Miami Vice TV series on Blu-ray

[bodie]

13 hours ago, Leigh Burne said:

It annoys me no end that they botched the Blu-rays like they did, because I doubt we'll ever see them done again.

hence why we're looking at this forthcoming French release, it may be the best of the bunch - we'll see. Fingers crossed :)

[jpaul1]

On 10/3/2018 at 1:54 PM, bodie said:

For those who are not French speakers, the big booklet will of course be in French so maybe wait for the non-exclusive version which they say will be on amazon.fr. That will be the same discs, but not the book and not the big box

the non-Fnac version will be available at the same date, 4th december (source Elephant films)

[bodie]

The Elephant Films Blu-ray set without the book is on amazon.fr now - looks to be five digipaks whereas the Fnac exclusive is three (Seasons 1&2, Season 3 and Season 4&5) with the book in French.

Sadly there is currently no saving on getting the regular version for those of us who don't read French and so have no need for the book version. But the regular might still be more sensible to import as it's likely to be a squarer and less vulnerable package than the rectangular Fnac set.

And of course it could turn out that technical niggles still persist with this version, but they say they've sorted it, they have new extras and they are including sound options (beyond the French tracks) that others have not - and the set is 25 discs vs. the twenty of the Mill Creek US version. So fingers crossed the job's a good'n

[bodie]

1 minute ago, bodie said:

they are including sound options (beyond the French tracks) that others have not)

... though this is a bit unclear between the listings; there appears to maybe be English mono for Season 1 aside from the pilot and then English Stereo for the rest. We'll see.

Edited November 24, 2018 by bodie

[jpaul1]

150€ is not expensive IMO for Blu-rays. that what i paid for my DVDs. ok now i have to find a good blu-ray reader. still don't know if i go for a TV reader, or a PC reader.. maybe i'll go for the pioneer PC reader

Edited November 24, 2018 by jpm1

[Matt5]

6 hours ago, jpm1 said:

150€ is not expensive IMO for Blu-rays. that what i paid for my DVDs. ok now i have to find a good blu-ray reader. still don't know if i go for a TV reader, or a PC reader.. maybe i'll go for the pioneer PC reader

Sounds good Jpm1 

[Leigh Burne]

I know it's been said, but I'm definitely interested to hear a review from anyone who might buy this!

[jpaul1]

i know. i'll see what i can do

edit: bought the Panasonic DMP-BDT167EF that i found for 50€ on a sale, and that has lot of good reviews. and i bought the Fnac version, as the two versions have the same price. so, see you around the 4

Edited November 25, 2018 by jpm1

[jpaul1]

received my collection. it's at the vendor shop, will pick it up this afternoon. feel free to ask if you have any particular question. i ordered the Fnac version, but i think technically both versions are similar

[Matt5]

42 minutes ago, jpm1 said:

received my collection. it's at the vendor shop, will pick it up this afternoon. feel free to ask if you have any particular question. i ordered the Fnac version, but i think technically both versions are similar

Interested to hear about this jpm1.

[summer84]

Also interested to hear a review. And what kind of extra exlusive features come with this set. 

[RedDragon86]

What do you guys do about sound? surround sound or a soundbar or just TV speakers.

With a show like "Miami Vice" I think its essential you have a good sound system, soundbars are nice a simple affordable option.

Edited December 3, 2018 by RedDragon86

[Dadrian]

44 minutes ago, RedDragon86 said:

What do you guys do about sound? surround sound or a soundbar or just TV speakers.

With a show like "Miami Vice" I think its essential you have a good sound system, soundbars are nice a simple affordable option.

Notwithstanding all the issues that have been discussed here with the 5.1 on the discs, I use the 2.0 stereo through a soundbar, standard right-left, headphones, or any 2 speaker source to get the original intended effect of the broadcast. 

[RedDragon86]

11 minutes ago, Dadrian said:

Notwithstanding all the issues that have been discussed here with the 5.1 on the discs, I use the 2.0 stereo through a soundbar, standard right-left, headphones, or any 2 speaker source to get the original intended effect of the broadcast. 

Yeah using a 5.1 system is a problem with some blu ray episodes, especially "Heart of Darkness" the echoing is unbearable.

Why do you think that they messed up the audio on the blu ray release? did they even check what they were doing while they were transferring the sound, if they unable couldn't correct certain episode to 5.1 they should have made them for 2.0 only, like in the episode "Evan"

Edited December 3, 2018 by RedDragon86

[Dadrian]

I guess it’s just a really overwhelming task to get over 100 hours of audio 100% correct. It still seems like a huge oversight, and it always seems to be on my favorite  episodes. 

[Leigh Burne]

According to the manufacturer in their response on Blu-ray.com:

Quote

The audio throughout the series is in sync as on the masters provided. For those moments questioned, they are a result of dubbing (ADR) from the production of the show. We have been unable to identify any occurrence of asynchronous audio as a result of our authoring of the episodes. We have concluded that the issues are more noticeable now than in previous DVD releases due to the uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio and HD video which cause these slight imperfections to become much more audible than ever before. This also affects the dynamic range in the audio during scenes where background audio may also become more noticeable. This will vary by individual home audio systems, setups, and personalized audio settings. 

We have re-QCed each and every episode across all five seasons and have identified the following 4 episodes in Season 1 which have errors with the new 5.1 lossless audio: 

• "Heart of Darkness" : The 5.1 audio track does have issues in the mix creating an echo/reverb-like effect that phases in and out periodically throughout the episode.
• "The Home Invaders" and "Nobody Lives Forever" : The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks were accidentally left-off the disc after we conducted the original QC.
• "Evan": The 5.1 audio track does have issues in the mix creating an echo/reverb-like effect that phases in and out periodically throughout the episode.

Make of that what you will

[Matt5]

2 hours ago, summer84 said:

Also interested to hear a review. And what kind of extra exlusive features come with this set. 

Hopefully it will be flawless! 

[jpaul1]

no package at the vendor. with all the yellow jackets mess some things are not going as intended in that country . but it's a question of days/hours now

2 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

What do you guys do about sound? surround sound or a soundbar or just TV speakers.

With a show like "Miami Vice" I think its essential you have a good sound system, soundbars are nice a simple affordable option.

i have a 100 or 110 TV screen, and i have no clue what audio it has. but i won't invest in an audio system. as i never watch DVD. bought one only for MV

 

[agent 47]

I agree with Dadrian. I'd go with the 2.0 mix through a sound bar at most. The 5.1 mixes minus the episodes plagued by issues sound good but the 2.0 mixes sound even better and clearer with even the tiniest details audible on even the standard speakers on a TV.

On the Blu-ray problem. At least here in the U.S. it was put out by a company who really don't do much more than sell what is provided to them by the studios at a more budget-minded price (it was sixty dollars upon release most places for instance). It's a model with it's ups-and-downs. The price was a major upside and I'm sure helped make it a bigger seller as it's a whole series for little more than a couple of Blu-rays of new movie releases at standard store prices which made it an easier pick-up for those who are interested but have never seen the show. The downside of course is that studios are hit-and-hit miss in quality particularly Universal who if you check out reviews of a number of their catalogue titles (older movies) on Blu-ray.com you'll usually find that Universal is not good at taking care of their library of titles. They pretty much never do remasters anymore and if they do their idea is mainly to overuse techniques such as over-sharpening and digital grain removal which takes away a lot of the detail of the original film. Sadly though even if Mill Creek did their own restoration work while they might have caught some sound issues it still would have been plagued with others if Universal didn't provide the original prints to work off of as most likely given the problems affected the U.K. release as well than it's very probable those are the only Miami Vice copies that anyone can work with at the moment. No telling what happened to the original negatives.

[bodie]

14 hours ago, jpm1 said:

received my collection. it's at the vendor shop, will pick it up this afternoon. feel free to ask if you have any particular question. i ordered the Fnac version, but i think technically both versions are similar

If you could look at the following, that would be cool;

On 7/17/2017 at 1:59 PM, Noggie said:

I'm still spot checking episodes. I popped "Sons and Lovers" from season 2.   At the beginning, during the action scene, you don't hear Zito yell " Crockett, Tubbs you ok".  I hear an audio glitch for a second and then Crockett yells "Don't touch the door Zito!"   I'll have to go back through this thread. Maybe this was mentioned before. 

and;

On 5/5/2017 at 11:54 PM, bodie said:

Just watched El Viejo on the US Mill Creek Blu-ray set, when the car drives into the graveyard, there's a shot of it approaching mist. Then it cuts to Willie Nelson moving forward and then cuts back to the car going into the fog (the moment in the image below)

When it does that, the video grinds and judders for three seconds, so the car isn't moving smoothly. Tried it on two players and playing the file off a hard drive, always the same thing happens.

If anyone has a spare moment, please do see if this is a general fault. I'd also be interested if it's on the Fabulous UK Blu-ray as it would mean it's a problem with the source file. But I suspect it's a problem with the Mill Creek. Many thanks if anyone checks

only if you have time of course

I'm still not sure precisely what the audio options are, so that would be helpful to know.

On 9/13/2017 at 2:18 PM, bodie said:

Of course, there are still niggles (as per earlier in the thread) that could and should be cleared up;

- 'Sons and Lovers' missing line from Zito in the introduction

- 'Definitely Miami' has a ten second hole in the audio track

- El Viejo missing frames/skipping when the car drives into the graveyard mist

and, just for completeness, those that were addressed, but still need to be avoided by any company looking at this;

- 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Evan' have echo in their 5.1 mixes

- 'The Great McCarthy' eight audio dropouts

[jpaul1]

here ya go. first batch. bodie, will look you stuff ASAP

Edited December 4, 2018 by jpm1

[Matt5]

Interesting looking set - enjoy! Look forward to hearing all about it 

[summer84]

34 minutes ago, Matt5 said:

Interesting looking set - enjoy! Look forward to hearing all about it 

Yes also looking forward to hear a review and also especially curious what other bonus features they have. As seen from the wolfsons archives and other TV recordings there is plenty material behind the scenes that wasn't included  in the DVD's. 

[jpaul1]

el viejo has a small stuttering in the cementery. but it's really not a big deal. i mean it's a thing you could see in a TV movie

in Sons & lovers i heard nothing weird during the scene quoted above. but it's interesting to notice that Zito yells in the French version, while we don't hear him in both English versions. maybe an audio issue??

audio available for all episodes are the following: english 5.1, english stereo, french 2.0. please note that this is a deduction. i didn't watch all episodes yet..

here are the bonuses:

the little book is really nice. it's in french, but it gives details for each episodes. really cool

- Michael Mann interview, part. 1: Michael Mann beginnings

- Michael Mann interview, part. 2 : Michael Mann in Miami

- Pilot "audio intégral, stéréo VHS". i don't know what this is, but i believe it's the pilot with original VHS stereo audio (to be verified)

- Trailers

- Abel Ferrara inside Miami vice universe

- Inside Miami vice heart, by Axel Cadieux

- Trailers (another ones)

- Credits

- MTV cop show: Miami vice music by Christophe Geudin & Olivier Desbrasses

- Trailers (another ones)

- Credits (another ones)

- The series from the 80s to present day

- Trailers (another ones)

- Credits (another ones)

- The Miami vibe - Inside the series heart

- The mythical music

- Trailers (another ones)

- Credits (another ones)

the above have been translated by myself. i really don't know if there's an English version for these things. and as i'm not a 'bonuses guy' i don't guarantee i'll ever review these . also a little plastic part broke. nothing dramatic, but i hope it won't reproduce

my first thought about the collection. it's much more detailled. i mean you can nearly count how many hair Castillo has. but in the same time i'm not stunned. it's definitely better than the DVD, but IMHO if you already own the DVD and you plan to buy Blu-ray you shouldn't consider it as an 'emergency' (my 2c)

edit: also it's interesting to notice that on the cases the episodes names are both in french, and english, for non french speakers

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by jpm1

[summer84]

Thanks for the bonuses info/overview. Not what I expected/hoped for as it seems they are all interviews and something similar to the DVD's. But the Michael Mann interview in Miami sounds interesting.