The Honeymooners "Classic 39" On Blu-ray October 15th

I don't think the fact that it is BR as much as they never did a good job on those dvds,so these should be a improvement worth getting ,of course the price is way too much

 

That's a shock to me! I was clearly wrong on this, and I can't believe they'd do it this way when it would've worked fine to just shoot them "purely" on film the way Lucy did it.

 

I suspect the validity of this claim about the 39 episodes. My recollection is that they were done very much like Lucy.

 

I love these shows but you are right, the price to me is too high. I will probably pass for now.

 

Same for me. I can wait for a sale.

 

Hello folks,

I am just as particular with video as I am with audio and the Honeymooners Blu-Ray set is a outstanding.

I've not viewed every episode on Blu-Ray yet but every one I watched so far are videophile grade transfers/mastering. Grain structure was left intact which leaves in all detail from the film elements. When DNR [or is it DVNR] is not used fine detail is also left intact and the results are truly excellent. I first read around the web you could see individual strands/threads Jackie's and Audrey's hair but was skeptical until I viewed the set myself and yep it's all there. I've been a Honeymooners fan since i was a small child in the 80's and this is really like seeing them for the first time. No hyperbole but except for it being black and white it's like the cast is in my home, it really is that lifelike at times.

The price is a bit high, but it will drop, but even at current level to me worth the money, something I rarely state due to being so "picky".

For reference; the Honeymooners Blu-Ray's are almost as good picture quality detail-wise as the Twilight Zone Blu-Ray's -[the filmed episodes not the video taped].

Somewhat close to this new Honeymooners Blu-Ray set in terms of quality is the I Love Lucy Season 1 Blu-Ray set. What is very cool about that one is you can choose to watch the episodes with all the cigarette commercials intact plus it also includes the first run circa late 50's CBS re-runs with the extra new opening and closing scenes intact. Highly recommended.

 

Good to hear, I won a copy just last night for $ 56.00. Sealed.

 

The safest thing these days is to just call it "grain reduction" or "noise reduction," because the truth is that there's about 25 different kinds of processing now. To me, only the real-time processes have artifacts; the rendered versions look fine, provided you don't crank it up to 11. But it's one of the things you have to use with a lot of taste, experience, and caution.

The people supervising the Twilight Zones were very anti-grain reduction and didn't use any processing, but there is some noise averaging going on in the Spirit scanners (none critical). I think some of the scene-to-scene work on the TZones is sloppy, but for the most part they look very good. I have had the original negatives for a couple of shows in my hands, and it's amazing how sharp 50-year-old film can be.

 

Thank you for the notes about The Honeymooners. I ordered Lucy and it should be here tomorrow ($59.99 on Amazon using a $50 gift card I had = $9.99 out of pocket) but as soon as I can get a deal like that for Ralphie Boy I am on it.

A couple of questions: how is the quality of the Buick ads that are included with 13 of the episodes as well as the original openings. Are these like watching as broadcasted originally? Also, is the sound problem that was on "TV or Not TV" on the VHS and DVD releases fixed, as well as the video quality issues durinh the last few minutes of "The Sleepwalker?"

 

Same with me. I ended up winning an eBay auction for it at $53.00. I wanted to buy it from Amazon, but the price was a bit steep.
I'm looking forward to receiving the set.

Marshall

My review of The Original Mr. Peabody & Sherman WABAC Adventures Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 DVD's:
http://marshfish.hubpages.com/hub/T...n-WABAC-Adventures-Vol-1-and-Vol-2-DVD-Review

 

I still say the Blu-ray set should only cost $39! Greedy bastards...

 

I do seem to remember video issues with Sleepwalker on the DVD set, have not watched that one yet. I will check on that soon and report back. TV or Not TV , remind me where the audio issues are and when on the DVD so I can listen for them on the Blu-Ray.

The Buick "stuff" is decent but not the same quality as the episodes at least the ones I've watched. It gets no complaints from me thus far.

 

What is noise averaging?

"The people supervising the Twilight Zones were very anti-grain reduction and didn't use any processing"

They are my kind of folk then, have they done other Blu-Ray's?

 

You can read the specs on the DFT Spirit here:

http://www.dft-film.com/downloads/datasheets/DFT-Spirit-4K-datasheet-11-09.pdf

There's some enhancement and grain stuff going on that you basically can't bypass, so we would usually leave it on very low 90% of the time.

Sadly, I think this is an ignorant attitude, just as using noise reduction all the time is wrong. I think it's kinda like the song "Turn, Turn, Turn": there's a time to use grain reduction, and a time not to. You have to know the difference and make the judgement call. If nobody ever used grain reduction, your head would explode.

Look at the Bond films as an example of grain reduction done very, very well. There is grain there, but it never jumps off the screen and hurts your eyes. The key is to keep the grain consistent and appealing, as well as making it authentic to the film stock actually being used. Otherwise, the moment they go to a horrible optical shot, the grain goes through the roof, which is the last thing you want. I think there's a careful balance that has to be used. In the case of the TZone transfers, they had no time and money to do any processing beyond a basic scan and a certain amount of time for negative dirt removal.

 

WHICH format are you referring to BR or DVD?

 

DVD hasn't existed for me in the last 10 years. There is only HD and 4K.

I gotta say, though: about 60% of all the noise goes away in standard def, because the format can't resolve noise that fine and subtle. There's an analogy in the world of audio, where you can make a good case that an expensive, super-high-resolution sound system will let you hear all the noise, ticks and pops in your software, some of which gets obscured by cheap systems.

 

The sound issue, at least on my DVD, was a lower volume with some hissing or hum sound throughout the episode. I am not sure if it was fixed maybe on later pressings or not, but I have to turn the volume up way high to hear the actors and the hum gets louder as well. Just curious, thanks for the help!!!

 

I see the complete Dick Van Dyke Blu-ray is down to $65, so there's hope!

 

The fact that nearly all American TV from the 50s onwards was shot on 35mm is fantastic and means that most classic shows can be released on Blu Ray if the original 35 elements still exist, in Europe a lot of stuff was on 16mm or much worst horrible quality video.

 

Well, up to a point. Starting in the 70s a lot of shows were shot on video, meaning an HD transfer is nearly pointless (you might get slightly better color, and I do mean slight). This lasted largely through much of the 90s. Some shows were also shot on film and then edited/finished in video (Star Trek: TNG, The Wonder Years), meaning it takes a heck of a lot more work to do a proper film-to-HD transfer. The rights holders of these works may go through that trouble for a show like Star Trek, which has a big fan base that will buy it, but not so much for other shows.

 

Yeah I know what you mean but loads of great stuff like "Taxi", "Cheers", 'Northern Exposure" and "Twin Peaks" were originated on 35 so even if they were cut on crappy tape, at least the potential for a future HD release exists, the great shows like "Rossane"etc that were shot on SD tape of course will never get such a release, still though there are a lot of gems waiting a HD release.

 

The Taxi DVDs look fine to me, an upgrade to me is unnecessary.

 

Taxi and Twin Peaks are both already confirmed to be in the works. See my thread about "more TV shows coming to blu-ray." Not sure about the others.

 

Thanks for the info.

I rephrase my question to; Are their any other blu-rays that the Twilight Zone team has done that has yielded a similar looking end product?

 

Twin Peaks on Netflix etc is already HD and looks great, wouldn't be too pushed about getting it on Blu Ray though unless there was amazing extras, which is unlikely. Would love Northern Exposure on Blu ray though, one of my favourite shows ever, music licensing is unfortunately a problem there.