I have often said to people, if you are waiting for something to come out on Blu-ray let me buy the DVD and that will inevitably lead to a fully remastered Blu-ray release. It goes without fail. Just when I am waiting for a Blu-ray release of something, I buy the DVD only for the Blu-ray to be announced. The latest in this journey is the upcoming release of the BBC series from the 1980s Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.
It was only a few short months ago that I finally gave in
and decided to buy the 12-disc R2 DVD boxset that I had been debating to buy
since it came out a little over 2 years ago. Literally in a week or so that I bought
it, news came out that a HD Blu-ray set of the first volume of episodes would
be released at the end of October. Don’t get me wrong, this is awesome news! I’ve read on forums that some people were
concerned that this could possibly be taking the SD masters and up-resing them to 1080p like the Blu-ray releases for Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People. That is not the case.
This was done by the same folks who did the awesome restoration on the House of Cards Blu-ray set.
I am slightly concerned that A Pocketful of Rye is not on this set since it is part of Series 1
but The Murder at the Vicarage is on
the set which aired after. Someone in the know may have an answer to this but I
am just going off of different episode guides, etc. Maybe it was spacing issues on the discs or
something. As long as we get it, I will be happy.
Below are comparison shots (to see clarity and quality)
between the most recent R2 DVD release and the upcoming US Blu-ray set. As you
will see, these are approximations. It’s mainly to get the gist of the
difference in quality. Click on image to see the size difference. Top image SD and bottom image is (obviously) HD.
Here are some other shots to enjoy.
Have a great week!
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com
Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.
5 comments:
Oh, I am all over this Blu-Ray set! Thanks for the screencaps.
Looks fantastic - I really hope they release this in the UK too!
Does the back cover show the region coding? I really hope it'll play in Region B!
I am really sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I finally had a chance to check the Miss Marple set and I believe it to be region free. This is how I got to that conclusion. My Blu-ray player is multi-region (it's an Oppo) and I have to manually set the region I want to play. While set on Region B, it still played the Miss Marple set but titles that are marked as Region A such as my MPI Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes and Region A Space:1999 did not play while set in the Region B mode. It came up with a card that told me it was the wrong region.
In case you hadn't already figured this out, the new release order follows the order of the books.
Post a Comment