SMASH BluRay replacement

[Danimal]

Well, I thought it would never happen but today my replacement disc arrived!

Where are you located. I’m in Michigan USA and have yet to receive mine even though I registered and sent them a follow-up email.

[leesmapman]

Where are you located. I’m in Michigan USA and have yet to receive mine even though I registered and sent them a follow-up email.

Netherlands.

[themgnt]

If people who receive them could state what country etc they're in, that would be helpful. It would be a good way of knowing if discs are starting to show up in specific parts of the world. These might be being sent out in some sort of order; probably by an intern who does a bunch as time permits.

[canveyboy]

I’m finally thinking about getting the Blu Ray edition of ‘Smash’ but just wanted to know - are the videos of a better quality than the PopArt DVD? Have they upscaled them? The only reason I’d be interested in buying is if the music video quality is worth it?

Thanks,
Canvey!

[y3potential]

I’m finally thinking about getting the Blu Ray edition of ‘Smash’ but just wanted to know - are the videos of a better quality than the PopArt DVD? Have they upscaled them? The only reason I’d be interested in buying is if the music video quality is worth it?

Thanks,
Canvey!

To my eyes they've been upscaled. There's a definite improvement and sharpness compared to the PopArt DVD.

[Ramzy]

Was there some suggestion they'd been upscaled using AI rather than genuinely remastered from the original recordings, or am I misremembering?

[Oznerol]

Was there some suggestion they'd been upscaled using AI rather than genuinely remastered from the original recordings, or am I misremembering?

The only video truly "reconstructed" (because that's what needs to be done, not just a "remaster") from film in HD quality is Always On My Mind. Of the others, no original masters exist from which true HD copies can be made because, although some of them (only some, not all) may have been originally recorded on film, the editing of these videos was most likely done on video, in SD quality, which was the standard at the time. Therefore, HD masters of any of them do not exist and never have existed. The fact that the Always On My Mind video had to be reconstructed frame by frame using the new HD transfer of the film is proof of that...

The result of the processing they've done to the videos to falsely transform them into HD, as often happens with many artists, with some amazing exceptions, at least with the technology of 3 years ago (something that improves day by day) is, in my opinion, inferior to the quality of PopArt in every aspect, except for those newer videos that are natively in HD.
The colors are now oversaturated, the lights overexposed, with a false sharpness that makes new lines appear where there weren't any before, and textures artificially smoothed. The image has lost all naturalness.

[Ramzy]

Right, thanks, that's what I wanted to know. I'll stick with the popart dvd then.

[canveyboy]

Was there some suggestion they'd been upscaled using AI rather than genuinely remastered from the original recordings, or am I misremembering?

The only video truly "reconstructed" (because that's what needs to be done, not just a "remaster") from film in HD quality is Always On My Mind. Of the others, no original masters exist from which true HD copies can be made because, although some of them (only some, not all) may have been originally recorded on film, the editing of these videos was most likely done on video, in SD quality, which was the standard at the time. Therefore, HD masters of any of them do not exist and never have existed. The fact that the Always On My Mind video had to be reconstructed frame by frame using the new HD transfer of the film is proof of that...

The result of the processing they've done to the videos to falsely transform them into HD, as often happens with many artists, with some amazing exceptions, at least with the technology of 3 years ago (something that improves day by day) is, in my opinion, inferior to the quality of PopArt in every aspect, except for those newer videos that are natively in HD.
The colors are now oversaturated, the lights overexposed, with a false sharpness that makes new lines appear where there weren't any before, and textures artificially smoothed. The image has lost all naturalness.

Yep, seconded..thanks for the info, I’ll stick with PopArt too then! What you’ve described sounds like they’ve just stuck it through Topaz on a template setting and chucked ‘em all out again. Will give it a miss!

Cheers!

[DopeFiend]

Yep just a reminder the videos were put on Youtube so you can preview and watch them freely. All of the music videos are artificially upscaled, no AI just old school smoothing and sharpening filters. It ironically leads to some details being lost.
They didn't remaster the music videos, just upgraded them.

It's still a nice Blu-ray to own. I like the cover art.
There's also the advantage of including newer videos.
Missing from PopArt but included on SMASH are:

Miracles
Flamboyant
I’m with Stupid
Minimal
Numb
Love etc.
Did You See Me Coming?
It Doesn’t Often Snow at Christmas (Live at the O2 Arena)
Together
Winner
Leaving
Memory of the Future (Official Lyric Video)
Vocal
Thursday (feat. Example)
The Pop Kids (Official Lyric Video)
Twenty-something
Dreamland (Official Lyric Video)
Monkey Business
I Don’t Wanna (Animated Lyric Video)

And on the 2nd disc:
Integral
All Over the World (Live at the O2 Arena)
Invisible
Axis
On Social Media (Official Lyric Video)
Burning the Heather (Official Lyric Video)

I think it's great to support the band and purchase this type of release.
PopArt is great, I really like the DVD commentary. Smash has newly remastered audio and quite a large number of additional videos.

The only video truly "reconstructed" (because that's what needs to be done, not just a "remaster") from film in HD quality is Always On My Mind.

Always On My Mind was remastered for the re-release of It Couldn't Happen Here. So it was part of the library of music videos.

[Discoteca]

Was there some suggestion they'd been upscaled using AI rather than genuinely remastered from the original recordings, or am I misremembering?

The only video truly "reconstructed" (because that's what needs to be done, not just a "remaster") from film in HD quality is Always On My Mind. Of the others, no original masters exist from which true HD copies can be made because, although some of them (only some, not all) may have been originally recorded on film, the editing of these videos was most likely done on video, in SD quality, which was the standard at the time. Therefore, HD masters of any of them do not exist and never have existed. The fact that the Always On My Mind video had to be reconstructed frame by frame using the new HD transfer of the film is proof of that...

The result of the processing they've done to the videos to falsely transform them into HD, as often happens with many artists, with some amazing exceptions, at least with the technology of 3 years ago (something that improves day by day) is, in my opinion, inferior to the quality of PopArt in every aspect, except for those newer videos that are natively in HD.
The colors are now oversaturated, the lights overexposed, with a false sharpness that makes new lines appear where there weren't any before, and textures artificially smoothed. The image has lost all naturalness.

Yep, seconded..thanks for the info, I’ll stick with PopArt too then! What you’ve described sounds like they’ve just stuck it through Topaz on a template setting and chucked ‘em all out again. Will give it a miss!

Cheers!

Yep - I've not watched it since I bought the set originally as the "upscaling" really is just somebody switching on the Topaz and letting it run. The detail loss on the videos is really noticeable. Stick with your PopArt DVD for the pre-HD videos for sure.

[canveyboy]

The only video truly "reconstructed" (because that's what needs to be done, not just a "remaster") from film in HD quality is Always On My Mind. Of the others, no original masters exist from which true HD copies can be made because, although some of them (only some, not all) may have been originally recorded on film, the editing of these videos was most likely done on video, in SD quality, which was the standard at the time. Therefore, HD masters of any of them do not exist and never have existed. The fact that the Always On My Mind video had to be reconstructed frame by frame using the new HD transfer of the film is proof of that...

The result of the processing they've done to the videos to falsely transform them into HD, as often happens with many artists, with some amazing exceptions, at least with the technology of 3 years ago (something that improves day by day) is, in my opinion, inferior to the quality of PopArt in every aspect, except for those newer videos that are natively in HD.
The colors are now oversaturated, the lights overexposed, with a false sharpness that makes new lines appear where there weren't any before, and textures artificially smoothed. The image has lost all naturalness.

Yep, seconded..thanks for the info, I’ll stick with PopArt too then! What you’ve described sounds like they’ve just stuck it through Topaz on a template setting and chucked ‘em all out again. Will give it a miss!

Cheers!

Yep - I've not watched it since I bought the set originally as the "upscaling" really is just somebody switching on the Topaz and letting it run. The detail loss on the videos is really noticeable. Stick with your PopArt DVD for the pre-HD videos for sure.

Yep, I’m absolutely sticking with PopArt - cheers!

[Ramzy]

I'm a little surprised that there were no higher-definition, even if not HD, masters of the videos that weren't made on film - sure, they were only intended for release in HD, but it's usual for music to be recorded and mixed at a higher resolution than it's released - higher, anyway, than it's released on CD - so why would videos be recorded or edited at the same resolution as they were intended to be seen? For one thing, wouldn't they have wanted a higher resolution master to be able to produce both PAL and NTSC versions without upsampling?

[Discoteca]

There probably were some better quality masters knocking about at Parlophone for a while but oddly record companies didn't necessarily hold on to that stuff beyond a certain point. When Warner released the Celebration DVD for Madonna some of the source tapes they used were shockingly low quality.

[oakey]

I'm a little surprised that there were no higher-definition, even if not HD, masters of the videos that weren't made on film - sure, they were only intended for release in HD, but it's usual for music to be recorded and mixed at a higher resolution than it's released - higher, anyway, than it's released on CD - so why would videos be recorded or edited at the same resolution as they were intended to be seen? For one thing, wouldn't they have wanted a higher resolution master to be able to produce both PAL and NTSC versions without upsampling?

Like most eighties and nineties stuff intended for home viewing, these videos were recorded on analogue video format, which is a source with a resolution less than digital SD (less sharpness and colour separation than the SD DVD format, which in PAL approximates 720x576 pixels), not in HD. There simply was no higher resolution possible at the time apart from film. These bluray "HD" versions were created by AI enhancement of the original analogue SD masters, which is clearly visible allover. In the 80s video took over.
These videos were never meant to be shown on HD televisions, as these did not exist in the 1980s and 1990s. These were meant to be shown on tiny (to current standards) crappy old 4:3 CRT TVs on which these videos looked as good as the format allowed at the time.

That is also why 70s concert films look so much better on modern TVs than 80s or 90s concerts, because they were all recorded on film.