Press Release SPHE Press Release: Seinfeld: The Complete Series (4k UHD) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[OttoIsHere]

I have the 4K set and am a third of the way through season 3. I don’t have much to say except it looks great. I usually don’t watch extras, but I don’t think it has anything new.

Sounds good, thanks for the feedback!

 

[OttoIsHere]

The show & its presentation are most important and it sucks to lose any special features but it's a real heartbreaker to drop those text commentaries. The amount of detail and info in them (not to mention the Herculean effort that it must have taken to compile them) made them indispensable to the hardcore fan. I wish more TV shows and movies had text commentaries that provided that kind of psychotic attention to detail.

Thanks for your thoughts. I recently watched some episodes from the DVDs and I agree with you, the attention to detail and effort they put into those releases was amazing, and they were consistent to add those extras releases all the way through the series.

It's crazy to remember that it originally took three years (from November 2004 to November 2007) to get the whole series released. The good old days of physical releases, with the anticipation built into the schedule.

I'll obviously keep my DVDs no matter what I end up buying with this most recent release. . .

 

[OttoIsHere]

I’d love someone to publish them as a book so we can refer back to them as it would be a shame for that information to get lost.

Thank you for your thoughts! I like your idea to publish the notes in a readable format so they are still available, and as I noted above I'll keep my DVDs no matter what so I don't lose access to the Notes about Nothing.

 

[Todd Erwin]

My official HTF review has been delayed pending the replacement of a defective disc that just will not load. However, there is an authoring error on Disc 3 of Season 9, where one of the special features has the wrong audio (it sounds like a shorter deleted scene rather than the behind the scenes audio track it should have). No response yet from the studio.

 

[Perene]

My official HTF review has been delayed pending the replacement of a defective disc that just will not load. However, there is an authoring error on Disc 3 of Season 9, where one of the special features has the wrong audio (it sounds like a shorter deleted scene rather than the behind the scenes audio track it should have). No response yet from the studio.

I can confirm this technical error. It affects season 8.

-- Inside Look - The Summer of George (8m26s)

They put the audio from the deleted scenes there, which last less than 1 minute. In the "Inside Look" bonus content, after those 50 seconds of borrowed audio, the rest is muted.

I also checked the old DVD, and it's 100% is fine. A good thing is that the sync is the same. Also, sadly lots of extra contents were left out of this 4K boxset. They should have worked to put all that are available from the DVDs.

Not to mention the Blu-rays in 16:9 only (there are a couple of alternate versions for syndicated episodes, in which we see them at 1080p and 4:3). Which just proves the studio could have put the whole thing in 4:3, in all resolutions.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Finally got thru to SPHE Customer Service yesterday after weeks of being on hold for over 30 minutes and having to give up. Apparently, they have been bombarded with issues from this set (they did not specify if it was just the 4K version). All issues are being escalated to management at this time.

 

[Broomy]

Finally got thru to SPHE Customer Service yesterday after weeks of being on hold for over 30 minutes and having to give up. Apparently, they have been bombarded with issues from this set (they did not specify if it was just the 4K version). All issues are being escalated to management at this time.

What issues have they had? I’ve not seen anything reported other than the audio on that one special feature.

 

[Bryan^H]

The show & its presentation are most important and it sucks to lose any special features but it's a real heartbreaker to drop those text commentaries. The amount of detail and info in them (not to mention the Herculean effort that it must have taken to compile them) made them indispensable to the hardcore fan. I wish more TV shows and movies had text commentaries that provided that kind of psychotic attention to detail.

I'm glad I read this. I'm a huge fan of text commentaries. My favorite feature of anything on disc.

Now I don't feel bad missing out on the 4K set.

 

[Geoff_D]

What issues have they had? I’ve not seen anything reported other than the audio on that one special feature.

Disc 3 of season 3 in my UHD set would not load. It's a dud. Sony's customer service said that they had 'no inventory' so couldn't send a replacement disc, so I've got to send the whole thing back to the retailer. Have ordered another set in the meantime so hopefully I can Frankenstein a full set together with everything working, perhaps swap out some of the lightly scratched discs and the scratched cases as well.

 

[Todd Erwin]

What issues have they had? I’ve not seen anything reported other than the audio on that one special feature.

Defective discs was the main issue.

 

[erizock]

My set also has the authoring issue on UHD disc 3 of season 8...
SEASON 8:-- Inside Look - The Summer of George (8m26s)
Reached out to SPE customer service and here was their response:

***************
SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Dear Valued,


Thank you for contacting Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

We apologize for the inconvenience, unfortunately we currently do not have any available units on hand and we are unable to offer you a replacement.

Alternatively, you can reach out to your retailer for further assistance regarding this issue.

We will reach out to the title managers and advise them to inspect the discs configuration, however unfortunately we cannot guarantee any reword to be done on this release.


Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.


Regards,

Diego
SPHE Consumer Affairs

 

[Todd Erwin]

My set also has the authoring issue on UHD disc 3 of season 8...
SEASON 8:-- Inside Look - The Summer of George (8m26s)
Reached out to SPE customer service and here was their response:

***************
SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Dear Valued,


Thank you for contacting Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

We apologize for the inconvenience, unfortunately we currently do not have any available units on hand and we are unable to offer you a replacement.

Alternatively, you can reach out to your retailer for further assistance regarding this issue.

We will reach out to the title managers and advise them to inspect the discs configuration, however unfortunately we cannot guarantee any reword to be done on this release.


Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.


Regards,

Diego
SPHE Consumer Affairs

Returning the set and obtaining a replacement from the retailer will not fix an authoring issue.

I have spoken with Diego on the phone, and he seems to be relatively new in this position (he kept putting the phone down - not placing me on hold - and asked question after question to a coworker and what to say to me).

 

[Citizen87645]

Yikes!

 

[Todd Erwin]

Seinfeld: The Complete Series UHD Review

"Seinfeld: The Complete Series" arrives on 4K UHD Blu-ray, and has never looked better. However, the set has some serious issues that are not being handled well by the studio.

www.hometheaterforum.com

 

[Nick*Z]

Respectfully, I'll have to disagree with the reviewer who stated these have never looked better. For a show originally shot on film, a lot of the video mastering here is well below par for what a true film stock scan would have achieved, either in 1080p or 4K. Aside: Seinfeld didn't need a double release in competing Blu and 4K editions. Just one, properly curated/expertly mastered edition in either format du jour would have sufficed!

I bought the Blu set, frankly, because it was half the price of the 4K set, and, thinking that if cropping was going to occur it would at least be done tastefully as in the way Warner Bros. reformatted Friends to Blu, which didn't appear to suffer from any egregiously odd compositions as a result.

My neighbor across the street bought the 4K set. His Season 3 discs are all locking up. He came to my place to test the discs, just in case it was his player. But no. There wasn't a single disc from Season 3 that would boot up beyond the menu screen. No lock up. They just wouldn't play. So, he came to my place to watch a few episodes from the Blu set just to get his fix.

Neither one of us had a 'good' viewing experience from this. The Blu's are cropped - in some cases, so as to obscure pertinent information in foreground props that the cast reach for, but cannot be seen until they pull them into frame. 'Head' cropping is also an issue in a few episodes.

Not going to go into an episode by episode analysis here. Suffice it to say, the cropping is ugly and makes the whole show appear very 'cramped' in 1080p 1.78:1. Medium shots now become close ups, and shoulders of cast members are frequently cut off in a two shot where one character is on either side of the frame. This just looks like a very sloppy effort.

In several scenes that feature interactions between Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Michael Richards, we lose all of Dreyfuss' body, save the head, while the top of Richard's own dome is cut off at the hair line.

And then, there is the horrendous dip in quality for the pilot, which fares no better than an old NTSC video-based broadcast, with aliasing, color bleeding, and soft, fuzzy images. The weird part here is that the pilot is presented twice - once in the 'widescreen' recomposite, and then again, as an 'extra' in its native 1.33:1. The standard format actually looks better than the 'widescreen' version, with less of all the aforementioned anomalies in play. Odd. Frustratingly so.

Well aware that most sitcoms from this period were shot on tape - not film. But Seinfeld was shot on film with post production achieved on video. Sony presumably has proper masters for all of these, and yet stock shots and some inserts throughout the series just look like bad upscales off tape rather than going back to the original film masters pre-post-production.

A lot of these episodes just look off in their color timing. And again, the cropping hasn't been done with the same TLC that Warners gave Friends on Blu.

It's just so disheartening for a big outfit like Sony to offer Seinfeld in an either/or format war. Either you pay less for the Blu and get re-formatted versions, or you pay a lot more and get properly formatted episodes, only some that will actually play as expected.

Finally, I have to say, Seinfeld isn't as good as I remember it to be. While shows like Cheers, Frasier and Friends on Blu were a hoot to revisit, Seinfeld, while irrefutably a watershed sitcom of its time, appears to have remained happily ensconced in the memory as a show from that time, rather than one for all time. I feel the same way about my revisiting of Sex and the City on Blu.

Regardless, expected a lot more from Sony - the company that practically invented Blu-ray and is at the forefront of 4K video mastering elsewhere. What exactly happened here, I'm not sure. But I wouldn't be recommending Seinfeld to anyone - especially if you already own the DVD box set from some years ago. Quality wise, you're getting about the same, with colors that just look artificially boosted rather than naturally advancing into their own stellar nuances and hues.