The Avengers International Fan Forum

My set arrived this morning and I'm watching "The Living Dead" now.

The image and sound are so clear and nuanced, it's wonderful to watch.

A big thank you to everyone who worked on this!

Well done to everyone concerned with restoring these. I think because we're in colour now, you can clearly see the impact the restoration has made on our favourite show.

Darren wrote:Having pretty much watched the first two disc (skimmed The Fear Merchants, Bird Who knew too much as they fail to entertain), the first episode to make me go wow in terms of quality was The Living Dead.

I know you say you only skimmed two episodes, but did you notice the reported sound faults?

On Roobarbs several people have reported a strange "speeded up" or pitch-shifted effect not present on previous releases of the episodes on VHS or DVD:

"I've just received my set, and to me there seems to be a sound problem... I put on the first disc, just to look at what it was like, and went to extras first to see the Brian intros(why these aren't linked like the Blackman ones is odd)anyway, then decided to have a quick look at BIRD, and to my ears the early scene where steed and emma look at the body sounds slightly speeded up, squeeky, and mainly her. so decided to watch FEAR, and indeed their voices do sound rather(on my disc obviously) slightly up a notch. it seems to be mainly scenes with steed and emma, in FEAR I noticed it again when they are at her carving. now I have got rid of the contender set(fool!) so couldn't compare with that. but I do have the briefcase video box set, so hooked my video up and watched corresponding scenes, and on the video, no squeeky sounds. its a slightly higher pitch than should be to my ears on the new discs, the video sounds right, abeit being on video. very odd.... "

"They do sound awfully squeaky in BIRD. Can't say as I noticed it on the other two episodes though. "

"I have just tried several others on different discs and there is a definite fault, unless of course Patrick really sounds like Liberace. 26mins in to Positive Negative Man, scene where steed appears at emma's appartment to discuss morton(?) he sounds too high pitched. and he sounds like Liberace on the other two episodes aswell in places. the funny thing is, if you watch the videoed the avengers a retrospective, he sounds normal, so what has canal plus done????? and even though I haven't the contender dvd's to compare, he definately didn't sound like Liberace on those. "

I don't have this set, but I have the A&E DVDs. I also got the first two new partworks that I think were manufactured by Optimum since their logo is on the packaging. The sound on Death at Bargain Prices on the partwork DVD is noticibly sped up both when I play it on my laptop and my region free DVD player on my flat screen TV. Not sure how much of this is due to the 4% PAL issue or a mastering issue at Studio Canal. The same episode on the A&E discs sounds fine although even the partwork picture is better than the A&E disc.

Has anyone done a comparison between the new Optimum set and the existing German and French discs that are also supposed to be the remastered versions?

Now I'm worried that a future USA release may possibly also be sped up.

Brad

starboy9091 wrote:I don't have this set, but I have the A&E DVDs. I also got the first two new partworks that I think were manufactured by Optimum since their logo is on the packaging.

Yes, but the partworks are not remastered.

I watched the Optimum "The bird who knew too much" and the Contender one and couldn't tell the difference with regards the sound. Ofcourse it's MUCH clearer but the levels and pitch were the same.

It reminds me off a quote Patrick Macnee said about Diana Rigg that when she had a long reams of dialogue she would say them very quickly and high pitched - perhaps that is what is happening here!

It seems to have been one thing after another with Avengers DVDs?? It's annoying because the whole thing seems to have become a long-running "saga" over several years (faults with the Contender ones, the problems '2entertain' encountered leading to long delays and now these latest issues).

I find the whole self-indulgent "anorak" analyses of all the fine 'technical' detail really tedious, though. If they aren't right, just return them to the supplier... the filmed episodes of The Avengers are far and away my favorite television series but we're not exactly talking life and death, surely!! I can live without it if I have too... there are far more pressing things in life.

But returning the DVDs to the supplier won't make a jot of difference, because they will be replaced with identical discs. If there are faults with these DVDs, they need to be addressed - and there's nothing "anorak" about doing so.

Please by all means put your own argument, but don't pass judgement on the legitimate concerns of others.

I'll try to clarify.

First of all, I accept that if you don't think these DVDs are satisfactory, then there are only two choices right now... wait to see if Optimum say anything or return them for a refund.

Second, I used the word "anorak" simply because there seems to be a certain amount of point-scoring (almost a competition if you like) between a few people regarding what niggles and faults they say they've found. I don't know anyone on here personally but even I have picked up that there are 2-3 people who appear to have put in quite a bit of their own time and effort to help Optimum try to put something on sale that will be highly attractive to Avengers fans. I think you misinterpreted because what I was attempting to say was that there comes a time when everyone simply has to make their own decision what to do rather than bombard people who were obviously contributing the most (and yet who can't bbe held responsible for the faults) with "complaints". Oh well...

But I don't personally feel "bombarded". My comment was as an administrator at this board, not in my capacity as being involved in production of special features for the releases. The sound issues and faults with the previous sets are significant, and no-one is being picky.

These faults have compromised a heck of a lot of good work from many quarters on these releases, but I don't feel they should be overlooked because of that good work.