The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition (39 Discs)

mariocki · Post by **mariocki** » Sun May 11, 2014 6:43 am

Of course but is anyone really going to pay £28 more for a newer edition when the content is the same?

Frankymole · Post by **Frankymole** » Sun May 11, 2014 10:19 am

Canal moves in mysterious ways... inexplicable, even!

marquon · Post by **marquon** » Sun May 11, 2014 11:55 am

Newbie!

Apologies if this has already been covered, but... are there any differences (apart from being polished up/digitally remastered) between the two sets of releases? I'm thinking in terms of the individual episodes?

For example, are any episodes edited now that weren't, or were edited before but have been restored in the digital version?

Cheers.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 1:59 am

I finally bought the original Optimum 'book-style' 50th set. The image quality is superb! However, the speed/pitch of the voices are indeed a bit higher on my set in the US. Some of Diana Rigg's throaty charm is lost in translation. Hopefully I will get used to it. Also makes me hope for a US Blu-ray soon.

The binding seems slightly fragile. Did this set originally come inside a slipcase?

Best,
-Jason

Dene · Post by **Dene** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:59 am

Jace wrote:I finally bought the original Optimum 'book-style' 50th set. The image quality is superb! However, the speed/pitch of the voices are indeed a bit higher on my set in the US. Some of Diana Rigg's throaty charm is lost in translation. Hopefully I will get used to it. Also makes me hope for a US Blu-ray soon.

I ripped them and used VirtualDubmod and AviSynth to correct them to 23.976fps. Well, some of my favourites. It would take a while to do 87 episodes!

The PQ on the Optimum set is so good the results are excellent.

Have become quite militant about PAL speedup over the years and try to avoid if possible. You'd soon hear about it if the entirety of Europe started playing all music 4% faster!

A Blu-ray would be better than monkeying around with video formats, of course.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 3:36 pm

In case others are interested, here is a quick video I made comparing the A&E NTSC set with the Optimum PAL set using an all-region player. You can hear the PAL speed-up pretty clearly. Scenes are from Return of the Cybernauts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4d101I5Bvg

NickP · Post by **NickP** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 4:23 pm

An interesting comparison.

It's never occurred to me to be worried about it before though. The "faster" version is how I've always watched The Avengers, so for me the DVD's are faithful to the original broadcast.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 4:28 pm

interesting! does that mean you've always seen the PAL version- and that even on a PAL system, the pitch is higher?

NickP · Post by **NickP** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 6:14 pm

Indeed. I have always lived in the UK whose TV systems (PAL now and its predecessors) have always run at 25fps. Film shot at 24fps are just shown at the higher rate, I've never heard anyone complaining about it!

Post by **dissolute** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:02 am

Odd, when they first came out there were pitch-shift problems but they were all solved - my set certainly sounds great and the picture quality is superb.

The issue is it's the quick and dirty 2:2 24 @ 25 pulldown they used, the old Contender & A&E sets didn't have the issue.

I might roll mine out for another listen...

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The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition (39 Discs)

Current Box Set vs 2001 DVD releases