Let’s Talk About Series I-VIII (on Bluray) News Posted by Ian Symes on 11th January 2019, 13:31 The release that is both long-awaited yet not particularly hotly anticipated is finally happening this coming Monday, the 14th January. However, it’s become clear from both social media and our forum that some lucky individuals have started to receive their pre-orders already, mostly ones from Zoom if you want to try and get in on that action. Our review will be along in due course (not promising any dates, as none of us have received our copies yet), but in the meantime, please use this thread to jot down your thoughts and share your insightful opinions. For example, there’s an extremely intriguing nugget hidden away in today’s TOS update: (Incidentally, contrary to our previous reporting, we can now confirm that the bonus DVDs for each series do actually contain everything that was on their equivalent original release discs – including the original menus!) So it looks like we are getting the music cues and talking book chapters after all, so it would seem the controversy and debate on that score was in vain. Ho hum.
Sorry for jumping the gun on this with the other thread! Looking forward to seeing the episodes (not least as everything else seems to be a copy of the existing DVDs.)
>(Incidentally, contrary to our previous reporting, we can now confirm that the bonus DVDs for each series do actually contain everything that was on their equivalent original release discs – including the original menus!) (Incidental) music to my ears! Thank you for being the bearer of good news Ian after a thoroughly shitty week! x
I’m still deeply frustrated that the HD model shots exist and we’re not getting them in any form. I didn’t expect to see them edited into the upscaled episodes (as cool as that would be), but it would have been such a treat to have all that raw effects footage presented in HD. We could have done our own fan-edits with that. Somebody start posting comparison screenshots for Series III.
Seen some mobile phone camera shots of I on Blu-Ray.com forums. Looks like the colour has been boosted a bit but it’s a shot from a mobile phone so no idea how representative it is of the final product. Thought people might be interested though.
Oh well if the music cues are there I might replace my 1-VIII DVDs with this and just keep Bodysnatcher for the Remastered commentaries and text tracks then. Hurrah!
My DVDs will be relegated to the storage box my VHS are in and free up some shelf space. Though it will be a shame losing that lovely multicoloured series 1-8 spine collection with the logo across them all … given that from BtE onwards has broken that look, just having all the blu-rays on the shelf will suffice
Even if it contained everything from Bodysnatcher, I’d probably make an exception and still keep that, I love it so much. Genuinely one of the most impressive DVD sets I’ve ever owned.
Well that’s great news about the features… but I am gutted about that logo and Red Dwarf art. Very sloppy and I’m gobsmacked it hasn’t been flagged by GNP. Still it is what it is. Shame.
I agree, Thomas. Try doing what I’m doing- putting them in the DVD boxes. That way you get the Blu Ray’s but with the lovely DVD artwork.
Jumped up to try Series VI and I’m surprised how good it looks. Maybe it’s just the stark comparison to Series I but it’s pretty good.
Series VI looks pretty ropey on DVD. I’d be curious in how the surfboard killer bikini vampire girls scene looks on Blu Ray.
Having a nosey through assorted discs and episodes. It has to be said that it’s not without its faults. (I’m going to pick out some of the less impressive stuff here, just so I’m blindly heaping praise on it all.) The series II menu features “Thanks For The Memories”. :/ The menus don’t offer a Scene Select either. And some of the clarity in some model shots is actually lost in places (specifically the back of Blue Midget in TFTM – can’t make out the sign at all). But I’m being picky. I’ll be back when I’ve had a proper look.
>The series II menu features “Thanks For The Memories”. Jesus, they got the title of an episode wrong? How did that slip them by?
Presumably the Blu Ray menus were checked by the same people who checked the back cover of the Series XI steelbook.
I Tweeted a quick screenshot. https://twitter.com/bromley001/status/1083813611615727616?s=19 (These are photos taken on my phone pointing at the screen, by the way, not actual, proper, screenshots.)
Only the menus on the extras DVDs. All the Blu-Ray discs with the episodes on have the same new menu format.
So I’m checking out the Bodysnatcher disc, and it’s a Blu-Ray that contains (amongst all the other bits and pieces) all six of the commentaries from the Remastered episodes and all of the animated Easter Eggs from the original DVD ‘disc ones’ that presumably aren’t on the new Blu-Rays. Did we know about this already? The commentaries are all just audio, with a still-photo backdrop (as the Remastered episodes themselves aren’t on here) – but still, nice to have them.
Short opinion, it’s not great. Box art still annoyingly wrong even if you can forgive them using the wrong Red Dwarf in the first place. Spelling errors, as Si says Thanks for the Memories, come the fuck on, and that B11x is still on the back. Picture quality is my issue though, it’s worse as much as it’s better from the ones I’ve watched. Some stationary shots look quite nice particularly if something or someone is filling the screen, but a lot of the time it looks pretty much the same as DVD quality or in some cases worse, I don’t know the lingo but it seems like in an effort to get rid of some of the more obvious blow out/flares they’ve done something that takes a bit of contrast out and it looks a bit washed out to me. Judder too on various things, which are extremely off-putting to me. I’ve only watched a few episodes and I obviously wasn’t expecting a true HD picture but I’m disappointed. I’ll update my views when I’ve watched some more.
There is also an odd flickering/strobing thing with some of the effects and overlaid lettering (episode titles etc.) that I’ve noticed. But I agree, it’s really hit and miss overall. Having dipped into every series now, I’ve seen some bits that look pretty great and some bits that look surprisingly rough. I will say though that they’ve done right by the extras, this is pretty comprehensive for a single set, even if it doesn’t add anything new.
Yeah. I’m loathe to say it’s disappointing, but there’s almost definitely as many lows as there are highs. But the way the Easter Eggs are presented on the Bodysnatcher disc are great.
I have no idea whether I’m going to purchase this or not. Interested to see the good bits but I don’t want to sit through stuff that’s noticeably worse than the DVDs. Probably shouldn’t pick this up before payday anyway so I can wait for you all to make a consensus.
The beginning of the s1 titles – an odd wobble that I’m sure wasn’t there/that noticeable before. https://twitter.com/bromley001/status/1083890976408637440?s=19
How has nobody put these into their computer and taken a screencap? Filming your TV with a phone has never been an acceptable practice.
If they hadn’t bigged it up so much I wouldn’t be as disappointed as I am. It really doesn’t look significantly better than your DVDs in a decent Blu-ray player/ on a decent TV. In places it looks worse, when it looks better it looks a bit better, when it looks worse it looks considerably worse. There is a slightly smoother look but that makes it look a bit out of focus, like a smooth enlargement on Photoshop, the best thing it does is get rid of some of the flare on the early series but it seems to lack vibrancy and contrast as a result. There’s a definite mpegness to the DVDs, a bit grainy in a digital way, but this is still grainy but in a more analogue way. Like a bad film transfer, still grainy though. The waviness/judder/shimmer is very noticeable though to the point it’s distracting when it happens. The spelling mistake is unforgivable. Thanks for the Memories. Feels like a a chance to do something brilliant has gone begging a bit, you know? Go out and find old footage if they can, scan some model shots in, put the extras where they should be in the case of the Bodysnatcher stuff, give it a bit of a grade. It pains me to say it but to me it’s really not worth the asking price. I’m sure someone will come along and say I’m picky and have a strop about the G&T hivemind or whatever, but it is what it is. Wait for the 50th/51st anniversary hologram mind implant. //Moan ends.
They couldn’t afford a proofreader or to pay their Fiverr artist for revisions, so they won’t have had the budget to re-edit model shots.
It pains me to say it but to me it’s really not worth the asking price. It depends how you look at it, I think. If you’re like us and you already own the DVDs, then you’re paying the best part of £40 for what is at best a marginal improvement over the existing material, which doesn’t feel like great value. But if you don’t own all the DVDs already, then you’re getting all the episodes looking (mostly) as good as they’re ever going to look, you’re getting all the extras from all eight exemplary DVD sets, and you’re getting all the Bodysnatcher extras… All for the same price that you would have paid for, what, three of the DVD sets when they first came out. So in that sense it’s still good value.
“Thanks For The Memories” though, how did that get past? How did nobody look at the menus before they released the set and realize one of the titles was wrong? It just seems sort of careless. On top of the Extras discs just being identical copies of the ones from the DVDs, menus and all, it does sort of feel a bit, half-finished. Seems like the only thing you’re getting that you wouldn’t have got on the DVDs is spelling errors and worse packaging
Got the set earlier today. Everything on the Bodysnatcher disc appears to be 576i. Nothing upscaled it seems unless one of the smaller features are included as 1080i. The Series III DVD is the replacement DVD with both an animated menu and the text version so it won’t fuck up your old DVD players which can’t handle the animated menu. Series V has pretty much met expectations. A nice little improvement and the washed out colours are improved by the colour grade and now pop out more. Series VII seems to be a good improvement to detail and colour. Impressed by it. What I am not impressed by is the fact that the Remastered and Remastered & Xtended versions of Tikka to Ride are included as 576i. The Xtended and standard versions are 1080i. All four versions have DTS-HD audio. Very lazy IMO. A huge disappointment as the Xtended and Remastered version of Tikka to Ride is my favourite version.
Series VI doesn’t have the top and bottom of the picture cut off so it is already a big improvement over the DVD.
>The beginning of the s1 titles – an odd wobble that I’m sure wasn’t there/that noticeable before. https://twitter.com/bromley001/status/1083890976408637440?s=19 It’s hard to tell from that mobile phone footage, but there was always a rather awkward transition between the closeup shot of Lister painting the ship and it pulling out. I think it’s because they transition from the actual shot of Lister painting, to a projection of that same shot on the Red Dwarf model as they zoom out. So if anything, all the Bluray has done is made it more noticeable.
Weirdly amateurish putting the Remastered commentaries on as audio. How do they expect those to be consumed, then? Frankly the Re-Mastered version of each show *should* have been on there as well. The only reason they were controversial is that for a 4-5 year period the original versions were withdrawn to accommodate them. No-one was arsed about their existence once they became democratic options, as per the Star Trek originals with optional effects and as people would be if they did proper restorations of the original Star Wars cuts and put them out. I still don’t know why, if they were resorting to cloning the original bonus discs, they couldn’t just cut their losses and repress the original 4 DVD discs of Bodysnatcher as part of this set instead of trying to be smartarses with this new compilation (which will have cost wasted budget to have authored that could have been used to repress 4 DVD9s per box). Whack Just The Smegs in as well, why not? Fact is, fans in general probably wanted a second, fair chance to own the Bodysnatcher contents more than they wanted Bluray upscales of the series. And certainly more than they wanted 8 useless spares of extra discs they were more likely to already have. I’ve not been interested in buying this thing for a while anyway but how the hell have they screwed up to this extent? The SD Bluray market continues to baffle me – the Hitchhikers one sounded crap enough but this one sounds like it sets a new standard in uselessness. Bleurgh.
>The beginning of the s1 titles – an odd wobble that I’m sure wasn’t there/that noticeable before. https://twitter.com/bromley001/status/1083890976408637440?s=19 It’s hard to tell from that mobile phone footage, but there was always a rather awkward transition between the closeup shot of Lister painting the ship and it pulling out. I think it’s because they transition from the actual shot of Lister painting, to a projection of that same shot on the Red Dwarf model as they zoom out. So if anything, all the Bluray has done is made it more noticeable. It’s nowhere near as dodgy on DVD. The dodgy bit is Lister on the pull out, he goes all ghosty. The wibble is a new thing, a Blu-ray exclusive, they should have put it on the back of the box haha
I can’t tell very well from that clip but it looks like it could be a deshaker artefact. Deshaker is like DVNR or audio noise reduction, you have to pull right back on it until a trace part of the original flaw returns otherwise you obliterate what you’re supposed to be cleaning up. It’s not strictly a restoration tool (though its algorithms have uses for fixing bouncy telecine) and you have to be quite exacting with it to stop it doing damage. A bit like Autotune – it’s really time-consuming to program properly (it might take a whole day to refine a vocal properly with lots of different elements to comp together) or you can just press the button and take what comes right out of it.
I can confirm that manually “auto” tuning vocals is a nightmare. There ain’t nothing “auto” about it, honey. Is the shakey shot in all twelve episodes or is it exclusive to The End?
In the interests of frankly appalling pedantry I feel the unnecessary need to point out that it only appears in eleven episodes, not twelve. Sorry, I am just going away now to have a long think about what I’ve done.
I find it amazing that Doug could have said “yeah I’m sure it’s fine, BBC. I don’t need to check the work you’ve done I’m sure the upscales are fine just slap whatever you’ve done on a disc… nah don’t worry about special features.” but he has seemingly given somewhat of a shit about this, been quite involved in the upscaling and pulling together a decent extras package and people seem to be actually angry at GNP about some things that are possibly disappointing. Disappointment I get, anger seems a bit much. Whatever the results, it seemed GNP were intent on delivering the best product they could with the budget they had.
The question is: is ‘the best product they could’ worthwhile if, in some places, it’s actually worse than the existing version? “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If it’s not worth doing, give it to the ’10s GNP DVD/BR department” (I’m exaggerating a little, of course, but it does seem to be one thing after another with the last few releases, which just stands out more given how utterly brilliant the 1 – BtE releases were)
“Pulling together a decent extras package” – if we’re being fair it was Andrew Ellard that did that, and he started 17 years ago, with even the ‘newest’ ones being signed off 12 years ago. The absolute minimum GNP could have given us extra was the HD model shots from series 1. They are literally on a shelf, never to be released now. How about the full Six Of The Best in audio? Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs? They are ‘no effort’ inclusions. And I stand by my bafflement at the Bodysnatcher extras being recompiled onto a non-upscaled Bluray when it would have been a comparable expense to clone all 4 DVDs, increase the added value, and satisfy a lot of fans who have been unable to get that set up to now.
I would’ve repurchased it if they included all the Bodysnatcher discs and fixed the What’s Different text track so you can turn it on and off with the remote. (I presume said text track is *not* included anywhere on this?)
The absolute minimum GNP could have given us is just the upscaled episodes, is my point. Seems like they might have received less flack if they had just proceeded on that basis. With the promise of extras people are now disappointed that there’s only 9 discs worth of extras material.
Jumped back into Series V tonight with Terrorform and it looks pretty good. Moved on to White Hole and it again looks pretty smart. I think IV-VI seems to be where the biggest improvement is noticeable.
Series VII is the biggest improvement from what I have seen up to now. Series VIII looked great but already looked good on DVD anyway. Series VI is almost as big an improvement as VII just because they don’t chop the top and bottom of the picture.
Ah I haven’t really looked at VII and VIII much yet, outside a quick initial glance. We’ve been going through some favourite episodes and nothing from those two has come up yet.
Well I did buy a blu-ray player a little while ago with this in mind, but so far I’ve not heard any compelling reasons to make the ‘upgrade’. At least I can watch Classic Who on it as they come out I guess.
I never noticed they chopped the top and bottom off of VI on DVD, what the fuck? I always thought VIII looked quite good, though, at least in terms of picture quality.
In the interests of frankly appalling pedantry I feel the unnecessary need to point out that it only appears in eleven episodes, not twelve. Sorry, I am just going away now to have a long think about what I’ve done. I’ll allow it. Because I have to, don’t I. Nice catch
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=15969252&postcount=576 Series VI comparison shots. Color grade is a definite improvement, obviously the cropping from the DVDs is absent. Can’t see anything in the way of difference on actual picture quality, but perhaps watching it on my 4K TV would make that stand out more. Looks really good to my eyes. Do we know for sure if this set plays on a Region A player? Because once I’m not gob-smackingly poor I’d love to be able to pick up this set without needing to wait on a dodgy NTSC transfer. Just revisited my American XI and XII Blu-Rays, and XI is 1080i which sends the stars into a flickery mess on many space shots. XII meanwhile is 1080p and doesn’t have that flickering going on, but still some noticeable pixellation on certain straight lines. These problems don’t seem to be the case on UK rips I’ve been watching, although they’re hardly blu-ray quality. Hell, at least XI and XII’s US release actually had the correct pitch, unlike Series X where the theme tune sounds slightly drunk. But at least Series X actually had 5.1 audio, which XI and XII do not despite airing with it. Fucking hell, the Blu-Ray is supposed to be the master copy in terms of home viewing. “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If it’s not worth doing, give it to the ’10s GNP DVD/BR department”
What I was saying about closeups looking better but other than the grade, it’s not that much of a difference, the bottom one again, to be honest there’s hardly any difference other than the resolution. Resolution doesn’t mean clarity though.
Coveted III screencaps have been posted and the uploader is taking requests. The Officers’ Quarters haven’t had the bleaching of Remastered, but the lighting now looks more white/natural in III & VI, which just seems unnecessary to me. I’m used to VI looking like it’s been in the house of a smoker for 25 years.
Coveted III screencaps have been posted and the uploader is taking requests. The Officers’ Quarters haven’t had the bleaching of Remastered, but the lighting now looks more white/natural in III & VI, which just seems unnecessary to me. I’m used to VI looking like it’s been in the house of a smoker for 25 years. I wonder why they’re cropped on the Blu-ray. Also the person posting should crop the Blu-ray images to the same aspect, just for ease of comparison. The grade does seem to be the noticeable difference overall, rather than any detail improvement which was perhaps to be expected. It’s whether you think less yellow/grey/blue tint is worth it though.
Hmm that Series 6 grade is odd. I know the Starbug scenes in Series 6 in particular have a strong green hue to them, but i thought that was a deliberate lighting choice, actually making the bug look green inside. Now it looks too clean and metallic surely?
III and VI always looked a bit odd compared to the others, so I recognise that the new grading is an improvement and it’s just about changing things I’m used to. Like when the Matrix went too green for a while and now isn’t again. I’m curious whether Cat’s now more visible in the dark scenes of V, I remember the cast commentaries having a laugh about that.
III and VI always looked a bit odd compared to the others, so I recognise that the new grading is an improvement and it’s just about changing things I’m used to. Like when the Matrix went too green for a while and now isn’t again. I’m curious whether Cat’s now more visible in the dark scenes of V, I remember the cast commentaries having a laugh about that. Wasn’t that because they had the brightness down on the monitor? I seem to remember them apologising to the Pomph…
Mmmm. i think the colours are popping a little too much on Series III to the effect that often it looks like the actors are standing in front of a green screen (on occasions when they’re not), Improvement is negligible, frankly. It seems like an exercise in making some more money out of these episodes. If Rob, or Ed ot even just Doug on his own could have recorded some new commentaries, they’d have been some value in this. But this is barely an upgrade in picture quality, there’s nothing new in terms of extras and the box-art is shite. Boasting about how many discs there are (when they could surely have squeezed everything onto half of them) seems to be the crap justification for the price. No wonder physical media is dying.
“Lister, is this a Blu-ray upscale? does it even look remotely like a Blu-ray upscale?” *Pulls out DVD* “This is a Blu-ray upscale, Lister. This *indicates the original* is a DVD master. Are you blind?” *Realizes he can’t tell the difference either, and quickly puts the wrong one back*
Boasting about how many discs there are (when they could surely have squeezed everything onto half of them) seems to be the crap justification for the price. Wait, are we complaining about the price too? Under £40 for all the episodes and all the bonus content from the amazing DVDs across all eight series, plus all the Bodysnatcher extras, feels like a fairly reasonable asking price to me. That’s even if you discount the improvements in picture quality (which admittedly I only really notice for IV-VI, having not really examined VII and VIII yet). I know there’s a mixed reaction to this set (on the verge of slipping into a pile-on mentality) but it feels like it’s delivered everything they said it would be – especially given that they very specifically tried to temper expectations about how good the picture quality could ever look, given the source material. As a fan and a buyer I’m happy enough with the set without being totally blown away by it, and I feel like the £36 I paid for it is a reasonable price.
Less than £1 an episode is pretty good I’d say, better value than buying a show on iTunes or whatever. You can say “oh but i already own these episodes on different formats”, and i can say “good for you mate”
No, not the price specifically. More so about the disc authorship. Proudly proclaiming there are 19 discs is nice to slap on a box or marketing bumpf, but it’s meaningless if most of those discs are half-way full. For example, having all the Series 1 features on one disc alongside the episodes, would surely be possible if they’d been willing to take a sweep on this with as much care as when the DVDs were put out.
Value depends on if you need to have things wrapped in cellophane. You can get Bodysnatcher (with all the remastered episodes too) and all the OG DVDs for under the RRP of this set if you’re willing to use Amazon marketplace and CEX.
No, not the price specifically. More so about the disc authorship. Proudly proclaiming there are 19 discs is nice to slap on a box or marketing bumpf, but it’s meaningless if most of those discs are half-way full. For example, having all the Series 1 features on one disc alongside the episodes, would surely be possible if they’d been willing to take a sweep on this with as much care as when the DVDs were put out. If I’m honest I don’t know enough about space constraints on Blu-Ray and the size of the new episodes to know how feasible it is. Yes, it would be nice to have everything for each series on one BR disc, but the fact that they had to use two BRs each for series VII and VIII suggests that there might not be enough room on the six single-disc series to fit on all the extras from each series on to those discs too. In the end it’s not a bother for me that the extras are on separate DVDs – I think the problem maybe stems more from the impression of cheapness by them being exact copies of the old DVD extras discs. If they had put the exact same content on with a different menu then I don’t think it would be a complaint.
Value depends on if you need to have things wrapped in cellophane. You can get Bodysnatcher (with all the remastered episodes too) and all the OG DVDs for under the RRP of this set if you’re willing to use Amazon marketplace and CEX. I don’t think you can. Bodysnatcher alone tends to go for around the £36 price of this set.
Genesis of the Daleks on Blu-Ray fits just under four hours of HD alongside just under an hour and a half of SD material on a disc. That being the case, for Red Dwarf they could have easily included the three hours of episodes alongside the three hours of SD extras. They could have also included Tikka to Ride in all four versions in 1080i if they used seamless branching.
I need a rundown on the four versions of Tikka to Ride. There’s the broadcast version, the Xtended version, I saw mention of a “remastered” version, what’s the fourth?
Not to wilfully add to the negativity but those screengrabs are shocking. Denoising artefacts (look at the diamonding on that first Psirens grab and the softening of the detail on Kryten’s head – familiar to anyone that’s used NeatImage/NeatVideo at home and got the settings wrong), moire patterning on small details, the striping on that Polymorph closeup (is that an *interlacing* artefact on a professional Bluray master?!) and as has been spotted a tighter crop on III (even VI only has a slightly shorter crop, it’s just that the way it was masked off on DVD was more noticeable and intrusive – still, it shows they’ve used the same faulty masters as in 2005). And we have already discussed the deshaker glitches. It’s the grade that’s gobsmacked me though. I thought that would legitimately be an improvement, but it is painfully amateurish and the very opposite of artful. The intentional honey-golden hue of VI (some of which is a *lighting* effect) unnaturally dialled out into coldness as though it’s a picture fault?! The contrast on III whacked up way past a level any grading professional would consider acceptable?! I can’t believe they have spent all this money and time and made it worse. The DVDs were slightly inadequate remaster-wise in places (they did need a tasteful grade, audio restoration, and new masters being struck from the analogue tapes as per Doctor Who) but they’re miles more solid and reference quality that this amateurishness. Sorry if you consider this a “pile-on”, but nothing I have said is unfair. It is not unreasonable to expect a picture not riddled with artefacts from not programming freeware cleanup tools properly.
Overall, I don’t mind the grade too much – it maybe removes too much of the grimy look of the original, but not to the extent that I’d notice if I was having a watch-through of the whole thing – but that Marooned screencap is absolutely horrible. The change in contrast makes all the reflections look blinding. Very ugly. In terms of value for money etc., I’d say coming to the show new, the set is probably still decent, despite some of the image concerns. Basically everything released in one box (except Remastered) for under £40 isn’t anything to sniff at. However, everyone here is coming at the show from the perspective of established fans, and the talking-up of the box set has been at least partially (if not largely) aimed at readers of the official site, i.e. the same established fans. Is it worth spending £36 on this when you already own all the DVDs? I’d considered getting it to replace my 1-VIII DVDs, but quite honestly having seen and read about some of the issues, I don’t think it’s worth spending the money. Which is a shame.
For established fans who have the eight original releases but not Bodysnatcher, it’s still cheaper to just buy a secondhand or import copy of that, particularly as its value is likely to start falling further now. There is still quite a sizeable section of the fanbase, particularly those that jumped on the Dave era, where all they really need is Bodysnatcher, and they still haven’t quite got what they want.
Bodysnatcher is £22 at CEX, obviously there’s a finite amount but right now it’s £22. The OG DVDs start at 20p but don’t go up to much more than £1 or so on Amazon/ online. If you can get them all from the same place for combined delivery, or pick them up in person from a CEX/ Charity shops where they’re a regular staple for an average of £1 each you’re easy under £37 for more content, booklets, and scene select.
I think this will be sub £20 in a few weeks to be honest, then it might be more palatable. As International Debris says, this is aimed at us as some sort of definitive edition which is where most of the issues stems from. It’s worse more than it’s better and it lacks the attention to detail the DVDs had in its execution, and even basic features like scene select.
It’s well worth checking out that Blu-Ray.com thread as they’re continuing to show some interesting screencaps that show a lot of the improvements as well as some of the more negative comparisons. There are some spots in which jagged blockiness on the DVDs has been reduced or removed, and also as mentioned on that thread there are lots of moments where shots in motion have unfortunate blurry effects on the DVDs reduced or removed on the Blu-Rays. There are also some good comparisons of how the colours and cropping has been altered in Series V.
It’s well worth checking out that Blu-Ray.com thread as they’re continuing to show some interesting screencaps that show a lot of the improvements as well as some of the more negative comparisons. There are some spots in which jagged blockiness on the DVDs has been reduced or removed, and also as mentioned on that thread there are lots of moments where shots in motion have unfortunate blurry effects on the DVDs reduced or removed on the Blu-Rays. There are also some good comparisons of how the colours and cropping has been altered in Series V. How much is down to the better encoding, does anyone encode video for a living? If they’d re-released them on DVD with a modern codec could we have seen the same improvement in picture quality? Have the DVD codecs even changed? The resolution seems like a bit of a red herring to me.
Dialling out the deliberate red gel lighting from the Low bits of Demons & Angels?! Jesus. Nice that the previous Red Dwarf Bluray release featured a long documentary about the achievements of John Pomphrey and how he achieved a stylised pop-art/graphic novel/heavy metal album cover colour aesthetic, and the current Bluray treats his work like an error to be fixed. I wouldn’t hold too much truck with the grabs that make the upscale look “less pixellated” – this is just because the DVDs haven’t been screengrabbed properly – you’re not seeing a fair deinterlacing comparison there. And the DVDs would never look like that in motion anyway. Have they “fixed” VIII as well? That’s another stylised colour scheme.
*grabs bucket of Butterkist whilst the distant howls of John Hoare set off car alarms across the entire south of England* (My howls aren’t much quieter to be fair and I don’t have forty quid in this game)
I watched Back to Reality alongside the Google Play version yesterday and it didn’t go out of sync. I’ll have a look at the on-screen display on the Xbox One for the Series V disc to make sure that it is 25fps for all six episodes.
I mean it would be very useful if they were at the wrong framerate because it would save me forty quid and I could start my complete re-watch (minus VIII and Timewave) a month earlier.
My howls aren’t much quieter to be fair and I don’t have forty quid in this game Oh, I assumed from the comments that you had a copy of the set. If you’re just working from the screengrabs there may be a slight element of bias as the examples posted seem to be focusing on the most pronounced differences, when much of it tends to look pretty close to the DVDs (at a casual glance and without having done a forensic analysis).
All are 25fps. All of the times match up to the Google Play versions (give or take a second or two here or there for the first three episodes). What you might be seeing if the effect of the conversion to 50i. 25p is not supported by the Blu-Ray format so they need to convert it to an interlaced picture. 50i is 25fps though. It is 50 fields per second which each represent half a frame.
This is like ordering a Domino’s and the box coming with a Dr Oetker Quorn “ham” and mushroom pizza in it.
It may not be the frame rate, but there’s a marked difference between the look on the first three and last three episodes of V, that results in it looking like progressive scan. It feels very much like an export settings error.
I did notice the motion on the closing titles looked a little off for Demons and Angels and Back to Reality but I never noticed on the episodes themselves.
Oh, I assumed from the comments that you had a copy of the set. If you’re just working from the screengrabs there may be a slight element of bias as the examples posted seem to be focusing on the most pronounced differences, when much of it tends to look pretty close to the DVDs (at a casual glance and without having done a forensic analysis). I’ve seen more than enough, frankly.
Oh, I assumed from the comments that you had a copy of the set. If you’re just working from the screengrabs there may be a slight element of bias as the examples posted seem to be focusing on the most pronounced differences, when much of it tends to look pretty close to the DVDs (at a casual glance and without having done a forensic analysis). I’ve seen more than enough, frankly. To paraphrase the classic Red Dwarf episode ‘Thanks for the Memories’; “They should have bought us a tie.”
To be honest I’m just buying this for the art on the packaging (I have boner for vector art) and as an excuse to rewatch the show again
To be honest I’m just buying this for the art on the packaging (I have boner for vector art) and as an excuse to rewatch the show again Shame they didn’t correct the Red Dwarf on the box art then. Red Dwarf has got two thirds of a ramscoop and forks are growing out of the cargo decks.
Series VIII at least has improved detail, so that’s something. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
Again, they’ve dialled down the deliberate orangeyness of VIII for something a lot colder and inaccurately ‘neutral’. An insult. The apparent increase in fine detail there is mostly because MPEG2 struggles with ‘hot’ colours, so it’s more to the credit of the red-friendly AVC encoding algorithms than a commendation to the restoration. Still, at least you can tell them apart.
It’s such a shame that we’re finding so many problems with this set, because I do realise that a lot of people have put a lot of hard work into putting this together. But sadly, I think it’s just going to be more of an ornament than a viewing must.
It’s such a shame that we’re finding so many problems with this set If the general mindset is that it’s disappointing if the BR version looks similar to the DVDs and it’s even more disappointing if it’s a departure from the DVDs (as seems to be the trend in this thread now) then it feels pretty inevitable that there was going to be a negative reaction. It was always the case that the picture quality was going to be a marginal upgrade – they were clear about that from the start – and the restoration was as much about the new colour grade, which was always going to result in differences. I have very mixed feelings about the set based on what I’ve had the chance to watch so far – some parts feel like noticeable improvements, but some parts introduce new flaws (especially weird visual wobbles and distortions), which makes it at best an interesting alternative version rather than a clearly definitive version of the show. But it’s not all as shit as this thread would have you believe. The bits that are good look pretty good, and they’ve done right by porting over all the extras comprehensively (especially the way all the Bodysnatcher stuff is presented). I think it’s that old thing of it being hard to be a passionate moderate. It already feels like the narrative of the whole thing being awful is starting to take over, and I don’t feel strongly enough to argue against it really, as my feelings are more mixed but still not wholly positive. At this point I’m looking forward to the full G&T review and some other professional reviews for a properly informed and balanced take on it.
As someone that sort of understands this stuff, but kind of just accepts whatever the picture is on the screen (unless it’s really really bad) I’m going to be really interested to see if I notice much of a difference. I can see the differences in the screen caps that are posted but if I’m not sat comparing them side by side will I care at all whilst viewing. Given I’m used to watching an already old and less than perfect image on various formats (VHS, DVD, Streaming), will it just look a bit nicer on my big TV and not much else, or will all these little niggles that are being picked up on jump out at me as something that has fundamentally changed the viewing experience.
For what it’s worth, I really wanted the reports to be ‘it’s like the DVDs except sharper, less artefacty, with fixed saturation and contrast levels on the more dubby-looking footage and that annoying blanking on VI removed’. I wanted to want it.
Given I’m used to watching an already old and less than perfect image on various formats (VHS, DVD, Streaming), will it just look a bit nicer on my big TV and not much else, or will all these little niggles that are being picked up on jump out at me as something that has fundamentally changed the viewing experience. Honestly it’s a bit of both. I think it’s likely though that the marginal improvements in picture quality and new colour grade will be less consciously noticeable, whereas some of the new wobbles (especially stuff like that weird shimmer in the very first moments of the very first episode) will leap out at you and be quite jarring.
<blockquote? Honestly it’s a bit of both. I think it’s likely though that the marginal improvements in picture quality and new colour grade will be less consciously noticeable, whereas some of the new wobbles (especially stuff like that weird shimmer in the very first moments of the very first episode) will leap out at you and be quite jarring. Well this is disappointing.
Saw the Blu-Ray when I was in Sainsbury’s earlier today. Looked at the back of the box and it’s still grammatically incorrect. There’s no full stop at the end of the second paragraph, “extras” is unnecessarily capitalized and commas are entirely absent too. The font is rubbish as well, so it makes the whole thing look incredibly amateurish. I mean they could have at least used Microgramma or something, you know, or literally any font that doesn’t make it look like it was put together in Photoshop in 20 minutes using a copy-pasted description from Wikipedia I can’t say anything on the actual quality of the boxset since I didn’t buy it (although I saw the screenshots above, and removing the red lighting from Low Rimmer is a Remastered-level fuck-up) but if they can’t even put in the effort to put a decent blurb on the box, then that doesn’t fill me with confidence for whatever’s inside
But it’s not all as shit as this thread would have you believe. The bits that are good look pretty good, and they’ve done right by porting over all the extras comprehensively (especially the way all the Bodysnatcher stuff is presented). Oh yes, the Bodysnatcher disc is great. I really wanted the reports to be ‘it’s like the DVDs except sharper I think that’s a very accurate way of putting what I guess a lot of us are thinking .
My boxset has just arrived at work. I initially didn’t like the artwork when it was released, but the dodgy Red Dwarf drawing aside, I actually quite like the aesthetic and what they’re going for. Shame about the errors bloodteller has pointed out though
In the little booklet, under Series 7 and Series 8 Blu-Ray discs there is a separate entry that says VAM. What’s that?
People are being a fair bit unfair to this set. Particularly people who don’t have the set and seem to want to just find the negative comments to justify not buying it. Series I-III don’t have much improvement and that is largely down to the source material, unfortunately. Series IV is a mixed bag but mostly a nice improvement. Series V is a good improvement with perhaps an overly aggressive colour grade to certain episodes (Demons & Angels not being one of them IMO regardless of what people want to take from a screenshot). Series VI looks good. Series VII looks surprisingly great. Series VIII is a nice improvement. All just my opinion of course. I’m watching Holoship right now and honestly, it is better than I could ever have hoped. Delighted with how this looks.
I think Ian may be on to something about the last three episodes of V. I’ve just watched Holoship and then stuck on the end titles of Back to Reality and they seem slightly unstable by comparison.
I’m still just dipping in and out at the moment. Watched Back To Reality this afternoon, though, and thought it looked great.
Yep, I’ve been looking at series V very closely tonight and the last three episodes definitely have something weird and jumpy/flickery going on with the end credits. Wonder what went wrong there. Talking of Demons & Angels, I’ve just been through it very closely and looked at that Low-Rimmer scene shot-by shot comparing the colours between the Blu-Ray and the version on Netflix and the colours look virtually identical – both look like the more natural skin colours in the BR image on that Blu-Ray.com thread, and nothing anywhere near as red as the shot that is labelled as coming from the DVD. (I would have to dig out my copy of the Series V DVD to check for sure, but I assumed Netflix uses the same versions as the DVDs.)
I’m really really pleased with Series V. I think it may have topped Series VII in the biggest improvement department up to now. Only seen one episode of each series after V though. I remember when these were mooted and it was originally going to be Series I-V separately initially. I was planning on buying Series V to try it out before making the decision on buying them all. I’d have instantly bought the previous four series after seeing Series V and I would have mostly been let down!
I’ve just started to have a look at VII and it does look very good. It’s maybe no surprise that the more recent series (V, VI and VII) have come out of this looking the best (still haven’t really tried VIII yet), whereas I-III show a negligible improvement at best, aside from some of the colour overhaul.
>(I would have to dig out my copy of the Series V DVD to check for sure, but I assumed Netflix uses the same versions as the DVDs.) I can save you the trouble, I ripped the DVDs to my PC a long time ago. Ignore the quality as it’s compressed to save space, but this is a screenshot I just took. https://i.imgur.com/wBHns3X.png Netflix version – https://i.imgur.com/zxNByy3.png
(I would have to dig out my copy of the Series V DVD to check for sure, but I assumed Netflix uses the same versions as the DVDs.) For what it’s worth, that screen cap, or one very close to it, appeared as one of the banners earlier and it had that same reddish tint the screen grabs that have been used as comparison have.
Thanks for that Lily, they look the same to me, although maybe very slightly redder on the DVD than Netflix. Maybe it’s the colour settings on my TV but I’m seeing barely any difference between the Netflix/DVD version and the BR in terms of colour.
Sorry if this has been asked already but am I right in thinking the writer/director commentary for The End is missing from the BD?
Are the subtitles any better for the show, or did they just recycle the disappointing truncated ones from the DVDs?
What does the classic III-V shot of Starbug flying away from the Dwarf look like? The grade on that always made it look like a very dark shot, has there been any improvement? I think from the screen shots I’ve seen so far, VIII looks a bit better. Rimmer looks less tanned!
I didn’t notice too much issues ( I only watched the first two episodes) but the weirdest thing I noticed (and i don’t know if it may have been my TV or Blu Ray player) but George McIntyres hair didnt seem to sync with the rest of him. It was sort of this weird effect that made it look like he was wearing a wig that was slightly slower than the rest of his head.
Has anybody commented on the fact that the first two series are listed as “Series I, Series II” and not “Series 1, Series 2”? There’s bound to be somebody out there whom this annoys.
George McIntyres hair didnt seem to sync with the rest of him Asteroid must have hit the hologram simulation suite.
Has anybody commented on the fact that the first two series are listed as “Series I, Series II” and not “Series 1, Series 2”? There’s bound to be somebody out there whom this annoys. You know what annoys me? That Series IX wasn’t on this set.
Sorry if this has been asked already but am I right in thinking the writer/director commentary for The End is missing from the BD? Nope, all commentaries present and correct.
A minor thing but it seems the opening second is missing from Gunmen of the Apocalypse. It crashes into the opening too quickly.
A minor thing but it seems the opening second is missing from Gunmen of the Apocalypse. It crashes into the opening too quickly. Literally unwatchable.
So watched The End yesterday, didn’t notice much difference. But watching Holoship now and it looks incredible. I know I’m just echoing what has already been said but I’m quite impressed. Had a quick compare with Nexflix stream and it feels so much brighter and sharper. Going to watch Out if Time after this … in part because of Dave’s forum thread
Other than “Thanks for the Memories” and the extras DVDs I’ve not seen the blu-ray menus mentioned. I quite like them. The look cool, got the aesthetic of the show, are nice and simple (one complaint I have about the DVDs is, as awesome as they are they’re a pain to navigate) and I like how they wrap around the video that is playing like a window.
Yeah, the menus are really nice-looking, with a decent design that’s functional and unobtrusive. I know some people have complained about the lack of individual scene selection, but it’s so quick to navigate around Blu-Rays that I don’t miss it – I can get to any scene of any episode in seconds even without it.
I know some people have complained about the lack of individual scene selection I’ve always found scene selection weird … I don’t think I’ve ever used it. If I need to skip through something for any reason I just fast forward really quickly or use the scene skip within the film. I’ve never gone into a menu and selected a scene to watch from.
Me neither, even on the DVDs I never used it as it’s quicker to just use scene-skipping. It’s maybe more useful for films where it’s longer and there are more chapters – I’ve probably used it a few times for movies.
I’ve never really felt the need to watch a specific scene from anything, really, I just watch the entire thing.
Additional issue: Still working my way through, but at least some of Series 3 (Polymorph, Bodyswap, and The Last Day confirmed so far) is at 25fps… :(
Additional issue: Still working my way through, but at least some of Series 3 (Polymorph, Bodyswap, and The Last Day confirmed so far) is at 25fps… :( No, you are correct, it looks like the ENTIRETY of Series 3 is in the wrong frame rate and has that artificial-film look (much like Back to Reality from Series V). Thought there was an issue with my TV at first until I checked the other seasons which seem to be perfect.
Watching Holoship. The comments were right, it does look very good – although like all episodes I’ve watched so far, better in some places than in others.
It may not be the frame rate, but there’s a marked difference between the look on the first three and last three episodes of V, that results in it looking like progressive scan. It feels very much like an export settings error. Just double checked and there’s definitely something weird going on with those last three episodes. :(
Well, damn… that’s annoying. I was half-hoping someone would prove me wrong. Yes, the encode is 25fps but as it was shot on videotape, the video is interlaced (or it should be) so the final playback should be at 50i… In S3 (and the last three of five – I haven’t watched it all yet) they’re actually all 25fps, ie every other interlaced frame is gone. I’ve imported it into a video editor and gone through it frame by frame to confirm.
Is anyone able to play the discs on a computer? We appear to be struggling, and are in need of screengrabs for our review. Get in touch if you can help.
Well, damn… that’s annoying. I was half-hoping someone would prove me wrong. Yes, the encode is 25fps but as it was shot on videotape, the video is interlaced (or it should be) so the final playback should be at 50i… In S3 (and the last three of five – I haven’t watched it all yet) they’re actually all 25fps, ie every other interlaced frame is gone. I’ve imported it into a video editor and gone through it frame by frame to confirm. Insanity…
So, if I’m understanding correctly: – The colour grade makes some episodes look noticeably better, some episodes look the same, and some episodes look slightly worse. – ~9 episodes have been accidentally encoded at 25i rather than 50i (?). – Thanks For The Memory is mislabeled as “Thanks For The Memories”. – Every last DVD extra is on the set, meaning Remastered and its text track must be the only original content that didn’t make it. – Series VI has a less vertically cropped frame, but other episodes have more horizontally cropped frames? (I might need this one explained to me again.) – There are no scene selection options. – The main discs have new/good menus, the extras discs have the same menus as before. – The Bodysnatcher disc is brilliant, but for reasons people are being vague about. – The HD upscale makes Series V-VIII look significantly better, but Series 1-IV looks more the same. Yeah, this is not looking to be a particularly easy purchasing decision. This kind of overall quality ambiguity is just what I was afraid of. One thing I’m curious about that nobody seems to have mentioned: have there been any actual scene edits made to the episodes? I’m still wondering what caused the set to be rated 15. Should be quick for anyone who has it to check which disc out of 19 is the culprit, at least. According to the BBFC site, the only 15-rated Red Dwarf content is Marooned (original cut), The Smeg Ups, Smeg Outs, and Series XI…
The original Marooned had been classified a 15 on VHS, so a shot of the crashed Starbug was added to make the DVD a 12 certificate. Here the original cut is used. Isn’t it? I haven’t checked it myself, yet.
That’s a pretty good summary of all the pluses and minuses. On this: The Bodysnatcher disc is brilliant, but for reasons people are being vague about For me the benefit is that it collates all the (great) Bodysnatcher extras (including commentaries), all the Easter Eggs from the DVD first discs, and a couple of other bits, all in one easy-to-navigate BR disc. Don’t expect it to blow you away, it’s just very nicely done.
So here is a bit of a weird question … what are the best settings on the TV to view this I’ve got a 4k Philips TV with loads of picture and colour settings etc and realised last night that at one point I’d fiddled with them and never set them back. Having a play around last night whilst watching Tikka the differences were stark, and I’ve no idea whats best to get the best results from the blu-rays. I think ended up with some “movie” setting as it seemed to clean the picture up a bit compared to others which, for example, had Craig looking more red than brown. Should I just reset everything back to original factory settings or what?
The original Marooned had been classified a 15 on VHS, so a shot of the crashed Starbug was added to make the DVD a 12 certificate. Here the original cut is used. Isn’t it? I haven’t checked it myself, yet. Would be good to get that confirmed! It was definitely my guess when the rating was first shown, but it also seemed strange that they would raise the rating of the entire Blu ray set just to remove a short additional shot from Marooned that, as far as I know, nobody was really bothered by on the Series III DVDs. Obviously I’m happy to get the most broadcast-accurate Marooned possible (if I do end up buying this), but seeing that 15 rating sparked dreams of new special features that would have immediately made this a must-buy, so it was an accidental tease for people like us who overthink things. For me the benefit is that it collates all the (great) Bodysnatcher extras (including commentaries), all the Easter Eggs from the DVD first discs, and a couple of other bits, all in one easy-to-navigate BR disc. Don’t expect it to blow you away, it’s just very nicely done. Ah, I see, thanks for clarifying, Dave.
You can search the BBFC website for details of the Red Dwarf ratings, and filter by rating. The only ’15’ items listed are Red Dwarf XI, Smeg Outs, Smeg Ups, Marooned and Just The Smegs. So it will be either Marooned or an outtake. You can check by looking at the discs as all feature their own separate BBFC rating. I haven’t got the set to hand at the moment but I assume if you look at the BR for Series III it’ll be a ’15’.
I know I’m just echoing what has already been said but I’m quite impressed. Had a quick compare with Nexflix stream and it feels so much brighter and sharper. To be fair even the DVD would look noticeably better than Netflix or any online stream.
This is how the quality breaks down on the few series I have watched so far: Series I = a bit ropey in place but generally ok Series II = very good Series III = absolutely bloody awful unwatchable Series IV = very good indeed Series V= first 3 episodes amazing then what happened to the last 3 episodes? The picture quality was good but the film look was awful I can’t stand watching video that has a film look to it unless that’s what was originally broadcast, I’m looking at you Series VII! I hope BBC release replacement discs for III and V
This is how the quality breaks down on the few series I have watched so far: Series I = a bit ropey in place but generally ok Series II = very good Series III = absolutely bloody awful unwatchable Series IV = very good indeed Series V= first 3 episodes amazing then what happened to the last 3 episodes? The picture quality was good but the film look was awful I can’t stand watching video that has a film look to it unless that’s what was originally broadcast, I’m looking at you Series VII! I hope BBC release replacement discs for III and V For me, series 1 very vaseliney but a tad less flaring. Series 2 is too bright too often for me. You lose details. VI has the most egregious shimmery business that I’ve seen so far. Otherwise mostly agree. VII and VIII look better probably due to original recording format but unfortunately they’re the ones the fewest people like. Feel like this is a bit “remastered part deux”, interesting, has some value in certain aspects but in a few years Doug will bemoan how he didn’t have the budget to do it right.
Series III is the worst looking series relative to the time it was made, isn’t it? Some parts of series III have always looked fucking shite, but it’s never really bothered me because the writing and acting etc is mostly superb
Series III is the worst looking series relative to the time it was made, isn’t it? Some parts of series III have always looked fucking shite, but it’s never really bothered me because the writing and acting etc is mostly superb True it’s always looked bad but this Blu Ray is something else! I’m thinking that an export setting is wrong on the entire series there should no way be that much lag between frames which makes it look worse than it is!
Marooned is the original version and the disc is a 15, The shot of Starbug from the end of the Xtended Marooned is included on the Bodysnatcher disc.
I would recommend everybody who has this to email DVDSupport@bbc.com to ask if a corrected Series III and V will be provided as a disc replacement programme. I never noticed anything off with Series V except Back to Reality which I just put down to the colour grade changing the feel of the episodes. Series III I just written off as always looking like shit.
Is series III and the last half of V *really* filmised?! If that’s true, the only thing worse than it is that all the home cinema bores on forums haven’t even noticed. And if that really is the case, then this thing *deserves* a pile-on.
I think there was an export setting that was wrong to make III look worse than it should it really shouldn’t look worse than the VHS releases. It’s almost like there is a motion blur on the episodes. Is this an 1080p/I issue? I’m not that great technically when it comes to hi def. Series VI has always looked soft to me but this release has sharpened it somewhat and apart from the odd shot being over lit I think it looks amazing.
If that’s true, the only thing worse than it is that all the home cinema bores on forums haven’t even noticed. I’ve only really seen any serious analysis of it in that way on the Blu-Ray.com forum thread, and it’s a big set of 52 episodes that has only been out since Monday. I think something like this coming to light three days after release is reasonable going.
Just got this set. Have just caught a couple of episodes of Series 1, and compared them to the original DVD and Bodysnatcher DVD and there are positives and negatives. 1. The colour grade works really nicely in places and rather bad in others. The skin tones are much improved, but the highlights are burnt out significantly in some areas. You spend a few shots enjoying the much improved look, then you catch a highlight on Rimmer’s head which is completely burnt out and it’s actually rather distracting. I have to say that i think the grade on the re-mastered episodes did a better job (the grade only!). It was more subtle. 2. The new encode is really rather good. I could actually see video noise in crisp detail, and i know that sounds odd, but i find it really distracting when the original DVDs turn the video noise into horrible blocks. This is much better. It’s almost like seeing grain on 35mm film. On the minus side, it really does show that the cameras they were using were past their best as there is a horrible coloured line on the left hand side of the shot on one of the cameras. It’s something i always noticed on the BBC Manchester series right up until the end, but it here it stands out even more. Looking forward to seeing more. :)
Marooned is the original version and the disc is a 15, The shot of Starbug from the end of the Xtended Marooned is included on the Bodysnatcher disc. A minor point I know, but good to get closure on it! Cheers, SO.
I have to say that i think the grade on the re-mastered episodes did a better job (the grade only!). It was more subtle. This I 100% agree on.
I never noticed there even was a replacement. It always sounded the same as my original off-air recording. Having just looked up a comparison on youtube, I’d rather keep the replacement version.
Series VII looks awful, right? In terms of resolution? It always did on DVD — the tape-to-film effect had the side-effect of halving the resolution and causing bad aliasing (pixellated stair-stepping) on everything. Somehow I imagined they’d fix the effect for the Blu-ray… after all, it made the picture to look only *half* DVD resolution, so surely they wouldn’t put *half* DVD resolution on Blu-ray? Surely they’d go back to the source tapes? Nope – watching Tikka To Ride and it looks like a Playstation 1 cutscene. But now I’m confused. The review is up, and it says: “As for Series VII, dare I say it, the film effect looks pretty damn good compared to all previous, lower-resolution versions.” So do you guys have a version that doesn’t look all pixellated?
It’s more noticeable in some places than others. Watching Tikka the other day I particularly noticed the jagged pixellated effect around Kryten’s neck, most notably during the scene when Lister replaces his head.
It would have been nice, if the set was now a 15, if they had have taken the opportunity to release the full, uncensored Smeg Ups for each season. It’s annoying that the beep some of the actors saying “shit” or “bollocks” in a smeg up yet the words have been said in the show itself just fine. Hell, it’s a 15, include the full versions of the outtakes where they say ‘fuck’ too. We can handle it.
In some cases the unbeeped swearwords don’t even exist anymore. In fairness, the original VHS tapes would have been 18s without them, and the bleeping is as much Bye’s aesthetic choice as any practical one (see the bleeping of Norman Lovett saying “poo”, or the couple of extra unnecessary bleeps in Eddie’s tirade from Bottom’s ‘Hole’). Those tapes have their origins in It’ll Be Alright On The Night more than any desire to present the kind of material we would come to know as DVD extras, and the level of artifice is an intentional collusion for entertainment’s sake. They wouldn’t be as funny unbleeped, undubbed and stripped of their slap and shiny frocks. The rough cut proves that.
I think it’s “You fucking well hit the clit right on the nail there, you cunting bastard!” Such an eminently quotable series.
Those tapes have their origins in It’ll Be Alright On The Night more than any desire to present the kind of material we would come to know as DVD extras, and the level of artifice is an intentional collusion for entertainment’s sake. This reminds me of a point I made recently – that whatever anybody’s opinion on Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg, it’s Red Dwarf acknowledging its foot in the entertainment camp, as much as its foot in the pure comedy camp, and its third foot in the science fiction camp. Which is one reason I really like it, despite its many flaws.
I have gone on at dull length before about how I consider Red Dwarf to be LE disguised as a sitcom, but this ties into why I’ve said a few times before that it’s wrong not to have the proper Smeg Ups/Outs shows on this set. They are canonical instalments – no, I’m going to go as far as ‘episodes’ – of the entertainment show Red Dwarf, made by the proper creative team, as indeed is Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg (and Universe Challenge, and the A-Z, and others), and to miss them takes away part of the show’s history. The DVD edits, though perhaps essential to the ‘partwork’ nature of the original twice-yearly volumes, are now an awfully irrelevant compromise to be left with. I really wish they’d made Red Dwarf Unsmegged in 2009 too. Because that would have counted too.
> This reminds me of a point I made recently – that whatever anybody’s opinion on Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg, it’s Red Dwarf acknowledging its foot in the entertainment camp > I consider Red Dwarf to be LE disguised as a sitcom I saw the tweet you’re on about John (VIII as ‘pantomime’), and thought of it as I was reading the current Meltdown thread in the forum. It’s an interesting one, the idea of Red Dwarf as variety show. I guess Meltdown is an obvious example from the Rob and Doug days to point to.
I’m glad I’m broke because I would have bought this immediately if I had the money on hand. I’m gonna stick around and wait for potential replacement discs. I’ve been screwed by a bad encode before. The X-Files Season 8 Blu-Ray came with black levels so crushed that in broad daylight the half of people’s faces in shadow would disappear into an eternal void. Scenes in the dark, which I might note are extremely common on the show whose most recognizable image is Mulder and Scully with flashlights crossing beams, become downright impossible to discern anything from. The one upside is it started me and my brother’s running joke of shouting “Turn on some damn lights!” every so often, but we ended up switching to Hulu and suffering far inferior picture quality just so we could actually see what was happening. I believed when I ordered the set that I was getting the replacement version that fixed this issue. Apparently not. I will fight for Season 8. Feel free to trash 7 or 9, but be nice to 8. I really wish they’d made Red Dwarf Unsmegged in 2009 too. Because that would have counted too. I really really really want to correct this, but I can’t…quite…tell…if it’s a joke or not. Great, now I won’t be able to sleep tonight. You people are why I drink. Well, you would be if I liked or could afford booze.
Correct my opinion…? FWIW I genuinely think it would have been a great TV programme and I genuinely would have counted it as part of the Red Dwarf TV canon as I do with Smeg Ups/Outs and the Night shows. All part of the soup.
Some of you might be interest in my blog post about the complete mess made of the Red Dwarf Blu-Ray box set, and the BBC’s response. They’re looking into it. The Great Red Dwarf Blu-Ray Smeg-Up: https://andreworton.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/the-great-red-dwarf-blu-ray-smeg-up/
Yes, great work. The latest response suggests that they’re beginning to finally take notice, hopefully.
Thanks Andrew. Thandrew. Looks like they’ve met their match in you! Seriously though, this is much appreciated. I don’t have a clue how to describe the problem but you clearly do. Let’s hope they sort this out once and for all.
I’ll keep you all updated if I get anywhere! Very annoyed by all this, especially having to explain how television works to the BBC.
Had this today: “Dear Mr Kirkham, Thank you for your continued patience while we investigated the issue with the Red Dwarf Blu-ray set. After a comprehensive review with all our suppliers involved in the manufacturing of this product we have now identified the source of the problem. De-interlacing did occur at tape to digital capture stage with one of the suppliers. This was not part of the Blu-ray authoring process as we originally had reason to believe. The mastering of this release was a multistage process involving three separate suppliers. We hope you will understand that it would be inappropriate for us to say specifically where this fault occurred as we are remedying this with the company concerned. We have started the process of recreating the masters and re-authoring these discs which will take approximately six weeks. Please email us your proof of purchase in the form of a receipt from the retailer with your full name and address. We will be in touch once the replacement discs are available. We are truly sorry the discs were not correct to start with and thank you for drawing this to our attention. Kind regards BBC DVD Support”
Ah, Smug Mode. I’ve had a reply too and have updated the blog post, but in essence: Success! https://andreworton.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/the-great-red-dwarf-blu-ray-smeg-up/
I am more impressed by what seems like a genuine apology at the end. Interestingly I note that this specifically implies that the error happened prior to the regrading/upscaling, meaning that the “restoration artist” – whose only job it is to notice and encourage tiny, barely perceptible improvements in picture quality – never noticed it. No further comment required.
