Batman - title image from the Blu-ray

Batman The Animated Series 2018 Blu-ray vs 2004 DVDs

I thought I’d post a quick comparison between the 2004 DVDs of Batman The Animated Series and the just-released Blu-ray collection.

Obviously I’ve just sampled one episode (“On Leather Wings”)- so please keep that in mind.

The DVDs appear to be mastered from a composite source, which I’m guessing was the master for the broadcast, as a result there are occasional cross color artifacts present in the picture, these seem to be largely well controlled suggesting perhaps a 3D comb filter was used when the master was digitized. I also noticed a couple of instances of what might possibly be video drop outs on the source, but these were relatively minor.

The Blu-rays are a back-to-the negative scan which looks fantastic. In general details barely visible in the DVD version are clear and sharp on the Blu-ray, there is no artifacting even in areas of high motion. A faint grain patter is present throughout as are specs of dust and lint on the original animation cels.

Continue reading →

'Warriors of the Wind' VHS captured via a Panasonic NV-200 (tbc-off). A very unstable image.

Snell and Wilcox TBS-185 Review Update

I received an email from a reader a month or two back saying they were having trouble with the time-base correction (TBC) functionality on the Snell and Wilcox TBS-185. Thinking back to my review, I actually always tested with Laserdiscs, and generally played through players with integrated digital TBCs. I didn’t think much of this at the time – after all a TBC should, you know, correct timebase errors.

Continue reading →

Radius Thunder IV GX

I recently acquired a Nubus Radius Thunder IV GX 1600, and it’s running nicely in my Macintosh IIfx, which I keep around for poorly defined reasons.

The primary reason for writing this article was to state that it does work under System 6, or at least 6.0.8. Running 1600 x 1200 in 24 bit color in a operating system released at the same time as Windows 2.0 is certainly amusing. However I couldn’t get QuickDraw acceleration to work, so the desktop felt sluggish, with acres of 24bit pixels taking literal seconds to redraw. Looking at System 6 desktop at 1600 x 1200 really does remind you how much real-estate this used to be. Larger default fonts have blunted the vast feel of such resolutions.

Under System 7.5.5 on the same box it’s a different story, QuickDraw acceleration moves things along nicely on the desktop, though the Control Panel apps are a little quirky. PhotoShop 3.0 with the PhotoEngine plugin performs well, adding some MMX like zip to the standard filters.

Unfortunately it’s not all roses. My KVM setup or Mac->VGA adaptor seems to add a little ghosting at 1600x1200x65hz, and there is a bit of flicker from time to time, and sync-on-green issues seem to randomly kick in. And if I’m being totally honest, a lot of vintage software starts running into issues with a desktop that large, and most games chug badly.