SMASH BluRay replacement

[Ramzy]

Thanks Oakey, that's helpful. I guess what I'm surprised by is that a medium that was used to record and master anything - not just music videos - wasn't (in the way that music is) substantially higher resolution than the retail format its output was distributed on. From what you're saying it sounds like this might be a problem unique to the television industry whenever they were setting the specs of the video technology. But I don't understand how they managed to edit and master anything in such a low quality domain - surely every dub would have reduced the quality below consumer level, if consumer level was the starting point for the medium?

Or is it that the tape was better than TVs could typically display but that technology has got *so* much better now that its limitations have been overshot? In which case we should just be grateful that audio was treated with more respect!

[Towa]

Or is it that the tape was better than TVs could typically display but that technology has got *so* much better now that its limitations have been overshot? In which case we should just be grateful that audio was treated with more respect!

Yes, I think that’s the case. The broadcast quality video tape recorders used SD resolution, just like the TVs of that time, but other parameters such as noise and colour separation and such were much better than most TVs ever could display. First or even second generation copies were still good enough to outperform the TVs, so editing on video was not a problem. This, and the fact that video was so much cheaper and much more convenient than film, made video the natural choice for music videos and such. In contrast, home formats like VHS and Beta performed much worse than the TVs did, and even a first generation copy would be visibly inferior. Disclaimer: I am not a pro when it comes to video, this is just how I have understood it

So no, material made for TV is unfortunately not very suitable for video “remastering”, at least not if we want higher resolution.

Yes, we are lucky that audio technology got really good much, much earlier than video. I mean, we got HD TV in the early 00s, but the equivalent level of audio quality (ok, difficult to compare, but you get my point ) was reached already in the 70s.

[Ramzy]

Thanks, Towa (and oakey), that's v informative and helpful!

[oakey]

Correct. Even professional analogue video formats like 3/4 inch U-Matic that were used for TV recordings are at best comparable to a digital resolution of 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC) which is really poor compared to HD (1920x1080) or 4K (3840 x 2160), and that's just the resolution. Colour separation, degrading over time and wear are also significant problems of older video sourced materials, which are indeed somewhat better for these professional formats as outlined above. The 4:3 format also does not help, with about one third of the image being black on a 16:9 TV. Zooming in would reduce the resolution even more.

I have so many reissued DVD concert movies from the 80s and 90s that were initially released on VHS that are pretty much unwatchable on modern TVs (Introducting the Band by Suede is a title that comes up). All Bowie 80s concert movies are affected by this as well. The fact that TVs are much larger now than in the 80s also requires much higher resolutions.

For close up shots the issues are usually not the worst, but distant shots are typically unwatchable with the people being reduced to unsharp blobs.

[oakey]

Shoudl people still be interested in the 2CD/2BD, it's on sale at rarewaves for £24.95: https://www.rarewaves.com/collections/m ... 6215-smash

This is the version with the replacement disc

[Oznerol]

Shoudl people still be interested in the 2CD/2BD, it's on sale at rarewaves for £24.95: https://www.rarewaves.com/collections/m ... 6215-smash

This is the version with the replacement disc

How do you recognise which version has the correct Blu-ray disc? I didn't even know they had re-released it with the correct one!!!

[oakey]

Shoudl people still be interested in the 2CD/2BD, it's on sale at rarewaves for £24.95: https://www.rarewaves.com/collections/m ... 6215-smash

This is the version with the replacement disc

How do you recognise which version has the correct Blu-ray disc? I didn't even know they had re-released it with the correct one!!!

There is another Smash thread here where I discussed it (cannot find it using the search option now because of too many hits). I bought the set from rarewaves a couple of months ago which had the correct bluray disc, it has since sold out and is now available again. New copies are the ones with the replacement disc.

You can bundle with the Nonetheless bluray for a tenner. Or the clear vinyl for two tenners.

[edit]this thread: viewtopic.php?p=650922&hilit=Smash+oakey#p650922

[Xakrij]

Shoudl people still be interested in the 2CD/2BD, it's on sale at rarewaves for £24.95: https://www.rarewaves.com/collections/m ... 6215-smash

This is the version with the replacement disc

Bedankt, Oakey!
Excellent price!
And with the updated disc!
I've ordered a few as gifts for friends who are new(er) fans.