Farscape Box Sets (1 Viewer)

[Mark_Wilson]

Was Farscape shown in Widescreen in Australia? In one the Anthony Simcoe interview on 3.1 they have an ep from Season 3 playing in the background in 16:9. There is also a 'making of' clip that shows a monitor marked up for 16:9 and 4:3.

 

[Daniel Kikin]

From this post on the Farscape World Forums by Corey from ADV, it sounds like it will come eventually. I'd guess probably before the end of the year, like the S1 box set last year.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

probably in the fall.

Only Farscape S4 was shot wide, it's quite possible they stretched it for the 16:9 TV or zoomed it

 

[Philip Verdieck]

If you buy DVDs from e-tailers, and you are not using http://www.dvdpricesearch.com then you are pissing away money.

 

[JohnAP]

I bought season 1 and 2 as they came out, though I have yet to pick up season 3. I wish they would've just gone with season sets from the beginning, as has become the norm for tv releases as they are definitely more cost-effective. ADV seems to prefer the current format though as it is what they're using for their other live-action series. At least they stopped putting anime previews before the episodes though.

 

[TheLongshot]

I wish they would've just gone with season sets from the beginning, as has become the norm for tv releases as they are definitely more cost-effective.

A couple of reasons:

1. This was an expensive series to put out on DVD, considering that there were a lot of fingers in the bowl.

2. There are a lot of people who have discovered this series when it was released on DVD, something that probably wouldn't have happened if it was released in season sets.

Jason

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Exactly, ADV does not have the resources that the large studios do to absorb the upfront costs as well.

I just wish they could sell the boxes seperately, and the double alpha art for season 1

 

[Frank Anderson]

and the double alpha art for season 1

They sure look out of place with the other cases.

[url=http://members.aol.com/nightdog35/spidey_smiley.gif] [/url]

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I really want this series but I've been putting it off due to cost. Yes...I'd vote for box sets priced as affordably as they can be...

 

[Jeff Kleist]

You have them David, the set is roughly $90 everywhere. That's about as affordable as it's going to get

 

[Mike Broadman]

2. There are a lot of people who have discovered this series when it was released on DVD, something that probably wouldn't have happened if it was released in season sets.

Maybe, but then there's me (the most important consumer, of course)- I refuse to be anything other than season sets for TV shows and am watching the show for the first time on DVD. That means I've only seen season 1. That means, at this rate, that I'll finish the series in 4 years.

Bummer.

 

[Joel C]

Go to Best Buy and buy all 5 season 2 sets for $24 each, and pretend it's a "season set." It's only about $10 more expensive that way, since they charged $115 for the box set around here.

Or get a job at Best Buy, the employee discount for ADV titles is 50%.

 

[Daniel Kikin]

CNL.com has 10/28 as the release date for the Season 2 box set, don't know how reliable they are but it sounds on target based on the release date of the Season One box set, which was 10/29 of last year.

 

[Sven Lorenz]

One thing about the R1 sets:
The show was shot on film and mastered in PAL (because it was done in Australia) and then converted to NTSC.
I've read several comments on the Farscape newsgroup that people who saw the show in PAL on TV and then bought the R1 DVDs complained about all the voices (especially D'Argo) being too deep. Apparently the conversion from PAL to NTSC slows everything down by a few percent.
People who have always watched the show in NTSC shouldn't have any problems because they've heard the same slowed-down voices on TV too but if you watched the show in Europe or Australia and are used to the real voices you might be surprised.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If the shows were first shot on 24 fps film stock, then the NTSC is actually hearing the "real" voices as the film would have been sped-up to 25 fps for mastering to PAL (which speeds up the sound and raises the voices).

Now...what's "real" depends on what the reference point is decided to be. If the PAL broadcast is considered the reference, then yes, the NTSC is slower. But if the film-source that the PAL was derived from is considered the reference, then the NTSC would have the proper speed/frequency.

BTW, usually PAL-NTSC conversions do *not* slow down the playback. If the NTSC version really is slower, then that might be a sign that it's actually sourced from the film-originals and is not an electronic PAL-NTSC conversion.

Anyone have any details??? PAL-NTSC conversion usually results in really ugly artifacts especially during pans and in motion. If you freeze-frame and still-step a PAL-NTSC tape every other frame or so will look like it has a ghost or "blur" double-exposure...which is part of the yucky way that the 50 Hz signal has been electronically converted to 60 Hz. (try still-step through Pride and Prejudice NTSC and you'll see what I'm talking about).

If still-stepping/freeze-framming NTSC farscape produces clean-clear images that don't have any electronic blurring/ghosting...then it's a real film->NTSC transfer.

Someone with the discs check them out and let us know.

 

[Mark_Wilson]

The show was shot on film and mastered in PAL (because it was done in Australia) and then converted to NTSC.

Shot at 24fps on film then transfered to video (PAL) at 25fps? There's 4% speedup. Wouldn't the conversion to NTSC put the voices right back where they should be?

 

[Mark_Wilson]

I suspect they're film sourced. I've never seen any 'blending' artifacts from any of the ADV discs.

Anyone have running times from some of the PAL releases?

 

[Sven Lorenz]

From alt.tv.farscape:

With the Farscape DVDs, we had the opposite problem with the first three R1 releases. The conversion from PAL to NTSC caused a slight slowdown, including a drop in pitch on the voices (Pilot almost sounds just like Crais! ). It was due to complaints to ADV by Henson that they started adjusting the pitch digitally with Volume 4.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Farscape is shot 25fps, transferred native PAL, and for some reason the NTSC masters were done at 24fps(probably because no one told the tech it was originated at 25, which isn't that common). SciFi shows direct converts from the PAL masters, so it's just like Buffy except in reverse. What you see on TV is a convert from the native format, what you see on DVD is a master done especially for that. If you listen very closely, you'll hear the occasional audio skip from the missing frames.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I immediately noticed the pitch-shift (lower voices, especially on Pilot) on the first Farscape DVDs. Strangely, I did not ever notice a pitch-shift on the broadcast episodes, which makes me wonder if a different conversion algorithm was used for the DVDs. I think the DVDs were new telecines and not the original US broadcast masters...which makes sense because there is additional footage. So the technique that was used for the first few DVDs is not necessarily the technique that was used for the Sci-Fi masters.

The show is shot 25fps on film. Perhaps the earlier eps were slowed down to 24fps then given 3:2 pulldown. I don't think the more recent eps were processed this way, I think they went straight from 25fps to 30fps. You get something like 3 progressive frames in a row, followed by 3 interlaced frames in a row. There is a bit of judder, but it still looks pretty good on a DVD player with a Faroudja/DCDi chip.