DVD quality: a professional opinion

[gaz]

I am a post-production TV engineer & editor who just picked up the "BMG" version of the DVD boxset. Given the number of conflicting questions about the "quality" of the DVD's, I thought I'd give my view.

* Video quality
- Varies from episode to episode. The pilot is rather a mess, but everyone knows that already. The main difference I notice is a change in color balance among episodes. For example, "Life of Brian" is VERY saturated in color compared to the others. Other differences are less noticeable to the typical eye, but they are there.

Episode-to-episode differences aside, overall the video quality is good for a mid-90's broadcast show. Keep in mind what we're talking about here: a network show shot in multiple phases that actually stretched across more than one season, even though they only got 19 episodes in the can before getting the axe. So pretend you're the one trying to make DVD's now: You're not going to find any "video originals", so to speak...the best you can hope for, given that time era, is a good Betacam-SP layoff from the final edit system - which you still probably won't find. You'll probably only find some distribution-type dubs a generation or two down from a final layoff...if you're lucky. This probably explains the difference in how the pilot looks: the best tape anybody could find after so many years was an old dub sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere...

I saw a couple of episodes on BetaSP dubs during the time that MTV rebroadcast the show in '97 - I think they were the actual "masters" MTV used - and they looked good to me at the time. The DVD's look just like what I remember seeing on those BetaSP's.

As with most things in life, it's also a question of resources. Could BMG have spent more money & time to clean up & balance the video quality across episodes? Sure, they could have...but with 19 hours of final material to finish, it gets expensive quickly. Perhaps they chose to spend those resources elsewhere.


* Sound quality
- Quite good if you use the "Stereo/PCM" mix, piss-poor if you try "5.1 Surround". Somebody fucked that surround mix but good - it's essentially unusable on many episodes, and even when it's "not bad", it's still inferior to the Stereo mix. When people post about "sound echoes / can't hear dialogue / sound is delayed", they're listening to the Surround mix. The problem is that between each episode, the disc defaults back to "Surround", and you have to manually change it back. This is a pain, but you'd better get used to it if you want the best possible sound from these discs.

But I like the stereo mix very much. The episode where Buffalo Tom plays at the club scene, and the song is reprised at the end, sounds great to me, with all the intermixed dialogue & music playing around each other.


* Menus & Packaging
- I've seen worse, but these are rather laughable. Again, it's a question of resources devoted to the project. I remember reading some post where Jason mentioned that he basically had only one day to QC all the discs, so there you go.

But at the end of the day, it's the episodes that matter, isn't it? When it comes to My So-Called Life, bells & whistles are especially meaningless to me.

Hope this helps,
-Gaz

[andrewgd]

I'm suprised a professional eye didn't see the horrible HORRIBLE flickering that appears in half the episodes. It made certain episodes nearly unwatchable.

edit: wanted to add that I wasn't being critical of your review. I'm just actually suprised you didn't see it. Maybe your copies/equipment didn't make it stand out as much.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I am definitely NOT a DVD professional, so my unqualified opinion is that the single most irritating thing to me about the entire set was the sound being out of synch on Other People's Mothers. It drove me batty the entire episode!

[kenickie]

When I watch my discs on my DVD player the screen seems to jump when the camera pans around however if I play them on my playstation 2 - presto! They are perfect! Very strange but just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else has the same problem.

[JammerMan]

Would you all say that it's worth it? I just started saving money so I can purchase the box set, but from what I've read it seems kinda crappy.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I don't think any of us can really say whether it's worth it for you to buy the box set because it depends on how much you like the show and want to have it on DVD. If you are only a casual fan of the show, then you are better off renting the discs from Netflix. To me, it was a lot of money to spend on 19 episodes, but MSCL is one of my favorite shows. The way I look at it, if I only watched each episode once then it cost me $5.26/episode. I am not a professional by any means, but I don't think that the quality of the DVDs isn't awful - it's better than watching my ten year old video tapes!

[Firekeeper]

My discs were fine; I haven't any of the problems you guys do. Strange...