MITM - S01 - Complete Season - Feedback

MITM_Fan

Member
I got my box set of season 1 today, I wasn't much impressed, it came a bit squashed the box (it's paper), but the best thing about it, is the way they're presented, the images on the discs, it's like a book.

The best part: Inside the DVDs, the menus are so damn cool!

I wish they'd do the other seasons.
 

tjpeople

Site Administrator
Staff member
The DVD is region 1 so most UK DVD players won't work, however use your PC and the free VLC and you will have no issues playing it.

I love the DVD, my main issue is that the DVD transfer is horrible granted it was done a while ago, but still. I hope if they do release other seasons they re-issue season 1.
 
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Richiepiep

Administrator
Just speaking for myself, the packaging is really cool with the manipulated crazy family photographs, even though it's a disadvantage that the disc holders are glued to the cardboard. I had to reattach them a few times with super-strong transparent glue!

Yes, the image quality of the episodes is grainy, which I only started to mind by the way when I found out more recent transfers were much better. I guess that in 2003, I was still used to analogue video, and I didn't even notice.

The best thing about the discs, however, are the extras: great running commentary, a few discarded cold opens, the vagaries of working with wide aspect ratios for High Def, (uncensored!) bloopers, a wonderful documentary on the genesis of the series, a day in the life of Erik.

The menus are way cool too! They clearly tried to turn it into something special, in the true spirit of MITM. Yes, I hope they will release the other episodes too, but sadly, because of the current dumping of DVDs at bargain prices, the packaging is actually a lot worse now than when DVDs appeared on the market.

Then there's the added astronomical costs for the music rights of course, which now blocks releases, or may result in even more cheapened designs and packaging. Yet, let's keep heart and continue to request and petition.

Rich
 
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Gouki

New member
So Australia is the only country where it is mandatory that DVD players must be multiregion out of thbe box, or a code to make it so must be easy to access, then.

But, yeah, I love the DVDs. Need to buy a new set, as the my third disc was damaged. The main problem I have with the pakcaging though is that sometimes the discs don't stay in very well.
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
True, here in Holland I can't play them on my TV (standalone DVD player) because of the region 1 codes, but I play them on my PC with either VLC as TJPeople indicated, or a dedicated DVD application (Cyberlink PowerDVD) with a Chinese add-on (DVD Region Free, by Fengtao), and this has been working fine for the past 8 years or so too.

Rich
 

MITM_Fan

Member
I don't mind it being grainy cuz I like it, no detail loss nor blurred.

S01 DVDRip - Logain's rips - deleted
 
The DVD is region 1 so most UK DVD players won't work, however use your PC and the free VLC and you will have no issues playing it.

I love the DVD, my main issue is that the DVD transfer is horrible granted it was done a while ago, but still. I hope if they do release other seasons they re-issue season 1.

The quality on the dvd is very unprofessional! Even, the syndied re-runs look better! (Especially on FX, since they improve the quality of there older shows to enhanced definition for there SD and HD feeds)
Yes, I would also like to see a re-release. There's no mistake, we are long overdue for at least a higher-quality re-release on S1 and the release of the rest of S2-S7! Re-scanning the film in HD or higher quality for DVD/ Blu-ray release would be awesome! I also hope that the try to digitally restore and remaster the original film for the highest quality possible, because they owe us a lot. almost 8 years since the 1st season release! C'mon!

This is un-related but..P.S. 20th Century Fox has just released the 1997-2002 series Ally McBeal as a complete series and with a 1st season boxset (with seasons 2-7 in widescreen which is what the were filmed in. This wasn't released due to high cost of music clearances and complications of music rights! If Fox has released one of it's lesser known series (btw, there was no indication of the release until this year) it surely wouldn't leave out the staple of it's newfound popularity in the new millenium would it? Let me also add that all of the original, copyrighted, music that caused this to never be released on DVD was kept! Fox spent a lot of money on this! Because, if a high fee causedthe dvd to never get released, surely keeping it intact would've cost a fortune! Plus, this show has stopped syndication and was widely forgotten! I forgot about this show until recently! It was neglected by Fox until now! So, I just hope they could do the same for a certain sitcom that we all know and love! ;)

Deweyinthemiddle

P.P.S. If they can spend so much money on a less popular show, why not on a more popular show that's still going strong (nationally and internationally) for over 10 years since it's debut and almost 5 years since it's cancellation! Seriously, MITM deserves it. It's not a good idea for a network to let there show slowly fade out even after it's cancellation! seriously fox, show some class and respect!
 
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Richiepiep

Administrator
No, deweyinthemiddle, that not off-topic at all! It's great news that Fox released Ally McBeal with all the music intact. I never thought of this series as a lesser known one, but perhaps that's just my perspective. Perhaps it being out of syndication is another factor, because it longer brings in money from TV rights that way.

Here's the low-down:

http://jam.canoe.ca/Video/DVD_Column/2009/10/18/11444796-sun.html

Ally McBeal finally on DVD

By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Sun Media

"Ally McBeal: The Complete Series box set includes all 112 original episodes of Ally McBeal."

Shock and awe: Despite fans' fears that the landmark series would be corrupted and even ruined on DVD, all 112 original episodes of Ally McBeal still have all their original music in them.

With one tiny exception no one is likely to notice trolling through the new Ally McBeal: The Complete Series box set. It is a handsomely packaged, 32-disc collection that just debuted in stores after a long and arduous process of clearing rights to use the songs in this format.

"Everything is in it with the exception of one scene," creator-producer David E. Kelley tells Sun Media by telephone from his office in the San Francisco area, where he lives with his wife, actress Michelle Pfeiffer, and their two teenaged children.

"And I don't remember the scene or the song. There is a song playing on a television -- and that song wasn't cleared so another song was put in its place. But it was not a song that informed the scene or one of the characters. So I probably would not notice myself if I saw it.

"All of the others songs we got. It's all in, which is shocking because we went from: 'We couldn't get any of it!' to 'We've got all of it!' So the Earth moved."

There is a knowing chuckle in his voice. Dry, witty and prone to colourful metaphors, Kelley is a uniquely affable fellow for a Hollywood legend. At one point, when Ally McBeal was in its prime and making pop culture history after launching in 1997, Kelley had five television series on air simultaneously: Chicago Hope, The Practice, Snoops, Ally McBeal and the ill-advised, re-edited, quick-hit version, Ally. Yet Kelley, now 53 and preparing two new TV shows he is pitching for the future, still sounds as low-key as any TV mogul could be.

The success on securing music rights for Ally McBeal is astounding. But the process is also why it took so long for the series to come to DVD, Kelley says, answering the fans who have been pressuring 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment to get it out. "With Ally McBeal specifically, that is probably one of the more marketable ones," Kelley says of its commercial prospects, compared to other shows in his lineup, "but that was music rights that held us up. We didn't have perpetual licences for most of our music library then. People are a lot smarter now but, at the time, no one thought that far ahead. Finally those hurdles were cleared and out it comes."

Remember the show? Music was integral, and not just in the bar where the lawyers from the fictional Boston law firm, Cafe, Fish & Associates, would groove to [Vonda] Shepard or one of the guest stars, from Elton John to Barry White. There was also music in the characters heads -- and in their routines in front of mirrors in the unisex washroom. Like all of Kelley's creations, reality was in play but it was exaggerated, heightened and even taken to absurdist levels.

Without the original music, Ally McBeal would turn rancid or empty, like many of the episodes of WKRP [a series about a fictional radio station that was hence crammed with popular music] on DVD with their generic substitute music. "It's like when you buy those ridiculous Greatest Hits and it's all been re-recorded -- it's awful!" Kelley says of the idea of stripping away the original sound from a show like Ally McBeal.

Instead, on these DVDs, it is pure Ally McBeal, the way it was always intended.


Picking up from the WKRP issue, and that these clashes aren't new, I read on Wikipedia that music clearance troubles had a devastating effect on its rereleases:

"Music licensing deals cut at the time of production were for a limited amount of time (approximately ten years). In addition, the show was videotaped rather than filmed because it was cheaper to get the rights to rock songs for a taped show. Once the licenses expired, later syndicated versions of the show did not feature the music as first broadcast, but rather generic "sound-alikes" by studio musicians to avoid paying additional royalties. In some cases (when the music was playing in the background of a dialogue scene), some of the characters' lines had to be redubbed by sound-alike actors. This was evident in all prints of the show issued since the early 1990s, which included its brief late-1990s run on Nick at Nite.

As a result, production on a WKRP DVD was delayed for years because of the expense of procuring music licenses. It was feared that fans would reject edited versions. Sales of first-season DVD sets of Roseanne and The Cosby Show suggested that viewers prefer original, uncut episodes. However, as was done with many other television series, the DVD release of WKRP in Cincinnati - Season One has much of the music replaced by generic substitutes. In addition, some scenes have been cut or truncated and voice-overs used to avoid using unlicensed musical content."


I read an interview with French actress Jeanne Moreau the other day about an even older, extremely vicious argument. In 1962 (!), Joseph Losey directed her as a nymphomaniac femme fatale, who's also an inveterate liar, in the movie Eva (Eve). To add another dimension to her character, she loves the music of Billie Holiday for its brutal honesty, something which she can't muster. Billie Holiday's songs formed an integral part of the movie, but the producer said, no way, the rights are far too expensive, so just the one song was left in, and all scenes which made no sense without them were cut, without consulting the director. As many as 50 minutes were cut, and if it hadn't been for some Norwegian print found in the vaults, the original would have been lost forever. Moreau was so livid that she chased the producer down the hall with a knife! Apparently, she got into the right mood for repaying him in kind - the most unkindest cut of all.

Just goes to show. Perhaps someone should brandish a knife or at least slam the table with their fists a couple of times ;).

Rich
 
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MITM_Fan

Member
Oh jeez... This is the problem in trackers and everywhere, people whine about stuff but they can't do anything about it, just be happy they've released the first season on DVD.

If you can do a better job then go for it!
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
I was only joking about the knife-wielding part, I'm actually quite happy that things are turning out well at Fox for Ally McBeal. It shows that producers do care about these things, and bodes well for 'Malcolm'. I guess we'd have to wait some time before negotiations get finalized and MITM is dropped from syndication.

Surely patience is the mother of all virtues, just like impatience is the motor of all evolution :confused:

Rich
 

Gouki

New member
The quality on the dvd is very unprofessional! Even, the syndied re-runs look better! (Especially on FX, since they improve the quality of there older shows to enhanced definition for there SD and HD feeds)

You're aware the DVDs original pressing was about 2002 right? Compare any TV show release from around then to even four or five years later, let alone now. There will be a huge improvement because of the DVD medium, not even discounting the changes in filming that occured in later seasons (Widescreen, HD feeling).
 
You're aware the DVDs original pressing was about 2002 right? Compare any TV show release from around then to even four or five years later, let alone now. There will be a huge improvement because of the DVD medium, not even discounting the changes in filming that occured in later seasons (Widescreen, HD feeling).

Yes I am, the Simpsons DVDs released around that time were bad quality, too. But, technically (as I have stated before) each season was filmed in HD and 16:9 widescreen, but, FOX converted it to SD for broadcast and cropped it down to 4:3. They are all in very good HD, no question about that. Yes, they could (and should) be released on DVD and Blu-ray. FOX would just have to figure out the music rights (which recently they seem to be able to do with another heavy music using series, Ally McBeal) and then make re-scan the film into HD for Blu-ray and then turn the HD Scan into Extended Definition (which improves it much more than the original 1st Season DVD, but it's better than original broadcast quality, but, not quite HD. It is possible. But, yes, i'll admit S1 didn't have much of an HD feeling to me, (probably due to the fact that i was so used to the crummy DVD quality) But, it's really about time for more releases. The show will be 10 in January!:w00t:

But knowing FOX, they'll probably squeeze every penny they can out of syndication before releasing the series, instead of realizing how well it's doing and how many new fans there are
 
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