Sitcoms on DVD
Posted Wed Jun 21 09:58:15 BST 2000 by RA
I've never seen anything on DVD, except in shop demonstrations (where they always pick some dull blockbuster with plenty of darkness and flashing lights, where the imperfections are difficult to make out anyway), but what I want to know is this: what does normal, studio VT look like on said format? Is it broadcast quality, or can you still see a bit of dodgy pixelation going on if you look hard enough? Is watching Python or The Black Adder the same, picture quality wise, as watching them being transmitted live?
Also, does anybody know whether DVDs of TV shows are actually taken from the original masters (as films sometimes are), or are they taken from the same source they use for the VHS releases?
I need to know this stuff before I buy one, you see...
Subject: Re: Sitcoms on DVD
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Posted By Jo_ham on Fri Jun 23 20:19:55 BST 2000:
DVD uses MPEG2 coding for the picture - and the bitrate can vary.
if you get a good disc, the picture is immaculate, although technically not as good as a Betacam tape since it is compressed quite a lot. It uses the component video format in the same way as betacam.
the main aretefacts that show up are very slight blocking on backgrounds sometimes (very infrequent) and occasional smearing. Most of the time you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Beta and DVD though.
if the disc is encoded badly, or with a low transfer rate to fit more in then the picture can actually look worse than VHS - but all the films I've got (and seen) are extremely good, with just some of the "extra material" footage looking ropey.
The player that you get also has an impact - some are a lot better at decoding the picture than others. The new Sonys, the Pioneer and the Toshiba ones are all particularly good.
I can highly reccomend DVD - it's a great format when it's done properly.
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