18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not sure on compression, but the extras alone are worth it!, February 9, 2004
This review is from: Red Dwarf: Series III and IV (DVD)
Wow, these discs are jam packed - 2 discs per series! Disc 1 contains the episodes, each episode has a commentary. Disc 2 contains the extras.
Indeed, there's more running time for the extras than there are for the episodes!
Being a Red Dwarf fan, I eagarly bought these releases. Warner Bros is WAY TOO SLOW in releasing these discs (that goes for Doctor Who as well, hint hint!)
$28 per series is a decent price, but if it were $28 for only the extra material, it's still worth the price. (that's not a hint, $28 per season is just fine for a 6 episode series.)
The episodes for both seasons are hilarious, the only clunkers being "Marooned" and "Meltdown", though the latter has some nice social commentary but lacks the visual of Winnie the Pooh being shot in front of the firing squad... fans already know this. For newbies, keep in mind the show is a bit raunchy at times, probably TV-14 level for American standards. (And these episodes were made in Britain in 1989 and 1991.) But it's still infinitely less offensve than South Park or most shows that are TV-14.
The only drawback is video quality. Not necessarily the quality of the mastertapes, which is mostly spectacular. (in series 4, I saw some brief edge enhancement and maybe a bit excess color bleed in spots.) It's the DVD compression. Sometimes the scene looks perfect. In others, it's very grainy/fuzzy as if too much compression was used to make the episodes fit on the disc. If I can see it 6 feet away on a standard 27" TV set, you chaps with 42" HDTV sets are bound to have a hissy fit, nor would I blame you. (Bodyswap, in the Lister/Rimmer scene where Rimmer contrived Lister to do a bodyswap so Rimmer will make Lister fit again is a clear example of where the poor compression quality can be seen.) Doctor Who also has the same problem in some of its releases... Is BBC America/Warner Bros using single density discs to fit 3 hours worth of TV show on a medium meant for 2 hours at high quality? They ought to use double density discs. I'll pay the extra money. (Or should I? "I Spy" had fit 4 hour-long episodes onto a double density disc and they look perfect, no compression artifacting that I had seen.) I can still say that the quality is better than VHS, but this is DVD - I've seen plenty of movies where this artifacting is barely visible, if at all. I shouldn't be seeing it here at all. (for the ultimate in bad compression, check out "Three's Company" season 1.)
Don't let bad video compression be a reason not to buy the disc and if you never move to HDTV then you'll never really have to worry (that'll change by 2006 though...). They still look very reasonable, and the compression is usually not as noticable or 'invisible' to the naked eye when the image is moving, as the naked eye is processing all the moving images and doesn't have time to stare at the finer details. And, again, the extras alone are worth the price for these volumes.
Hurry up series 5 and 6!!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
And The Hits Just Keep On Coming..., February 12, 2004
This review is from: Red Dwarf: Series III and IV (DVD)
Series 3 & 4 contain most of my favorite Red Dwarf episodes. "Backwards" is brilliant by any standards, and the others such as "Justice" (Lister: "What? Shoot him in the back?" Rimmer: "Of course in the back! It's only a pity he's awake!") and the strangely underrated "Meltdown" really stand out. By the way, in "Meltdown" its NOT seeing Winnie The Pooh get executed that's so funny - showing it would only prove to be very phoney and viewers might get as repelled as poor Lister.
All in all I'd highly recommend this series to anyone who would like a good laugh. The 2 disc sets are priceless for the extras they contain, and the commentary tracks are spot on (at times just as funny as the episode being watched). I agree with others that a year is too long to wait, but I guess it takes time to dig up all that archival material. Still - maybe 3 series per year...?
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
British humour at its best, February 3, 2004
This review is from: Red Dwarf: Series III and IV (DVD)
Just as last year's release of seasons 1&2 left me wanting for 3&4, this year's release has left me drooling for 5&6. It's likely I'll explode before 7&8 ever hit stores.
I've been a fan of Red Dwarf for literally as long as I can remember. At 22, I can remember watching the Boyz from the Dwarf and their antics when I was relatively young thanks to the wonders of PBS (and having to stay up late to wash dishes.) I think Chris Barrie as Rimmer was possibly my first love (though now my refined tastes prefer Danny-John Jules as Cat.)
A must-buy for any self-respecting Anglophile.
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