Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Vilya

By most all accounts, the Mill Creek Blu-ray release of I Dream Of Jeannie The Complete Series is a disaster and this TV show has disappeared from subscription streaming services, at least as a complete series. The HD versions that were on streaming were reportedly quite good, but Mill Creek never saw a HD master that they couldn't compress the life out of.

That leaves the old Sony DVDs as the best alternative, so I tracked them down on ebay and I bought all five seasons. The seller threw in the first season in black & white as a bonus (that's how it was originally aired).





My purchase should all but assure a new blu-ray release, hopefully from Sony itself.

Yes but from what I heard, the Sony DVDs for the B&W masters are just the colorized versions with the color switched off and the HD masters were the true B&W versions

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

Yes but from what I heard, the Sony DVDs for the B&W masters are just the colorized versions with the color switched off and the HD masters were the true B&W versions

I don't know if that is true or not, but I bought all of these for a good price and I refuse to reward Swill Creek with a purchase when they did such a piss poor job with their blu-ray release.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I don't know if that is true or not...

Since you have both the colorized and black and white versions it would be pretty easy to check if you have a PC with a DVD drive. Play the colorized version in VLC media player and go to "Effects and Filters" "Video Effects" "Essential" check "Image adjust" and set Saturation to 0. Then play the black and white version without adjusting anything and see if they look basically the same.

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Since you have both the colorized and black and white versions it would be pretty easy to check if you have a PC with a DVD drive. Play the colorized version in VLC media player and go to "Effects and Filters" "Video Effects" "Essential" check "Image adjust" and set Saturation to 0. Then play the black and white version without adjusting anything and see if they look basically the same.

Another way to tell is if they have the same artifacts

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I don't take alchav's advice very often, but I did this time by "buying" No Hard Feelings (2023, 4K digital, Vudu).

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Watched No Hard Feelings and Asteroid City on BD via GameFly. Thought No Hard Feelings was funny but not worth a repeat view, thought Asteroid City boring so dumped out about an hour in. Had Manhunter on LD, then DVD and now BD.

No Hard Feelings is a good Little Flick, Jennifer Lawrence is a very good Actor, and she also Produced this Film. Did you guys get the meaning of the Song Jim played on the piano of "Maneater?" A Hall and Oates Song!

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by alchav21

No Hard Feelings is a good Little Flick, Jennifer Lawrence is a very good Actor, and she also Produced this Film. Did you guys get the meaning of the Song Jim played on the piano of "Maneater?" A Hall and Oates Song!

I have a ‘thing’ for Jennifer Lawrence. There, I said it!

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Not even the beach scene?

I may save that as a clip and start myself a collection of clips of movies that I liked but with no repeat view value.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Redbox to Increase Catalog, Niche Titles in Kiosks as Netflix Exits Disc Biz

Netflix closes its disc operations this week, Redbox announced it has been working to provide content that the former DVD.com audience will enjoy in its approximately 29,000 Redbox kiosks nationwide. The titles will include hard-to-find films such as Ugly Dolls, catalog titles including Jerry Maguire, and films from third parties that include Vertical and Decal. These titles are in addition to the latest films from major studios, which will soon include the hit films Oppenheimer and Barbie.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Since you have both the colorized and black and white versions it would be pretty easy to check if you have a PC with a DVD drive. Play the colorized version in VLC media player and go to "Effects and Filters" "Video Effects" "Essential" check "Image adjust" and set Saturation to 0. Then play the black and white version without adjusting anything and see if they look basically the same.

I don't have VLC media player installed on my PC. I use PotPlayer64, which might have the same functionality.

I doubt that I will investigate this question about the black & white edition of season 1 of I Dream Of Jeannie. It is what it is and no amount of analysis will change that. Hopefully, I will like what I see once I play them.

What I would really like to see is Sony releasing this series on blu-ray themselves and doing the job right.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I may save that as a clip and start myself a collection of clips of movies that I liked but with no repeat view value.

Joking aside, I do agree that it was no classic. It was a pleasant watch and I do like her, but I just felt it played it a little safe in the second half. I can see myself watching it again in the future though for sure.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Vilya

By most all accounts, the Mill Creek Blu-ray release of I Dream Of Jeannie The Complete Series is a disaster and this TV show has disappeared from subscription streaming services, at least as a complete series. The HD versions that were on streaming were reportedly quite good, but Mill Creek never saw a HD master that they couldn't compress the life out of.

That leaves the old Sony DVDs as the best alternative, so I tracked them down on ebay and I bought all five seasons. The seller threw in the first season in black & white as a bonus (that's how it was originally aired).



My purchase should all but assure a new blu-ray release, hopefully from Sony itself.

Originally Posted by Vilya

I don't have VLC media player installed on my PC. I use PotPlayer64, which might have the same functionality.

I doubt that I will investigate this question about the black & white edition of season 1 of I Dream Of Jeannie. It is what it is and no amount of analysis will change that. Hopefully, I will like what I see once I play them.

What I would really like to see is Sony releasing this series on blu-ray themselves and doing the job right.

Mill Creek is known for their very bare-bones releases, and their tendency to cram a lot of episodes/content on a single disc and compress things further than they should be certainly doesn't help.

However, like most of these distributors that are licensing movies and TV shows from studios and putting out DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K disc releases of them, regardless of how premium or barebones each respective distributor's releases tend to be, they are generally at the mercy of the studios in terms of the quality of the transfers they receive to release. Sometimes they get excellent ones, other times they get so-so / outdated ones.

Regarding the I Dream of Jeannie Blu-Ray release, as stated in the review linked below...

Licensed from Sony, Mill Creek provides all five seasons in an interlaced 1080i presentation which screams a dated HDTV syndication master struck back in the mid-2000s. It’s very difficult assessing if this is in fact sourced from anything but standard-definition DVD sources. The transfer is either badly sub-par or a leftover from the mid-2000s.

https://www.doblu.com/2022/02/27/i-d...ocre%20release.

So at least a big part of the problem is the transfer that they received from Sony. Mill Creek compressing things as badly as they do doesn't help, but they are not responsible for the transfer, itself, which seems to be at the heart of the issue.

Whether licensing it out to Mill Creek, another distributor, or releasing it themselves, Sony would need to have proper, updated transfers for the end result to look good.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

So at least a big part of the problem is the transfer that they received from Sony. Mill Creek compressing things as badly as they do doesn't help, but they are not responsible for the transfer, itself, which seems to be at the heart of the issue.

Whether licensing it out to Mill Creek, another distributor, or releasing it themselves, Sony would need to have proper, updated transfers for the end result to look good.

Sony does have better HD masters as evidenced by what was available on various streaming platforms. The show looked very good, even excellent, on those streaming services. Some episodes may still be available to watch on streaming, but not the entire series as once was possible. See this post for an example:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=860

Open his image links in two separate tabs and go back and forth between them; the loss of detail in the blu-ray image vs. the streaming image is dramatic. Look at the military uniform and its various insignias in particular.

As for Swill Creek, if Sony gave them crap to work with then they should have killed the project right there rather than compound the problem by taking a bad source and then making it even worse with their lousy encoding akin to pouring gas on a dumpster fire. They could have insisted upon the better masters that were the source for streaming services, but they likely would have made a mockery of those, too. With Swill Creek, anything in (usually) leads to garbage out.

At the end of the day, Swill Creek is responsible as they brought this mess to market knowing full well how bad the end result looked- a result made worse by their piling bad compression on top of a poor source.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Sony does have better HD masters as evidenced by what was available on various streaming platforms. The show looked very good, even excellent, on those streaming services. Some episodes may still be available to watch on streaming, but not the entire series as once was possible. See this post for an example:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=860

As for Swill Creek, if Sony gave them crap to work with then they should have killed the project right there rather than compound the problem by taking a bad source and then making it even worse with their lousy encoding akin to pouring gas on a dumpster fire. They could have insisted upon the better masters that were the source for streaming services, but they likely would have made a mockery of those, too. With Swill Creek, anything in (usually) leads to garbage out.

At the end of the day, Swill Creek is responsible as they brought this mess to market knowing full well how bad the end result looked- a result made worse by their piling bad compression on top of a poor source.

The vast majority of Mill Creek's Blu-ray TV releases are major improvements over the DVDs released by other studios. They are a bit over compressed but still look pretty good. With how few shows get released on Blu-ray at all I'll gladly take a Mill Creek release over no Blu-ray release at all.

I Dream of Jeannie is an exception but as Dynamo stated the biggest problem with it is that Sony gave Mill Creek the wrong masters. Mill Creek isn't free from blame, they should have requested new masters, but Sony is definitely the main source of the problem.

It doesn't make any sense to vilify Mill Creek and give Sony a pass.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I Dream of Jeannie is an exception but as Dynamo stated the biggest problem with it is that Sony gave Mill Creek the wrong masters. Mill Creek isn't free from blame, they should have requested new masters, but Sony is definitely the main source of the problem.

It doesn't make any sense to vilify Mill Creek and give Sony a pass.

I "vilify" Swill Creek for accepting what Sony gave them, making it worse with their terrible compression, and bringing this hot mess to market, anyway.

Better HD masters were known to exist and they should have insisted upon them or they should have nixed the project; one or the other. They consciously made the decision to release a s*** product.

This conversation really belongs in the I Dream Of Jeannie thread. We can assign blame to whomever we choose more appropriately over there.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

So at least a big part of the problem is the transfer that they received from Sony.

Sony may well have much better transfers but wants a lot more money for access to them. I put nothing past what studios, production companies and everyone involved will do when it comes to big money.

[Uptight]

PHYSICAL MEDIA is DEAD! Long Live PHYSICAL MEDIA, AMIRITE...?!? (I am right...AREN'T I?!?) #891 - YouTube

Where’s the Love? — Is Hollywood Abandoning Disc, Once its Golden Goose, Too Fast?

[NeonStreetMelt]

Some Target Stores Reportedly No Longer Selling DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs /

[Vilya]

This website is slower than crockpot cooking again. Maybe if this website did not attempt to load a hundred ads, including video pop-ups, per webpage those pages would load faster and more reliably?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Vilya

This website is slower than crockpot cooking again. Maybe if this website did not attempt to load a hundred ads, including video pop-ups, per webpage those pages would load faster and more reliably?

But then how else would they replicate that late 90s / early 2000s internet browsing experience?

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by NeonStreetMelt

Some Target Stores Reportedly No Longer Selling DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs /

In terms of music my local Target store only has a case of Adele's latest CD. Just that. like 50 of them and I don't know if anyone has every purchased any of them. They just sit there and get ignored.