Miami Vice TV series on Blu-ray

[bodie]

6 hours ago, jpm1 said:

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??

Thanks, the stuttering and Zito's missing line they were told about many months ago - they had every opportunity, but clearly it didn't get through to the right people, or it wasn't possible.

Anyhow, extras and French audio aside, it sounds like the advancement on what Mill Creek did (once they issued the two corrected discs) is the stereo in lossless; the Mill Creek was only Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kbps) for the stereo.

What a shame, it looks like unless someone in Germany (like Koch) pics it up, there really is no hope for an error-free outing of the series in HD.

Sincere thanks for taking the time jpm1

Edited December 5, 2018 by bodie

[jpaul1]

you're welcome. can you point me out the exact moment of definitely Miami you want me to check. i mean i'm on the PC while watching. the scene with Dombasle near the pool is hot in Blu-ray. the more i watch the series in Blu-ray the more i think it's trully great. i mean with all these details, you may think you never quit the 80s

Edited December 5, 2018 by jpm1

[bodie]

1 hour ago, jpm1 said:

you're welcome. can you point me out the exact moment of definitely Miami you want me to check. i mean i'm on the PC while watching. the scene with Dombasle near the pool is hot in Blu-ray. the more i watch the series in Blu-ray the more i think it's trully great. i mean with all these details, you may think you never quit the 80s

Sure, my bad, that list I quoted at the end was just a digest of stuff we identified in 2017. The detail is; 

On 4/3/2017 at 7:52 PM, Sonny-Burnett said:

"Definitely Miami", 10 seconds blank on 2.0 (Stereo) track, starting at 42'41''  ( the song “Cry” by Godley and Crème should be playing. ).

           NOTE**: Mill Creek today rejected making this fix because they apparently received a bad master.

[jpaul1]

57 minutes ago, bodie said:

Sure, my bad, that list I quoted at the end was just a digest of stuff we identified in 2017. The detail is; 

 

didn't see any audio hole in any of the versions. but i noticed that on english audio when the cops take away Arielle, one of them speaks to her, while on all french versions i came across so far, there's no dialog. like the other small bugs mentioned before absolutely not annoying, at least for me

i think it's time for Heart of darkness, what do you think

[bodie]

Thanks - yeah I know nothing about the French tracks, it's fault free English I'm chasing

Heart of Darkness yeah, that was one that Mill Creek dealt with, so should all be as per;

On 4/3/2017 at 7:52 PM, Sonny-Burnett said:

 

• "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"
• "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.

 

S4D4  "Mirror Image" has no sound on 2.0 stereo audio track. (added later in the disc replacement program)

[jpaul1]

reaching heart of darkness end, and so far didn't hear anything annoying (on 5.1). but take this as it is, as as i said i watch DVD while i'm on PC. but personnally i didn't hear anything special. now will put Evan

Edited December 5, 2018 by jpm1

[bodie]

That's good, they did say they would address those points Mill Creek corrected, so once you've seen Evan clear then so long as The Home Invaders and Nobody Lives Forever have 5.1 tracks at all, then Elephant have equalled the corrections Mill Creek issued

[jpaul1]

didn't hear any issue in Evan. but i'm using my TV default sound system. i mean i'm not using any 5.1 home cinema, or something. Evan btw is an amazing episode. maybe even above Out where buses don't run about the redemption theme

[SwissTubbs]

And hows the Picture Quality in Comparison with Mill Creek?
Its the same source i know but different encodings could make a difference.
And Mill Creeks was maybe a tiny little to bright while the UK Set have black crush caused of mastering in wrong color space (like a lot of fabulous UK TV Sets).

Did they use French Credits/Episode titles or the original ones when you watch the episodes?

Edited December 6, 2018 by SwissTubbs

[jpaul1]

i don't own Mill creek, but to me the image is great. you can see every little detail, it''s awesome. the menu are in french only. but on each DVD case you have both French and English episode name. so you can find it back easily. the menu are easy to understand. yes, on English version the title is in English

edit: no particular issue found in Nobody lives forever

Edited December 6, 2018 by jpm1

[bodie]

3 hours ago, jpm1 said:

no particular issue found in Nobody lives forever

with that and The Home Invaders, so long as they have 5.1 English tracks on then at all, then they are as per Mill Creek, who left the 5.1 off those two episodes completely on first pressing, and later corrected it.

4 hours ago, SwissTubbs said:

And hows the Picture Quality in Comparison with Mill Creek?
Its the same source i know but different encodings could make a difference.
And Mill Creeks was maybe a tiny little to bright while the UK Set have black crush caused of mastering in wrong color space (like a lot of fabulous UK TV Sets).

Did they use French Credits/Episode titles or the original ones when you watch the episodes?

They are on more discs than Mill Creek, so they may be less compressed. But don't bank on that. I'll have a look when I get the opportunity to see the French set what the numbers are compared to Mill Creek. It's likely, even if there is any difference at all in bitrate, to be an academic observation. But it's one I too am interested in anyway

[jpaul1]

@bodie almost at The home invaders end, and no prob detected so far. can you point me out which Mirror image frame i'm supposed to check ty

[bodie]

Mirror Image is like the last two you just watched, whole sound mixes were missed. However, unlike the last two, it was not the 5.1 but the Stereo. So if English stereo audio plays on that, then yeah, they've not fallen in the holes Mill Creek did

Edited December 6, 2018 by bodie

[jpaul1]

won't watch mirror image right now. because i watched it recently

[Noogie-boy]

Am 6.12.2018 um 12:36 schrieb jpm1:

 on English version the title is in English

 

What does that mean exactly?

Does it mean, when you'll choose French there's an other opening sequence? If so, are there two different opening versions on all discs? During the episodes, when watching them in English,  do any (hardcoded) French subtitles appear? And, what about the ending credits, are they in French or English?

 

Last but not least, does this release have any black crush problems? The UK box (Fabulous Films) has this problem, while the US box (Mill Creek) doesn't.

Here's a screencap comparison between the UK and US version: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/117778

Edited December 10, 2018 by Noogie-boy

[jpaul1]

@Noogie-boyidk in french you have Haut les coeurs while in english one you have Heart of darkness. the movie is exactly the same. subtitles are subtitles, i mean you can choose which one you want, or none. what is blackcrush. you mean all that black small points? didn't see such things in Elephants version. the pic you're are showing looks like to a DVD version, and not BR though?

Edited December 10, 2018 by jpm1

[Noogie-boy]

Black crush means loss of details in dark areas of the picture due to incorrect bluray authoring. On the second screen caps I've shared above - here again

(which were uploaded by someone else on another forum, btw) - on the UK version, you can easily see that the black chairs are barely visible in the dark area.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Noogie-boy

[jpaul1]

@Noogie-boyman, i'm pretty sure the pic you uploaded are DVD, and not Blu-ray. i mean on the elephant episodes i've watched so far the image, is much, much better . it's a thirty years series, so of course sometimes you may have few quality loss here, and there. but what i saw so far is much better than what you posted. i've watched only a couple of episodes so far. but, if i'd had to give an advice to a friend, i'd say go for it, with hesitating. compared to DVDs, there's a huge improvement. You really think you are back into the 80s

Edited December 10, 2018 by jpm1

[Leigh Burne]

On 12/4/2018 at 6:32 PM, jpm1 said:

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

It makes me really happy that Izzy gets a spot on the art 

As for the bonus features - is anyone able to tell me if there are any special features on the existing (US and UK) Blu-rays?

[James]

The box art looks really cool, and it has that French style in it. 

[Kladdagh]

Thanks for the great review of the french FNAC version for the BR Version of our beloved tv show ... =)

[Matt5]

Great review and product, Thankyou 

[bodie]

The standard version is in five plastic cases with a card box they all slide into.

The bitrates for the Mill Creek episodes, like The Great McCarthy here are around 17000kbps;

whereas on the Elephant they are around 14000kbps;

That doesn't sound good, but actually, looking at stills blown up, one can see it would be foolish to go by the numbers alone. At a glance, they look the same in motion, but if one wants to get deep into what's going on, and the bigger and better your setup, the more the differences will matter.

So here, with The Great McCarthy there are only certain shots where the Elephant encode is stumbling compared to the Mill Creek (her left eye, mouth and neck in shadow with the chain) and general better grain retention by MC here;

But there are reliable, regular issues with the Mill Creek, where the grain has blurry patches and the Elephant, despite the lower bitrate, seems not to suffer this inconsistency (loads more blurry sections on and around the elbow and then you see it on the whole frame on the MC);

 ^ Blurring of the lettering and the whole white section from the number 2 to the front of the nose on the MC - grain retained there and detail picked out better on the EP, as well as the bits just mentioned, look at the guy at the back on the right, he just about has a face on the EP, but not on the MC.

But then ˅ you sometimes see the MC pick out background clearer than the EP (her face);

Yet in the same frame ^ our old friend the MC blurry patches are there in the blacks of his shoulder and on her neck, where the EP is keeping the grain consistent.

At the end of the day I would rate the Elephant having lossless English stereo as a far more important difference between these versions, than anything that's going on visually. They are fundamentally the same, but Mill Creek has no extras and only the 5.1 in lossless (lossy stereo on the MC). With Elephant, the original stereo tracks (and the 5.1 of course) are lossless for the first time anywhere.

So whilst errors with the masters persist that no label has fixed, and only the first episode has had a full remaster anyway, if you want the best there is for audio and picture, I'd have to give it to Elephant on the basis of this comparison. If any issues come to light in the future, then of course that will change things; but assuming there's nothing nasty yet to be seen, I'd say for the purist who wants to see the show in the best quality with the original stereo audio, it is not worth watching the Mill Creek with lossy stereo for the tiny differences in the visual encodes - which, as above, cut both ways anyway.

Drawback is the price of all this and if you're not devoted to the original sound and don't speak French (so have no need of the French audio or the book in the Fnac version which is French only, as is one of the two new special features) then it's probably not worth bothering... or waiting for a discount before taking the plunge. But if you're devoted, then this seems to be the best of the bunch

[Crockettt]

So, did you buy Elephant Films release? 

[jpaul1]

interesting review bodie. but this is really for purists. i mean all the details you describe above are barely visible on pictures. there's honestly no chance to be bothered by something on screen, IMHO

Edited December 11, 2018 by jpm1