You too huh? Do your double sided disks freeze up too? I have a Sony player that won't read them no matter what. But thankfully, my Panasonic recorder does, so I watch them (those I haven't been able to replace yet, anyway) on that.
So, this 'Babylon 5' thing better be good...
- Thread starter Ethros
- Start date
You too huh? Do your double sided disks freeze up too? I have a Sony player that won't read them no matter what. But thankfully, my Panasonic recorder does, so I watch them (those I haven't been able to replace yet, anyway) on that.
Every time one of these "I'm about to watch B5 for the first time" threads start, I feel enormously envious for the thread starter. You are about to go on a journey, that's for sure.
Why not just do what I do? I usually pull out my DVD's, and watch one episode a night from start to finish once a year, or every two years.
See Neroon's reply.
That initial B5 DVD, the one seemingly created to "test the waters" was a dual-sided disk: Linked here.
I must have picked up an early set then, because mine didn't include "Legend ...", which I had to buy separately.
Huh.... no, I've not had any problems with freezing. My annoyance stems from being nearly incapable of reading the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny labels indicating which is which.
I was talking about Region 2, the European release (the PAL edition). I just checked Amazon.co.uk, there's no double sided disk listed there.
Except they're not the same product; because of PAL/NTSC issues, each version has to be created more-or-less separately from scratch.
Which is a shame in a way. I have a copy of the original on VHS. I find it interesting to compare the two versions, not only for the soundtrack but the editing as well.
This is the really annoying part. At first, they published the SE, but only in the UK. Everywhere else in Europe they released the Original Cut. When it ran out of stock in the UK, they imported DVDs from Germany and put them in the UK cover. Now there are no SE's available anywhere in Europe, other than with a lot of luck second hand (and it's almost impossible to make sure which edition you're bidding for in an online auction, because for a certain period they put the Original DVDs imported from Germany into the SE-covers in UK).
On the bright side, the season box sets are much better than the R1 editions. They actually got slim cases for each individual DVD.
Now there I'm really jealous! My boxes have pretty much disintegrated due to overuse so I need to invest in some new cases.
I've got a second set now but I'd rather keep them until I really need them or until I've got the original set lent out and need to check something. Got Seasons 1 and 2 out now. New convert!
Jan
On thing I will say though is that the DVD transfer is pretty poor. There are multiple issues with sound, I just watched a season 4 episode where the voice tracks were of audibly lower quality than the rest of the sound, they were very muffled whilst the sound effects etc were crystal clear.
There's also problems with the framing, they shot it in 16:9 for a 4:3 broadcast and then went to 16:9 for the DVD release, but they have clearly had to crop 4:3 shots to 16:9 in lots of places where the original footage had a problem for whatever reason, and the CGI is of noticeably lower quality in places because they only rendered it at 4:3 and then had to crop it for the DVD release.
There's lots of other niggling problems with the transfers too. Pretty poor job really, fortunate that the show is so good as to pretty much negate the problems.
There's also problems with the framing, they shot it in 16:9 for a 4:3 broadcast and then went to 16:9 for the DVD release, but they have clearly had to crop 4:3 shots to 16:9 in lots of places where the original footage had a problem for whatever reason, and the CGI is of noticeably lower quality in places because they only rendered it at 4:3 and then had to crop it for the DVD release.
There's lots of other niggling problems with the transfers too. Pretty poor job really, fortunate that the show is so good as to pretty much negate the problems.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I think you will like it...two thumbs up...
Rob
Rob
Probably doesn't help that I read about the framing issues before hand. It's really obvious when you are aware, there's lots of shots where people's chins are cut off etc and they would never have framed it that way in the shot.
The special effects are really obvious because it goes very blurry on shots that include digital effects. Apparently it's worse on the PAL DVDs (whch I have), something to do with the conversion process. I'm no expert, but the end result is pretty noticeable on my DVDs.
Huh.... no, I've not had any problems with freezing. My annoyance stems from being nearly incapable of reading the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny labels indicating which is which.
Oh. Must be a Region 1 thing then. I've had that problem with nearly every double sided disk I have, including the old In the Begining/Pilot disk. I was glad when those were added to the movie set on single siders.
Similar threads
