Season Three image quality.

A

Anakin Skyleaper

Guest
Well, I just got my season 3 DVD a couple of days ago, and I've been watching every episode since then. I could be so weird because I don't care so much about all those music changes and bonus features; since nothing from the episode itself is cut, well that's just fine...

But, here it comes: The image quality. Oh, boy! That really hurt me when I went to see the Leap of Faith episode: When the scene gets into a dark place or into the night, the picture looks so dirty and grainy, not worth for a DVD. The worst part came out when I watched The *oogieman and Black on White on Fire episodes, just to mention some: There's absolutely no clean-up, and the entire episode seems to be green, due to the dark scenes... But that just happens when black footage is shown on every episode. That's curious, but, when Sam turns the light on, or when the scene is filmed at an exterior, grainy picture quality disappears immediately (sometimes: not on an aerial exterior, same as season 2).

That didn't even happen with my season 2 episodes. I mean, they looked a little bit grainy and dirty too, but, when a dark scene was shown, it looked good and not like this new DVD set.

Now, is it just me or I have to change my TV picture settings? Or did I receive a bad image quality DVD set? Did that happen to you too, especially on those episodes I've already mentioned before?

But there is a God, Universal, don't forget that!

Edit: Guess nobody has purchased the set.
 
:lol @ the edit

I haven't purchased it yet. Can't bring myself to shell out the $ for it. I'll get it eventually, but I can't say as I'm in any rush. I'll probably get the second season of some of the other shows I'm collecting first.

Season 2 just left a really bad taste in my mouth and I'm not quite ready for the same treatment yet.
 
QL used a lot of stock footage for scence without the characters in it. You can tell when a stock scene is used (usually for setting) when the image gets sort of funny. You can see it a lot in Black and White on Fire.

It can't be fixed for DVD because they didn't really film it.
 
Yeah, sure, I did already know that, but I don't think that's what I was talking about. I mean, there are a lot of episodes that were actually filmed entirely, like The *oogieman, Runaway, The great Spontini, and A little miracle, just to mention some of 'em. What about those? They never used stock footage to complete their scenes, and they're with the bad picture quality also, why? Because they really didn't fix this DVD set. Seems like they recorded it with the higher level of brightness.

You can see it a lot in Runaway, even at the beginning, when the car scene is shown. And what about the little corners full with blackness, or the shadow of a tree? They look green at the moment they're seen, as if you were watching the AXN channel.

I changed my TV color settings once, and then all the grainy footage automatically disappeared, but just in some eps. like The B-one, Leap of faith and Runaway a little bit... But when it's time for another ep. like Rebel without a clue or Miss deep south, everything turns bad again, because everything looks just dark (Sam's and Al's faces, mostly) and you can't even appreciate good the episode, and then, have to go and change the color settings again: Brightness and tint. Some eps. are more bright than other ones.

I've got The B-man ep. on my PC 'cause I downloaded it a couple of months ago, and it definitely, talking about image quality, looks better than the one on DVD... Of course I'm glad to have finally the set. I haven't seen QL in a long, long time, and these episodes are just GREAT, probably the best on television ever. I'm just loving the set right now... But it's time for Universal to treat their shows better. They don't even care, they're satisfied of sending their manufacture to Taiwan (season 2 and 3), where is cheaper, instead to Mexico (season 1), where they really do a million-times better job.

It's not the first time Universal does something like this. I've got some movies on DVD that look the same way. And they're not even from the 90's or 80's.
 
When I play some of the episodes on the DVD on my computer, it's very noticable that some of the prints were fading... Especially in "The Leap Home", where the sides of the screen are bluish bands, and when there is low lighting, it just looks like a blue haze. It kinda looks like one side was submerged in water or something, then left to dry.

That was the episode I noticed it the most, it was present in some of the other episodes, but not nearly as noticable.

When I play them on my TV on a DVD player, its only noticable in "The Leap Home".