Blackadder Remastered - The Ultimate Edition DVD Box Set

[Phil-YAI]

Can anybody who has bought the "Blackadder Remastered - The Ultimate Edition" DVD box set, tell me how the picture and sound quality compares to the previous release, please.

Many thanks.

[rojgelf]

Originally Posted by Phil-YAI

Can anybody who has bought the "Blackadder Remastered - The Ultimate Edition" DVD box set, tell me how the picture and sound quality compares to the previous release, please.

Many thanks.

Here are some screen shots comparisons, just from 3rd series which was particularly bad in the old set, not had time to actually watch any of the remastered episodes yet.

Blackadder screenshots

[Phil-YAI]

Thanks for posting the screenshots.

There seems to be some improvement, but not a huge improvement.

[rojgelf]

Originally Posted by Phil-YAI

Thanks for posting the screenshots.

There seems to be some improvement, but not a huge improvement.

Yes, I'll try and watch on my big screen later, only looked at my computer so far.

[rojgelf]

watched xmas carol last night, picture was excellent, don't have the specials in my old boxset so don't know how much of an improvement.

[David Mackenzie]

"Remastered" can mean just about anything. Those screen shots aren't very conclusive though - the "new" ones have been Deinterlaced with a crude Blend filter so are vertically blurred. The old haven't been deinterlaced at all.

It looks like the new one has been run through a noise reduction process and the old hasn't.

[shortround]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

"Remastered" can mean just about anything. Those screen shots aren't very conclusive though - the "new" ones have been Deinterlaced with a crude Blend filter so are vertically blurred. The old haven't been deinterlaced at all.

It looks like the new one has been run through a noise reduction process and the old hasn't.

Are you sure you haven't got the shots the wrong way round? I noticed the artifacts as well, but then realised that the new shots are actually on the left and not on the right (you can tell by the file names). Although the site says 'old v new', it should in fact say 'new v old'.

The artifacts also may be a result of the method of screen capture, rather than indicative of what's actually on the disc.

[David Mackenzie]

Yeah, I was looking at the filenames themselves.

[shortround]

I really hope they haven't deinterlaced it like you say. I'm hoping it's a side effect of the way the screens were grabbed.

It seems like a crazy thing to do considering DVD is an inherently interlaced medium. In order to deinterlace a video source for DVD, I'm assuming they'd have to 'drop field' it too, which means we won't even be seeing all the frames (fields) that exist!

Anyway, I have this on order, so I'll try and get some more shots up when I get it.

[David Mackenzie]

Oh no, they won't have deinterlaced it - it'll just be the screen grabs.

[rojgelf]

All screenshots were taken with WinDVD 8, with window at 1024*768.

[Ricky27]

I didnt think the picture on my complete collection was all that bad and these screen shots dont make me want to buy this new version atall, but great if you havent already bought, or if you only got the box set with just the series in it.

Bit of a cash in IMO.

[shortround]

Well, after doing some comparisons, I can say that the 'improvement' in this new remastered edition is marginal at best.

I had always had the suspicion that the original DVD releases were transferred from battered broadcast dupes, rather than from the original master tapes. This is the only reason I could think of for why they always looked so terrible.

It seems my suspicion was wrong however, as I'm assuming that, if there were indeed master tapes that hadn't been previously used, then they would be used for this set. The difference is so marginal however, that one can only assume that this is indeed how the master tapes look - pretty terrible.

So I guess all they've really done is a bit of noise reduction and a bit of brightening to give the false impression that they are from a superior source. While it certainly is a small improvement, I wouldn't say it's worth anyone buying this new box set if they already own the previous one, unless they abosultely must have all the new bonus features (which in this case amounts to the new commentaries on a few episodes, and the 'Rides Again' documentary).

The intro to The Cavalier Years still contains the damage that causes the picture to go fuzzy for a few seconds and the sounds to go wonky too right at the beginning. On an old VHS 'Best Of Comic Relief' tape I have from years ago, this damage wasn't present, so one can only assume that the master tape was damaged sometime between then and the first DVD release.

Christmas Carol is still censored (missing the 'next year they want us to nail up the dog' line from early on in the episode), despite the fact that it is present on the original US region 1 release (Christams Carol is a special feature on the series 3 disc in the US). I can't for the life of me think why this line is still censored in the UK, it really is pathetic.

I haven't yet checked if the Scarlet Pimpernel poem has been reinstated in series 3 ('...and what's that revolting garlic smell?'), but somehow I doubt it. The only version I've seen it intact is in the UK laserdisc release from years ago.

Anyway, here's some shots for you to make up your own minds. Bear in mind though, that the 'old' shots are from the NTSC releases (I bought these over the UK versions because they actually had some special features!), which will have a slight resolution disadvantage over the UK versions (480 v 576), which could mean that the improvement between both UK versions is more subtle than highlighted here!

Also note that, due to the non-square pixels used for DVD and the fact that I have not resized the images, the aspect ratios will not be correct.

Series 1


old 1 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7738/ba1old01.png

new 1 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/120/ba1new01.png

old 2 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7830/ba1old02.png

new 2 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/369/ba1new02.png

old 3 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3111/ba1old03.png

new 3 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6264/ba1new03.png

old 4 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/504/ba1old04.png

new 4 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/5081/ba1new04.png

old 5 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8363/ba1old05.png

new 5 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7946/ba1new05.png

[shortround]

Series 2

old 1 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/707/ba2old01.png

new 1 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/636/ba2new01.png

old 2 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2220/ba2old02.png

new 2 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8099/ba2new02.png

old 3 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2913/ba2old03.png

new 3 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3797/ba2new03.png

old 4 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8987/ba2old04.png

new 4 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2861/ba2new04.png

old 5 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/4296/ba2old05.png

new 5 http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/646/ba2new05.png

[David Mackenzie]

Your old release is in NTSC?

In any case, I think that's just about as good as it's ever going to look. That's what happens when you shoot Video...