[troy evans]

If this has been covered somewhere on the forum before please forgive and direct me to the thread, please. I'm looking to buy this series finally and am concerned about the video quality of the U.S. release vs. the Canadian release. Anyone here own either and would like to chime in I would be grateful. I don't mind paying more for the Canadian release if the video quality is superior. In the U.S. it's distributed by Echo Bridge and some have claimed that the masters used in the release are VHS.

[Gord Lacey]

I've heard bad things about the Echo Bridge/Platinum Disc Corp stuff from people that have both releases. I haven't seen either set myself, but I wouldn't touch the Echo Bridge stuff - I've never heard good reviews on their products.

Gord

[troy evans]

Thanks Gord for getting back to me on this. I trust your experience and will get the Canadian releases. They also have nicer packaging. Well, I'm off to amazon.ca. Thanks again.

[Justin Boggan]

I found this review on Amazon.com for the U.S. "Ultimate collection" set:

Quote:

DUE SOUTH: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION has got to be the worst quality commercially available DVD I've ever seen. I was really looking forward to watching this series for the first time. 68 episodes for $30 didn't seem suspicious since I figured it's a little-known show that probably underperformed for the DVD studio in season sets, so they decided to burn off their investment in one affordable mega-set. When I saw the first disc my blood ran ice cold: 6 TV hours on one DVD? Okay, most TV sets won't break a 4-episode per disc limit or risk some serious image compression issues. Fancy sets will do 2 or 3 per disc which in my opinion generates a reference quality picture. I thumbed through the rest of the discs and would have laughed had I not broke the manufacturer's shrinkwrap, thereby making a refund impossible: Some discs in this set contain a whopping 7 episodes!!! I skimmed through some of the episodes on disc 1: Despite the fact that this is an older show (pre-HD), and the image is naturally soft, there is expectedly HEAVY PIXELATION. Jeez, whenever someone or something moves, they turn into a blob of compression. Cars, people... in this shameful presentation, the show can't even fade out or in from black without turning into a videophile's nightmare. No kidding. Cursing, I inserted a disc with 7 episodes. Morbid curiosity at this point. Alright, the cast can't even walk down a hall without the picture turning into a substandard digital cable parody. I suppose the math of the issue should have occurred to me: 68 episodes divided by 11 discs = VCD quality. Too late. So tell me, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment: What's the point of putting a show on DVD if it would look better on VHS? Thanks for disrespecting what I understand is a truly great show, and thanks for ripping me off. Have a nice day.

Is the Canadian release any better, or are there any plans for a better set? If it's as bad as the review says, I'll stick with free YouTube and other sites, rather than pay for really bad qaulity.

[Garysb]

To be fair here is a review of Season 3 of the set from Canada.

By Courtois Vincent "courtois_vincent" (La Baule) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
I am since the very beginning of this TV SHOW a big fan. In the past I bought in United Kingdom all first & second seasons episodes (including the pilot) on VHS PAL tapes. Okay!

When Due South was released on DVD, I jumped on this offer because I wanted so much to see it in crystal clear picture quality with an oustanding sound (the soundtrack including musics is wonderful).

I do not know how they did this disaster but the distributors produced a "so worst" DVD compression solution that you can see big visual artifacts on all episodes. I do accept that I watch my DVD on a 50" LCD TV Set which displays more technical issue than a small TV Set, but I get perfect picture display with the Avengers 1965 episodes! Not really funny...

This is my most disappointing purchase from Amazon (.com, .ca, .fr, .co.uk). A so bad picture quality that I can get better picture quality playing the VHS tapes! Can you believe that! Shame on such greedy distributors that do not care of people who plainly love this outstanding TV Show.

I nevertheless bought the third season on DVD. As I never bought it on VHS Tape, I shall not be able to compare the disaster and will be certainly less deceived. Last but not the least: the pilot is published on this last DVD set! I am not sure that such distributors watched this TV Show one time in their life... (grin :-)))

Best regards.

[troy evans]

I recently purchased all the seasons from Canada. In the U.S. the show is released by Echo Bridge. In Canada the show is released through Universal/Alliance. To answer the question of which is better, the Canadian Uni/Alliance version is far superior in PQ. I assume they had better source masters available to them. A friend of mine bought the "Due South" dvd sets at Best Buy in the U.S. these sets were also released by Echo Bridge. Basically, the complete series collection is made up of these individual releases from Echo. So, me and my friend did a little A-B comparison of simular episodes from the different sets. It wasn't even close. On the Echo Bridge releases there were blue lines, video drop outs, pixelation and so on. That is ridiculous for a dvd release. These defects are not on the Uni/Alliance releases, regardless of what the reviewer says from Amazon.ca. Keep in mind the reviewer praises how good his VHS tapes look by comparison. Funny thing is the Echo release is mastered from VHS sources. He has the right to his opinion, but, I strongly disagree. To sum it up, Universal has put out many great tv dvd sets as far as PQ. Among them are Knight Rider, Magnum P.I., Miami Vice, Incredible Hulk, etc. etc. etc. The Canadian release is on par with those picture quality presentations. Echo Bridge is on par with years old VHS tapes. Choose Wisely.