Hauling Like A Brooligan

Stephen Gallagher

Freebies – at a Price

The price being that you have to go out and buy a copy of The Daily Express.

I’ve just learned that this week’s running Express DVD giveaway is the complete set of Charles Edwards MURDER ROOMS films, along with Ian Richardson’s two outings in the role of Sherlock Holmes.

Well, in purely selfish terms it means a brief flash of yerblogger’s name on TV screens up and down the land.

But I imagine it’ll be the same digital transfers that featured on the DVDs of the series sold by IMC Vision. Which were cropped to old-fashioned 4:3 fullscreen even though the films were shot on Super-16 and shown in 16:9 widescreen; picture quality was muddy with digital noise and poor edge-definition. My guess is that they simply re-used the master from a VHS tape release. It looks that bad.

I complained to BBC Films at the time and their response was pretty much that once the sub-rights were sold, any quality issue was out of their hands.

To see the show in its proper format, you’re better off with the American DVD boxed set. Which can be had new from about twelve quid.

Otherwise, each one’s yours for the price of a newspaper.

And if being seen with the Express is a problem for you, you can always buy a copy of this month’s Bottles up Bums to hide it in.

Steve

5 responses to “Freebies – at a Price”

  1. Bottles up Bums??? Shocking.

    I buy only Axes in Arses.

    So tell me: is this what your caged hand does then? What type of bottle do you favour, glass or plastic?

  3. Because I’ve got a WH Smith just up the Broadway, I braved it and picked up today’s DVD – The White Knight Stratagem – The Kingdom of Bones will be Thursday from the look of it.

    There were so many dummy mummies buying stationary for their little back-to-school mouth breathers that I didn’t have to sneak it into Up Close to Animals monthly.

    Love the way the red and green – yikes! – cover calls it “The Sherlock Holmes Collection”. And yep, it’s 4:3.

  4. After your lovely Ian Richardson post, I went and ordered the first episode on R1, as I missed the series when it was on. Isn’t technology marvellous? You blog, I buy, and your writing time-travels to my house.