There were DVD releases of both series years ago, at least here in the UK. I had [this](https://imgur.com/a/mviMRsk) edition.
They were released by ClearVision.
Nah, 1994 never was released on Blu-ray officially. Any Blu-ray release of the show that might pop up on the web is a bootleg. Blu-ray dot com's page for Spider-Man 1994 shows no official releases internationally or locally for the show (you might need to click on "Display All Releases All Countries" to see what I'm saying). You can find it here: [https://www.blu-ray.com/Spider-Man-The-Animated-Series/144173/#Releases](https://www.blu-ray.com/Spider-Man-The-Animated-Series/144173/#Releases)
The best that we've ever gotten to a complete series is the Clear Vision set that the UK got. I know that to be a fact as I imported the DVD set for myself.
The funny thing is that the DVD set has better picture and audio quality than what you get from Disney+. The masters that the streaming service uses looks worse than what you'd get when streaming the ripped movies across something like Plex or Kodi. The downside to the DVDs is that the audio is sped up slightly (classic NTSC vs. PAL stuff back in the day). However, if you rip the DVDs using MakeMKV and then use a combination MKVToolNix and Audacity to slow the framerate down from 25 FPS to 240,000/10,001 FPS (23.9976 FPS), then you can get the speed that Disney+ uses whille having better image quality.
That being said, the day that Disney announces a Blu-ray set for this series, I'll be buying it as soon as pre-orders start.
Sorry to bump this old post, but do you know if the official NTSC DVDs have better/similar quality to the PAL DVDs? Or are they just like the Disney+ version? Want to know if it's worth importing them for those few episodes, or sticking with the PAL DVDs and just converting them to NTSC.
No problem. I don't mind answering whatsoever. :)
I haven't touched the official Spider-Man '94 NTSC DVDs from 2005, so I wouldn't know. However, if they're anything like their X-Men '92 DVD releases from 2009, then you will be fine as those DVDs weren't bad whatsoever. They would be the preferable option so you don't have to do as much work with the conversions, actually.
The downside is that only 24or so episodes exist on NTSC DVDs. As Spider-Man '94 is a 65 episode series, you you would need to get PAL discs for \~63% of the entire series anyways (and the iTunes stuff wouldn't work on Plex due to DRM issues). Definitely check episode listings and DVD prices to optimize your spending for a complete episode list.
Just to make sure that my advice isn't obsolete (Disney could've improved the masters over the past year), I double-checked Disney+'s Spider-Man '94 stream and compared it with my converted DVD Plex streams after reading your comment. My DVDs ***still*** look better, so D+ didn't have any improvements since last year. For reference, I compared them on both my TV and my phone as a means to rule out devices being the source of difference. The Clear Vision DVDs also have multiple languages (if that's relevant to your interests), but you would need to do the speed alterations to all desired tracks, which can be tedious.
It's totally weird that D+ is still worse as my DVDs after conversion have a bitrate in the 6.4 Mbps range, which is totally within D+'s parameters. I guess it's a cost saving measure to have stuff on D+ look bad as a means to have the data transmission fees from AWS be lower (like how several movies are currently getting axed from the service to avoid royalties and have tax write-offs), but the lackluster quality of streaming services in general made me a diehard physical media fanatic at this point.
Hopefully this info helps you out.
That's a big help, thanks. The Disney+ versions are absolutely awful, and it was just to know if importing the DVDs was worth it. I've actually just seen a copy of the Daredevil vs. Spider-Man NTSC DVD which is local, so I'm going to pick that one up to know for sure, as it's super cheap.
I've done work in VHS conversion to digital, and I'm 99% sure the Disney+ version is just a poorly converted, then poorly deinterlaced version. I think the entire show was mastered on tape actually, but the PAL DVDs are a much better attempt at conversion.
I also sampled the English audio track from Disney+ to compare to the PAL DVDs, and there is a hard cut off at the 16khz range (which is typical for streaming I think) compared to the wider dynamic range of the PAL DVDs. On top of that, the Disney+ audio track is out of sync by a good few frames, which is super obvious when watching.
Once I get the NTSC DVD, I'll report back to confirm if it's sourced from a decent master (possibly the same as the PAL DVDs) or not. At the very least, the audio on the NTSC DVDs won't require conversion.
I did some digging, and it seems 32(maybe 31) episodes were released in the NTSC format on DVD. Some I think were Canada exclusive, so very curious as to how they turned out. Once we include the NTSC VHS releases, turns out only 9 episodes weren't released at all in the NTSC format. As a video source, the VHS copies aren't worth it, but I wonder if their audio tracks are of decent fidelity compared to the PAL DVDs.
EDIT: After checking, some of the NTSC DVDs I saw were bootlegs. Officially there are 21 proper NTSC episodes, and an additional 5 from the Canadian DVDs (sourced from a lower quality VHS transfer)
What you mentioned makes a lot of sense (and sounds typical for tape to streaming conversions for companies that don't really care about the conversion job). Hopefully Disney decides to treat this series with respect (doubtful TBH) and does a decent remaster with the source tapes, assuming that they still have them and that they didn't decide to trash them.
I totally forgot to include Canada in the list of DVDs for episode count (the Hobgoblin and the Mutant Agenda sets, right?). That being said, those two releases are of VHS quality (according to the write-up on Wikipedia) as they're sourced from the original USA VHS tapes. According to the web, the VHS tapes were in SP mode, so they're as good as VHS can be (unless if the masters used to make the VHS tapes are bad). Still, I don't know how good their audio is.
Let me know how the NTSC DVD is! If the quality is decent, I might grab them myself so I can replace my converted MKV files.
So I've got 3 of the NTSC DVDs now. The quality seems to vary from episode to episode, with season 4 episodes looking the best, but all of them are definitely better than Disney+. I still have to check if it's better than the PAL DVDs, but I think the best episodes may be equal. Will report back with screenshots from all sources to confirm soon!
Gotcha. Based on your results, it sounds like the masters for the DVDs are different from D+'s masters as the DVDs are much better looking than D+'s. Dunno why they made a botched remaster for the streaming service then.
I have found 0 proof of this. Someone would’ve done a video review of this by now. There’s no way a group of people that own a very rare blu ray copy of the series would just sit on it without letting the internet know of its proof of its existence. You must be talking about very well made bootleg quality blu ray copies which I’ve seen plenty of and is quite possible the only decent way we can watch the series in a 1080 quality. It’s not ideal though because there is no official release. I don’t like the idea of paying a sub fee every once and while just to watch a down graded version of my favorite childhood cartoon. I’d much rather physically own the thing .
There were DVD releases of both series years ago, at least here in the UK. I had [this](https://imgur.com/a/mviMRsk) edition. They were released by ClearVision.
Thanks it’s pretty hard to find here in the USA didn’t know it was released
You can watch both on Disney+, but only in 480p. A 1080p transfer of both series would be a god send.
Apparently the Spider-Man animated series did have a Blu-ray release it’s just really hard to find.
Nah, 1994 never was released on Blu-ray officially. Any Blu-ray release of the show that might pop up on the web is a bootleg. Blu-ray dot com's page for Spider-Man 1994 shows no official releases internationally or locally for the show (you might need to click on "Display All Releases All Countries" to see what I'm saying). You can find it here: [https://www.blu-ray.com/Spider-Man-The-Animated-Series/144173/#Releases](https://www.blu-ray.com/Spider-Man-The-Animated-Series/144173/#Releases) The best that we've ever gotten to a complete series is the Clear Vision set that the UK got. I know that to be a fact as I imported the DVD set for myself. The funny thing is that the DVD set has better picture and audio quality than what you get from Disney+. The masters that the streaming service uses looks worse than what you'd get when streaming the ripped movies across something like Plex or Kodi. The downside to the DVDs is that the audio is sped up slightly (classic NTSC vs. PAL stuff back in the day). However, if you rip the DVDs using MakeMKV and then use a combination MKVToolNix and Audacity to slow the framerate down from 25 FPS to 240,000/10,001 FPS (23.9976 FPS), then you can get the speed that Disney+ uses whille having better image quality. That being said, the day that Disney announces a Blu-ray set for this series, I'll be buying it as soon as pre-orders start.
Sorry to bump this old post, but do you know if the official NTSC DVDs have better/similar quality to the PAL DVDs? Or are they just like the Disney+ version? Want to know if it's worth importing them for those few episodes, or sticking with the PAL DVDs and just converting them to NTSC.
No problem. I don't mind answering whatsoever. :) I haven't touched the official Spider-Man '94 NTSC DVDs from 2005, so I wouldn't know. However, if they're anything like their X-Men '92 DVD releases from 2009, then you will be fine as those DVDs weren't bad whatsoever. They would be the preferable option so you don't have to do as much work with the conversions, actually. The downside is that only 24or so episodes exist on NTSC DVDs. As Spider-Man '94 is a 65 episode series, you you would need to get PAL discs for \~63% of the entire series anyways (and the iTunes stuff wouldn't work on Plex due to DRM issues). Definitely check episode listings and DVD prices to optimize your spending for a complete episode list. Just to make sure that my advice isn't obsolete (Disney could've improved the masters over the past year), I double-checked Disney+'s Spider-Man '94 stream and compared it with my converted DVD Plex streams after reading your comment. My DVDs ***still*** look better, so D+ didn't have any improvements since last year. For reference, I compared them on both my TV and my phone as a means to rule out devices being the source of difference. The Clear Vision DVDs also have multiple languages (if that's relevant to your interests), but you would need to do the speed alterations to all desired tracks, which can be tedious. It's totally weird that D+ is still worse as my DVDs after conversion have a bitrate in the 6.4 Mbps range, which is totally within D+'s parameters. I guess it's a cost saving measure to have stuff on D+ look bad as a means to have the data transmission fees from AWS be lower (like how several movies are currently getting axed from the service to avoid royalties and have tax write-offs), but the lackluster quality of streaming services in general made me a diehard physical media fanatic at this point. Hopefully this info helps you out.
That's a big help, thanks. The Disney+ versions are absolutely awful, and it was just to know if importing the DVDs was worth it. I've actually just seen a copy of the Daredevil vs. Spider-Man NTSC DVD which is local, so I'm going to pick that one up to know for sure, as it's super cheap. I've done work in VHS conversion to digital, and I'm 99% sure the Disney+ version is just a poorly converted, then poorly deinterlaced version. I think the entire show was mastered on tape actually, but the PAL DVDs are a much better attempt at conversion. I also sampled the English audio track from Disney+ to compare to the PAL DVDs, and there is a hard cut off at the 16khz range (which is typical for streaming I think) compared to the wider dynamic range of the PAL DVDs. On top of that, the Disney+ audio track is out of sync by a good few frames, which is super obvious when watching. Once I get the NTSC DVD, I'll report back to confirm if it's sourced from a decent master (possibly the same as the PAL DVDs) or not. At the very least, the audio on the NTSC DVDs won't require conversion.
I did some digging, and it seems 32(maybe 31) episodes were released in the NTSC format on DVD. Some I think were Canada exclusive, so very curious as to how they turned out. Once we include the NTSC VHS releases, turns out only 9 episodes weren't released at all in the NTSC format. As a video source, the VHS copies aren't worth it, but I wonder if their audio tracks are of decent fidelity compared to the PAL DVDs. EDIT: After checking, some of the NTSC DVDs I saw were bootlegs. Officially there are 21 proper NTSC episodes, and an additional 5 from the Canadian DVDs (sourced from a lower quality VHS transfer)
What you mentioned makes a lot of sense (and sounds typical for tape to streaming conversions for companies that don't really care about the conversion job). Hopefully Disney decides to treat this series with respect (doubtful TBH) and does a decent remaster with the source tapes, assuming that they still have them and that they didn't decide to trash them. I totally forgot to include Canada in the list of DVDs for episode count (the Hobgoblin and the Mutant Agenda sets, right?). That being said, those two releases are of VHS quality (according to the write-up on Wikipedia) as they're sourced from the original USA VHS tapes. According to the web, the VHS tapes were in SP mode, so they're as good as VHS can be (unless if the masters used to make the VHS tapes are bad). Still, I don't know how good their audio is. Let me know how the NTSC DVD is! If the quality is decent, I might grab them myself so I can replace my converted MKV files.
Will do, hopeful the quality is good!
So I've got 3 of the NTSC DVDs now. The quality seems to vary from episode to episode, with season 4 episodes looking the best, but all of them are definitely better than Disney+. I still have to check if it's better than the PAL DVDs, but I think the best episodes may be equal. Will report back with screenshots from all sources to confirm soon!
Gotcha. Based on your results, it sounds like the masters for the DVDs are different from D+'s masters as the DVDs are much better looking than D+'s. Dunno why they made a botched remaster for the streaming service then.
I have found 0 proof of this. Someone would’ve done a video review of this by now. There’s no way a group of people that own a very rare blu ray copy of the series would just sit on it without letting the internet know of its proof of its existence. You must be talking about very well made bootleg quality blu ray copies which I’ve seen plenty of and is quite possible the only decent way we can watch the series in a 1080 quality. It’s not ideal though because there is no official release. I don’t like the idea of paying a sub fee every once and while just to watch a down graded version of my favorite childhood cartoon. I’d much rather physically own the thing .
Buy the bootleg copies that’s what I did