re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

The Prestige >>> The Illusionist

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

The Prestige is one of those movies that I just get in the mood to watch every now and then, and I’ve been looking for a sale because I don’t have it on disc. Slightly tempted to get the UHD but probably won’t.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

The Illusionist is a good movie. The Prestige is a great movie.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

$4.99 for 10 Things I Hate About You in UHD? Sure! I know I can watch (and have watched) it on D+, but I have a thing for Julia Stiles in this movie and will gladly pay five bucks to “own” it.

Also got Broadcast News ($4.99), American Gangster/The Untouchables ($11.99–I’ve been waiting forever for The Untouchables to hit $5, and this was close enough), and complete Family Ties ($30) earlier this week.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

The Fourth of July Bundles sale has the Expendables trilogy in UHD for $6.99 and I'm STILL not sure I want to pony up.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

I would do FT, but SD. I’m sure only way it is, but I’m sure streaming somewhere. Just hate pulling trigger on SD cause you never know. Does it look good? Decent? Better than now in reruns on whatever non-HD station I believe or maybe Antenna TV. Think I caught couple eps. Didn’t look stellar.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

I’m sure it’s on Paramount+, but I’m really resisting adding another service. I know I could do a trial, but this is the kind of show I’d dip into rather than binge (though I may do it someday). SD kinda sucks, but I figure a lot of these old shows aren’t going to get upgraded anytime soon, so if it’s a show I like, I just get it now and worry about that later if it happens.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Snagged Dragged Across Concrete UHD for $4.99.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Avoid any videotaped shows on streaming- they look terrible. The Family Ties DVDs look very good.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

It’s not like shows on Vudu have a banner that says they’ve been videotaped.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Should be common knowledge though- I could tell you whether any show from the 70s and 80s was shot on film or tape, even if I didn’t regularly watch it. I actually saw one of those unauthorized online feeds showing Married With Children properly, while the “legit” copy of the first episode I got for free on Vudu a while ago looks like ass.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Bully for you, but most people aren't that wrapped up in filming techniques.

That sounds more like an issue of an SD video encode/bitrate issue with Vudu than whether the show was shot on videotape. I have a few HD upconversions of SD video shows on Blu-ray, and they look very nice.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

So does Family Ties look good on Vudu or what?

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

But it ain’t.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Nor should it be. That's Alan stuff that's best left to the Hoarding thread!

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Hey, it was the previous poster who said that Family Ties being in SD was an issue. I’ve seen a number of filmed TV shows transferred to HD with good results, but I’ve never seen them upscale video-based shows. There isn’t much point to upscaling SD video unless your equipment or software handles it better (like YouTube.)

Back when Vudu let you check out the first 2 minutes of everything for free, I looked at a couple Family Ties episodes and they looked terrible, same as when it was on Netflix and later Pluto TV. The DVDs look nearly perfect though, only flaws being in the source material.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

It being in SD only was the issue, not whether it was shot on film or videotape.

Monty Python's Flying Circus was restored in HD, although that's a mix of filmed and videotaped elements. Even so, the videotaped elements look significantly better than previous DVDs.

The Twilight Zone season 2 Blu-ray set includes the few shot on video episodes upconverted to HD.

Doctor Who has been getting upconverted to HD on Blu-ray. Comparisons show it's a bit sharper than the DVDs.

The UK is pretty gung-ho on upconversions, likely because they shot a lot more shows on video than the US ever did. One advantage for the US market is that these upconversions show the full 576i PAL image upconverted to 1080i, while the US DVDs have always had to downconvert to 480i NTSC.


Again, that seems more an issue with Vudu's bitrate/encode of the SD video, as Family Ties was shot on film, and you note the SD DVD looks better. So the issue isn't about whether the content was shot on videotape or film, but the fact the SD on Vudu looks like crap.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

By popular demand, I sampled Family Ties SD on Vudu. :lol:

I thought it looked OK. Not great for sure, but watchable, especially if I’m a ways away from the TV. For comparison, I watched the same episode (“The Real Thing,” season 4 episode 1) on my old Paramount DVD on the same device (PS4 Pro, displaying on Sony 4K Bravia), and the DVD did look better—sharper and less fuzzy, though also not great.

For fun, I watched a bit of Buffy SD on Vudu, and that also looked better than FT, though I know that show has been through tons of debate on HD/SD, aspect ratio, etc.

Just for the record, the season 4 DVD started with the Family Ties Vacation movie, and that doesn’t appear to be included on Vudu. It’s terrible so not a big loss, but it’d be nice if it were there just for completeness.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Buffy was shot on film, so no frame rate issues there. I have a tape of the original airing of Family Ties Vacation (also shot on film, as it was promoted as a “movie”), was the first night our NBC affiliate started broadcasting in stereo.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

??? What the hell do you mean by "frame rate issues"? This is the first time you mentioned that in this thread.

Most TV dramas shot on film are at 24fps, while TV is typically 30fps/60hz, so there can be 3:2 pulldown when watching such content via broadcast. Streaming can also have the pulldown if taken from a video source intended for broadcast. Even DVD can have the pulldown, since the video content is stored interlaced, and a title would need special authoring with pulldown flags for a progressive scan player to pull out a 24p image.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down

Some sitcoms were shot on film at 30fps to allow a smoother transfer to 60i, but Buffy isn't a sitcom.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Mix & Match 4K UHD - 3 for $14.99

https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/mixandmatch/43233

They have some of the recent 4K upgrades like Super 8, In & Out, The Elephant Man, Witness, Primal Fear, Elizabethtown.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Free with ads or $4.99 sale: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...for-4-99/10937

Some good titles in there. I'm thinking of getting the Descent and/or Clerks II. I'd jump on Death Proof, but Tarantino's entire catalog will eventually be in 4K, right? (Though I could see him intentionally keeping this one from being upgraded, for aesthetic reasons.)

Christmas in July: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...-July-Sale/196

$6.99 monthly deals: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...0940?offset=24

(Thank You For Smoking is *finally* on sale!)

$4.99 recent releases: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...Releases/10952

$4.99 Family Fun Movie Night: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...ie-Night/10958

$6.99 Thrillers: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...hrillers/10956

$5.99 Nostalgia movies: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...0957?offset=48

$7.99 4K movies: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...HD-Films/10955

25% off animation sale: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...s-25-Off/10949

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Maybe, maybe not. Most of that catalog is now with Paramount. Since the Death Proof extended cut BD is OOP now, the only way to get it is via digital HD and that VUDU free with ads option.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

Paramount seems to be going hard on physical releases right now, so it is possible.

re: The Fandango at Home (Vudu) Thread - News, Bargains & Codes
 

$4.99 Summer Weekend Deals: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...945?offset=168
Edward Scissorhands, Blues Brothers, The Breakfast Club and many others.