Lost In Space - Season 2 R2 release (1 Viewer)

[Jan Anderson]

I saw in another thread (about the season splitting) that someone wondered if it was a fact that LIS
was released as a complete season 2 in other regions, and that IS a fact.

I got this box a couple of days ago and I must say I am not dissapointed.

The box contains 8 discs with all 30 episodes from season 2 in color.
Disc 1-7 holds 4 episodes each and disc 8 2 episodes.

Not much extras here, just two interviews on disc 8.
One with Guy Williams and June Lockhart and one with Jonathan Harris.

There are no separate cases. Instead, each of the discs are placed in a transparent custom case on top of each other.
It´s just like turning the pages in a transparent book.

The episodes are listed in a separate little "book".

So far, I have watched two episodes in full, and have no complaints.
The picture is crisp with vivid colors and the audio is quite good also.

According to information in the box, the complete LIS season 3 R2 will be released in January 2005.

 

[Carlos Garcia]

This is excellent news! This means we can own all 3 seasons as 3 separate sets (region 2), instead of having our shelves fill up with 5 multiple season sets (region 1).

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

Not only will the Region 2 set be an NTSC-PAL conversion, but you'll be watching it converted back to NTSC again! Is the packaging really more important than the content?:rolleyes

 

[Joe Karlosi]

LOL!

And I love the bit about "it's better than cluttering up my shelves". I hardly think a couple of split season DVD sets would take up as much room as 80 individually released VHS episodes used to! Bring on the split season R1 sets, Fox! My money's smoking!

 

[Joe Karlosi]

And I guess it also means you no longer need to be concerned over the R1 split seasons?

 

[Carlos Garcia]

Absolutely! I've seen region 2 players that play at normal speed, so that won't be a problem. Also the packaging on the region 2 set is much nicer looking than the US release. It's obvious the Brits care more about the fans than do their American counterparts. As for clutter...Enough shows get released with split seasons and you'll realize what clutter really is. Now I'll look into also buying the Six Million Dollar Man, since it's also available in region 2. Region 2 rules!

 

[ScottRichard]

And I hardly think the split seasons boxes put next to each other will be bigger than the first season box! I'm sorry, but it's hard to imagine this being important, but that's just me I guess. Split or not, I can't wait!

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I don't collect many TV shows, only movies.

Oh, I've already had my share of experiences with clutter - all of them VHS related, not DVD!

It's incredibly sad how spoiled we've become. It used to take $1200 and a full five-shelf bookcase to own a complete TV series on VHS tape -- now people are whining about spending $25 twice, and taking up six inches instead of 2.
Amazing...

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

I think you misunderstand the situation, as the PAL speed-up occurs when the DVD is mastered, so that a 60 fields-per-second TV show (NTSC) can be viewed on a 50 fields-per-second TV (PAL). It's analogous to 24fps films being speeded-up to match the (equivalent of) 25fps of the PAL TV system.

If you get a DVD player that plays Region 2 software and can cope with PAL images, that doesn't alter the fact that the programme has been speeded-up for a PAL TV system in the first place.

 

[Mark_M8]

Actually, I thought it was the fact that PAL is 25fps that caused the speedup. At any rate, I have this set (I'm in the States) and can state without hesitation that I can hear the difference in the voices, mainly the male actors. The disks play no problem on the computer (any DVD player can be made region free with software on the PC) and have no distortion, but playing on a Region free player to a TV is less enjoyable due to the PAL to NTSC conversion. Bottom line, the packaging is nice, and I do like the full season in one box, but overall I would prefer Region 1 disks, two box set or not.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

Thanks for the info Jan. Is that they only way it comes in R2?
It has been released already there or do you have an advanced copy?

 

[Julian Lalor]

How do you know this? Weren't these made on film, not video?

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Well, I'll say one thing for this release - it's a nice looking box.

But with R1, we'll be getting two

 

[Jan Anderson]

Mikel_Cooperman: The official releasedate for LIS S2 was July 5 in the UK. and this is the only version of the box I have seen and heard of.

 

[Adam*M]

I don't care if the releases are split into two packages. All my DVD's go into my 400 disc changers and I never see the packages again anyway. That shelf space is used for other things now, and the DVD cases go in the basement.

I just wish my changers could play both sides of a disc. I have to copy side 2 onto a DVD-R in order to load some of my TV shows into my changer, wasting a slot. Maybe I should find one of the older Sony changers that can flip a disc...

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

I was simplifying matters so that I didn't have to write a huge discourse on the subject, so now I'll be more technical! Here comes the science bit...

As DVD is a component colour system, the use of the words PAL and NTSC here are misnomers, as these are both composite colour formats. The phrases we should be using are 525/60 (525 lines, 60 fields a second) to describe 'NTSC' and 625/50 (625 lines, 50 fields a second) to describe 'PAL'. Note the use of 'fields' instead of 'frames', where fields equate to half the lines of a TV 'frame'. (And, yes, I do know it's 59.94Hz in NTSC-land!)

Now, the 625/50 DVD of Lost in Space is not likely to be struck from a brand new telecine of the original film prints. What is more likely is that the 525/60 telecine (3:2 pulldown added to get it to 60Hz) has been standards converted to 625/50. This standards conversion will have introduced its own artefacts: first, inverse 3:2 pulldown then 4% speed-up is applied to get it to 50Hz; then, extra lines need to be interpolated either by 'mixing' adjacent lines, duplicating some lines or (depending on the complexity of the converter) interpolating new lines.

So, if that 625/50 DVD is then watched on a Region 1 525/60 setup that can handle 625/50 signals, a second standards conversion has to take place to generate a 525/60 picture. I haven't experienced such a conversion, but I have watched a 525/60 conversion of a 625/50 TV show on my setup, and the effect leads to a slight blurring of motion. Bearing in mind that that was a conversion carried out on a professional converter rather than 'on-the-fly' in a DVD player, then there is no way that the latter will manage to drop all the right lines from the 625/50 conversion to get back the original 525 lines. Plus, of course, you've got the speed-up which is 'burnt-in' to the original conversion.

Now, if some people in Region 1 would prefer to watch that rather than buy something in two boxes instead of one, then good luck to you.

 

[Carlos Garcia]

I own 3 Sony DVD changers that have the FLIP option. Model # DVP-CX875P. These are excellent and hold 300 discs, but since you can use the FLIP option, theoretically, you can have 600 titles in each player. Only bad thing is it's not a multi-region player. Too bad they stopped making changers with the FLIP option, as I would've gotten the newer 400 changer model as well.

 

[Mark_M8]

Jonathon,
Thanks for the info. I don't know what Fox used to master their PAL version, the bottom line for me is that the original print is 24fps, and it is being seen at 25fps (or 50 fields), which causes a noticable change in pitch to many of the voices. Having grownup in the States, that speedup is quite evident to my ears and is somewhat distracting. I know that PAL has a somewhat better resolution, but that is offset for my me by the sound distortion. Also, you are right about the conversion from PAL to NTSC on the DVD player to the TV, that distortion too is distracting. Although, they look fine on a computer.
I look forward to the Region 1 release. (I had pre-oredered the Region 2 set prior to the announcement for the Region 1).

 

[Julian Lalor]

I understand all that, but when you stated that the DVDs were NTSC to PAL conversion, you meant that the R2 DVDs were transferred to PAL from a NTSC master. You still haven't answered that question. I don't hear the speed up, so I couldn't care less about that tired old debate.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

If the masters were 29.97 fps rather than 24, there wouldn't be any spped-up. It was shot on film, so it's probably 24, but not necessarily.