The Bionic Woman: Season 2 audio defect (1 Viewer)

[MattHR]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney

Last concrete info I've heard was neither Bionic show got past their first seasons south of the border.

That is correct. Until the new U.S. R1 releases, the only NTSC releases had been SMDM and BW S1 sets in Mexico, and BW S1&2 in Japan. The Mexican SMDM S1 set had the best transfers ever issued on DVD (Time Life utilized the same masters for their Complete Collection last year, although corrected a few edits). The Mexican BW S1 set, however, featured the worst transfers either show has seen on DVD. They look to be taken from 16mm syndication prints—complete with edits, scratches, fading, etc. I'd be very curious to know what the BW Japanese NTSC transfers look and sound like, especially since the U.S. BW S2 set is so flawed.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by MattHR

I'd be very curious to know what the BW Japanese NTSC transfers look and sound like, especially since the U.S. BW S2 set is so flawed.

I can be yours on Amazon.jp for the tiny sum of +/- US$280.00 (I have never understood the much higher retail prices of Japanese releases of DVDs).

 

[Joseph Burns]

Yes, I would have bought Longstreet in Japan long ago were it priced for mere mortals. I bought the Mexican "El Hombre Nuclear" for 90 bucks, so it's not like I don't do retail!!


I'm sure that the '08 vault fire was devastating. I saw the smoke; it was no small thing. This wouldn't have hurt another company so badly, however, as Universal's insular culture makes them more wholly dependent on in-house assets. Three years later, the company is still just looking in its decimated vault. Maybe that isn't going to work as a one-stop shop anymore.


It may well be that the international masters were lost, and I am aware that there is an industrial prejudice (warranted in most cases) against using compressed distribution copies as sources. Analog, second generation broadcast tapes from fans likewise are not considered worthy sources for mastering. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be justifiable to exclude these types of sources from a major release.


The whole point of excluding such sources, however, is to ensure that the audio fidelity does not drop below a certain level. So a revisitation of core principles should reveal that the taboo is failing its own raison d'etre here.

I wonder if this is really it, though. Perhaps there are better sources laying around Universal, 3/4" U-Matics that have dialog on one track, M+E on the other, where the visual quality is inferior but the sound is all that is needed. If the labor and facility cost are something Uni is unwilling to shoulder, than all the sources in the world won't help.


At least they have recognized that their first statement was insufficient and required amending. Not quite a blink, but a little twitch of the cheek. ;-)

 

I'd like it if they would release longstreet here

 

[MBrousseau]

The more I’m watching season 2 episodes, the more I’m getting sad. It is a frustrating experience to listen to this Region 1 edition of Bionic Woman, when you know that Region 2 edition is spotless.


I found some relief though: few episodes, that are my favourites, look and sound good. This is the case for The Dejon Caper, Black Magic and Sister Jaime.


As for the rest, there is always something wrong that ruins the pleasure of watching it. That is the case for Road to Nashville, Jamie’s Shield I & 2, Biofeedback, Beyond the Call, Iron Ships and Dead men… to name a few. The pattern is simple; the music elements from these episodes are sounding muffled lacking total high frequencies, which is rather disturbing. That is definitely tainting the sound ambiance. Road to Nashville really suffers from the music elements being cut down to very low frequencies. All this is inconceivable when there is some way to get a better audio element in this world. I believe that the German DVD was the last release of Season 2 in 2008 in the world. I also believe that the soundtrack was ok because we never heard unsatisfying reviews about it. So why not using their audio elements?


Besides making comparison with region 1 and region 2 DVD for the audio, I couldn’t ignore that the film masters were really different or at least processed differently. I captured 2 examples that show a better R1 transfer than R2 but also a very noisy and saturated R1 compared to R2. I let you discover that by yourself. [/url]


Iron Ships and Dead Men. Clearly a better visual on R1. A real hi-def restoration but some cropping.

 

[Hank E]

Wow, check out the listing on Amazon. They're not currently selling it because of the defect. Wonder if this will get Universal to reconsider fixing the set.

 

[Regulus]

Originally Posted by Hank E I hope other Retailers including Dee Dee's, BiBi's, Targhee, Wally's and others will follow suit until they fix this F.U.B.A.R.!

 

[JohnMor]

I'm not going to get too optimistic yet, as I notice they ae carrying Universal's disclaimer about the set's problems right below that message:


Product Alert: Every episode in the Bionic Woman Season 2 DVD release has been digitally re-mastered for optimal viewing. However, the remastering cannot correct flaws that either were part of the original presentation or that happened over the passage of time. Certain moments within select episodes from Season 2 may include noticeable moments of imperfect picture or audio. This is reflective of the source material which unfortunately, is the best source material that is available to the studio and cannot be corrected. The episodes are still included in the set to provide as complete a collection as possible.

 

[derosa]

Originally Posted by Hank E

Wow, check out the listing on Amazon. They're not currently selling it because of the defect. Wonder if this will get Universal to reconsider fixing the set.

The way i'd love to see this play out is that Amazon says to Universal, "hey idiots, fix this set, we're tired of processing all these people returned the sets for a refund!"

Universal gets the message, and gets a fix done. This isn't complicated, if Universal cares about their relationship with their retailers like Amazon, putting disclaimers

on the their packaging, (that the customer doesn't see until the product arrives at their house), isn't much of a help, even if the legal team signs off on it, Universal

should realize that Amazon would not be happy having to process shipping orders and getting returns to give people their money back.
Retailers hate returns, that's the pressure customers can help put back on the studios.

 

[bionicsuomi]

Personally, Martin, from the screen pictures you show us here, I prefer the region 1 set...

 

[captgoodguy]

Originally Posted by Tim Gregerson

I'd like it if they would release longstreet here

I too would buy a release of Longstreet. If only...

 

[MBrousseau]

Originally Posted by bionicsuomi

Personally, Martin, from the screen pictures you show us here, I prefer the region 1 set...

I can understand your preference, Alain. The color correction on the region 1 set is appealing. But, when it comes to contrast adjustments, the person in charge of the gain control turned up the knob a little too much. It boosts the level of grain and noise and gives an unnatural look.

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by JohnMor

I'm not going to get too optimistic yet, as I notice they ae carrying Universal's disclaimer about the set's problems right below that message:


Product Alert: Every episode in the Bionic Woman Season 2 DVD release has been digitally re-mastered for optimal viewing. However, the remastering cannot correct flaws that either were part of the original presentation or that happened over the passage of time. Certain moments within select episodes from Season 2 may include noticeable moments of imperfect picture or audio. This is reflective of the source material which unfortunately, is the best source material that is available to the studio and cannot be corrected. The episodes are still included in the set to provide as complete a collection as possible.

They need to add the following - "However, we didn't have this problem with our overseas region 2 and 4 versions. Actually, we were too lazy to see if the elements used for other regions were fine before we produced these,and too cheap to re-master - so you get this lame notice instead!)

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by DeWilson So true!

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by DeWilson





They need to add the following - "However, we didn't have this problem with our overseas region 2 and 4 versions. Actually, we were too lazy to see if the elements used for other regions were fine before we produced these,and too cheap to re-master - so you get this lame notice instead!)

Or they could have summed up that entire, B.S. paragraph they wrote with the following simpler, more truthful statement: "some episodes include poor audio and we just couldn't be bovvered."

 

[Jeff Willis]

There's good news regarding the audio defect in the "Deadly Ringer Pt 1" episode from Universal. Bill Hunt's daily update post today over at the Digital Bits site has the info here about the exchange program for disc 4 of the season 2 set. I guess Uni located another source for the audio in that episode and has set up an e-mail address as well as a phone # for customers that want to mail their defective disc and receive the replacement disc with the corrected audio. The article mentioned the "Return of Bigfoot Pt 2" but apparently Uni has not located better elements for that episode to replace the R1 disc for that episode. [edit] Gord over at TSoD posted the Uni news here .

 

[bretmaverick2]

Alright, for me the question is this: I haven't even purchased the set as of this date, but will in the future. The big question: HOW DO I MAKE SURE THAT THE SEASON 2 SET I BUY ALREADY HAS THE IMPROVED AUDIO FOR THIS EPISODE???? I really don't wanna go through the hassle of buying it and then immediately turning around and going through the process of replacing a disc!!!!

 

[MattHR]

I wish I could say I'm pleased that Universal is fixing one of the problems on one of the episodes. While the first ten minutes of "Deadly Ringer—Part I" is the most obvious of the set's audio flaws, there are far too many other episodes that are also plagued by unacceptable audio (including the last few minutes of "DR1"). I was afraid that if Uni did finally cave in and address the issue, they'd only fix those first ten minutes of "DR1", since they were the most flawed. There are still over a dozen more episodes—covering all five of the set's discs— that have either their dialog, music and/or effects tracks distorted/muffled/muted in various places. In my opinion, nothing short of a full remastering and replacement of the entire set is acceptable. In other bionic news, we can look forward to The Six Million Dollar Man (Seasons 3, 4 & 5) and The Bionic Woman (Season 3) — along with complete series sets of both shows — to be released in the U.K. this fall! Universal Playback released the first two seasons of both shows years ago, but further releases stalled and the license for the shows is now in the hands of another company. That company has contacted yours truly, and you can be sure I have made them well aware of all the flaws that have so far plagued the U.S. Bionic Woman releases. I've been told they will be utilizing the same new masters as the U.S. editions, so they may have to do some "repairs" to BW: S2 (using the audio tracks from the previous U.K. editions which were flawless). As with Time Life's SMDM release, it looks like I will have some input on the upcoming U.K. editions (with the hopes of preventing some other potential "disasters").

 

[Jeff Willis]

Matt, Thanks for the info on the fall releases! Sounds intertesting. Since they'll be using the US masters, does this mean that the 4% PAL speedup will not be present in these new releases? Not that it's a problem for me personally at all, which it's not.; just curious about it. I'm guessing that since it'll be a PAL release, the speedup will be present? At last, BW S3 is coming from the UK I'll have to decide on further double-dipping for complete series sets though as I have the 6M$M T/L set and the 1st 2 BW R2 sets on the shelf. Is the company by any chance "Koch" video?

 

[MattHR]

Matt, Thanks for the info on the fall releases! Sounds intertesting. Since they'll be using the US masters, does this mean that the 4% PAL speedup will not be present in these new releases? Not that it's a problem for me personally at all, which it's not.; just curious about it. I'm guessing that since it'll be a PAL release, the speedup will be present? At last, BW S3 is coming from the UK I'll have to decide on further double-dipping for complete series sets though as I have the 6M$M T/L set and the 1st 2 BW R2 sets on the shelf. Is the company by any chance "Koch" video?

Hi Jeff, They'll most likely be converted to PAL (U.K. releases in NTSC are rare). Koch isn't the company releasing the new sets, but it is a well-known DVD distributor in the U.K. I'll wait for them to make their own official announcement before spilling too many more secrets. But... sure to please (or possibly annoy) fans who already own the U.S. editions, the new U.K. editions may contain new bonus features that were not included/not allowed on the U.S. releases.