SFXB Forum

Yes, sorry. I was thinking of the same still shot from each of the releases, although video would indeed be good.But I get a pretty good indication with Crash' s screencaps.Think I prefer the 2002 release. The French DVD quality is undeniably good, but the contrast is cranked up a bit high for my taste.

(Shane @ Jul. 12 2013,17:40)QUOTEYes, sorry. I was thinking of the same still shot from each of the releases, although video would indeed be good.But I get a pretty good indication with Crash' s screencaps.Think I prefer the 2002 release. The French DVD quality is undeniably good, but the contrast is cranked up a bit high for my taste.The French DVD's are still the best in my book-even if they have their own flaws to them. They're the sharpest and real crispest looking -clearly they took care with the masters. Really, if you took the Japanese DVD's (2004 or 2013) and upped the contrast and tampered with the color settings, they'd look similar enough.That special feature pilot Crash showed us is really the same quality as the French DVD's-only difference is that no color correction has been applied to it. Now if only the rest of the "remastered" Japanese DVD had that.

Agreed, the original Japanese discs are marginally better than the 'REMASTER' in my view.The French discs are great but I agree that the saturation in colour is quite high. They are very sharp though.I think it affects the tone of the show somewhat.That blue tint that the Japanese footage has sets a certain dark atmosphere to the show, which the French version removes by expanding the colour space to maximum.A side-by-side video comparison would be nice but I'm not about to jump into that at the moment because X-Bomber's Unity Engine has run into a teeny bit of trouble.Although, I hope I'm on the way to fixing that.The main attraction of the new DVDs is the actual material of the boxset and discs (which is very lovely) and the interesting booklet, which I am scanning (despite it being all-Japanese).(How dare they release a Japanese-only booklet within their own country???)I noticed myself how smooth the quality of that 'Pilot' episode was. - Very interesting.Perhaps the fire that supposedly destroyed the studio, destroyed the master, master footage of the main show but not that.I figure it would be pretty feasible to rip the French video and English audio and mux them together in ... well, video-editing software is not my thing ... but something.Another thing is that, have you noticed how, with the remastered DVDs, they've smoothed the image somehow and it's removed *loads* of the background detail?

This kinda illustrates what I mean:Have a look at the details on the Astrofighter Carriers in the background.http://www.xbomber.co.uk/images....013. ... ...013.jpg

(Crash Override @ Jul. 13 2013,11:52)QUOTEThis kinda illustrates what I mean:Have a look at the details on the Astrofighter Carriers in the background.http://www.xbomber.co.uk/images....013. ... 13.jpgThey must have added a Noise removal application. That's what I've been doing with the French DVD's in my remastering project unfortunately given the amount of grain in the raw files.

(Crash Override @ Jul. 13 2013,10:04)QUOTEAgreed, the original Japanese discs are marginally better than the 'REMASTER' in my view.The French discs are great but I agree that the saturation in colour is quite high. They are very sharp though.I think it affects the tone of the show somewhat.That blue tint that the Japanese footage has sets a certain dark atmosphere to the show, which the French version removes by expanding the colour space to maximum.A side-by-side video comparison would be nice but I'm not about to jump into that at the moment because X-Bomber's Unity Engine has run into a teeny bit of trouble.Although, I hope I'm on the way to fixing that.The main attraction of the new DVDs is the actual material of the boxset and discs (which is very lovely) and the interesting booklet, which I am scanning (despite it being all-Japanese).(How dare they release a Japanese-only booklet within their own country???)I noticed myself how smooth the quality of that 'Pilot' episode was. - Very interesting.Perhaps the fire that supposedly destroyed the studio, destroyed the master, master footage of the main show but not that.I figure it would be pretty feasible to rip the French video and English audio and mux them together in ... well, video-editing software is not my thing ... but something.Another thing is that, have you noticed how, with the remastered DVDs, they've smoothed the image somehow and it's removed *loads* of the background detail?The saturation in color I retain makes the colors simply look more "real" as to how the puppets colors would look unrepressed by that blue tint.I look forward to seeing the booklet.Well that is what I'm doing with the French DVD, isn't it?

What was Fabulous Films' role with the French DVDs? Their name's on the back of the case, along with Enoki.

I took it that it was a licensing thing; that Kaze had paid Fab Films for some rights.
FF bought the distribution rights from Enoki, I assumed that Kaze bought some rights from FF.

I have nothing at-all-concrete to base that assertion on.

Perhaps they included some extras in the French version that FF made for the UK release, such as a dubbed version of the interviews or some of the printed material.

That's pretty much what I concluded as well, that FF had maybe sub-licenced to Kaze. I've only made my way through the first episode so far, haven't looked at the extras, so not sure which might span both releases.

This is the first time I've seen the French version of the show. As an English-speaker I know I'm biased, but I do prefer the UK audio track - noticed a few occurrences in the first episode where lines of dialogue are dropped in the French version. Nothing major, just odd lines here and there. Plus the absence of PB's music made me realise even more how much I enjoy it and how much I consider it as a intrinsic part of the show. Still an interesting alternative version though, and even from a purely novelty/curiosity value perspective, certainly worth a watch. And of course, the better picture quality helps as well!

I've got the discs but I've never really watched them. I ran them through a drive to create some screengrabs:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/ ... e%20(2009)
but I've never sat down and seen them.

I've always fancied muxing the French video with the UK audio but it would be a huge job. I'm bad at video editing.

Anyway, what do you make of my new scans:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star%20Fleet/ ... X/Articles

Shane was right. That Uchusen article is really good.