Those with LEGIT Voyager DVDs, please help

[exodus]

Honestly, I don't think there is any special EFX or scene quality in any Trek show worth owning the Blu-rays for. Seeing Threshold, The Fight, Spirit Folk or Nightingale in HD quality isn't going to make them any better.

[Tosk]

teacake wrote:

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How is "overall better transfer" different from "added visual quality"?

What I mean is, if you went and bought, say...The Dark Knight Rises on both DVD and Blu-ray and played them on your old TV, they'd look about the same. With TNG though, the old masters that were used for TV, VHS, and DVD are quite crummy. They were produced on videotape and it shows. The TNG Blu-rays have been rebuilt from the ground up and show considerable improvement in all areas that would be apparent even on an analog TV. There's simply no contest. I have checked this myself on the old TV I have in the spare room.

Whether or not that improvement is worth a purchase is up to the individual though, of course.

[teacake]

Thanks Tosk, that's exactly what I wanted to know

[Tosk]

No worries. And apologies for not explaining myself properly the first time.

[MacLeod]

Well even with watching TNG HD, in SD on the Syfy Channel (UK) you can notice a vast improvement.

[tomswift2002]

teacake wrote:

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My question is, if you have a bluray player and blurays but an ancient box of a tv with no extra adjectives in front of the word tv will it look any different?

Blu-ray will look slightly better if you are watching it on a post 2000 standard def TV (even regular DVD's will look slightly better) with component video. But on pre 2000 TV's, it's not going to make much difference.

But, with Blu-Rays, anything that is in 4:3 (Star Trek TNG, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle On 34th Street) the image will be right in the center of the screen and surrounded on all 4 sides by black boxes because of the image being in a 16:9 matte.

[Tosk]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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But, with Blu-Rays, anything that is in 4:3 (Star Trek TNG, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle On 34th Street) the image will be right in the center of the screen and surrounded on all 4 sides by black boxes because of the image being in a 16:9 matte.

No, you just make sure your settings are correct and it will display properly.

[tomswift2002]

Tosk wrote:

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No, you just make sure your settings are correct and it will display properly.

I've used a Blu-Ray player on a standard TV before. If its been encoded on the DVD or the Blu-Ray in 4:3 480i, then the 4:3 image will fill the entire screen. But if the image is on a Blu-Ray at 720p or higher it'll be shown as a little square in the center of the screen with black on all 4 sides, because there is no native HD 4:3 encoding. any movies or TV shows that were shot in 4:3 and are being put on Blu-Ray will be in a 16:9 anamorphic matte, but won't have information on the edges, so when they are played on a Standard def TV it will look just like the person's watching a widescreen movie, but there will be black all around.

[msdossys]

Lord Manitou wrote:

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You'de think they are trying to push something at you with Blueray but all the machines are backward compatable so it doesn't matter. I have an ifpi called 409. Is this legitimate?

First, thank you, second, there should be a letter before those numbers, but either way, that is a much different code than my Z977. Only after filing a complaint with eBay the seller responded. Go figure . We're shipping them back to the seller, and will get a refund. I also wanted to start this thread to bring some more attention to the issue, as I only found a few places where someone had pictures and information about bootlegs, mostly about the real obvious fakes.

Sorry I have not posted the pictures yet, went out and watched Some Blu-Ray TNG Season 2 on the big screen last night. There will be some cool extras in these Blu Ray releases!

As for the Blu-Ray releases of Voyager, I'm not holding my breath... those will take a while... they have DS9 to do first! And also speaking of Blu-Ray, Amazon has TOS Blu-Ray for $129 for the whole Series. Bought that for a gift, which I will be borrowing after Christmas!

Generic replies to the rest of the thread that went sideways - You can stretch your DVD/Blu-Ray picture to 16:9 on a 16:9 TV, but everyone will get 'wider'. Otherwise, watch it letterboxed, however you should not have black bars on the top or bottom, just left and right.

Any more ifpi codes?

[msdossys]

The first 2 pictures were taken with my iPhone 5, the rest with a Canon 5D Mark II, so dont blame the camera for bad image quality!
You can click on any picture to show the full size original.

Some questionable screen printing on the disc along with the 'pits' on the surface. And the ifpi number.


More underside pictures, and the slipcover with the screenprinting on it


More slipcover


Slipcover and DVD book


More DVD Book -- looks right.


Trying to get more of the 'pitting' on the discs. It was on all discs, not just the top one.


Hey! these look like the real thing... not the usual cardboard imports!


Image printed (not studio quality) and not put on straight. More pits, bad screenprinting on disc.


More trying to get the ifpi number, and other random barcode/printing on underside of disc.


Even more ifpi, best shot. Paper insert.


Same paper insert, closeup (not good quality):


Heres a shot of my LEGIT DS9 Sleeve.. much better quality!


And the clincher... DVD Decrypter says all region:

[teacake]

That's what the Asian fakes look like, but if someone wants to tell me they come that way for real go ahead. It's easy to see with some ebay research that these are the fakes.

[MacLeod]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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I've used a Blu-Ray player on a standard TV before. If its been encoded on the DVD or the Blu-Ray in 4:3 480i, then the 4:3 image will fill the entire screen. But if the image is on a Blu-Ray at 720p or higher it'll be shown as a little square in the center of the screen with black on all 4 sides, because there is no native HD 4:3 encoding. any movies or TV shows that were shot in 4:3 and are being put on Blu-Ray will be in a 16:9 anamorphic matte, but won't have information on the edges, so when they are played on a Standard def TV it will look just like the person's watching a widescreen movie, but there will be black all around.

Just a side note, 480i is SD for NTSC, in PAL regions it would be 576i

[Saturn0660]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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I've used a Blu-Ray player on a standard TV before. If its been encoded on the DVD or the Blu-Ray in 4:3 480i, then the 4:3 image will fill the entire screen. But if the image is on a Blu-Ray at 720p or higher it'll be shown as a little square in the center of the screen with black on all 4 sides, because there is no native HD 4:3 encoding. any movies or TV shows that were shot in 4:3 and are being put on Blu-Ray will be in a 16:9 anamorphic matte, but won't have information on the edges, so when they are played on a Standard def TV it will look just like the person's watching a widescreen movie, but there will be black all around.

All depends on the movie. I've got a BD-movie thats in 4:3 Looks like like 4:3 would on an HDTV.. Bars down the sides. All my old school SD-DVD's are the same way.


I've also used my BD on my old 32" JVC SD Tube tv. 16:9 looks jut like you think it would.. black bars top and bottom.

At least on my LG Blu-Ray player.

[Lord Manitou]

I think they are more flaky than the ones that are very near fake. You can still manage to get some real service from them.

[R. Star]

Yeah, seems like they put some real effort into forging those. Are you trying to get your money back on these? That may end up being more effort than it's worth. If it was me, I'd just hit em with negative feedback on ebay and live with it, if the DVDs are functional.