most of these old tv shows have a rough quality to them so don't know how it can look any better than this. It's never going to look like Lawrence of Arabia or something.

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I'm half way through season 2 (just watched Definitely Miami), the picture is great, some episodes look better than others. So far I haven't come across any sound problems in season 2. Actually haven't noticed any since Little Prince.

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11 hours ago, Vincent Hanna said:

 

Thanks for the reminder. Checked the tv in the living room and some a-hole set the sharpness to 100%. :wuerg: Was wondering why everything looked so jagged.

Cool :)

15 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Did you buy the blu ray release ?! I'm just wondering if this set is as good as it gets ?:)

No, I'm holding out for something error free as the UK set doesn't have the original audio and is still too expensive, even at the current reduced price. And Mill Creek do not do replacements outside the USA, and even if they did, they are budget presentations, not what this series deserves imho.

As I've said before, my sights are on Koch in Germany, they were the saviours when Airwolf was in a very similar situation to this - came along and righted all the wrongs. Fingers crossed :)

 

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20 hours ago, Vincent Hanna said:

 

Thanks for the reminder. Checked the tv in the living room and some a-hole set the sharpness to 100%. :wuerg: Was wondering why everything looked so jagged.

The bluray looks pretty damn good imo. Most of these old tv shows have a rough quality to them so don't know how it can look any better than this. It's never going to look like Lawrence of Arabia or something.

Great and good point !;)

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15 hours ago, James said:

I'm half way through season 2 (just watched Definitely Miami), the picture is great, some episodes look better than others. So far I haven't come across any sound problems in season 2. Actually haven't noticed any since Little Prince.

Good to know thankyou and this is the Fabulous Films set?!:D:fireworks:

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9 hours ago, Dadrian said:

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we'll ever see another MV full series on discs set again :(  

I was beginning to think we'd not get it at all, and then two came along at once. Never say never :)

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