(no subject)

> Hi all,
>
> Well, the Japanese UFO Blu-ray discs have been released and people are
> receiving them. I have yet to watch an entire episode, but I have taken
> some photos of the packaging and made some frame captures and posted
> them on Facebook (where it is easy to do such things). Even without a
> Facebook account, you should be able to see these:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.448331701881070.93935.169314393116137
>
> The discs turned out to be region-free (a bit of a surprise), so they
> should play on any Blu-ray player in the world.
>
> As for the picture quality, I've heard a few people express disappointment
> about this. And I agree, this is certainly not up the jaw-dropping quality
> we saw on the Space:1999 Year One Blu-ray discs. But I think most
> people will consider it to look great, with some reservations. The biggest
> problem here is when they used film source material that was not from
> the original camera negative -- this would include anything with text
> superimposed on it (beginning credits), and fade ins/fade outs (for
> commercial breaks), anything where two pieces of film were combined
> optically (scenes inside cars, Straker's elevator office). These
> scenes look noticeably worse -- there is not as much detal, the color looks
> bad, and there is a lot more dirt and hair present on the film. They
> certainly could have spent more effort to make these parts look
> better -- for example, they could have at least tried to color-correct
> these better and also "erase" the dirt and hair -- but they didn't.
> I'm sure if these were done by the same folks who did the SPACE:1999
> Blu-rays (BBC Resources), we would have seen better results.
>
> So now I'll actually start watching episodes, and put together some
> DVD/Blu-ray comparison examples. And I'm pretty sure we'll see
> a few cases where the DVDs actually look better than the Blu-rays. :-(
>
> Marc
>
>

> On December 8, Branko Vekic <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Such sad news :(
>
> Well, I think most people will be happy with this transfer. And I suspect
> this will be the same transfer used for all other Blu-ray releases, unless a
> company like Network or A&E decide it's not good enough.
>
> At least it's in 4:3! :-)
>
> Also, I've just updated my information page about this release:
>
> http://ufoseries.com/videos/bj/index.html
>
> Marc
>

> On December 8, Branko Vekic <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Best transfer and treatment of the material we are going to see is done
> > by the BBC, for DVDs. Alas, it wasn't in HD :(
>
> Check out my first comparisons of Blu-ray vs. DVD. The Blu-ray is
> definitely an improvement in these scenes!
>
> http://ufoseries.com/videos/bj/
>
> Marc
>

> On December 9, Branko Vekic <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > From what I can see, aside from a slight better resolution on blu ray, colors are
> > more vivid in DVD (which is a surprise), picture has been slightly cut from the
> > edges on blu ray, and the picture is darker, especially in the Timeleash scene.
>
> I've now watched TIMELASH all the way through, and it seemed perfectly fine
> to me. The Blu-ray does have better resolution, so occasionally something will
> be noticeable that was never noticeable before. The Blu-ray does reveal flaws
> that are probably in the original film (for example, the depth-of-focus is rather
> shallow in some special effects shots, so you might notice something going
> out of focus that you never noticed on the DVDs).
>
> I do think the Blu-rays are "darker" in that a different gamma was used, but
> I never noticed any black crush in this particular episode. And TIMELASH
> doesn't have a lot of stock footage in it, so not much problem with excess
> grain from dupe footage.
>
> Marc
>