Caprica: The Complete Series (Aug 10 2022)

[Rick Grimes]

Originally Posted by benji888578

I ordered the Australian set (edit: last week) and it arrived today! It is 1080p/24 but, for some reason it plays at 60 in my Sony x700 UHD bd player, it may be something with the settings, but, anyway it looks great, and nice to have lossless audio, finally!

Commentaries, the only audio is the dts ma English, at least on the first pilot episode, …it says on the case it has video blogs, is this where the commentaries were taken from? I know with BSG that Ronald d Moore had podcasts that, at least on the Blu-ray set, were added as commentary tracks.

Edit: I’m in the US

On the X-700 change the upscale settings to Auto 2, as it will then upscale to 4K/24p.

Originally Posted by hagios

I have this version….



Would the Australian be something that I would enjoy over my German edition or would it be an unnecessary purchase for me?

The Aussie set is at the correct speed (24p). All other editions are 50fps, which means PAL Speed-up (music is faster and half an octave out of pitch and even actors voices sound squeakier,, especially male voices, like there balls are being grabbed).

[hagios]

Originally Posted by Rick Grimes

On the X-700 change the upscale settings to Auto 2, as it will then upscale to 4K/24p.



The Aussie set is at the correct speed (24p). All other editions are 50fps, which means PAL Speed-up (music is faster and half an octave out of pitch and even actors voices sound squeakier,, especially male voices, like there balls are being grabbed).

If that is all I can keep my German version as I do not notice the things you mentioned!

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by hagios

If that is all I can keep my German version as I do not notice the things you mentioned!

Maybe you don’t notice because you never saw it as it originally aired. Personally I’m glad I waited and got the aus version as I would not have liked bear mccreary’s music altered, and the video would’ve seemed off to me.

[benji888578]

The Australian 1080/24p release: FYI: if I'm not mistaken this is a Random Space Media title and they have closed their doors, this title is still available as of right now via their Amazon US marketplace: Prime DVDs, so if you've waited, now is the time to get this, not sure how long it will be open, I'm pretty sure they are just selling off remaining inventory, and could close without notice, as the RSM website is suddenly down, only heard of the closing in last couple days.

[Jiden]

Just seeing this now, this has been one of my holy grails (1080/24p). Am I SOL at this point? In the limited number of searches I've made after seeing this, I'm not seeing the Australian version available anywhere.

[User897]

I just browsed Amazon.au. Wow, it does look like you're SOL. It would have to be a 3rd party reseller at this point, which could mean $$$.

[TheOneWithThePrize]

I was trying to find one last year and having trouble but luckily found one on eBay almost *checks notes* exactly one year ago. Can't imagine it becoming easier since then.

[Jiden]

Yeah, that is wild. It doesn't look like its anywhere. Man that bums me out. I wanted this one for so long. Can't believe it actually was available and I missed my shot.

[Silvestris]

Sucks that it’s oop.

Did anyone notice who got it notice these problems?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BSG/comment...lity_concerns/

Also is anything stopping another company from doing a blu ray?

[badfingerboogie]

Originally Posted by Silvestris

Sucks that it’s oop.

Did anyone notice who got it notice these problems?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BSG/comment...lity_concerns/

Also is anything stopping another company from doing a blu ray?

I'm making my way back through BSG, so I'll keep an eye out once I hit the Caprica discs to see how bad the noise/macroblocking issues are.

[Rick Grimes]

Originally Posted by Silvestris

Sucks that it’s oop.

Did anyone notice who got it notice these problems?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BSG/comment...lity_concerns/

Originally Posted by badfingerboogie

I'm making my way back through BSG, so I'll keep an eye out once I hit the Caprica discs to see how bad the noise/macroblocking issues are.

Watched a chunk of the 1080p/24 Aussie transfer myself… Well, some of my fave parts, and didn’t notice any issues, per se.

I watched the entire French 1080i/50 set and noticed nothing “out of the ordinary”, with the exception of some excessive noise/grain, in parts, but it’s certainly not unwatchable IMHO.

One would assume both the French and Aussie sets, both from Sony Universal, would have used the same source material, and hence the look should be very similar.

Caprica, like its predecessor, Battlestar Galactica, had a very distinct grainy/noisy look. The latter due to it being shot on early HD camera equipment, and the DP trying to emulate a gritty documentary film sytle aesthetic. And with Caprica, the gritty look would be due to the Caprica creators attempting to copy the “BSG universe” look.

Below is an excerpt (and link) to an article that talks about the BSG PQ issues, especially the heavy pushed grain look inherent in the filming process. Some say what they did makes BSG unwatchable, but I (and many other fans), accept that it is simply a gritty look that one can get used to, very quickly, when watching the show. Caprica appears to have similar issues, albeit, not as extreme.

Frankly, Battlestar Galactica is so bad it seems deliberate. Almost every single shot in the show looks like this, it’s borderline unwatchable.

Unfortunately, it does in fact seem to be the case that some of this was intended, as part of the creators playing with what to them was a new format. An article on the use of HD in Star Trek Enterprise and Battlestar Galactica describes the difficulties that the creators of Galactica faced when they tried to achieve the right aethestic for the show, which was “grungy”, “gritty”, with pushed grain. To try to get this result on a TV shooting schedule, DP Steve McNutt developed a realtime color management process for adjusting color on set while using little, if any, post-production color correction.

As part of an attempt to replicate a “documentary-style”, shot-on-film look, McNutt “[pushed] for video noise to emulate grain”, sometimes as high as +18dB. The visual effects supervisor, Gary Hutzel, says that the DP “pushed gamma, crushing the blacks, clipping the highlights”. That’s extremely telling. It’s not worthwhile to try to parcel out blame, in hindsight, for a show shot almost 20 years ago; what’s important however is how the specific limitations of shooting in HD forced creators to experiment with novel techniques to try to get the specific looks they wanted to achieve, with expectations often keyed to the behavior and appearance of the film stock they were used to working with.

Even with the F900, Battlestar Galactica didn’t have to look as bad as it did, but it’s easy to see how seeking the intensity and immediacy of a grainy film stock led too many directors astray.

LINK: “How the pursuit of HD video ruined TV for half a decade”:

[Show spoiler]https://adamfontenot.com/post/how_th...%20TV%20shows.

Perhaps Caprica should have had a text warning about the PQ at the start-up of each disc, like those that can be found on the BSG Complete Series Blu-Ray.

The BSG discs also had a video of Ronald D. Moore mentioning that the show was shot on HD videotape, and what you see on the Blu-Ray, was what was intended.

[badfingerboogie]

Originally Posted by Rick Grimes

Perhaps Caprica should have had a text warning about the PQ at the start-up of each disc, like those that can be found on the BSG Complete Series Blu-Ray.

Yeah, that would have perhaps been useful, though going by the more generic approach to the menus etc on the Aussie Caprica Blu I suspect that no one involved in the process of authoring that set would have really thought to do something like that these days.

I wouldn't be surprised if the person that created that reddit thread that's referred to above just wasn't prepared for the built-in look of the show itself, and then mistook the creators' intentions for swirling artificial grain or other similar technical issues.

I've only had a look at several scenes in the couple years since I grabbed the set (will be there in my rewatch in the next two or so months), but everything I saw looked pretty much spot-on to me.

[Silvestris]

Caprica was just added to Peacock, does anyone there’s a better chance we’ll get an American blu ray now?

[RickWJ324]

Does anyone know of a place to get this release now? I bought the french version years ago and never knew this version existed. I'd very much like to upgrade if possible....I can't even find a set on places like ebay. Thanks!

[RickWJ324]

Originally Posted by RickWJ324

Does anyone know of a place to get this release now? I bought the french version years ago and never knew this version existed. I'd very much like to upgrade if possible....I can't even find a set on places like ebay. Thanks!

Well, after looking for this on ebay every day for months I finally found one! I managed to snag a sealed copy. Can't wait to replace my French release!

[User897]

Originally Posted by RickWJ324

Well, after looking for this on ebay every day for months I finally found one! I managed to snag a sealed copy. Can't wait to replace my French release!

Just remember that the Australian release doesn't have the unrated pilot episode.

[RickWJ324]

Originally Posted by User897

Just remember that the Australian release doesn't have the unrated pilot episode.

Yeah...I'm good with that. I'm just glad to get a region free release at 24p and English menus. So glad I found this thing finally. I probably have over 5,000 blu-rays and this was likely the hardest one for me to find. It's like it doesn't exist in the secondhand market.

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by RickWJ324

Does anyone know of a place to get this release now? I bought the french version years ago and never knew this version existed. I'd very much like to upgrade if possible....I can't even find a set on places like ebay. Thanks!

Originally Posted by RickWJ324

… It's like it doesn't exist in the secondhand market.

It was released by a small company that has since closed down, about a year after this release, so there likely are not many copies out there. If you actually found one, it would be a rare item. I’m curios what the eBay seller charged for it.

[RickWJ324]

Originally Posted by benji888578

It was released by a small company that has since closed down, about a year after this release, so there likely are not many copies out there. If you actually found one, it would be a rare item. I’m curios what the eBay seller charged for it.

I paid $69.99 for it (shipping included) still shrinkwrapped. Yeah, a bit much, but I was looking for this one for a very long time with none of them popping up online. I'm glad I got it.