The Documentary (W/Bonus Film)
BOX-ART
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N/A
MENUS:
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The title of each feature is listed, with options below them for play, and chapter select. Generic ominous audio plays, with an equally generic brown-ish animated background. Clips from each feature scroll past.
VIDEO
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Both features are anamorphicly enhanced...despite the fact that the documentary is NOT widescreen. In addition to the incorrect aspect ratio, squishing over three hours of consent on one single-layer disc leads to some hefty compression artifacts. Bizarrely enough, despite the bonus film being the bonus...it is less compressed and takes up double the space as the documentary.
AUDIO
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Both features are presented with a stereo track. I'm unaware how the film's audio was originally presented.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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Note: Screenshots have been altered to their correct aspect ratio, rather than the incorrectly presented one.
TECH. SPECS
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.33:1 / 2.0:1 (Stretched & Original Widescreen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 1
DISC SIZE: Single-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 (192 KB/s)
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: ? Hours ? Minutes
Season One
BOX-ART
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The front cover consists of two renders of the crew, one at the top and one under the logo in the center. The back also has two renders of the crew, but with an episode list in the center. A description of the show is at the top. A blurb about extras is at the bottom left, with tech. specs. at the very bottom.
MENUS:
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Disc one shows a list of the episodes to choose from on a static background. It's plain, simple, and gets the job done. Disc two has a separate menu for bonus features.
VIDEO
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With an average bitrate of 5 Mb/s the video should look decent, but the presentation is very splotchy. It just looks poorly compressed. On the bright side, the video is sharp and has decent contrast & colors. The anamorphic widescreen is a plus, I think the episodes were originally show in a letter-boxed 4x3 format back in late 2000s.
AUDIO
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A stereo audio track at 224 KB/s accompanies the video.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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I was a little disappointed after seeing these DVDs for the first time, the bitrate is decent, yet there's so many artifacts. I don't know if the transfers they were using were just poor quality to start with or what. But It's still nice to have the episodes on disc, even if the digital versions, I.E iTunes, look better!
The show is insanely hard to get on DVD at decent prices now, so It seems digital will be the most sensible for most nowadays!
TECH. SPECS
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1 (Original Widescreen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 2
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 (224 KB/s)
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: 5 Hours 46 Minutes
Season Two
BOX-ART
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Through what looks like a keyhole carved in stone, we have renders of the cast. A tagline appears in the center, "Can you handle the lockdown." At the top of the back we have another render of the cast at the top. Yet another one is below, with an episode list. Images of some of the locations are underneath the episode listings. The very bottom has tech specs, and various logos.
MENUS:
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The menus are static renders, with no music or animation. The main menu of each disc has the same render as on the cover. All three discs have options for play all and episode selection. The episode select menu is also the same cast render on all discs. Once you select an episode from the sub menu, another menu will pop up allowing several options. Play the episode from start to finish, play just the credits, go back to the episode select menu, or go back to the main menu. Each episode has is own grungy background render.
VIDEO
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Much like the previous sets, this one is also very splotchy. Mosquito noise is everywhere, despite the fairly decent bitrate. Sharpness, contrast, colors, all seem fine. Loads of grain, probably leads to most of the compression noise.
AUDIO
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An English stereo track is available at 224 KB/s. It sounds fine, no issues or complaints.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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Despite making a change from Image Entertainment to Gaiam, the compression issues haven't been resolved.
TECH. SPECS
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1 (Original Widescreen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 3
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 (224 KB/s)
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: 9 Hours 25 Minutes
