nBSG Complete Series Box Set

[JLTucker]

The Battlestar Galactica Complete Series Box Set will supposedly be released on July 28, 2009 in standard def and high def.

[Vympel]

I'm giving away my Miniseries to Season 4.0 DVDs (plus Razor, got burned on that one, fuckers) to a friend for a nominal price (he can buy 4.5 on DVD himself) and I'm going to get the entire thing on Blu-Ray. It's definitely a Blu-Ray show.

[JLTucker]

I like the packaging. It certainly looks better than the horrid package job of The Sopranos box set. The main problem I have with the nBSG set is that it will lack The Plan. Why not wait and release the complete series after The Plan airs on television?

[Mr Bean]

224$?!?!? 330$ MSRP?
Is that a savings of any kind? I seem to recall seeing the seasons at 40-60$ a blueray season at Best Buy.

[JLTucker]

224$?!?!? 330$ MSRP?
Is that a savings of any kind? I seem to recall seeing the seasons at 40-60$ a blueray season at Best Buy.

None of the nBSG seasons have been released on Blu-Ray. Season One was released on HD-DVD, though. And from a review I read, it looks like ass.

[Faqa]

Ha! I KNEW it would pay off to wait for the complete series package before buying!

*puts on Amazon wishlist for whenever I have the cash to get this*

[Mr Bean]

224$?!?!? 330$ MSRP?
Is that a savings of any kind? I seem to recall seeing the seasons at 40-60$ a blueray season at Best Buy.

None of the nBSG seasons have been released on Blu-Ray. Season One was released on HD-DVD, though. And from a review I read, it looks like ass.

Bah good old trusty memory, so they must all be standard defintion.

Still means I wait till I see them bargain binned for 99$

[JLTucker]

Here's a link with a list of the bonus features for Season 4.5. As expected, those without Blu-Ray are being fucked. There is an exclusive bonus feature on the Blu-Ray set that's not on the DVD set. It is "THE MUSICIANS BEHIND DAYBREAK: Composer Bear McCreary interviews and explains how many unique musicians have contributed the show and specifically the series finale, Daybreak."

That should be on the DVD set as well. Though we do get "EVOLUTION OF A CUE: Composer, Bear McCreary takes us step by step through his process of creating the music of Battlestar Galactica" on both the DVD and Blu-Ray set.

[General Zod]

I'm giving away my Miniseries to Season 4.0 DVDs (plus Razor, got burned on that one, fuckers) to a friend for a nominal price (he can buy 4.5 on DVD himself) and I'm going to get the entire thing on Blu-Ray. It's definitely a Blu-Ray show.

I can't help but wonder if the quality's going to really be substantially better on Blu-Ray, or if it's going to wind up just being upscaled 480p instead of true HD.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I can't help but wonder if the quality's going to really be substantially better on Blu-Ray, or if it's going to wind up just being upscaled 480p instead of true HD.

Doing something like that would be beyond total stupidity on Universal's part. I don't recall anything like that ever happening for a significant, major release.

The show was shot and broadcast in high definition anyway, so it'd be weird of them to do a downscale hatchet job with the transfer.

[General Zod]

Doing something like that would be beyond total stupidity on Universal's part. I don't recall anything like that ever happening for a significant, major release.

The show was shot and broadcast in high definition anyway, so it'd be weird of them to do a downscale hatchet job with the transfer.

Hmm, I guess we'll see. That said I'm glad I didn't put down money on the DVDs with their bizarre half-season scheme beforehand.

[AMT]

Time to sell my Season 1 and 2 DVDs. Was wondering what my first Blu Ray purchase should be...

[JLTucker]

The show was shot and broadcast in high definition anyway, so it'd be weird of them to do a downscale hatchet job with the transfer.

A review of the first season on HD-DVD. I'll post the relevant bit here:

The Video: Sizing Up the Picture

The episodes are presented with an underwhelming 1080p/VC-1 transfer that fails to distinguish itself very well from the already problematic HD broadcast. Worse still, the overall video quality doesn't look much better than it does on standard DVD. From the very first episode, I was shocked to find the image cluttered with light source noise, minor to moderate artifacting, and obvious color banding. If I only had to deal with the show's use of heavy grain, I could overlook the gritty picture and chalk up the roughness to directorial intent. But the frequency and diversity of noise in this presentation is a problem I'd expect to find on DirecTV, not HD DVD.

To make matters worse, the transfer also fumbles some key fundamentals. The darkest areas of the screen aren't always pitch black (resulting in space scenes that lack depth), contrast is unreliable, and fine detail isn't sufficiently improved when compared to the HD broadcast and the standard DVDs. I did a few side-by-side comparisons between the HD DVDs and DVDs and found too many scenes that looked depressingly similar. There's still a noticeable difference between the two, but it isn't as apparent as the comparisons I've made when examining higher tiered HD DVD transfers.

Fortunately, the transfer isn't a complete failure. There are many instances where detail does look much better than the DVD -- notice the intricate lines on the Galactica, the sharp ships in each dogfight (particularly when fighters turn in the distance), and more subtle elements like on screen text and uniform textures. Colors also benefit from the high-def treatment -- the bleached palette feels more stable and alive on HD DVD. The primary hues of explosions and tracers even have a realistic glow that makes them feel more dangerous than they ever have before.

Overall, I can't help but feel slighted. The transfer may have merit, but the abundant technical issues make each episode resemble a recording of an HD television broadcast. In my opinion, the recent Sci-Fi HD presentation of 'Battlestar Galactica: Razor' looked almost as good as the first season HD DVDs. That, my friends, is a sad state of affairs.

(Note that there is a small visual difference between the mini-series and the regular season episodes. The mini-series was shot on film for its 2003 television premiere and the official season one episodes were shot in HD for the 2004 television season. However, the difference is negligible and both presentations suffer from the same technical flaws.)

It is possible that for the Blu-Ray release, the transfer will be redone. Personally I wouldn't buy the Blu-Ray set until reading reviews about the audio and video quality.