DS9 & Voyager - iTunes quality?

Brenster1

Established Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2009
Messages
96
Reaction score
49
Points
53
With the high likelihood of the vintage Trek series (TOS through ENT) following Discovery and being pulled from Netflix to bolster Paramount+, I’m considering getting both Voyager & DS9 from iTunes.

I already have the BluRay boxes for TOS, TNG & ENT, so I’m covered with those. My family are nearing the end of watching season 3 on DS9, and I’m mid season 4 of VOY (watched both though on VHS back in the 90s). I had the first three seasons of DS9 on DVD but found the picture quality lacking and the PAL speed up on the soundtrack annoying.

If the iTunes quality of DS9 & VOY are broadly comparable to that on Netlflix (standard def yes, but still better than the DVDs. Too much to hope for a B5 scrub up though.), I’m happy buying both sets rather than waiting on and paying for Paramount+ whenever Netflix loses the rights.

Has anyone bought either series on iTunes and watched via Apple TV (the device/box rather than the app or service) and could comment one way or the other?
 
Can’t comment on iTunes quality, but I am not aware of any ‘sprucing up’ of the SD material for iTunes. Therefore I expect that the deinterlacing and scaling from PAL DVD of a decent modern Blu-ray player is as capable as the video processing on the AppleTV. Personally I would be investing in the DVD sets at circa £35 a series, to complete your physical media collection.
 
My issue with the DVD releases of those series is that they're very large sets, so many discs.
I've checked out both on Paramount+ & the quality is basically what you'd expect from 4:3 SD.

I do feel like I'd get better picture-quality form a DVD set upscaled through my Sony X700 player, mainly because when I watched Sex & the City DVDs on there I couldn't tell it apart from the HD streaming of the same episodes on HBO-Max.
Ditto goes for X-Files episodes from DVD vs. streaming in HD on Hulu.
 
I have since learned that on iTunes DS9 & VOY are both only in Stereo Audio.
On the discs they are 5.1 Surround. It's a huge difference to me, you can hear the ambient sounds of Voyager or the station in the Surrounds.

There's also Zero Bonus Content on iTunes.
 
I have since learned that on iTunes DS9 & VOY are both only in Stereo Audio.
On the discs they are 5.1 Surround. It's a huge difference to me, you can hear the ambient sounds of Voyager or the station in the Surrounds.

The 2.0 tracks are still matrix surround encoded, the soundtracks of both shows decode well using Dolby Surround (the modern variant) via my Denon X3500H AVR. No, it’s not the superior 5.1 DVD tracks but it is far from shabby.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom