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Twilight Zone (Original Series) Season 1 Comes to Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Traveling Matt

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Good to hear this series is coming. I've been waiting for an indicator on what, if anything, can be done to videotape transfers for BD. It'll be interesting to see how high-def handles those terrible-looking episodes.
 

TravisR

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Originally Posted by Traveling Matt

Good to hear this series is coming. I've been waiting for an indicator on what, if anything, can be done to videotape transfers for BD. It'll be interesting to see how high-def handles those terrible-looking episodes.
Nothing more than a guess but I think they'll end up using the same transfers that were used on the DVD set (i.e. they'll be in standard def since the source is videotape).
 

Brandon Conway

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There would be no reason not to upscale them to 1080p on the disc themselves rather than allow various players and monitors do so, IMO. Of course we won't know for sure for a bit, as they're all in Season 2.
 

LeoA

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Why do they have to use videotape transfers? Wasn't this show filmed?

Too cheap to go back to the original film elements?
 

TravisR

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Originally Posted by LeoAmes

Why do they have to use videotape transfers? Wasn't this show filmed?

Too cheap to go back to the original film elements?
There were six episodes shot in the second season that were shot on tape as a cost cutting measure. The other 150 were filmed and The Definitive Edition DVDs (and presumably the Blu-rays) went back to the original camera negatives for those episodes.
 

The Obsolete Man

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Originally Posted by LeoAmes

Why do they have to use videotape transfers? Wasn't this show filmed?

Too cheap to go back to the original film elements?
For at least a half dozen season 2 Twilight Zone episodes, there are no "original film elements", only videotape.

The producers were looking for a way to cut production costs. So, they shot around a half dozen S2 episodes on videotape. IIRC, they either didn't like the look of the finished episodes, or decided that using videotape for TZ would limit the types of stories they could do, and they went back to film.
 

LeoA

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Thanks, didn't know that.

Certainly doesn't seem like much of a problem. I'll likely get these when they see a discount and I'll be happy as long as the filmed episodes look good and they upscale on the disc those 6 taped episodes.

Thought daytime tv was pretty much all that was being taped in 1960/1961.
 

Sam Favate

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The "Definitive" editions of the Twilight Zone are among the very best TV-on-DVD ever done. I doubt I will be getting the BDs, simply because I am happy with the DVDs. However, it makes sense to reissue the series, since it should be in the highest quality possible for future generations and those who haven't bought them already -- assuming of course that all of the extras from the DVD sets are migrated over.
 

ChrisALM

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I held off on purchasing TZ until the Definitive sets came out and I am very pleased with them. I don't think 69.99 is over priced for a new release BR season set, and if I didn't have the Definitive sets I would pick this up. But I will wait for the price go lower before I double dip.
 

Joe Karlosi

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Originally Posted by Dave Scarpa

I bought S1-3 Definitive Editions,need 4 and Five, paid $25 each for the sets and I'm happy with them, they look decent on my Blu Ray player, $69 + is way beyond a reasonable double dip,I'm contented with the DVD's
Definitely. I scored all 5 seasons of The Definitive Collection relatively cheap, they look great on my Blu-ray player, and I haven't even gotten anywhere near watching all of these yet. Sometimes enough is enough, at least to me.
 

Nelson Au

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Wow, I have got to come and review this TV shows on DVD and blu-ray section more often! I didn't know about The Twilight Zone coming to blu-ray!

I too have the Definitive Collection and while I've seen nearly and pretty much every episode in the past, I still haven't seen all the episodes on the Definitive Set. I'm very tempted to see how TZ looks on blu-ray! The difference for Star Trek from standard DVD to Blu ray was huge and well worth it for me to do a 4th dip. Of course, all the live action film elements of Star Trek got a nice remastering and clean-up.

However on the TZ, the Definitive set does look amazing. So I was wondering about some comments made a few years ago in reviews on the HTF that black and white material tends to look really good on DVD. So older films that are mastered well really look great. And I don't know the technical reasoning, other then perhaps the black and white material just took up less disc space, so they were able to make the image as good as possible. Can anyone chime in on that aspect?

I have to imagine that The Twilight Zone will look even better on blu-ray, regardless of how good it looks on DVD. Assuming they will spend the time and money to do a proper clean-up of the film elements and whatever they can do for the video taped episodes.

When I first saw the thread headline, I was hoping the TZ would come out on Blu Ray as a series set rather then season sets. I suppose they want to sell it this way since not everyone will want all 5. The forth season was the weakest. I look forward to seeing what the pricing will be like as we get closer to street date. If they announce a street date.

Maybe this will lead to The Outer Limits. That wold be cool to see with it's film noir like cinematography.
 

Hollywoodaholic

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That's what I'm hoping. And I would double dip for that series because the first DVD presentation (subsequently repackaged but not remastered) was lacking in both picture quality and extras of any kind.
Originally Posted by Nelson Au

...
Maybe this will lead to The Outer Limits. That wold be cool to see with it's film noir like cinematography.
 

DeWilson

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Originally Posted by Nelson Au

...Assuming they will spend the time and money to do a proper clean-up of the film elements and whatever they can do for the video taped episodes...
Well, they could always use the kinescope copies of the 6 VT episodes - might be eaiser to clean those up than deal with some of the issues the VT master-tapes had. I thought I read someplace those kines were done in 35mm,not 16mm.
 

I read somewhere online that the original pilot, "The Time Element", will be on this release. It wasn't on any of the dvd releases.
 

Nelson Au

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I was just looking over the above link to Marc Scott Zicree's blog and his talk of his contributions to the blu ray set. That was pretty exciting!

This sounds like it will be a pretty terrific set and tough to hold out on. I suppose they'll see how sales will be on Season 1. Zicree had done many commentaries for more then season 1. So it sounds like they're committed to release the entire series.
 

dana martin

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Well it’s finally happened, we have at least the option of pre order, for everyone complaining about the price, consider this, image was in financial straights not to long ago, and the thought was that these would not happen for some time. The extras seem from what I have read so far going to blow the definitive sets out of the water, so to speak, think about it this way, currently Image is the distributors for Criterion, and currently picking up some of Criterions titles, like “The Long Good Friday”, so I hope that these releases are on par with what one would expect “associated” with Criterion. As for packaging, well that depends on the number of disc per set, and cover art, well I just whish that someone at one of these places would look at the best custom cover art and hire some of these guys.
 

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