Star Trek TNG Seasons Remastered on Blu-Ray - Page 68

There's already a episode guide insert in the set. Granted it's not in the most obvious spot, it's actually the cover which you have to slip it from the opening on the top when the case is opened.

But as you admit, you have to either remove the cover art or disc one to see it. This allows people to look for an episode without having to remove anything -- you just open the set.

Yeah, if they are not going to give us a proper insert for descriptions, the least they could do is stop putting it so a disc is attached right on top of it so you can't read it without removing something. I get they want to save money... but they sure aren't applying that to where it would save them the most money, you know like quality control so they don't have to replace every disc of every set they released!

But then you have to take the insert out to access the first disc! Madness, I tell you, madness!

I've read elsewhere that the UK region has received the replacement discs. Can anyone confirm this and which discs were received (1,3,4 expected)?

No replacements from Amazon UK for me yet, nor any indication when I can expect them.

The Digital Bits too is saying the discs won't ship til early September as they are now fixing a missing special effect on a disc 5 episode.

http://digitalbits.com/#mytwocents
Edited by tkbryant - 8/27/12 at 12:29pm

Where did you read this? I haven't read it anywhere.

I noticed Amazon now has it changed to available, when it was out of stock for a long time.

Any chance these are somehow fixed or replaced sets? or just more of the older that would need replacement discs?

It's weird because it was out of stock for over a month, and now suddenly available so something had to be going on.

 

That meshes with what Deluxe told me in response to an email that the new discs would be received by them by Friday (8/24).   If the new discs were sent out to all retailers last week, then that would explain why Amazon is back in stock.

 

I'm assuming based on what I was told, that the replacement discs will start shipping out sometime this week.

It would be third-party stock that hasn't been fixed. Replacement discs and fixed packages ARE NOT ready at this time and won't be available until the end of September. They may even hold the retail re-release over til the end of November to capitalize on the Thanksgiving shopping surge.

That source is obviously incorrect, which is why I asked the question here since I had my doubts.

Based on the Digital Bits, we should not expect replacement discs before the early to middle of September. Remember replacement release dates have come and gone before. So I wouldn't bet the house payment on September.

Basically what is happening is that they are finding out that there was no real QA done on these discs. When the fans (probably more likely the reviewers) complain, they go back and then look to see if the reports are true. Then they have to decide if it's worth fixing or not. Once they decide it's worth fixing, they have to go back to the re-compositing stage (for a visual effect) or re-mastering (to fix the DTS-HD MA audio mastering issues), go through all the stages to get the master ready and have a plant generate the discs (which requires getting time in the plant's production schedule). Learning from their past mistakes, you would hope there would be a big QA effort at this point. Once QA is complete, then they have to get the discs packaged to be sent to us or get the replacement discs into newly generated boxes for sales. I assume the unsold original packages with the non-QA discs are just being destroyed to save time/money otherwise they would have to open those, reinsert the new discs by hand and then re-seal the packages.

I suspect it was bad enough that three discs were found to be defective after initial release. Then after rapidly annoucing a replacement program (to reduce the tide of returns), to turn-around and find another disc that needs replacing just shows they are in panic mode. I say that because that means after learning about the original problem, they assumed they didn't need to look for any additional problems. That's a very reactive environment rather than pro-active. Hopefully they will pro-actively check the new discs for newly inserted problems before shipping them. If they were to find a problem, then they would have to go back to whatever stage of the production where the problem was generated and start over again.

Disc creation is not unlike software creation where when you fix one problem you *might* insert another.

Anyway, the points to all this are (1) it ain't easy to create a production Blu-Ray disc, (2) this should have never occurred if QA had checked the discs thoroughly and (3) take any talk of a release date as just a guess until the discs actually ship. November would not surprise me but I'll hope for October.

On the plus side, you'll now (eventually) get replacements for 4 of the 6 discs. The original disc with the missing special effect might be worth something someday but the ones with the bad audio are probably just coasters.
Edited by alk3997 - 8/29/12 at 9:38am

Actually, one person in Australia says he already received a corrected set and posted this shot as proof. Check bluray.com's forum for the discussion.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/6364/photocgb.jpg

I've been posting on Blu-ray.com as well... and your thoughts here echo mine... The initial "we promise we will fix it" was to try and keep people from all returning the product week one... not necessarily because they "care" since I think we both are saying IF they cared, they would have put the effort in the first place!

Also of note... it appears they may be getting replacement discs to stores before getting them to consumers... which also feeds my thought that once they get you to agree to wait, they think they have you on the hook so you become low priority... They want to get this back on the shelves to make more money... they already have your money and you already didn't return it, so you can wait until they get around to you.

That's why I'm glad I passed... even with the release week sale pricing... I feel confident that this will be cheaper by Black Friday and should actually contain corrected discs by then too.

It is a shame they bungled this, though, and on an early season that a lot of people were only buying because they wanted to show support for the restoration project even though most fans really didn't "love" the show until season 2 or maybe season 3...

My opinion about the whole debacle is darkening to resemble what you've written. Notice how they've become silent regarding Season 2? They probably won't even announce it until we receive the corrected discs. I, for one, will not pre-order Season 2 until I get my replacements.

Slient about Season 2? You mean aside from how all 7 seasons have been officially announced and as early as two weeks ago they were tweeting about Season 2?

While I generally agree with HDMe2's assessment, I don't believe it's as dark or sinister as he portends.

Let's not go overboard with doom and gloom just yet, please.


*insert witty response about this being common on AVS*

People in California on blu-ray.com have reported receiving the replacement disks with a mailing date of August 28th (here's proof).  That meshes with what Deluxe told me, that they were receiving the new disks on the 24th.  If they turned around and shipped them this week, that means people should be receiving them either this week or next (which is technically early September).

 

Supposedly there's still a few minor issues, but mostly it's fixed.

Edited by Morac - 8/30/12 at 6:23pm

Yep, based on the conformation the new discs are ready, I went ahead and ordered from Amazon last night. They'll be here tommorrow.

Hmmm. Who's overreacting?

1) Where have all 7 seasons been officially announced with release dates?
2) More important to my post, where has Season 2 been officially announced with a release date?
3) Where are the official CBS announcements about Season 2 since the Season 1 debacle (this does not include individuals tweeting about wanting to do commentaries, etc.)?

I'm just saying that they're holding off on any more specifics about Season 2 until after they resolve the issues with Season 1.

My use of the term "dark" was referring to their initial pledge to fix the discs for current owners, where they're now apparently putting out the corrected sets for new buyers first. This opinion, however, could be mitigated by the recent reports of folks having the corrected discs mailed to them.

How does that equate to "sinister," "doom," or "gloom"?

Well, it was officially announced that all 178 episodes would be remastered back on September 28th, 2011... but CBS can't provide hard release dates for every season because they're in the middle of working on them (they expect to start work on Season 4 later this year). The best they can tell us is two per year minimum. And while there's no official date for Season 2, it has been listed on Sainsbury's website, slated for a release on December 10th in the UK. They were the first to list the release date for Season 1 which turned out to be correct. From what I understand, the episodes of Season 2 have been completed, so they have about 100 days to go over them with a microscope (and hopefully a good pair of ears) and get the special features edited and ready.

http://www.sainsburysentertainment.co.uk/en/Films-TV/Blu-ray/Patrick-Stewart/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation-Season-2/product.html?product=E11125630
http://trekmovie.com/2011/09/28/tng-remastered-is-official/

I should probably clarify too... I'm not meaning to say that CBS planned a screw-job from the get-go... I'm just saying that they clearly dropped the ball, and didn't Q&A here like a big company should be doing for such a major release... and then they compounded that by not communicating very well with their customers who showed support by not immediately running for a refund... though it does seem we are finally seeing reports of people receiving replacement discs, though still note that Amazon and other retailers seemed to get their inventory first even if only by a few days.

So, long story short... I hope they learned something and will be checking season 2 and beyond more carefully before letting that out the door.

I have the discs now and can confirm that. "Encounter at Farpoint" still has a brief issue. Right after Geordi comes up to Riker on Deneb IV and says his line, "Aye, Sir" the audio suddenly and abruptly switches from the center to the center/right. It happens at 35:43. Once the fade out is over and the new chapter starts, the audio goes back to normal (i.e. centered).

Also, the glitch on Troi's dialogue is still there at 20:39 when she says, "I don't understand either, but this is real." It happens on the word "understand" and I've noticed it ever since the sampler, so it's on three separate discs for me. I guess Troi's right, I'm not imagining it... it is real -- and minor, I hasten to add!

"Farpoint" does not appear to be changed visually in any way, so hold on to your Next Level disc if you have it! Are they intentionally trying to make it collectible or something?

They fixed the running lights on Starbase 74 in the opening shot of "11001001", but not Geordi's reflection at 25:39. That's hard to notice, however, if you don't know where to look. And as reported, they added the phaser beam to the shot in "Heart of Glory".

I received my replacement discs yesterday (in SoCal) but still haven't had a chance to watch any of them.

What's the difference?

The replacement discs came with a 'collectible' card with an apology on one side, and the conference room drawing from the opening credits on the other. Nice gesture, and it's well-made.

I just sampled Haven, and the sound is perfect throughout. Now I no longer have any reason to watch Haven again.

I also checked out Heart of Glory, and the missing phaser blast is there and looks good.

Any chance of the one remaining SD shot having been replaced?

Nope, the SD shot remains.

Thanks for checking!

Just got my replacement box-set from Amazon UK. No apology card inside, and I was really looking forward to that!

The moment I referred to in my post:

The Next Level disc doesn't have this problem, so -- even after all the changes they tried to make to fix the episode -- they didn't fully succeed and the first release of "Farpoint" on blu is still the best.

It really is unacceptable that "Farpoint" still has audio issues. I mean, anyone with freely available tools from videohelp.com (and a program to decrypt the blu-ray of course) could have fixed it. All that would be necessary would be to extract "Farpoint's" DTS-HD track from the Next Level disc (which sounds fine) and remux it with "Farpoint's" new video stream from disc one (replacing the track with the center/right issues).

From what I've been told, a different authoring company worked on the Next Level sampler. CBS decided to do Season One in-house and had to re-encode the audio and video for that episode since that company didn't give them the final encoded assets used on the sampler.