Universal Studios: "The widescreen episodes look superb!!"
Home Theater Forum: "The bad news is that the only way to get the original broadcast aspect ratio is to purchase the more expensive Definitive Collection. Are the widescreen transfers really that horrible? The answer would be no, as some thought was made into how these episodes were cropped without sacrificing too much visual information and still providing an acceptable amount of headroom for the actors. These 16:9 recomps are a bit soft, mostly due to the fact that I suspect the technicians zoomed in on the 2k scan of the original 1.33:1 frames, as due exhibit some minor aliasing issues that show up on a few rare occasions (the most obvious is the “A Glen A. Larson Production” title card at the beginning of the pilot episode. Colors are consistent, but contain a slightly blue tint that alters the color accuracy of the image. In addition, the overall brightness seems a bit darker than one would expect of a late 1970s or early 1980s television show. Contrast is acceptable, but there is some very minor crushing in the blacks here and there. Scratches and blemishes have been cleaned up considerably when comparing the episodes with the same footage as seen in some of the documentaries that were ported over from the previous DVD release from 2003, but there are still some scratches visible when ships go into turbo, likely baked in from the optical effects processes used at the time of production."
Universal Studios: "The Widescreen episodes look superb!!"
Digital Bits: "In multiple instances, including the one below, I’ve found occasional bouts of mid and background characters suffering from either botched processing, or compression. The shot below is from the opening of the pilot, and is the first (and in my opinion best) example of the problem. The top left is the Koch (German) 4x3 version, the top right is the new Universal 4x3 version, and the last is obviously the new Universal widescreen. Note that these are not complete frame grabs, just comparisons of the same area of the frame to show detail...
Apollo’s face, when you look closely, is full of macroblocks and pixels on the last image (the Universal widescreen), while its counterparts retain their structure, and the darkening of the image certainly made that job harder for a compressionist. Of course, the widescreen version really isn’t meant for people who care about such things. It looks pretty great 95% of the time, and gets progressively better as we move through the series. What this could have used, like so many other projects where the people were likely rushed through it a bit, was more time for tweaking, and an expert - preferably a director or DP who knows the intended look of the show - looking over their shoulder (unfortunately most of them are gone). It’s really too bad that, given the limited number of shots, they couldn’t have pulled the pieces and re-composited them to achieve a cleaner, more modern look as the recent Star Trek: TOS Remastered project did. Truthfully, though, if you really care about these issues, you’re probably going to want to drop the extra dough on The Definitive Collection set to enjoy the excellent, enthusiast-friendly 4x3 presentation."
Universal Studios: "The box art is just great!!"
Languatron's Blog: "The box art sucks ass."
Does Universal Studios have yet another..."Bill of Goods"...it wants to try and ram down the throats of the naïve public?
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Read about the books Universal Studios has tried and failed to censor on Amazon.com, as well as other stuff...
And read the books at another location where Universal Studios and its stealth marketers won't be able to post negative, misleading (stealth marketed) reviews of the books via them purchasing candy and Rogaine Foam on Amazon.com (allowing them access to the book review section) and not actually buying and reading the books.
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