6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.2 |
Culled from the Sci-Fi Channel\'s hit show, this spooky series chronicles the exploits of moonlighting ghost busters Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, who lead a team of fearless souls investigating metaphysical disturbances. As they traverse the country to square off against unwelcome paranormal visitors, the ghost hunters encounter everything from poltergeists tossing toys around a loft to a late lighthouse keeper who still greets guests.
Starring: Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson (IV)Documentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: LPCM 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
It’s the middle of October, Halloween is right around the corner, and this is generally the time of year when I seek out a few pieces of spooky
entertainment to set an appropriate late-autumnal mood. I have a running list of go-to titles that fit the bill: The Evil Dead, Dead
Alive, Night of the Living Dead—yes, just about anything with Dead in the name—plus The Shining, House,
The Exorcist, and dozens of others. For two or three years, SyFy’s Ghost Hunters series was on that list as well, and I remember
having some fun pre-Halloween marathons with my wife and a few friends, holed up in a dark room hoping to see the show’s paranormal investigators
discover “evidence” of the supernatural.
Not that I believed any of it. Occasionally, they’d catch ambiguous footage of an eerie shadow or find garbled voices supposedly from beyond the grave
in their audio recordings, but anyone with a remotely rational, skeptical mind can justifiably write this stuff off as shoddy, unproven “scientific”
methodology or merely the power of suggestion. Still, it does make for decent entertainment. At least, it did. I’m not sure what happened, but over the
last few seasons, Ghost Hunters has gotten seriously boring. Part of it may be personal—I simply no longer suffer pseudoscientific truth claims
as gladly as I once did—but more objectively, the show just isn’t as exciting as it used to be. Part two of season six—and you can find our part one
review here—is probably the dullest
collection of episodes yet.
The T.A.P.S. team...
Nothing has changed in season six part two, so I'm just going to reiterate my comments from part one: By the very nature of the material, Ghost
Hunters isn't exactly going to set any new standards for picture quality. The episodes, presented here with 1080i/AVC encodes, are shot predominately
in the dark—duh, ghosts never show up if there are lights on, everyone knows that—and most of the footage during the investigations is in black and
white "night vision" mode, which turns faces into pale full moons and eyes into shiny black orbs. I guess that's all part of the creep factor. Since we're
dealing with such low-light situations, harsh video noise is prevalent and contrast sometimes goes all over the place, from flat and dull to way too
punchy. This is expected. The segments shot under normal lighting look much more natural, and feature strong, realistic color, along with a decent
degree of clarity. A high definition presentation definitely benefits the show, and if you've seen any of the old seasons in standard def, you'll notice a
fairly striking difference right away in how much clearer everything looks. There are still some some serious problems, though. There are all kinds of
compression issues spread across these three discs, from excess noise and periodic banding to occasional video artifacts, aliasing, and even some visible
macroblocking. Then again, you're probably not watching Ghost Hunters for the picture quality.
Do note that as it was nearly impossible to capture screenshots in 1080i due to combing, all screen grabs in this review were captured in 720p and do
not represent the full visual quality of this release.
The audio presentation is identical to the part one release as well. The back of the Blu-ray case gives "Dolby Stereo" as the only audio option, but you'll notice that the discs actually contain uncompressed LPCM 2.0 tracks for each episode. Like the picture quality, the audio is largely faithful to source, although that source isn't always of the highest fidelity. Taken from digital field recorders, shotgun mics, video cameras, and other tools of the ghost hunter's trade, the audio is sometimes hissy and muffled, and it's generally far from pristine. That said, most of the voices—of the living, at least—come through clearly, and when they don't, subtitles are automatically supplied. The episodes really heavily on musical stabs to sell many of the cliffhanger scares that come immediately before commercial breaks, and these sound relatively clean and full. And that's really all there is to say here. If you've watched the show on Syfy, you already have a strong idea of exactly what it sounds like on Blu-ray.
There are no special features whatsoever, but here's a list of the included episodes:
(Still not reliable for this title)
2018
2011
2016
2020
2009-2018
2017
2020
2017
SD on Blu-ray
2003-2005
2010
Life Happens
2011
2011
The Don Knotts Collection
1969
2013
Bébé(s)
2010
1980
2015
2015
2013