Tom87

So I'm watching through all of Season 1 disc 1, no problems.

But then the first episode of disc 2 has this constant two-second rumble noise throughout, every 15 seconds or so. I am completely unclear as to whether this is intentional in the episode or now, but this is the only episode so far to do this. It's incredibly distracting, which is leading me to believe that it might not be intentional.

Does this happen on anyone else's copies?

bboisvert

I think you first need to clarify what you're watching and what episode you're talking about. There have been 3 "Season 1" releases:

Original AD Vision release
Starburst release
(current) A&E release

Tom87

Sorry, I'm dumb.

I am watching the current A&E release, the complete boxset that came out last fall (I'm assuming there's no difference between the individual releases and those that are contained in the boxset).

I am watching episode 5, Back and Back and Back to the Future. This problem started after the opening credits.

I jumped into the middle of episode 6 to see if the same problem was apparent, and it is.

I checked a random episode off of disc 3 and the problem isn't there.

So I'm just wondering if my Season 1 Disc 2 is faulty, which I can't imagine how that could happen since the rumbling noise seems inherent to the soundtrack of the episodes.

Tom87

All right, after watching through Episode 6 I have come to realize that the rumbling noise ONLY happens during ship scenes, and not at all during other scenes (the entirety of Episode 5 took place on the ship).

So the diagnosis is that it is indeed intentional, but oh holy mother of god is it the most annoying thing I've ever had to deal with in an otherwise great TV show

BobO'Link

There are several differences if you are comparing the ADV releases with the A&E release.

The first ADV release was 2 disk volumes (5 DVD-9s per season) that were then collected into season sets. Quite expensive with no special features.

These were re-released in less expensive "Starburst" sets (originally 2 disk DVD-18s that had *lots* of issues that were re-pressed as DVD-9s in 4 disk volumes - 3 per season) and lots of special features were added.

A&E dropped many of the extras from the Starburst set. The only feature on the A&E discs that wasn't on the Starburst set is the "Farscape Undressed behind-the-scenes" TV special. This is a special that was created between the second and third seasons to catch up fans on the events that had happened up to that point.

Video quality on the Starburst sets is reportedly slightly to significantly better (depends on who you ask) with higher bit rates.

Some people have reported oddities in the audio on the A&E sets although others say there are none. Mainly reports of "metallic" sounding voices on some early episodes.

Here's a nice write up.

I own the Starburst set. I put in the episode to which you are referring. The rhythmic "rumbling" is one of the sounds of Moya (the ship). I've never noticed it before as it just seems appropriate (Moya *is* a living creature) and part of the "noise" of the ship. Just out of curiosity I put in a S2 episode and it's still there on scenes on Moya but doesn't seem as pronounced as in episode 5.

If you've not yet made the purchase you need to get a copy of "The Peacekeeper Wars" (unless you got one of the limited Best Buy editions in which this is included). It's the mini-series that wrapped up the series and is a abbreviated/sped up version of the planned, but not produced, 5th season.

Josh-da-man

I think it's likely there might be some audio issues with these (A&E) sets.

I have noticed some audio dropouts in a number of places, but only when playing them on my Sony blu-ray player. The audio in the same spots is fine when played on my Toshiba DVD recorder, so it might be an authoring issue where certain players don't like the audio encode.

SterlingBen

Have I said I hate ADV in this thread yet?