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60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The upgrade to Blu-ray is worth it, November 25, 2009
The Blu-ray version of Season 1 boasts significant video quality improvements over the 2000 DVD release.
Season 1 used a grainier film stock than subsequent seasons. This was problematic for the 2000 DVD release because MPEG II encoding has a difficult time handling grain, HBO squeezed 4 episodes onto each discs (except the last one) resulting in a high level of compression, there was a lot of edge enhancement applied to the video, and that this was a relatively early DVD release -- MPEG II encoding has significantly improved since then. As a result, the video on the DVDs had a lot of artifacts -- and the larger the TV you have, the more obtrusive the artifacts and edge enhancement are.
The Blu-ray release pretty much fixes all of those problems. You can really see the difference in the closeups on the actors' faces. The image is clear with a film texture. You'll also notice a lot more details in the background.
The pilot episode doesn't look as good as the rest of the season. This is no doubt because a cheaper film stock was used and they had less time to light scenes due to it being a pilot. The rest of the episodes look uniformly excellent.
Don't expect the show to look quite as good as good as the HD broadcasts of the later seasons. Starting in Season 2 much more money and effort was put into the cinematography in order to give the show a feature film look. The interiors of Season 1 are typically slightly over lit with a soft white light. I suspect this was done because they had a shorter production schedule then later Seasons when the show was a hit, and they didn't have time to relight sets every time they moved the camera.
The packaging is virtually identical to the DVD box. HBO has wisely decided to spread the season across 5 discs -- no more than 3 episodes per disc. This minimizes compression and helps improve video quality.
Nothing to report about the sound. Like the DVDs, the surround sound channels only come to life during explosions and shoot outs.
Fans of the show will be very happy with the results.
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56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely fantastic!, December 24, 2000
I'd been hearing about The Sopranos all last year but honestly, I just never have time to catch a series every week. I just don't watch TV with any regularity and I'm not crazy about missing episodes or seeing them out of order when I know there's continuity. When I saw that whole first season of The Sopranos was coming out, I figured that would be just right for me. I wasn't disappointed. Matter of fact, I was blown away. It's a great show, at times hysterical, at times very dark. The characters are sometimes over the top but they stay close to basic story, unlike a lot of shows where, struggling to fill 60 minutes and having run out of any sensible ideas, they'll have doctors from an ER show caught in an improbable plane crash in the Andes or whatever. The most interesting thing for me is the way they've used Tony Soprano's sessions with his therapist as a way to stitch everything together and let you get inside Tony's head. The actors playing both Tony and the therapist turn in remarkable and very believable performances. This set is also a heck of a bargain. You get 13 episodes, four per DVD, plus some bonus materials, which is a lot of viewing time for the money. I recommend this set as easily the best DVD purchase I made all year (this from someone who buys nearly everything that comes out.)
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59 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love the full season in one package, December 16, 2000
By A Customer
Once again--see Sex and the City--HBO has had the good sense to release a show with an entire season in one package, as compared to the horrible dribbling of, say, 3 Twilight Zone episodes at a time. Why don't they put out the whole of "Dobie Gillis" or "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" in one nice, juicy package. I'd buy. But quite aside from that. The Sopranos is at the absolute highest level of visual art. No movie and certainly no TV is at a higher level. I am amazed at how much I've seen in an episode on first viewing and then how much more on second and third viewing. There are lots of little things, connections, that emerge on repeated, highly pleasurable viewings. There are so many surprising details, little throwaway lines, cues that lead to something later on, that really show the filmmakers respected the intelligence of the viewer. The richness of the interwoven comedy and drama, the inventive ways found to tell the multiple stories--I love it. I love all the actors, but would just take a minute to single out Nancy Marchand, who plays one of the most marvelous mother characters ever recorded. The merging of comedy and drama in her performance is sublime. Every little line matters. The way she walks. Everything she does is beyond wonderful. The greatness of The Sopranos you've heard about is really true. You will not regret having this set on your shelf to watch over and over again.
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