You guys mention cropping but it should be noted that the blu-rays actually expand the image not cut any of it out. The show was shot on film and cropped to fit the standard 4:3 aspect ratio of the time. The Blu-rays went back to the negatives and reveal more of the image than we’ve ever seen before.
Though I do understand the general wish that the show had maintained its original aspect ratio. That was one of the great things about the Twin Peaks HD transfers.
Oh and for anyone that’s interested in checking out these new transfers but doesn’t want to fork out the cash for the boxsets. I just discovered last night that NETFLIX has updated their version of the show with the new High Definition transfers.
Not in all scenes. Some scenes are actually cropped and resized, and it’s they’re clearly recognizable.
Ah, that would explain my getting that impression. Also it should be noted that some scenes are clearly video tape broadcast dupes, but so far only like one out of every five episodes has had this problem and the scenes in question never lasted longer then thirty seconds or so.
If I remember correctly B5 had to crop a few scenes here and there for the DvDs, because they had lost the negatives in an earthquake, so sometimes they just didn’t have a widescreen version of the scene. if the The X-Files was done for the same reason I don’t mind. Still in both cases I would rather then shift the aspect ratios, instead of cropping the picture one way or another, still I suppose that would confuse so casual viewers and it’s not like they are charging an arm and a leg for these sets. I see sets from other Networks for newer shows that have shorter seasons and fewer extras on DvD that go for around twice what these Blurays go for, so I still wouldn’t call it a bad deal. The DvD sets still were not very cheap when I checked just before Christmas so these Bluray sets where a nice surprise for me when I spotted them in Moviestop and they seem to be going for the same $20 everywhere.
Now as has been pointed out they are far from being the perfect sets I would like to see and they should not be used to archive the show, but they are better then most boxsets out today. Also I will say that the show’s film like look really comes into it’s own with this set. I mean to me the X-Files was always up there with Twin Peaks and Hornblower, when it comes to TV shows that use lighting and the camera in a way that makes them look more like films then most real films, but the restoration that doesn’t make everything look too clean and that also makes the audio much easier to hear, combined with the widesceen presentation, really does help. Oh and I can not as say enough good things about the audio, I am hearing all sorts of creepy sounds and lines of dialog in the background of scenes that I never heard before. There was about a two year period where because each season of the X-Files cost around $100 on DvD, I only owned season one, so I know each episode pretty well from watching them so many times, and yet this set is bringing out things I had never heard before.
So yes, there a lot of negatives, but there are also a lot of positives to this set, bare that is mind when deciding if to buy it or not.
As for me? I give the set as a whole a 7.5/10