DVD/Blu-ray, HD & Bonus, which is better

[Tom]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb bodie:

The Koch set comes in a lot of packaging for the number of discs. It would not surprise me at all if it's the big box and digipaks which are exclusive to their shop and that, in the fullness of time, they want to get some revenue from their discs by selling them through other outlets like amazon. At which point, I'd expect, in order for them not to be reneging on their exclusive, the discs to be rehoused in more regular packaging and for the overall price to be lower. May never happen, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on, especially if you're looking at the price of a new player on top

The box set is very compact and does not waste any space in my opinion for the number of discs contained (7 discs per season sub-box which is folded). The booklet and and autograph cards are slim. I was surprised how small the box is once you got it in your hands. It looks bigger on the pictures.

As for the price: of course the artwork had some cost to it, but I doubt they were anywhere as big as the copyright and manhours spent on the work around it and will drop it in the future just to save some bucks on the retail price. The artwork and the appearance is one key USP. If you calculate such a project you calculate the (smaller and usually one-time) cost of artwork into the initial production charge to pay off the designer. Thus, they will not be burdened anymore with recouping artwork with the subsequent second line sales. 

 

[bodie]

I wasn't saying anything about the cost of commissioning artwork. Just that they have an exclusive to their shop and I would bet, if we see a regular version, for general sale, that'll be what they change (less packaging, cheaper), rather than altering the discs themselves, which is costly. But people can buy what they like, I'm just speculating

Edited December 28, 2020 by bodie

[Jamy68]

On 12/28/2020 at 7:33 AM, bodie said:

The Koch set comes in a lot of packaging for the number of discs. It would not suprise me at all if it's the big box and digipaks which are exclusive to their shop and that, in the fullness of time, they want to get some revenue from their discs by selling them through other outlets like amazon. At which point, I'd expect, in order for them not to be reneging on their exclusive, the discs to be rehoused in more regular packaging and for the overall price to be lower. May never happen, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on, especially if you're looking at the price of a new player on top

Thank you. I'll keep an eye on it. I am happy with the Mill Creek ones for now but the goal is some day the German ones as well. I noticed in the rerun on German TV right now that there are a lot cut out scenes. The atmosphere and feeling in original language is way better but sometimes I am too lazy for that and prefer my native language. 

[bodie]

1 hour ago, Jamy68 said:

Thank you. I'll keep an eye on it. I am happy with the Mill Creek ones for now but the goal is some day the German ones as well. I noticed in the rerun on German TV right now that there are a lot cut out scenes. The atmosphere and feeling in original language is way better but sometimes I am too lazy for that and prefer my native language. 

Cool. If you're a German speaker, then that instantly justifies the Koch release to a far greater extent - that's why the Mill Creek is so comparatively cheap; they didn't have to add language tracks or subtitles and kept the disc count low and the packaging simple.

I think you're right though, the same masters on the Mill Creek are what's on the Koch, so you've got them. Just not with the refinements and language options and packaging Koch have added.

If you never get the Koch, you'll still have the same masters on disc, see how it goes

[TylerDurden389]

I plan on buying a region free blu-ray player at some point, so I'll definitely pick up that sweet European blu-ray release of Vice, even though I already have the American one. That cover artwork is too good to pass up.

[bodie]

10 minutes ago, TylerDurden389 said:

I plan on buying a region free blu-ray player at some point, so I'll definitely pick up that sweet European blu-ray release of Vice, even though I already have the American one. That cover artwork is too good to pass up.

enjoy

[BlackJack]

I bought the fabulous films bluray for myself for Xmas. I've only started going through some key scenes. I like it but I've noticed some horrific grain at the start of Hit List. Anyone else noticed this? Especially the bit where sonny is shaving and we see his reflection 

[bodie]

On 1/8/2021 at 12:23 PM, BlackJack said:

I bought the fabulous films bluray for myself for Xmas. I've only started going through some key scenes. I like it but I've noticed some horrific grain at the start of Hit List. Anyone else noticed this? Especially the bit where sonny is shaving and we see his reflection 

Natural grain is good, it's what you've paid for, to have players and screens capable of that level of definition. The detail of the picture is within the grain.

However, if it's overpowering, it can be due to low light conditions (always brings out more) and very often due to screens and players having enhancement settings on which make things worse.

Often screens ship with a Sharpness slider at 50% which is very often not neutral, it's 50% more than nothing added. And of course HD pictures are sharp enough, they don't need anything on top and natural grain can become a distracting blizzard due to this.

Also a very common one is noise reduction, which one would think would be helpful, but actually you just want to see the programme they made - not the programme they made with an artificial effect slapped on it.

Even though at first glance (and on the shop floor, which is why they have them on by default) it can look like an artificial image with more impact is better, it's actually not what they made;

So you can see there ^ all the ropes have halos round them due to sharpening, compression blocking is more visible and fundamentally his shirt is the wrong colour... all due to artificial enhancement.

And then, not really relevant to grain, but motion smoothing won't help either (there was a high profile fuss about the pitfalls of this kind of setting with the last Mission Impossible film).

In short, basically turn all screen and player enhancement off and what you are left with is Miami Vice. There are differences between the Blu-ray sets and we've spoken loads about that here, but the Fabulous set should still be a decent watch, rather than horrific.

If you turn everthing off and it's still bad, let us know and we can have a look at what else it could be. But if it's mainly dark scenes and your settings are right and your screen and player are good for other things, it may just be down to the archive nature of the material

[BlackJack]

On 1/11/2021 at 7:02 PM, bodie said:

Natural grain is good, it's what you've paid for, to have players and screens capable of that level of definition. The detail of the picture is within the grain.

However, if it's overpowering, it can be due to low light conditions (always brings out more) and very often due to screens and players having enhancement settings on which make things worse.

Often screens ship with a Sharpness slider at 50% which is very often not neutral, it's 50% more than nothing added. And of course HD pictures are sharp enough, they don't need anything on top and natural grain can become a distracting blizzard due to this.

Also a very common one is noise reduction, which one would think would be helpful, but actually you just want to see the programme they made - not the programme they made with an artificial effect slapped on it.

Even though at first glance (and on the shop floor, which is why they have them on by default) it can look like an artificial image with more impact is better, it's actually not what they made;

So you can see there ^ all the ropes have halos round them due to sharpening, compression blocking is more visible and fundamentally his shirt is the wrong colour... all due to artificial enhancement.

And then, not really relevant to grain, but motion smoothing won't help either (there was a high profile fuss about the pitfalls of this kind of setting with the last Mission Impossible film).

In short, basically turn all screen and player enhancement off and what you are left with is Miami Vice. There are differences between the Blu-ray sets and we've spoken loads about that here, but the Fabulous set should still be a decent watch, rather than horrific.

If you turn everthing off and it's still bad, let us know and we can have a look at what else it could be. But if it's mainly dark scenes and your settings are right and your screen and player are good for other things, it may just be down to the archive nature of the material

Wow what a fantastic reply, thank you. I've just played round with a few settings like backlighting and noticed an improvement. I'll spend a bit of time altering settings and see what happens

[bodie]

13 hours ago, BlackJack said:

Wow what a fantastic reply, thank you. I've just played round with a few settings like backlighting and noticed an improvement. I'll spend a bit of time altering settings and see what happens

Cool, I just got a new disc player myself yesterday and there are a whole load of new settings in there I had never encountered before, even though I was keeping my screen the same, it still needed a fair bit of work.

I tend to use a disc I know well for calibrating, then when you put something new in you can be pretty confident that is how that disc looks because you know you have it set right for your familiar one.

My default with the new player settings was to basically turn anything that promised enhancement off, to try and get the disc coming through source direct as it used to be in the days of hi-fi.

Let us know how you get on BlackJack

Edited February 24, 2021 by bodie

[ViceFanMan]

Just for curiosity sake & technical info...does the Koch set have the purple and green show logo?

Update: I found the Koch set intro on YouTube. Sadly it does use the “fake” purple & green logo.  This tells me they still used the syndicated reruns (which is where the fake logo was created, for unknown reasons) for the episodes, like all the other DVD & Blu-Ray sets...so I question their “unedited, uncut” claim. However, for digitally remastering purposes, it probably is the most up to date. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by ViceFanMan