Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Updated on April 11, 2010.
I have not yet received the AS&J Seasons 2 and 3 DVD set that I ordered from Amazon (because the official release date has not yet arrived). However, I do have a copy of this set that I purchased at a brick and mortar store.
The video and audio quality is excellent! This is the first time that I've seen a bright, vivid, clear version of the second season opener "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry" since 1971! It is absolutely wonderful. The other episodes are great, too. The recordings on the DVDs appear to be the wonderfully remastered versions of the 50-minute episodes that Starz Encore Westerns aired on TV from 2005-2007.
Since the Amazon listing does not provide much detail at present, here's what the set contains. There are 35 episodes on 6 DVDs. All have 6 episodes per DVD except the first one, which include the 75-minute episode "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry." There are no "extras" on the DVDs. The DVDs are in three black plastic cases and the entire set is in a cardboard case. I think that the case graphics are gorgeous. There is a great picture of Heyes and Curry on the front (which can be seen at the website for Timeless Media Group, who was licensed from Universal Studios to put out the DVDs). On the back of the black cases, there is a short description of each episode. The descriptions are helpful, although they aren't always totally accurate (e.g., the blonde female character in "Only Three to a Bed" wasn't married as the box says). The show's description on the back on the main cardboard case also has some errors (e.g., AS&J originally aired on ABC, not NBC). But, this certainly does not take away from the wonderful DVDs.
"Alias Smith and Jones" is my favorite TV show of all time. I'm an original fan from 1971. The series is a wonderful mix of charm, action, humor, and wit. It has held up over time extremely well. I am very happy that all 50 episodes are now available on commercial DVD sets.
Thank you to Timeless Media Group and Universal Studios for this wonderful release. I'm sure that it will be a big hit with fans of "Alias Smith and Jones." I hope that this release and its availability at Amazon.com will cause new people to discover this wonderful show.
Edited on April 11, 2010: Now that I have had time to watch more of the DVDs, I have a few comments to add.
The second reviewer questioned whether these episodes were remastered. I believe that they are the remastered versions which aired on Starz Encore Westerns from 2005-2007 (except with more file compression, as I'll mention below). For example, take the scene from "Smiler with a Gun" where Heyes and Curry find Seth's body in the desert. In the original films, including the unremastered version airing online at Hulu (Hulu appears to be airing a remastered season 1, but unremastered seasons 2 and 3), there's a boom mike hanging over Heyes and Curry as they discuss the dead Seth. This boom mike is gone from the remastered episode that aired on Encore Westerns. It is also missing from the commercial DVDs, showing that they were remastered. However, even on the remastered prints, there are flaws in frames of the film in the stock desert footage; the remastering was not perfect and some episodes look better than others.
Also, it's obvious that the second season opener, "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry," was not remastered at the same time as the other episodes. This episode originally aired in a 90-minute timeslot and was not shown on Encore Westerns in 2005-2007, when they aired remastered versions of the 48 episodes that originally aired in 60-minute timeslots. "They Day They Hanged Kid Curry" that is on the commercial DVDs has very vivid colors (sometimes too vivid, which I compensated for by setting down the chroma on my TV), with more color saturation than the other episodes. It was remastered, but probably by a different person than remastered the other episodes. (By the way, I have 5 versions of this episode that were recorded from TV to VCR over the past 25 years and the version on the commercial DVD set is far better than any of them-with brighter colors and a sharper picture. For me, just getting a good version of "They Day They Hanged Kid Curry" was worth the price of the DVD set.)
In 2005, I recorded all of the 50-minute AS&J episodes at the highest quality homemade DVD mode from digital cable TV when they aired on Starz Encore Westerns. My personal recordings have a picture quality that is somewhat sharper than those on the commercial DVDs. As for the color and audio of the commercial DVDs, both are excellent, although I do occasionally see a faint purple band running vertically through the commercial versions on some episodes that I don't see in my own recordings from Encore (e.g., the initial chase scene in "The Posse That Wouldn't Quit"). This may be a compression artifact. I believe that commercial DVDs used the gorgeous remastered versions from Encore Westerns, but in order to fit 5 or 6 episodes onto a disc they compressed the file size to about 1.5 Gb. My recordings from Encore Westerns in highest quality homemade DVD mode are 3.8 Gb per 50-minute episode. On smaller screen TVs or computer screens or older lower quality TVs, the loss of sharpness is probably not obvious, but on a larger flat screen high definition TV it could be noticeable.
Incidentally, the AS&J season 1 DVDs, produced by Universal Playback and released in 2007, were 4 episodes per DVD, meaning less compression. I suspect that this is why the second reviewer observed them to have better picture quality than the seasons 2 and 3 DVD set.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Alias Smith And Jones: Seasons 2 & 3
Alias Smith and Jones - Seasons 2 & 3! One of the most popular Western series of the 1970's, "Alias Smith and Jones" aired on NBC for three years, from 1971-1973. In the tradition of the hit movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Alias Smith and Jones" follows the exploits of former Devil's Hole Gang leaders Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes, a pair of successful and popular outlaws trying to go straight after a lifetime of mostly non-violent banditry.Settling in a small western town, Curry/Jones and Heyes/Smith must stay out of trouble for an indefinite period of time to earn the pardon the Governor will grant if they can keep to the straight and narrow. In the meantime, they are fair game for the bounty hunters and the long arm of the law trying to put them away for good. Only the silver tongue of Heyes/Smith and the fast draw of Curry/Jones, (plus occasional help from their friends on both sides of the law!) keep them out of the hoosegow.Starring Ben Murphy and Pete Duel as the two charming rogues, the series features a strong cast of recurring characters, including Burl Ives (Big Mac McCreedy) and Walter Brennan (Silky O'Sullivan), as well as an outstanding roster of guest stars including Rory Calhoun, Jack Cassidy, Neville Brand, Anne Archer, Chill Wills, Slim Pickens and John Russell, many of whom made multiple appearances on the show.Narrator Roger Davis took on the role of Hannibal Heyes, following the untimely and unfortunate death of Pete Duel during the second season.
Click here for more information about Alias Smith And Jones: Seasons 2 & 3
0 comments:
Post a Comment