Il Commissario Montalbano "Gli Inizi" - Restored Edition (4 BD boxset)

[Funktion]

It seems we are finally getting Montalbano on Blu-Ray.

The earlier episodes of the series have been remastered in 4K, and after some TV showings, a boxset collecting the first 4 episodes/films from series 1 and 2 are coming out early next month on Blu-Ray:

https://www.amazon.it/Commissario-Mo...dp/B0BFJ37KGC/


The Rai website currently doesn't show any subtitles, but I'm crossing my fingers this release may have English subtitles, since the last italian DVDs for the series all had English subtitles, and that same Rai website only lists Italian subtitles for those same releases:

https://homevideo.rai.it/catalogo/il...ne-restaurata/

[ronand]

Its going to be an expensive collection at 10 euros an episode plus the postage. But its nice to see it making it to BR

[Funktion]

Originally Posted by ronand

Its going to be an expensive collection at 10 euros an episode plus the postage. But its nice to see it making it to BR

Believe it or not, it's actually slightly better than the price of the recent Italian DVDs.
I paid 12-13€ for each of the last 3 episodes.

If one thinks of it as films (which they essentially are, at almost 2 hours each), it makes things a bit more tolerable, but I wish the set was a bit cheaper (and added a few special features), since 37 X around 10€ each will be a bit painful.

The 4K remasters of these earlier episodes (which were originally shown in SD) look great, though, based on a video Rai posted a while back.

[ronand]

To ease the pain I suppose RAI will only release 4 episodes a year on BR. Good things come to those who wait...

[McCrutchy]

I e-mailed Rai and they replied that the set does have English subtitles. I have ordered it now and will report back when I receive it.

[Funktion]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

I e-mailed Rai and they replied that the set does have English subtitles. I have ordered it now and will report back when I receive it.

Thank you for the info, much appreciate it.

I actually have my set already on the way, since I ended up pre-ordering it, because I was expecting English subtitles to be present (all the latest Italian Montalbano DVDs had English subtitles, but Rai's website failed to mention it, or just mentioned Italian subtitles), but even on a worse case scenario, my comprehension of Italian is good enough to understand things, and I really wanted to revisit the early episodes in HD.

But, if you don't mind me asking: from which contact/address did you get a reply from Rai?
I ask because I frequently try to reach them for confirmation of subtitles on their releases, and I never got a single reply. Not from their email addresses, nor contact forms, nor even from social media.

In this case, I emailed both Rai, and Eagle Pictures, who distributes this release, trying to get some confirmation, and none replied.

Since you got more success than I did in several years of attempts, I would be grateful if you could please share what contact method you used.

thanks

EDIT: Speak of the devil. I just received an email from Rai (a reply to an email sent a couple of weeks ago), confirming the inclusion of the English subtitles. Here I was complaining they never reply, and I now received my very first one.

Anyway, good news further confirmed.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by Funktion

[Show spoiler]Thank you for the info, much appreciate it.

I actually have my set already on the way, since I ended up pre-ordering it, because I was expecting English subtitles to be present (all the latest Italian Montalbano DVDs had English subtitles, but Rai's website failed to mention it, or just mentioned Italian subtitles), but even on a worse case scenario, my comprehension of Italian is good enough to understand things, and I really wanted to revisit the early episodes in HD.

But, if you don't mind me asking: from which contact/address did you get a reply from Rai?
I ask because I frequently try to reach them for confirmation of subtitles on their releases, and I never got a single reply. Not from their email addresses, nor contact forms, nor even from social media.

In this case, I emailed both Rai, and Eagle Pictures, who distributes this release, trying to get some confirmation, and none replied.

Since you got more success than I did in several years of attempts, I would be grateful if you could please share what contact method you used.

thanks

EDIT: Speak of the devil. I just received an email from Rai (a reply to an email sent a couple of weeks ago), confirming the inclusion of the English subtitles. Here I was complaining they never reply, and I now received my very first one.

Anyway, good news further confirmed.

[McCrutchy]

Now added to the database:

[McCrutchy]

Okay it has arrived (in less than 36 hours!), and from quick impressions, there's some bad news:

Video: MPEG-2
Audio: Italian: Dolby Digital 5.0 (lossy )
Discs: 4xBD-25 (Why?)

I checked to make sure all the episodes have their English subtitles (since they aren't mentioned anywhere on the packaging) and they do. Extras are limited to a photo gallery on each disc. The discs are housed on overlapping hubs in a fat amaray case, which has a glossy cardboard slipbox.

I'm not familiar with the look of the series, but just from a couple brief spot checks I wonder if some DNR has been applied. I could be wrong and it could just be down to sloppy encoding in MPEG-2 on single-layered discs.

[ronand]

That's doesn't sound good at all. Seemingly they have shown these recently on the RAI 4K channel so I would have expected better. But I'll have to wait till I receive my set next week before passing judgement.

[Funktion]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

I'm not familiar with the look of the series, but just from a couple brief spot checks I wonder if some DNR has been applied. I could be wrong and it could just be down to sloppy encoding in MPEG-2 on single-layered discs.

Thank you for the update, even if the news aren't the best.

As for the look of the series, it actually looks lovely, and quite "filmic".

But, these earlier episodes (the 4 included on this release are from 1999 and 2000) weren't originally shown in HD, and looked pretty poor and grainy.
Even on DVD the quality wasn't particularly good, and quite inferior to later episodes.

Rai posted a video a while back, when these 4k restorations were about to start showing on TV in Italy, that compared the original vs the restored version, and the video seemed to show the use of some DNR (which could have been poor encoding), but considering what you're saying, it seems it was an actual good representation of these masters.

Here's the video:

https://www.facebook.com/raiunooffic...3149485884665/

---

Despite the disappointing specs (outdated codec, lossy audio, ...), if you haven't watched these episodes yet, do so.
The series is insanely good, and it only got better with time (especially since we got to see these actors and characters age throughout 2 decades).

Great actors, lovely locations (and women ), some great stories (mixing some good old mysteries, with some humour, and drama), it's an awesome show. Everyone I show the series to falls in love with it.

When the pandemic broke, one of my local TV channels repeated the series from episode 1 until the last episode available at the time (5 episodes a week), and it was perfect "soul food".

If you end up enjoying the series, there's a prequel series, Il giovane Montalbano, that is also very good.

[ronand]

I've just been doing a few quick calculations. Black Hawk Down was in MPEG-2 on BD and was pretty decent. The main movie (144 mins) takes up 38GB which includes some uncompressed soundtracks. Putting a 90 minute film with a single compressed audio track onto a BD-25 should still allow for a good bitrate.

[ronand]

My set finally arrived today after taking the scenic route around France. There is a definite uptick in detail and colours are more vibrant than what I watched on BBC 4. There does seem to have some DNR applied but this is the best they have ever looked. The opening sequence seems to be upscaled so I would ignore the quality of that.

[Funktion]

Series 3 was apparently already shown restored in 4k, and this month, the 3 episodes of Series 4 are being shown.

Hopefully, this means a second Blu-Ray boxset is coming soon.

[Funktion]

Sadly, it seems that, at least for now, there's no further Blu-Ray releases planned for the series, considering the next home video title is a complete collection boxset on DVD, out next month:

https://www.amazon.it/Cofanetto-Mont...dp/B0CJLT2X1H/

[ronand]

Hopefully they are just taking their time over there - its not unknown!

[Dottore2024]

Hey,

I got my blu-ray set of 'Gli Inizi' and both the video and audio quality are superb!
I'm a newbie here, but I had to come and write because its so totally contrary to what has been written above: actually there are no problems, and this blu-ray set is really, really good. This is one of the best quality blu-ray sets I have seen, flawless. No signs of DNR, no softness, no artifacts, no blurring, no audio glitches, nothing. The blu-ray video is so superb in quality that I thought for a moment I was watching 4K. The sound quality is also brilliant. There's subtitles in English, too.
As a long time fan and owner of the episodes on dvds, I was surprised it was SO good in quality. I expected that the first episode, 'Il Ladro di Merendine' might have been a bit 'worse' than the others (after all, it was the oldest episode) but no, it is not worse. Its incredibly good. Right from that intro where they show sweeping helicopter views of beautiful Sicilian towns, its true blu-ray. I mean, see-the-length-of-each-hair-in-Montalbano's beard -kind of detailed.
Look, I don't know what quality people on this forum are used to, but I'm telling you: its really, really that good, definitely for me it was worth buying. Already looking forward to the next in the series!

[Dottore2024]

Originally Posted by ronand

Hopefully they are just taking their time over there - its not unknown!

I've been waiting for almost a year, and there are still no new blu-rays of Montalbano. Yet Rai broadcast the show on 4K a few years back and there's at least one streaming platform that has the show in HD. Platforms such as Netflix only streams the episodes in SD, so I might just as well keep watching my dvd set. Its just that after the astounding near-4K quality of the Gli Inizi blu-ray release, it would be a real pity if there are no more blu-rays released of Comissario Montalbano. I mean, as a fan of the series I would pay real money for each one of the blu-rays.

[Glanners]

Originally Posted by Dottore2024

I've been waiting for almost a year, and there are still no new blu-rays of Montalbano. Yet Rai broadcast the show on 4K a few years back and there's at least one streaming platform that has the show in HD. Platforms such as Netflix only streams the episodes in SD, so I might just as well keep watching my dvd set. Its just that after the astounding near-4K quality of the Gli Inizi blu-ray release, it would be a real pity if there are no more blu-rays released of Comissario Montalbano. I mean, as a fan of the series I would pay real money for each one of the blu-rays.

A few weeks ago, after having it on the shelf for months, I managed to convince the other half to watch the Blu-ray set, which she loved.😍

She was so keen to continue watching the series, that, despite much protestation by me, we ordered the complete series on DVD.🙄

We started watching from where the Blu-rays left off and found it to be fairly unwatchable.🫤

It was poorly remastered and non-anamorphic, meaning the image was in a small square in the middle of the screen. Plus the English subtitles were a hazy, jagged mess. Both of us were unable to watch more than a couple of minutes before throwing in the towel.🤨

Thankfully, despite it being outside its official return date, the kind Amazon agent on the chat authorised a full refund on return.👌

Although we're now not out of pocket, we're gutted the rest of the series is not yet on Blu-ray. Is there anyone to contact to let them know there's an audience for it to encourage its release?🤔

PS: I just noticed amazon.it have reduced the price of that first Blu-ray to €23.99 (for now at least). A great price for those yet to grab it!😃

[Dottore2024]

The distributor of the blu-ray 'Gli Inizi' is Eagle Pictures, who also distribute that official Complete DVD collection, which was released a year ago. I have not seen what its episodes look like, and I do not know if they are 'restored' or not.
https://homevideo.rai.it/catalogo/il...erie-completa/

I got really excited about the 4K broadcasts back in 2022, even tried to get myself a satellite connection to watch them. Shown on Rai 1 and on Rai 4K satellite channel, the show's new remasters could be viewed in 2022-2023 on channel 210 of Eutelsat's Tivùsat "Hot Bird" 13F satellite; but at the time I could not get information on how to acquire the dish or how to set up the "Tivùsat" service in my country. In addition to a satellite dish, a compatible decoder and a Tivùsat Cam module would have been needed.
https://www.satindex.de/channeleng/29781/
https://www.fanpage.it/spettacolo/se...di-restaurati/

I really want to believe that Palomar, who has done the restoration work, has continued the restoration. Maybe a second blu-ray is being created. In that case the fans of 'Commissario Montalbano' will just have to just wait for a new release. I would like to purchase all of the restored episodes on blu-rays. Especially the early episodes do not appear on streaming services in this high quality. One can still google and find online traces of Rai 4K having shown early episodes, such as my favourites, 'Montalbano's Croquettes' and 'Scent of the Night', and it would appear that Rai at least has material on HD for the next blu-ray, because at least up until Season 5, the early episodes had been restored to either HD or 4K by September 2023, when they were being broadcast on Rai 1. https://www.vigata.org/films/films.shtml

Here in Scandinavia the newer episodes have been shown in HD on television. Its the older episodes in HD that have not reached viewers here yet, except on 'Gli Inizi' collection. I guess if one would want to write to someone, it would be Palomar who restores the series; or Rai 1.

Meanwhile, I discovered Camilleri's great Montalbano-books. Especially 'Rounding the mark' was a great book. The show is very loyal to Camilleri's books, I've only noticed some few differences (for instance in the book Angelica's Smile, not only is Angelica blonde and not brunette, and the Comissario's temptations are much more palpable, but the story ends differently and the book leaves the reader with a different impression about its main protagonist compared with the tv episode).

I will be waiting. It would be an awful shame to see such a wonderful show not continue in blu-ray. So if Rai or Palomar is reading, there'an audience who is awaiting for the 'Dottore' to continue driving his little Fiat Tipo onto more blu-ray discs!