Mission Impossible

[Tonya]

Hi gang!

I have various incarnations of the Mission Impossible films, LaserDisc, DVD and now the trilogy on BluRay.
Popped in the first disc and the Paramount High Def logo almost jumped out of the screen.
Good start.
Then the interactive menus appeared seconds afterwards, razor sharp and crystal clear.
Looking forward to this.
Then the film starts, with one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory.
The dark colours are murky and patchy with moire effects on stuff like stairs.

It fact it was so poor that I took the disc out and played a few selections from my reference discs, The Dark Knight, Zodiac, Wanted & Dr.No just to make sure that nothing was wrong with my system and thankfully all looked superb as usual.

Tested the M-I 2 and M-I 3 discs and again the transfer appeared rather poor, OK on the bright exterior shots but very shaky on the dark scenes.
I even dug out the Laserdisc version of Mission Impossible and it seemed a far better transfer.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to please post any feedback if you have the trilogy (I got mine from Play.com) with regards transfer quality, to see if it's just my imagination or something is wrong with my hardware somehow.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Clare Newsome]

No, it's not just you - the transfers are OK, but nothing special. They do improve as the series progresses, but never hit BD-best heights. No HD Audio on the soundtracks, either - that bothered me more, actually.

I'm not that gutted, as i picked up the boxset for peanuts, and didn't already own the DVDs....

I'm currently working my way through the Bourne trilogy boxset (another bargain purchase) - a much better BD package

 

[Tonya]

Thanx Clare!
It's strange that such a big budget franchise was encoded for HiDef so poorly.
But as you pointed out, it was available for little money.
I realize that every release isn't given the Lowrey remastering treatment, but I really expected more from Paramount when it comes to The CruiseMeister.

Does anyone happen to know if the USA version is better quality?

 

[Ian986]

I was thinking about buying MI Trilogy as they are so cheap, but I was worried about the transfer I had the same on HD dvd and I thought the first two was same as dvd but i thought MI3 was better especially the part before the go in the building at the start of it and there is a puddle that looked pretty good but I dont think I will bother with this on Blu Ray now.!

 

[Clare Newsome]

They may bring out a 'Special Edition' set if/when MI4 gets made

US release seems the same story from this stateside review - first film looks poor, with quality increasing until you reach MI3, which looks darn good in places. Sound also still DD 5.1 in US, too.

 

[Anonymous]

Cheers for the heads up Tonya. You've saved me what could have been a lame future purchase lol !

 

[Frank Harvey]

I've got all three on DVD, and I was due for a triple bill viewing so decided to order them on Bluray - mainly because the pack was £15. I knew there were some bad reports out there, and that they were only Dolby Digital, but at £5 per film, I thought what the hell.

Yes, the picture on first two is a little disappointing, but they're still better than the DVD, with decent sound, and the third one is better on both counts. I'm sure there'll be an SE edition at some point which will have full works, but this pack at £15 for two great films and one mediocre one is pretty good. A couple of years ago we'd have paid £15-20 for MI3 on DVD......

I was his stand in you know - it was me sliding down the roof, doing the motorcycle tricks and hanging on to that train.

 

[Tonya]

Thanx for the feedback everyone.
I didn't mean to put anyone of the purchase, but I was merely expressing my disappointment over the anticipation after seeing the graphic menus pop on the screen, I thought I was going to be in for a real HiDef treat.

It's a shame because I enjoyed the trilogy and the original MI on LaserDisc was reference material for some time.
The set was a brilliant opportunity to show off the great dynamics of the soundtrack and as Clare mentioned, it's only 5.1 so it still lacks the extra kick that HD audio delivers.
Also I find it frustrating that a feature looks "darned good in places" when we should be expecting it to be "darned good from start to end credits"

Perhaps we are getting to spoilt these days, as a few years ago DVD and 5.1 were heralded quite rightly as superior quality but the more discerning of us could clearly see the compromises in compression and coding techniques used.
What spoilt me were releases like the Lowry 007 remasters and the like.
The bar has been raised and I for one don't quite understand why a huge corporation like Paramount wouldn't ensure that their big budget releases weren't the very best quality that they could be.
I have yet to see a Disney release that is nothing short of technical excellence!

But as I only dropped 12 of your Earth Pounds on it, it's OK to have this MI set until they get it right.
One thing is for sure, I won't be breaking it out if someone asks to see the true potential of the format!

However, if someone is curious about shoddy coding and compression . . . .

 

[Frank Harvey]

Tonya:Also I find it frustrating that a feature looks "darned good in places" when we should be expecting it to be "darned good from start to end credits"

Most films will have dodgy shots in them - whether this is dark scenes where it just wasn't filmed correctly and there's a lot of noise, or out of focus shots etc - if it's not filmed properly in the first place, no amount of remastering will make up for that.

I have yet to see a Disney release that is nothing short of technical excellence!

I should think so with what they charge!!

But as I only dropped 12 of your Earth Pounds on it, it's OK to have this MI set until they get it right.

Exactly my thinking - like I said, it's better than the DVD.