Blu-ray Review The Invisible Man: The Complete Series Blu-Ray Review (1 Viewer)

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Chas in CT /t/321432/the-invisible-man-the-complete-series-blu-ray-review/30#post_3940325
This is reminding me of a couple of years ago when someone issued a butchered/stretched Fleischer Gulliver's Travels on Blu-ray. That was a real circus for a while on Amazon.

Gulliver's Travels is arguably the worst Blu ray release ever.

 

[Radioman970]

That "president" should be made to buy something from a company like, say Mill Creek... keep buying stuff until he gets a bad one. Then go through their customer service. I had a terrific experience through them. They were not only completely apologetic, and not only replaced my defected DVDs but they sent me a freebie besides! It was something I already had, but I gifted it to family.

 

[Jack P]

People of all political persuasions would agree that this is one "president" who deserves to be impeached!

 

[MatthewA]

This disc was already a low, and they just started digging deeper with that response to Simon's letter. I will never buy anything of theirs again if this is the way they treat their customers.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by MatthewA /t/321432/the-invisible-man-the-complete-series-blu-ray-review/30#post_3940459
This disc was already a low, and they just started digging deeper with that response to Simon's letter. I will never buy anything of theirs again if this is the way they treat their customers.

I wonder what they do with 2.35:1 films on Blu ray, do they have the rights to any such films, and if so, do they crop them so that no black bars are visible on 16/9 sets. ?

 

[TravisR]

I wonder what they do with 2.35:1 films on Blu ray, do they have the rights to any such films, and if so, do they crop them so that no black bars are visible on 16/9 sets. ?

Based on their logic with this release, they'd have to because they would receive more complaints about a rectangle picture in the middle of the TV screen than what they ended up doing.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by TravisR /t/321432/the-invisible-man-the-complete-series-blu-ray-review/30#post_3940480
Based on their logic with this release, they'd have to because they would receive more complaints about a rectangle picture in the middle of the TV screen than what they ended up doing.

Yet they give the DVD releases the original aspect ratio treatment, i don't get it, they must think Blu ray owners all hate black bars, all very strange and i'd like them to drop by the site and explain themselves. I'm tempted to email them myself just to see what reply i get.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

What a completely poor answer from that Jeff dude, only idiots would bother complaining about a square picture on a product from an era where it was standard norm. Those he's assuming might complain have big TV sets now anyway and as mentioned earlier most new flat screens have a much larger 4:3 picture than old TV sets, so what the hell is the problem. There is no problem, instead VEI gets the problem of dealing with dissatisfied fans of the show and for some reason that's less important than his imagining of ignorant kids hypothetically complaining about an actually huge square picture in the middle of the screen. Utterly laughable.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I sent a polite email using my own web address host ( DarkRealmFox ) and it said blacklisted due to spam bot-net concerns, hmmm never had that happen before now, i suppose there is a first for everything.

Anyways i then sent via my other email address and i have asked about the aspect ratio and the use of only one disc, i hope i get a reply.

 

[Jack P]

Take a look at the response I just got!
"We have decided to release in its 4:3 ratio on the next run.
"We cannot change the bit rate because it would mean a lot more discs. This would increase the price dramatically on the set. The overall image quality will not be reduced significantly.
"The conversion on this particular title was scanned from film. Thus making this the best quality available. This is a very expensive process and I believe the costs were enormous. If there any scratches or flaws it came from the film. We did the very best to clean it up especially we were able to see the before and after video."
A very quick mea culpa turnaround on the aspect ratio, but not on the bit rate. Now we have to wait for the second printing to see it done right aspect ratio wise.

 

[Jason_V]

That is awesome. What a quick about face!

 

[TravisR]

I take back my criticism. And a big thumbs up for the quick announcement of a change too.

 

[Radioman970]

Well... that's 1 thing settled.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Jack P /t/321432/the-invisible-man-the-complete-series-blu-ray-review/30#post_3940525
Take a look at the response I just got!
"We have decided to release in its 4:3 ratio on the next run.
"We cannot change the bit rate because it would mean a lot more discs. This would increase the price dramatically on the set. The overall image quality will not be reduced significantly.
"The conversion on this particular title was scanned from film. Thus making this the best quality available. This is a very expensive process and I believe the costs were enormous. If there any scratches or flaws it came from the film. We did the very best to clean it up especially we were able to see the before and after video."
A very quick mea culpa turnaround on the aspect ratio, but not on the bit rate. Now we have to wait for the second printing to see it done right aspect ratio wise.

Not worth buying unless they also put it out on more discs, 3 disc set minimum, too much compression is bad, 3 discs is not a lot more and the price should not be dramatically increased by adding 2 extra discs.

 

[MatthewA]

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I just received a reply from Jeff.

Seems to be the stock reply given to Jack several post's above. Not that happy, 13 episodes on one disc, heavy compression = poor quality as heavy compression does lower overall image quality as in filtering the best detail away - maybe better just buying the DVD as it probably is better optimized with more discs for it's format and could look nicer upscaled, waste of time buying the Blu even if it's the right aspect ratio unless they put this on 2 or 3 discs. preferably 3.

 

[Chuck B]

Actually looking at my copy, I think the compression is the best thing about the entire disc. There's no macroblocking, no digital artifacts around areas of high contrast and no image break up on complex images. In fact, it passes the true encoding test and that's fades to and from black. Not many people know this, but that's one of the hardest things an encoder has to deal with (especially with low bit rates).
If they're releasing it in 4:3 without DNR, I'm totally going to trade mine in. There's no way an upconverted DVD will look better then scanned film encoded in HD. The encoder used to do the compression has a far, far greater effect on image quality then the bit rate. Also, just do the math. 4 DVD 9s (34.8GB) of information vs. 1 BD50 (50GB) of information.
For a distributor to go this far I think is a pretty big deal. Good on them.
Cheers

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Chuck B /t/321432/the-invisible-man-the-complete-series-blu-ray-review/30#post_3940649
Actually looking at my copy, I think the compression is the best thing about the entire disc. There's no macroblocking, no digital artifacts around areas of high contrast and no image break up on complex images. In fact, it passes the true encoding test and that's fades to and from black. Not many people know this, but that's one of the hardest things an encoder has to deal with (especially with low bit rates).
If they're releasing it in 4:3 without DNR, I'm totally going to trade mine in. There's no way an upconverted DVD will look better then scanned film encoded in HD. The encoder used to do the compression has a far, far greater effect on image quality then the bit rate. Also, just do the math. 4 DVD 9s (34.8GB) of information vs. 1 BD50 (50GB) of information.
For a distributor to go this far I think is a pretty big deal. Good on them.
Cheers

I doubt on a projection system it will look good, no way can you fit 650 minutes onto one disc without filtering away high frequency information, just because it looks HD doesn't mean it fulfills the formats potential, you get "smooth" filtered HD and you get film like HD, this was shot 35mm film, can you really say it looks like it should look like.

It's a big deal indeed a huge deal for me that they chose one disc only, i have seen the results of over compression on films, such as Seraphim Falls, UK edition, ( just one example ) it turns everything smooth and the best detail is obliterated, it's DNR HD, its also obvious on a larger screen, maybe you like that, i don't, there is also the "blur effect" with DNR, sorry but can you really tell me this disc with 650 minutes on it looks good, i just doubt it.

 

[Chuck B]

One disc obviously won't look as good as 3, that's a no brainer. But all this talk about smoothing or "DNR HD" (which doesn't even exist) makes no sense. The discs don't look great, but that's the noise reduction's fault much more so then the low bitrate. And that's a separate step, before the video is even compressed. The compression itself is surprising considering the amount of video they fit on a disc. As I mentioned in my last post, the types of noise you get from low bitrates aren't there.
Also, from the sound of your posts, you never even saw the the discs. You can't just recycle terms you read from previous posts and make assumptions. Why because you rented other movies you didn't like and played them on a giant dull projector? Come on. I watched 6 episodes so far on a 58" plasma TV and they look a bit smooth. The picture looks much better then upconverted DVDs. The real problem was the decision to crop the video. Hopefully, they'll skip the noise reduction on the 4:3 version and they'll look even better.

 

[SimonTemplar]

If they follow it up with a blu ray of The Gemini Man in 4:3 then we 70s invisibility fans may be very happy.