farscape bluray announched does it include the final movie?

If Farscape is coming out on Blu Ray, I would definitely buy it! A must have for me.

I really hope there not just going to release upscaled versions of the first three seasons. If I remember correctly all FX shots for those seasons were done on video which means they would all have to be redone...

It probably will not contain the final movie. When they re-released the DVD set with similar artwork around Nov 2009, it did not contain the final movie.

Season 4 ended rather abruptly and needed the final movie. Maybe they'll include it, but I'm not counting on it.

Lionsgate has the rights to The Peacekeeper Wars so it will be released separately if sales are good enough. It was released on DVD only and as part of a limited edition DVD boxset, but that's it. These Farscape BRs will be upscales as far as I know (nobody has said otherwise) because the series was finished on video so I'm not going to buy them unless I have a good reason as I already own the A&E DVDs that I bought for ten bucks a season.

this does worry me

I suspect that this will go back to the 35mm elements for all non-rendered content, with the SD-rendered SFX then upscaled and merged in. Similar to what was done with Firefly, IIRC. If done well, the results can be quite satisfactory. Hopefully we'll know for certain before the release in November.

Old report, but from the mouth of Hensen himself:

http://www.timtoon.com/2009/11/07/fa...d-in-high-def/

35mm elements might be too costly to access or use. SD effects only. Too bad. At the very least, a good upscale with lossless audio would be acceptable for the right price.

I wouldn't get your hopes up. The show's original audio elements were all done in stereo and not 5.1 sound. The mixes on the DVDs are all faux-surround mixes created with audio processors. I'd be happy as a turtle if they just gave us the episodes re-encoded in AVC with high-bitrates from the masters with lossless audio from the original mixes but as I recently bought the entire run of the show on DVD for around $60, I'd have a hard time justifying the purchase unless we got REAL re-mastered episodes with the non-VFX stuff in HD ala Firefly.

I wouldn't read too much into that 2-year old report. First, it's 2 years old... and a lot can change in that time. Second, it seems to be little more than the author's guess based on some vague statements from Henson.

But if the release is nothing more than an upscale of the SD masters -- with no true HD content -- then I probably won't buy it unless the cost is very cheap. I already own the entire series on SD-DVD, and thought it looked fine (for SD) the last time I watched it (which has admittedly been a couple years). I need a good reason to re-buy the series -- and added extras (which I rarely view) or a lossless audio track won't cut it.

I have the original DVD's ( the single DVD cases with two episodes, I believe, and the later 2 disc cases that appeared later ), not the stardust or the current ones. I've read the latest DVD version is better than my current set, so I'll be curious to see if the Blu Ray set will be an improvement.

Well, $139 for all four season on BD certainly is reasonable: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005CXOG8M/
Too bad only season four was shot in 1.78:1 AR
Will make a nice Xmas gift

I don't like these reports of this possibly being an SD release. This would be one of the dumbest releases ever on Blu-ray if that was the case so I'm skeptical.

$100+ for an upscale release? I'm not buying it. Surely they will at least be releasing everything shot on 35mm film with a new scan in high definition. To do otherwise would be outrageous.

Unfortunately, outrageous is increasingly the order of the day.

Frell this...they got me for nearly the entire Starburst Edition set (missing one lousy release), they got me for the 2009 rerelease, but this one? Not happening.

Any news about this Bluray version and it's specs? I love the series, but I also know this was filmed in SD and letterbox(at least the first three seasons).

Getting it on Bluray just for the sake of it when right now the DVD's are $50 on amazon would definitely not make much sense... Haven't bought any version yet but I know I'll get to it sooner than later.

From Amazon.UK.....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Farscape-Com...4449879&sr=1-1


Also for those interested in "The Peacekeeper Wars" have a look at this, available in Germany......
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Farsca...Blu-ray/22989/

No 5.1 audio???? That's a pass.

Well if you look at the listing on Amazon.de.....

http://www.amazon.de/Farscape-The-Pe...dp/B004UIPK8U?

You'll see it has;
- German 2.0 DTS-HD
- English Dolby Digital 5.1

This looks like it's the same English Audio you get on the 2-disc UK DVD I have which is a lot better than the DD 2.0 track we got on the highly compressed local (Australian) single disc edition!

The German Peacekeeper Wars Blu-Ray suffers from really bad picture quality. I still don't know if the picture has just been DNR'd to death or if it is an upconversion. It's not worth buying in my opinon. If that's the quality we can expect from the Season releases I will happily pass and stick with my Starburst DVDs.

German Blu-ray was published by some obscure Euro company.

A&E Home Video is publishing this series set. They have a much better track record.

The Digitalbits reports the worse, these are in fact standard def up-converts
from PAL 625i masters, the official line these are the best available sources.
What a shame, I'll keep the old dvd's instead.

I fear that this is what Paramount will do with the "newer" Star Trek TV shows for the most part, except the lesser quality "Enterprise," which was created for broadcast HD and mastered at 1080p/24 like Lost.

I found this note poking around here: http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/2011...ray-on-nov-15/

"Bringing together all four complete seasons (88 episodes) and more than 15 hours of bonus programming across 20 blu-ray discs, this definitive collection, optimized for HD from the European PAL masters - the highest quality available source elements will deliver the most optimal viewing experience for the series which TV Guide named one of television's best cult shows ever, according to a news release."

Not sure how credible this info is, but the rest of the info seems to line up. Upscaled 576i I guess is better than upscaled 480i but really is overall a major pass. Bottom line is that I feel that Farscape should get the same treatment that ST:TOS got, but really don't think this will ever happen. I'm surprised that they didn't do what B5 did for its 16:9 SD remasters where all of the non CG shots look really clear while any digitally rendered shots were blurry. A bit distracting going between clear and blurry on those DVDs, but I tend to like it over the all blurry 4:3 masters.

note to the companies out there who plan on releasing things on bluray.. DON'T RELEASE UPSCALES

what if your upscaled release is the first bluray someone sees... people today are generally dumb enough to consider ONE sample of something as representative of the whole

(note: upscale could be swapped with DNR, EE, etc and still fit)

Bottom line probably is that they didn't want to shell out to go back to the original source elements and do a complete HD telecine scan and SFX and audio overhaul like supposedly Paramount/CBS is doing with the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

If it's a PAL upscale (like the Highlander series) without the concluding movies then they best not charge an outrageous price for this set since it's little better than the high priced DVD's they already put out. Otherwise, they won't sell many once the word spreads that it isn't an HD presentation.

The movie is coming! Lionsgate is putting together a package and it will probably arrive after the series hits the streets.

Here is a review :

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Farsca...Blu-ray/26648/

So is anybody buying this one? Release date is on Tuesday. I still have an Amazon pre-order. This will be a tough sell, but I love the series and think there will be enough of an upgrade over the DVD's, but I will see.

i don't buy upscales unless they are cheaper than the DVD (or maybe the same price) and give comparable (or better) results to just upscaling the DVDs

So anyone pick this up? Just wondering if it's worth an upgrade. I know the picture quality is only a hair above DVD but from the review it seems like the audio is awesome.