The Complete Ultra Q from Shout! Factory

[Silver Kamen]

[Zack Metoyer]

Extremely disappointed to see this set has the same interlacing issues I posted screencaps of in the Ultraseven thread. I wish I could stop giving these fools my money because I can't even watch these without getting a headache.

[canofhumdingers]

Screen caps? There's been some discussion on this but nobody's posted screen caps to show it definitively.

[Zack Metoyer]

[canofhumdingers]

I saw the Ultraseven images but haven't seen any from Ultra Q. I was getting ready to order this set in the near future so I was just curious to see the problem myself before I plunked down my money.

[klen7]

Maybe its a videophile thing, but it isn't something I even noticed, yet alone ruined my experience. So either its worse on some systems or I'm just oblivious.

[king_ghidorah]

I haven't seen any problems either...

[Zack Metoyer]

It occurs at least every second throughout, and is most noticeable during quick motion. If you aren't seeing it, perhaps your retinas operate on a different frequency? After sitting through a few discs I'm starting to get used to it, but I still don't watch it the entire time or I try to focus on the subtitles. I still have to recommend the set despite these problems. Don't wait until it's out of print, as you may end up spending much more.

[Shonokin]

It's there no matter what, but maybe various tv settings make it less noticable. I see it especially in contrasty, stark, black and white scenes with a lot of movement and almost not at all in less contrasty greyish scenes. If you study the frame by frame with progressive settings on, take screen caps, etc. you'll see it's a part of each image. I imagine that the data they received was already corrupted by recording to a new media with the fields out of phase, thus baking the effect in each frame. But I do think the effect can be lessened by playing with the tv settings.
Not that I've done it yet and may never given lack of time, but one could rip the subtitles and remaster onto one's R2 DVD set which does not have this problem. Mr. Ballard used to have a tutorial for this process lurking around.
Personally it hasn't bothered me to that extent.

[Pkmatrix]

[Legion]

I tried watching Ultraseven on my 55" HD TV and couldn't even make it through two episodes without getting a headache. Even my bootleg set of this show didn't look THAT bad.

[Zack Metoyer]

I'm mostly through Ultra Q and have accepted the effect, but I still remember Ultraseven being harder on the eyes, perhaps because it's in color. I myself am using a 46" 120hz Sony Bravia connected to my PS3. But I was also able to see the issues on a 24" PC monitor when I took the grabs in the other thread. The screen grabs aren't really necessary, as others have pointed out, all you need to do is pause the video to see the problem.

Anywho, of the three original Ultra shows, this one is my favorite. Some of the writing is downright nonsensical, but it just has such a cool atmosphere. I love how each episode has its own intro. It's a level of care that wasn't carried over to the other, more by the numbers, sequel series.

Maybe this was a show from a time where target audiences didn't exist, but the tonal shifts between episodes are interestingly weird. Surely the series is sometimes too dark for younger viewers, but I imagine that some of the child friendly episodes were a disappointment to adult fans. It seems like they were trying to make a show for everyone, whereas Ultraman was definitely more kid friendly.

[Paul Rowe]

From the Shout DVD's

[canofhumdingers]

That's weird. It doesn't necessarily look like an interlacing problem in that top screenshot. You can't see the scan lines like you could on the Ultraseven screengrabs. The Ultraseven issue was definitely a case of interlaced fields being out of phase. Not exactly sure what this is though... I mean, it looks like a similar effect, but not seeing the separate fields of scan lines, I'm just not sure.

[lhb412]

Just started watching this show. See a bit of ghosting, but it seems to me the picture quality is superior to both Ultraseven and Ultraman releases.

[Mysterio]

[canofhumdingers]

Agh, it took seeing more examples (thanks Mysterio!) for me to realize what this is! It's not interlacing issues (though the UltraSeven set was). It's really terrible and poorly done DVNR!

It's the same thing that plagued the Star Wars laserdiscs, resulting in things like the four eyed stormtrooper...

[Paul Rowe]

According to Tyler Preston (who posts here) Shout sourced Ultra Q from VCD's!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obcWDMfBsRQ

Tyler made the link private again. Here is a working link

http://youtu.be/_xCMsvdaD9M

[Shonokin]

[Paul Rowe]

Oh, sorry. Someone should inform Tyler about his claims.

[Dai]

[klen7]

It looks like Amazon is running 52% off until March 8th on Ultra Q ($28.50 shipped w/ Prime)
http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Q-Complete- ... 00CPTUNNI/

[RaymondBurr]

Whoa! Thanks for the heads up, Klen!

[swfreakjpb]

Got my set off the bay for less then $40 shipped. Watched the first disk. At first I did not notice the issue posted above until the turtle episode. It was not that distracted until then anyway. That one was pretty far out so I mostly fast forwarded though it. Reminded me a Gamera the Brave a little. The show over all is entertaining enough for a TV show. I did not expect much as far as writing. Its not bad for a half hour monster of the week program.

[O.Supreme]