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Post by Jose BxR on Mar 20, 2009 18:09:01 GMT -5
More speculation on the original problem...
Thick black borders may be there for a reason, perhaps to cover up something more insidious, because those furthermost areas in the picture, whether there are black bars or not, were never meant to be seen in the first place. They are the so-called "overscan" areas always hidden when the program is seen on a conventional analog TV set. Sometimes that information can look very nasty, and if it isn't taken care of for digital media like video files and DVDs, it would be much more annoying than black bars. Those bars may have been recorded with the original VHS footage, or added when it was captured, or added manually before it was encoded to hide analog artifacts. Although more picture is always nice, I hope we don't complain about missing stuff never intended for viewing.
One of these days I'd like to evaluate these DAP files for myself; I have no idea how they're encoded, but these kind of videos can look extremely good in a smaller file size, while DVD-compliant mpeg-2 files are limited to the bitrate it takes to fit a 100-minute-some-odd episode in a file size of about 4 gigs, especially using consumer equipment or software. You're bound to have some artifacts there.
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Post by Troy's Dad on Aug 2, 2017 10:28:48 GMT -5
Sorry to bump an old thread, but since we now know the 12 episodes Shout may never release I have been looking into fan released episodes (specifically the sites that just charge for the disc and shipping and not the episodes themselves, because to do so would be illegal). I noticed a lot of the sites talked about in this thread and in other threads are defunct.
I checked out MST3K Guy's selection, but it looks like he has not updated since last year and my order requests went unanswered. CheesyFlix seems to be in business, but I wanted to see what other options there are.
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Aug 2, 2017 13:34:06 GMT -5
I've had bad luck with fan made tapes and DVDs from tape trading sites.
Especially castleforrester.com
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Post by Troy's Dad on Aug 2, 2017 13:36:32 GMT -5
MST3K Guy got back to me, the site is still active which is good. I actually used to have castleforrester.com bookmarked and checked it out and it seems to be gone.
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Aug 2, 2017 13:54:25 GMT -5
Yeah, that site went down in like 2013 I think, not like it was going anywhere anyway.
The guy charged so much money, slow shipping, and the DVDs just come out like crap.
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Post by Caedmon on Aug 2, 2017 16:03:30 GMT -5
I've purchased a couple dozen episodes from CheesyFlix and have been mostly impressed. There are however a few episodes that aren't the greatest quality that I have purchased from them... If I remember right, eps like Terror from the Year 5000, The Killer Shrews, and Fire Maidens of Outer Space don't look that great. On the other hand, their copy of Pod People is 10x better looking and sounding than the Shout Factory reissue...
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Post by gorncaptain on Aug 2, 2017 16:05:30 GMT -5
I must be the exception to the rule as I was happy with the few discs I got from CF. They were all Sci Fi era episodes captured digitally from satellite though.
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Post by GarrettCRW on Aug 3, 2017 2:25:02 GMT -5
I purchased the three unavailable Volume 9 titles and ACM from CheesyFlix years ago and they're pretty good all around. The others I got from DAP, which seems to be still nominally alive and seeded.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2017 5:37:14 GMT -5
Skyroniter seems to have disappeared. Which is too bad, since he had supposedly the best quality. He even offered blu-ray for a time. I of course waited since Shout's releases were so steady. We could really use him now to get pristine copies of the 12. At this point, no reason any circulating copy of the 12 should be sub-par.
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Post by Prisoner416 on Aug 3, 2017 11:32:44 GMT -5
It would be nice to have a comparison between a bunch of them. I have ktma and season 2 from Cheesyflix from back in the day.
MST3k Guy does have nice packaging, though. It's hard to decide which to get when you have OCD and worry about making the "wrong" choice.
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Post by Caedmon on Aug 3, 2017 17:44:21 GMT -5
I must be the exception to the rule as I was happy with the few discs I got from CF. They were all Sci Fi era episodes captured digitally from satellite though. Don't get me wrong, I have definitely been happy with my purchases from CF. I'm just saying don't expect grade-A quality with every episode you buy from them. Even the ones that don't look super great are still at least watchable.
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Post by Prisoner416 on Aug 3, 2017 20:48:33 GMT -5
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Post by gorncaptain on Aug 3, 2017 21:21:35 GMT -5
Well #212 is long out of print, and technically Rhino goofed releasing it in the first place.
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Post by zombiewhacker on Aug 4, 2017 2:15:57 GMT -5
Skyroniter seems to have disappeared. Which is too bad, since he had supposedly the best quality. He even offered blu-ray for a time. I of course waited since Shout's releases were so steady. We could really use him now to get pristine copies of the 12. At this point, no reason any circulating copy of the 12 should be sub-par. Skyroniter is an admin on these boards. Have you tried sending him a PM?
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Post by Troy's Dad on Aug 4, 2017 8:55:35 GMT -5
MST3K Guy was $63.50 total with printed discs vs. CF's $84 + Shipping
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