BUY

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction/Television	Main Menu Audio and Animation
Rating
Year Released	1998
Running Time	169:44 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	Dual Layer	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection, then Menu
Region	2,4	Director	David Warry-Smith William Gereghty
Studio Distributor	Fox Home Entertainment	Starring	Richard Dean Anderson Michael Shanks Amanda Tapping  Christopher Judge Don S. Davis
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$34.95	Music	Joel Goldsmith Kevin Kiner Richard Band

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English (Dolby Digital 2.0) German (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired Dutch	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

   The episodes on offer are:

• Need (Episode 205) - On a routine mission to yet another port on the galactic stargate system, the SG-1 team happens across a ritual transportation of a precious ore through the stargate. They also follow a wandering member from the party who turns out to be a beautiful young woman about to throw herself off a cliff. Daniel Jackson does the gallant thing and rescues her from certain death. However, his gallantry results in the team being taken as prisoners and being cast into the mines to dig out the ore. The young woman turns out to be the princess of this world and her father is dying. She sees Daniel as her destiny and is determined to keep him on her planet, resulting in him being gently sidetracked from his task of securing his companions' freedom.
• Thor's Chariot (Episode 206) - Stargate Command is receiving a message that turns out to be a desperate plea for help from Cimmeria, a planet where they had previously destroyed the planetary defence weapon. That act has now resulted in the planet being subjected to Goa'uld attack. Feeling the moral responsibility for the predicament on Cimmeria, SG-1 returns to assist the locals in their struggles. However the odds are not good and with so little weaponry and numbers, the team needs help. In desperation they seek out the fabled Hall of Thor's Might in the hope that it contains weapons. It contains something, but not necessarily weapons...
• Message In A Bottle (Episode 207) - Investigating another new planet, this one very similar to the Moon, in search of the source of an EMP signature, the SG-1 team discover an artefact as the source. The mysterious object holds some potential and it is decided to return it to Earth. Once there the investigations begin. However, as things start to go a little awry, it is decided to return the object to its planet of origin, but it clearly does not want to go as it implants itself into the concrete in the gate room. Unfortunately, between it and the concrete is Jack O'Neill who becomes a rather large piece of meat on an alien shish kebab. Now the hunt for explanation is desperately on in order to rescue Jack, but all attempts to understand the artefact fail miserably - and the consequences are not looking too good.
• Family (Episode 208) - the SG-1 signal has been received but they are not on a mission. This can only mean one thing - Master Braytak has a problem. He arrives with some bad news for Teal'c - his son Rya'c has been kidnapped by Apophis and being held as a fairly obvious piece of bait. SG-1 return to Chulak to rescue Rya'c and his mother and return them to Earth - and finally do in Apophis if at all possible. However, things don't go smoothly in the reunion as Teal'c finds out that his dear lady wife has remarried his best mate. Not good but worse is to follow when the rescue does not quite go to plan. Eventually a rescue is effected but the brainwashed Rya'c proves something of a problem. Note that the cover blurb on this episode is somewhat misleading.

   For the first time, the arrival of a Stargate SG-1 DVD in Region 4 can be greeted with something better than a lukewarm reception, for of the three DVDs to date, this is by far the least afflicted with grain.

Video

    The transfers are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and are 16x9 enhanced. The DVD is also Auto Pan and Scan encoded, although I would suggest that this option be avoided. Whilst I only checked out a short sequence from the fourth episode on the DVD in this form, it certainly was a lot grainier and more difficult to watch.

    In general this is only a decent transfer as far as sharpness and definition go, but that is good enough to be the best of the three volumes thus far. Detail is decent enough, but shadow detail could have again been better: in this regard, this is very consistent with the earlier volumes. Obviously with decent amounts of grain thrown throughout the transfer, clarity is not really brilliant at times either, but this is again on a par with the earlier volumes. There are no real indications of problems with low level noise in the transfer, although it is fair to say that solid dark colours don't seem to be too solid.

    In general, the colours have come up reasonably well, although there is some inconsistency here. Some sections of the first episode for instance show a rather bleached look as if the film is slightly overexposed and the general tone of the colours is a tad muted. This is repeated elsewhere, but there are also sections where there are some bright greens that look very nice indeed. There remains a slightly darkish tone to the transfers at times. No problems with oversaturation are obvious, with the tendency towards undersaturation at the fore, and there are no issues with colour bleed here.

    There did not appear to be many significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, although again there were again hints of slight blockiness in the background on a number of occasions. There were a couple of instances where I sort of felt that the image was ghosting, but these fell into the "did I really see that?" category, as well as a couple of focus issues that might well be indicative of some poor compression. The benefit of the doubt is given to the transfer on this occasion. Most episodes display some shimmer, but nothing really poor and in general this is the only film-to-video artefact that is really noticed. There are no significant problems with film artefacts here at all.

    This is a Dual Layer formatted DVD, as I cannot detect any layer change during the episodes. It is therefore presumed that the first two episodes are mastered on one layer with the other two mastered on the other.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue comes up well and is quite clear and generally easy to understand throughout the episodes. There did not seem to be any issue with audio sync here at all.

    The original music comes from Joel Goldsmith, with the aid of Richard Band and Kevin Kiner. Once again fairly typical of what we would expect from a television series, there is not much here that is liable to be confused with a masterpiece, but it does its job pretty well and is quite supportive of the show throughout.

    Once again there is nothing much wrong with the soundtrack on offer. There is a fair deal of action through both the front channels, although the rears are obviously not brought into play here. It certainly is not going to be confused with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There did not seem to be any action from the bass channel. Whilst the whole show would certainly benefit from a good Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, there really is not not much to complain about here.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
8th April, 2001.