The Promise - Ch. 4 TV Miniseries

[The Duke]

Have any of you Brits seen the Channel 4 TV Miniseries "The Promise"? I happened across the blu-ray listing whilst browsing Amazon UK. I'd never heard of it before and it gets an incredible 8.8/10 rating at imdb.com, although with only 134 votes. Sounds pretty interesting, and it stars Christian Cooke who I really liked in Cemetery Junction and the TV series Trinity.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004IK8F6Y

Imdb synopsis:

A young British girl travels to Israel/Palestine, retracing the steps of her grandfather - a British soldier stationed there in the 1940s.

PRE ORDER

[Kuros]

Originally Posted by The Duke

Have any of you Brits seen the Channel 4 TV Miniseries "The Promise"? I happened across the blu-ray listing whilst browsing Amazon UK. I'd never heard of it before and it gets an incredible 8.8/10 rating at imdb.com, although with only 134 votes. Sounds pretty interesting, and it stars Christian Cooke who I really liked in Cemetery Junction and the TV series Trinity.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004IK8F6Y

Imdb synopsis:

Hey Duke, I've had my eye on this too, so I also was hoping that someone had bought it and would comment on the Blu-ray version.

The Promise wasn't even shown in HD on Channel 4 HD (DON'T even get me started on those C4 numpties! ) when it aired last month, and so I was wondering what the BD picture and sound were like. My concern is that it might simply have been given an (upscaled) abomination of a transfer on BD, and lossy Dolby Digital audio; Worryingly, Amazon's listing for The Promise says that it's a single disc release -- this had better not be true as we're talking about 6-8 hours of video content here.

According to the IMDB, The Promise was shot on Super 16(mm film), so I'm really hoping that someone will soon be able to confirm that The Promise has been done justice on Blu-ray.

[DaveSimonH]

I literally just finished watching the series yesterday, watched first 3 episodes on Saturday and the 4th on Sunday. Pretty good considering the total running time is just short of 6 hours lol
I watched TV recordings so can't say what the blu-ray transfer is like but I'd highly recommend the series.

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by Kuros

Hey Duke, I've had my eye on this too, so I also was hoping that someone had bought it and would comment on the Blu-ray version.

The Promise wasn't even shown in HD on Channel 4 HD (DON'T even get me started on those C4 numpties! ) when it aired last month, and so I was wondering what the BD picture and sound were like. My concern is that it might simply have been given an (upscaled) abomination of a transfer on BD, and lossy Dolby Digital audio; Worryingly, Amazon's listing for The Promise says that it's a single disc release -- this had better not be true as we're talking about 6-8 hours of video content here.

According to the IMDB, The Promise was shot on Super 16(mm film), so I'm really hoping that someone will soon be able to confirm that The Promise has been done justice on Blu-ray.

Hmmm, if it was shot on Super 16 film, it's definitely not going to be demo material on blu-ray. Yeah, I noticed that listing of only 1 disc and hope it's wrong as it's listed as 354 minutes, just shy of 6 hours, and that's an awful lot to squeeze onto even a 50GB disc. I just checked the DVD listing and it also says 1 disc so that has to be wrong, no one is going to try to fit 6 hours of video on 1 DVD. (But that listing of 354 minutes may be wrong as well as several imdb reviewers say it's 8 hours long)

Originally Posted by DaveSimonH

I literally just finished watching the series yesterday, watched first 3 episodes on Saturday and the 4th on Sunday. Pretty good considering the total running time is just short of 6 hours lol
I watched TV recordings so can't say what the blu-ray transfer is like but I'd highly recommend the series.

Thanks for the recommendation of the series itself. Are the 4 series 2 hours long each? As the blu-ray is only 4 quid more than the DVD, I'm going to go ahead and order it and hope for the best.

[DaveSimonH]

Originally Posted by The Duke

Hmmm, if it was shot on Super 16 film, it's definitely not going to be demo material on blu-ray. Yeah, I noticed that listing of only 1 disc and hope it's wrong as it's listed as 354 minutes, just shy of 6 hours, and that's an awful lot to squeeze onto even a 50GB disc. I just checked the DVD listing and it also says 1 disc so that has to be wrong, no one is going to try to fit 6 hours of video on 1 DVD. (But that listing of 354 minutes may be wrong as well as several imdb reviewers say it's 8 hours long)


Thanks for the recommendation of the series itself. Are the 4 series 2 hours long each? As the blu-ray is only 4 quid more than the DVD, I'm going to go ahead and order it and hope for the best.

Well I recorded them via my PS3s PlayTV freeview recorder, then converted to mp4 without the adverts.
The running time for each part, withouts ads;
1hr21m32s
1hr27m09s
1hr22m59s
1hr44m49s
total time - 5hr56m29s

The run time is probably effected by PAL speedup, but is should give you a general idea of their length.

[DaveSimonH]

By the by, I was looking at the DVD version of this in HMV today and it has 2 discs (2xDVD-9) unlike the 1 disc that Amazon etc claims. So the blu-ray may be a 2 disc.

Couldn't confirm though, as there was only 1 blu in stock and the girl was like "Blu-ray version is £20, do you want me to go look for it?". If I was buying it I would have obviously asked, but her searching for 10 mins to just see if it has 2 discs seemed a bit much.

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by DaveSimonH

By the by, I was looking at the DVD version of this in HMV today and it has 2 discs (2xDVD-9) unlike the 1 disc that Amazon etc claims. So the blu-ray may be a 2 disc.

Couldn't confirm though, as there was only 1 blu in stock and the girl was like "Blu-ray version is £20, do you want me to go look for it?". If I was buying it I would have obviously asked, but her searching for 10 mins to just see if it has 2 discs seemed a bit much.

Thanks for the info. I got my blu-ray from Amazon UK yesterday. It is indeed 2 BD discs, the back cover says they're 2 BD50s. The cover also says there's 83 minutes of extra features. I watched episode 1 last night. PQ is pretty decent, better than an HD broadcast, but not demo material, which I wasn't expecting it to be from 16mm source material. Lossless audio is excellent, LPCM 2.0 stereo. Not a problem for those in the UK or EU, but a big problem for most in North America - it's 1080i 50Hz. My Panasonic projector handles 50Hz very well, but most TVs sold in NA won't accept 50Hz. There aren't any region coding indicated on the cover, I played in my Oppo player which I leave set to BD region B. I can test it in another player if anyone needs to know if it's region free.

Really enjoyed episode 1, looking forward to watching the rest and checking out the extra features.

[Kuros]

Originally Posted by The Duke

Thanks for the info. I got my blu-ray from Amazon UK yesterday. It is indeed 2 BD discs, the back cover says they're 2 BD50s. The cover also says there's 83 minutes of extra features. I watched episode 1 last night. PQ is pretty decent, better than an HD broadcast, but not demo material, which I wasn't expecting it to be from 16mm source material. Lossless audio is excellent, LPCM 2.0 stereo. Not a problem for those in the UK or EU, but a big problem for most in North America - it's 1080i 50Hz. My Panasonic projector handles 50Hz very well, but most TVs sold in NA won't accept 50Hz. There aren't any region coding indicated on the cover, I played in my Oppo player which I leave set to BD region B. I can test it in another player if anyone needs to know if it's region free.

Really enjoyed episode 1, looking forward to watching the rest and checking out the extra features.

Excellent! Thanks for confirming all of the above!

Would be fantastic if you could further comment on the following:

1. What's the (video) codec being utilised (i.e. AVC,MPEG-2 or VC-1)?

2. Does the video look like proper (1080p) HD to you, rather than (very good quality) upscaled SD?

3. Are the extras encoded in SD or HD?

4. Are both discs really BD-50s, as stated on the back cover? You can tell for sure by looking at the inside ring(s) on each Blu-ray. Dual layer discs have two circular rings surrounding the central hole of the disc (data side), with each ring having its own unique barcode -- single layer discs have a single (barcoded) ring.

5. Are both discs region free?

Thanks again!

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by Kuros

Excellent! Thanks for confirming all of the above!

Would be fantastic if you could further comment on the following:

1. What's the (video) codec being utilised (i.e. AVC,MPEG-2 or VC-1)?

2. Does the video look like proper (1080p) HD to you, rather than (very good quality) upscaled SD?

3. Are the extras encoded in SD or HD?

4. Are both discs really BD-50s, as stated on the back cover? You can tell for sure by looking at the inside ring(s) on each Blu-ray. Dual layer discs have two circular rings surrounding the central hole of the disc (data side), with each ring having its own unique barcode -- single layer discs have a single (barcoded) ring.

5. Are both discs region free?

Thanks again!

No problem, a very well made TV series, I like making more people aware of it.

1- Not indicated on the back cover, but BDinfo on my PC BD drive reports it as AVC.

2- Definitely an HD look to it - detail is excellent, and I can tell SD upconvert in a second from the quality of the fine detail. With it being 1080i50 (which my player outputs as 1080p50), it does have more of a video look to it as opposed to the film appearance 1080p24 would have, but still very nice.

3- Deleted scenes are SD, all other extras are in HD. There's an audio commentary for episode 1 & extra features, and Behind the Scenes: 6 features about the making of the series, narrated by the Director.

4 - Didn't know that about the double rings, and I only see 1 ring. But BDinfo reports them both as BD50. Disc 1 size, with ep. 1&2 + extra features, is around 36.8GB and disc 2, with ep. 3&4 is around 34.5GB.

5- Yes, region free - I tried both discs in my region A only player and they loaded fine.

[Kuros]

Originally Posted by The Duke

No problem, a very well made TV series, I like making more people aware of it.

1- Not indicated on the back cover, but BDinfo on my PC BD drive reports it as AVC.

2- Definitely an HD look to it - detail is excellent, and I can tell SD upconvert in a second from the quality of the fine detail. With it being 1080i50 (which my player outputs as 1080p50), it does have more of a video look to it as opposed to the film appearance 1080p24 would have, but still very nice.

3- Deleted scenes are SD, all other extras are in HD. There's an audio commentary for episode 1 & extra features, and Behind the Scenes: 6 features about the making of the series, narrated by the Director.

4 - Didn't know that about the double rings, and I only see 1 ring. But BDinfo reports them both as BD50. Disc 1 size, with ep. 1&2 + extra features, is around 36.8GB and disc 2, with ep. 3&4 is around 34.5GB.

5- Yes, region free - I tried both discs in my region A only player and they loaded fine.

You really are a superstar Duke! I'm not sure that too many people would have bothered to give such beautifully detailed answers to so many questions.

One thing about that ring thing is that I often find that one of the rings can be very hard to see; I usually have to hold the playing surface of a disc under a light and tilt it at the correct angle to be able to see the second barcoded ring. DVDs are the same as BDs in this regard btw, in that they should have two of these barcoded rings (if they're dual layered).

Duke, as you've mentioned that you have BD-info (and because it stupidly never occurred to me to ask you whether you did!) I'm going to now come across as one of those insufferable people who simply take, take, take -- I'm sure you've already worked out where I'm heading with this -- when I ask you whether it might be possible for you to to post the full BD-info logs for The Promise?

Have you ever contributed to the thread on the AVS forum, that's managed by Cinema Squid (the person who developed the BD-info software)? As The Promise may never get a BD release outside the UK (it actually wouldn't surprise me if it fails to find any form of distribution in the US!), and also because it sounds like the UK distributor has done a truly fantastic job with this BD release, I can't help but feel that this excellent sounding UK BD should be highlighted on Cinema Squid's own thread!

In fact I might also check with Pro-B as to whether he might be interested in reviewing this BD for Blu-ray.com, as there are NO online reviews of this BD anywhere that I can find?

Ta again Duke; I'm now going to have to snap up this BD title, pronto!

[The Duke]

BDinfo doesn't work correctly on The Promise, it tells me the disc is either copy protected or damaged, I have to click a couple error message to tell it to keep scanning anyway. I do have the latest version. The Cinema Squid site does say -
Known Issues:
- BDInfo will *NOT* function correctly with copy-protected discs

It can't determine the bitrate on the disc, so I'll just post the quick summary -

Disc 1:
Disc Title: THE_PROMISE_D1
Disc Size: 36,725,299,203 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
Playlist: 00001.MPLS
Size: 0 bytes
Length: 1:26:57
Total Bitrate: 0.00 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 0 kbps / 1080i / 25 fps / 16:9
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz
Subtitle: English / 0.000 kbps

Disc 2:
Disc Title: THE_PROMISE_D2
Disc Size: 34,449,726,651 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
Playlist: 00000.MPLS
Size: 0 bytes
Length: 1:22:48
Total Bitrate: 0.00 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 0 kbps / 1080i / 25 fps / 16:9
Audio: English / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz
Subtitle: English / 0.000 kbps