Customer Reviews

Due South: The Ultimate Collection - Three Complete Seasons

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

You're getting all 68 episodes (Including Pilot and Finale) spread out across 11 single sided discs. Unlike the Canadian releases, there are no flipper discs to be found in this complete set. Each disc has 6 episodes on it (Instead of the usual 4) Which brings me to my only complaint.

These discs are the same as the US releases seen here on Amazon. (Priced at 20 apiece) The 1st and 3rd season are each spread out across 4 discs, and the 2nd season across 3 discs. (11 total) While picture quality is not up to our standards of say... Lost. Due South wasn't a high profile, big budget show to begin with. I'm not going to lie. The show could look better with re-mastering. But as long as you have a decent TV, it certainly looks better then when it was broadcasted. Certainly better then VHS, thats for sure.

The quality complaint is mostly aimed at the first season though. Season 2 and 3 look much cleaner and clearer. At a price of $33, I'd expect much worse. Quality's no more worse then the first few seasons of the X-files. It's a semi successful 90's TV show, what does one expect?

All 11 discs are housed in what is essentially a fat DVD case. It takes up very little space on the shelf. (See customer photo's) If the case was dropped though, expect a pile of plastic. Though the discs won't get harmed.

So again, you're getting the complete series, all 4 seasons in there American release. Meaning season 3 and 4 were combined to make a single 3rd season. Whether it's the Canadian listing, or the American listing, it's always going to be 68 episodes in total. The box set has no special features. Most importantly though, no flipper discs. I got this for $33 on Amazon.ca, which is very cheap for a complete show with 68 episodes.

It doesn't look like Due South is getting a re-mastered Blu-ray treatment anytime soon (Though it obviously should) With all the confusing DVD's releases, the split up seasons, and flipper disc/quality issues, this is the most affordable and easiest way to get the complete show on DVD. Unless you want to spend the extra cash on the UK season sets, this is a must buy for fans who do not own the show.

Did I mention how great the show is?

FYI - Since the listing doesn't let you know specifically, Season 3 in Due South: The Ultimate Collection INCLUDES Call of the Wild Parts 1 & 2 so you don't need to purchase the separate DVD.
FANTASTIC series! If you like Paul Gross, be sure to check out Slings & Arrows, a mini-series available on DVD!

DUE SOUTH: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION has got to be the worst quality commercial DVD I've ever seen. I was really looking forward to watching this series for the first time. 68 episodes for $30 didn't seem suspicious since I figured it's a little-known show that probably underperformed for the DVD studio in season sets, so they decided to burn off their investment in one affordable mega-set. When I saw the first disc my blood ran ice cold: 6 TV hours on one DVD? Okay, most TV sets won't break a 4-episode per disc limit or risk some serious image compression issues. Fancy sets will do 2 or 3 per disc which in my opinion generates a reference quality picture. I thumbed through the rest of the discs and would have laughed had I not broke the manufacturer's shrinkwrap, thereby making a refund impossible: Some discs in this set contain a whopping 7 episodes!!! I skimmed through some of the episodes on disc 1: Despite the fact that this is an older show (pre-HD), and the image is naturally soft, there is expectedly HEAVY PIXELATION. Whenever someone or something moves, they turn into a blob of compression. Cars, people... in this shameful presentation, the show can't even fade out or in from black without turning into a videophile's nightmare. Cursing, I inserted a disc with 7 episodes -- morbid curiosity at this point. The cast can't even walk down a hall without the picture turning into a substandard digital cable parody. I suppose the math of the issue should have occurred to me: 68 episodes divided by 11 discs = VCD quality. Too late. So tell me, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment: What's the point of putting a show on DVD if it would look better on VHS? Thanks for disrespecting what I understand is a truly great show, and thanks for ripping me off. Have a nice day.

I think it was my grandfather who always used to tell me that you get what you pay for. That pithy proverb was never more true than when it comes to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment's Due South DVD collection.

I want to echo what others have said here. Yes, the price for the complete collection is right but with the price comes poor packaging (I have received two of the complete collections--a set and a replacement for the damaged set--and in both the first disc in set came off the spindle), scratched DVDs (in the two sets about 1/4 of the discs were scratched and looked used), poor picture quality (too many episodes squeezed on to too few discs still it could be far worse), video stops and starts, audio dropouts, and horizontal lines in the picture frame at one point.

If you like this series as I do and you have an all-region DVD player and the money go for the Network box set from the UK. The picture quality is far superior and so is the packaging. I have also heard excellent things about the French TF1 releases that have come out thus far.

By the way I bought one of the multi volume sets at a local grocery store that will remain nameless (season one, volume 1). It contained two discs and both were in much better physical shape than the discs in the complete collection. They also cost more ($5.95).

1. Due South is in fact awesome. It's pretty odd, but totally worth it. Fraser and the two Rays are made of awesome. Canadians and Americans are pretty much equally stereotyped, and it brings the joy.

2. Yes, the picture quality isn't as great as, say, the Homicide: LOTS DVDs that are out there, but it isn't a ripoff. I watched these on a big widescreen HD TV and the video looked fine, great even; there were one or two points where, yeah, there was a little video interference, but it never interrupted the show, and again--it's a great show, and this is a great price. The video on my TV was, to be honest, much better quality than I expected.

Now, as a side note, playing on a portable DVD player? The image got a little pixelated on and off, but I think that's just that player and the way it reads discs.

This set is totally worth it; or at least, it was to me. I can't not smile when watching this show.

3. I was a little confused when I bought this, since to my knowledge there had been four seasons. This set IS all four of the seasons, there's just odd labeling.

Also -- up above, you might see this set being offered with the "Call of the Wild" set? Yeah, don't click that. This set has the Call of the Wild episodes on it. So. Yeah.

<3

A friend of mine has the "Ultimate" US release featured on this page. I collected the original Canadian sets as they were released. Seen both. I wrote the following as Amazon commentary on the US releases of individual seasons. Still stand by it.

True, the US sets are cheaper than the Canada sets (though if you buy the Canada sets from Amazon.ca, they're LOTS cheaper than buying them as imports from Amazon.com). True, the Canadian sets have difficult packaging (DVD overlay and spindles that require a lot of pressure before you can pop out the disk without risk of damage). True the first two Canadian season sets use the dreaded "flipper" (2-sided) disks. True what we saw in the US as a third season of 22 (missing four episodes, by the way) was produced and broadcast in Canada as two seasons of 13 each -- and the third and fourth DVD sets are released separately too. (Does the US "third season" set have all 26?) And most ironic truth of all: if I'd known that by waiting, I'd have gotten all three sets cheaper from an American distributor, I'd've taken that route too.

However -- the Canadian sets feature pristine transfers. (I've read that the US sets use videotape as the masters; I'm not sure where this info comes from, but it doesn't make sense that the masters would be any different than what the Alliance sets drew upon, since they license the material.) The Canadian sets feature disks running at the highest speed. (The American disks are single sided because they jam twice the normal amount of eps. per side, and run at a slower speed. That, it seems to me, would account for VHS-like resolution.) The Canadian sets, for whatever it's worth, do feature accurate packaging (the right cast members listed and featured in illustrations). And finally --

-- small thing though it may be --

-- the Canadian Final (4th) Season set does have a small but utterly delightful extra. Paul Gross does a running commentary for both parts of CALL OF THE WILD. I can live without most commentary tracks I hear, but this is one you'll return to. It's witty, wryly funny and thoughtfully observed.

I won't tell you not to save the dough on the American release, I empathize ... I'll only tell you, the Canadian sets have more vibrant sound and video. And in the end, it's what's ON the DVD that matters the most ... isn't it?

Let me start off by saying that I have no complaints about the show itself. I purchased the Canadien release of season one prior to the U.S. editions, and have been without the remaining seasons until buying this collection. I bought this mainly because it was cheaper than purchasing the remaining seasons that I didn't have. Having said that, my main concern centers on the amateur authoring of the show on the discs produced by Echo Bridge (the producer of this set).

Right from the start, you'll be presented with a DVD menu that looks like it was created on a home PC with consumer software. The screen grabs used for the menu aren't even good ones. They are pixelated, drab, and blurry.

Speaking of pixelated and drab, that's exactly what you'll find when you begin watching the show. The level of compression that is needed to cram six ~40min. episodes onto each of these discs is inadequate. Even considering that this is a late 90s TV show, when compared to other television transfers (including the Canadien release of season one) it just doesn't compare. The coloring and contrast of this series is washed out, it contains frequent picture noise, has pixelation occurring in almost every scene, and picture details are often difficult to make out. This all looks much worse when viewing the discs upconverted on an HDTV, where all fore-mentioned blemishes are magnified.

The case the set comes in is acceptable, but not great. The "pages" that hold the discs inside the case frequently detach from the spine, and will require you to snap them back in. Also, for whatever reason the holder for the first disc is under-sized and does not actually hold the DVD in place. In fact, when the set first arrived, disc number one was rolling around loose inside the case. I've since put that disc in a separate storage case to keep it from getting scratched.

In the end, I am going to assume that Echo Bridge cut corners and expenses wherever possible due to the niche market that would actually be interested in purchasing this set. For the price, I suppose this is what one should expect in terms of quality. For some people this collection will suffice, but I hope that I have highlighted some areas that may be of concern for collectors and picky videophiles such as myself. For the latter group, I highly recommend purchasing the Alliance Canadien issued sets that are available on Amazon.ca. I can tell you first hand that the Alliance DVDs look much better upconverted to 1080p than their U.S. issued counterparts.

I have only one more DVD to watch and I have found the quality of the shows very good. I think I have seen perhaps 3 little burps in the visuals. I extremely pleased with my purchase and even downloaded (the songs) "Ride Forever" and "The Northwest Passage".

Due South was a fantastic show with great scripts combining action with humor, so I was glad to find out that all 68 episodes of the show was going to be relased on a single box set.

Unfortunately, as with many other older TV series, the picture quality of this show was as fuzzy as i remembered it from the old CRT TV my father used to own. Also, the fact that the DVD producers have decided to squeeze 6 45-minute episodes into every one of the 11 DVDs only made the show look so much worse on my LCD TV.

Visible compression artifacts, such as mosquito noise and block noise are constant and everywhere, and rightfully so too, given each episode was recorded with a bit rate of around 3.4Mbps. My Sony BDP-S350 displayed the picture bit-rate at this number throughout the boxset. If only the producers would spread the whole series over say, 17 discs or more, that would probably improve the picture quality somewhat.

A remastering would definitely help the picture situation, but I doubt whoever owns the copyright to this show has any interest in re-releasing this show, by just looking at the poor quality of the DVD menu design, the lack of any kind of subtitling and the poor episodic chaptering.

The sound quality of the show was surprisingly good.

Not for videophiles who wants to get to know a really great show of the 90s, but for those of us who have waited far too long for the ever graceful and polite, bright red mountie to grace our screen again after all these years.

I read the reviews on this site before I purchased this and really did not find them very informative, mainly because all I really wanted to know was if all the seasons were actually combined together for such a low price - it was on sale for about $20. And the answer is YES! All the seasons are in the one set. There's about 6 episodes on each disc, which is fine. One review I read was complaining about the quality and I honestly haven't had a problem with it all; however, I'm not particular in that area either. Everything so far appears to be clear and I haven't had a problem watching the episodes.

I had heard that this was an enjoyable series, but since it is a Canadian show which I had never seen any of (and I live in the US), I was a bit leery about buying without having seen some episodes at least, but I couldn't pass it up for the above price. I've watched the pilot and a few episodes so far; therefore, I still have a long way to go, but I have been pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the series is. It's a bit cheesy, but the humor is alot of fun. It's obviously a low budget series, but I wasn't expecting a bunch of neat special effects and that's not what I wanted. The series appears to be well written and enjoyable and that is definitely good enough for me. All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase and would highly recommend. :D