have DVD releases lost their magic?
 

I remember a time when a DVD release meant your favorite show would finally be available in perfect quality. There would not be any edits, no quality flaws, it would be as if you now owned part of the studio film. You would toss your old homemade tapes/discs in the trash, and move on in life with a perfect set. A gift from the DVD gods.

But is that how things are now? Not for me.

I find myself keeping homemade sets more and more, or outright ignoring releases and still making my own sets (or trading for a set from another creator). DVD releases are slowly becoming edited and quality-butchered as a norm.

Some examples:

(1) TOM AND JERRY: The uncut USA R1 set set edited.

(2) GARFIELD: Music is completely different, some scenes cut.

(3) MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: Music is totally changed. Many songs are cut inside of episodes too, like the Anthrax concert.

(4) POKEMON: They cram so many episodes onto a single disc that quality gets pixelated.

(5) THUNDERCATS: The first set was so badly put together that many episodes had flaws. One episode had audio missing.

(6) BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD: The director cut is edited, not uncut. I guess that's what the director liked. It's mostly the closing music, but it's just not how I remember the show when it's missing that exit riff.

(7) STARGATE SG-1 S8: The 70-minute episode was butchered and stripped down to 40 minutes, the syndicated version.

(8) THE COSBY SHOW: Edited versions.


I think the worst offender is WARNER BROTHERS owned properties. Any show with music, even a theme song, are pretty much guaranteed to be utterly decimated in the release.

Just something to remember before you decide to pass over a homemade set for a release. Or before you throw away that homemade set that you've enjoyed in the past.

No, not really (at least for me)...While I do agree that some official releases leave something to be desired with regard to episode quality and syndicated vs. uncut episodes, overall I'm satified with what's coming out officailly. While this board and its members have indeed offered an invaluable wealth of "Hard To Find" shows and series, I'd say that due to peoples fluxuating grade scales or eyesight,it would be wise to keep BOTH a HQ homade set as well as the commercial realease, that way, you have a choice of which to watch, or maybe you'll still watch both because of a sets quality or lack thereof.

Dan D.

a lot of the tv edit sets are from whomever is releasing the discs using the syndicated prints and not the original air eps. I know anchor bay did this with their Rosanne set and have since announced that they are trying to get the original uncut eps, but for the most part I do agree with you LS. It makes me wish I hardcore taped a lot of this stuff when it first aired.

PS the US tom and jerry sets are corrected if you right in/call the company that put them out. I recall a while ago posts about it in various newsgroups that the company corrected the issue but you had to call them and send in your disc(s) and they would send you the true uncut versions. No idea if current sets have been fixed or not

Many of the recall programs that were created to quell backlash of fans have never been fulfilled to my knowledge. T&J was not fixed, Thundercats S1-1 was not fixed, and Stargate S8 was not fixed. I almost wonder if it was a token offer to quiet fans, with no genuine care to follow through. Some of those have been around 6-18 months now too.

I'm wondering, has any one noticed any differences "editing" between the homemade version and the retail version of The Simpsons and The King Of The Hill?
Thanks, Al

On Stargate Season 8, TVShowsonDVD posted the address you need to send the shortened version of Threads to swap for the full version. If you contact MGM/Sony, apparently they will answer with the information, as well.

Your right with the cramming of episodes. Some of the recent boxsets like caroline in the city, spin city and only fools and horses have 12 episodes on a disc.
In their origiginal duel-layer format, you can get away with it. But when ripped the quality is awful, even though its from the original source. In those cases, its better to go with the home-made versions.

As for changing theme music and editing. That doesnt bother me as much. If the quality is still there, i'ld go with the edited version.
What you might find though, is that music will change depending on the country that boxset was made in. For example, 'Las Vegas' has the cool elvis presely music intro on the american airings. but because they could'nt get the rights for that song in the u.k, it was changed to something else.
Therefore, when the boxset was made in china, it had to take the source from the world-wide transmitted source, which would have been with the uk song.
This won't be the case with all boxsets, but with some.

ku7uk

Missing audio? Bah! That gives a dvd boxset character!

12 half hr shows is perfectly fine of DL media. What do you expect the quality to be like? You are cramming 6hrs onto a 4gb disc, the quality is bound to suffer.

Not when the video is full 720x480. That's suffering in bitrate. The newer Pokemon releases, a bought pressed disc, has blocking and various artifact noise on screen.

Married With Children releases tend to stuff quite a bit too.

Sure, it makes them impossible to copy to a single layer disc, but I'm talking about the quality of the original disc.

You are right ... these companies are getting sloppy ,.. i rented the honeymooners 39' classic set from netflix ... when i had an account with them ... it was pretty to look at.. but the audio was terrible ... so terrible ... i decided to re author my set and jazz it up with decent menus.

"mad about you" had the pixy dust curse ... pixeled at times.
some are gems .... like: greatest american hero ,...gilligan's island, just to name two sets.

so it's way smart to have an account with netflix ... so instead of buying them .. you can sample them 1st ...then if impressed , buy it.

in their efforts to compete with other dvd lincesees and rush to get their stuff out, they forget the one major thing, 'QUALITY'. It makes you appreciate this site a whole lot more.