Universal And Their Lousy TV Set Pressings

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Eric Paddon · #1 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:23 pm

This is the time I really need to go into rant mode, because I have after six bad experiences with a Universal TV set on DVD have hit the breaking point.

I have NEVER in all my life seen a company with more shoddy workmanship than Universal and their TV sets in terms of bad pressings, freeze-ups, break-ups you name it, and ALWAYS it seems happening at a point in the set where it's been more than a month since I bought the damn thing and can no longer do anything about it and it's past the point where I still have a receipt on file to get an exchange, which probably doesn't do any good since most of the other copies are inevitably also of the same lousy quality. Last summer, I had to exchange "Dragnet", then got stuck with lousy versions of "Adam 12" and "Emergency" that I had to eventually buy replacement copies for months later because initial exchanges were giving me just more of the same and now today, I find a month after buying "Night Stalker" I get a bad break-up on Episode #14 on BOTH my machines and then when I rush out to get a new copy from a different location in a different town, the SAME glitch is there in this one too necessitating another exchange tomorrow which will likely be fruitless as well.

On top of that, I have heard that Knight Rider fans who bought Season 3 got stuck with sets that are missing sound effects galore in most of the episodes.

How is it, I wonder that Universal can be this consistently lousy and bad in their workmanship?? They are a disgrace to the entire business with their overstuffing episodes on a single disc which too often leads to these problems, and their subpar transfers for the most part, not to mention their total lack of extras on anything they put out.

Just needed to get that off my chest.

John Johnson · #2 Post by **John Johnson** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:35 am

Eric, I'm glad that someone else doesn't like what Universal is doing. I find their packaging quite terrible. My pride and joy for tv shows is Battlestar Galactica. Whoever decided to go with double-sided discs needs their head examined. Too many of these are polluting the market and it only seems to be in the Region 1 market. I used to own the Region 2 Battlestar Galactica 7 disc set. No double-sides there. .

Eric Paddon · #3 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:11 pm

Yeah, I'm really relieved that "Battlestar Galactica" was put out by earlier Universal management that was stingy in terms of quantity (the only other shows the old management released were Season 1 of Baretta and the Best Of Hulk set) but pulled all the stops quality wise on that one.

Third time proved the charm on "Kolchak-Night Stalker" but it's still proving to be a nervous ordeal everytime I get a new release of theirs. Plus, it's annoying that a lot of series are going to be forever stuck on their first season only it looks like (Kojak, McMillan And Wife, Hardy Boys, and now it looks like Dragnet and Adam-12 as well), and that every other release of theirs is bad in the extra department. And of course let's not forget having to hear Goldsmith's modern Universal tag at the start of EVERY episode with the original Universal tags cut out, and episode summaries that are often inaccurate, or in the case of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" totally give away all the plot details!

Universal has the richest legacy of TV shows from the 60s to 80s IMO, but what they're doing with that legacy on DVD is appalling beyond belief. It may take the next kind of home video format for them to finally do things right for many shows.

John Johnson · #4 Post by **John Johnson** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:24 pm

Thought you might want to know that the Region 2 versions of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman are out in the U.K. So far, only the first season have been released. Since moving to the U.S. I miss the U.K. DVD market. It seems that there is so much good stuff available there, mostly British shows, that may never see the light of day over here.
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=58336

Eric Paddon · #5 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:26 pm

I got to admit that is a bigger pet peeve of mine when American TV shows get DVD releases in the overseas market but not in the US.

AndyDursin · #6 Post by **AndyDursin** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:58 pm

I hear your frustration, Eric, and I certainly realize there are a lot of folks in the same camp online. The only reason I haven't mentioned it in my reviews is that I've never had a problem with a Universal DVD-18. I don't know if I'm just fortunate and my player does not have an issue with them, or what, but I've gone through stacks of their double-sided discs for years now and haven't seen anything bizarre happen yet (knock on wood).

One of the things I find curious -- doesn't it cost more to use dual-layer media or double-sided discs in the first place? Just going on the price of blanks, it's a lot cheaper to buy a pack of single recordable DVDs than dual-layer or double-sided media...I would think that would carry over to the studios too to a lesser degree. If the double-sided discs are a technical issue for many (or at least enough of a minority that they need to do a recall/do customer service all the time, etc.), why not just use MORE single DVD-5 discs instead?

Eric Paddon · #7 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:52 pm

This has not been a good month for me for TV on DVD. Today, another bad set popped up and it wasn't even Universal! "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" gave me a bad episode on Disc 3, Side A ("Long Live The King") and as with Kolchak I had to buy a new set. Now that episode plays fine on the new one, but just to be safe I now have to do a Voyage marathon tonight and tomorrow just to make sure all eps. are fine!

I think this fear of the unknown quality in a TV on DVD set has become the most annoying thing about building a decent collection, because it literally kills the joy of being able to slowly savor a set one episode at a time if you have to blitz your way through just to make sure everything plays properly.

John Johnson · #8 Post by **John Johnson** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:27 pm

Looks like Universal have added another tv show.
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5902

Eric Paddon · #9 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:37 pm

Well, it looks like Universal is abandoning DVD-18s at long last. And it looks like an abandoned title is finally coming back with Season 2 of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" apparently set for October.

That said, the fact that Universal is deciding that the short-lived "Book Of Daniel" should be released on DVD and not a second season of any one of about ten other abandoned titles is a case of pretty strange priorities (and I won't even touch the matter of that show's content!).

Isn't it odd though that so many of last year's losers that were one-season flops find an easier path to DVD than so many classic shows? That's four flops from last year by my count that will be getting a DVD release right away.

Eric Paddon · #10 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:44 pm

I couldn't help but remember this thread I started in a fit of frustration several years ago because only now have I finally found a solution to those Universal DVD-18 sets of long ago that still give me a problem on playback machines all these years later. If they run fine on the computer, I can now just copy one side to a single sided double-layered DVD-R and I have at last a reliable "watching" copy and don't have to bang my heard senseless trying to find a set that works and throwing away more money!

Thank goodness DVD-18s have been abandoned by all studios now, but it's too bad their legacy has to live on in certain TV on DVD sets that may never get those random years redone correctly.

AndyDursin · #11 Post by **AndyDursin** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 5:05 pm

I'm not trying to minimize your level of frustration Eric, but if they play OK in your PC, then the disc simply isn't defective. It's the player that's at fault.

Eric Paddon · #12 Post by **Eric Paddon** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:01 pm

That may be so to a large extent, Andy, but I have seen these problems happen on too many players of different brands over the years and it indicates that the DVD-18 was just not a well thought out piece of technology if it couldn't perform reliably on all brands of machines.

Computer drives I guess just seem to be built better to handle these kinds of things.