Most men would do anything to get out of Fox River Penitentiary, but Michael Scofield will do anything to get in. His brother Lincoln has been sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit, and the only way to save him is from the inside out. Armed with prison blueprints and an impossibly intricate escape plan, Michael gets himself incarcerated, and the race against time is on. Now, he'll need all of the cunning, daring, and luck he can muster... along with the assistance of some of the prison's most vile and dangerous felons.
I already watched the first season of Prison Break when it was released on DVD, but I was interested in watching the Blu-ray set for a number of reasons. It's the first TV-BD from Fox, and it allowed me a rare opportunity to compare a BD release to a DVD release of the same show.
The BD set is almost exactly the same as the DVD set released in 2006, with a couple of minor differences which I'll get to later on. The disc configuration is the same; 22 episodes on 6 discs. I wrote down the times for each episode on the BD release; most episodes were a second or two longer on this release:
Disc 1 (2:55:50)
Pilot (43:41)
Allen (44:09)
Cell Test (43:59)
Cute Poison (44:01)
Disc 2 (2:54:34)
English, Fitz or Percy (43:50)
Riots, Drills and the Devil - Part 1 (43:56)
Riots, Drills and the Devil - Part 2 (42:45)
The Old Head (44:03)
Disc 3 (2:54:57)
Tweener (44:00)
Sleight of Hand (43:58)
And Then There Were 7 (43:44)
Odd Man Out (43:15)
Disc 4 (2:54:41)
End of the Tunnel (43:33)
The Rat (43:32)
By the Skin & the Teeth (43:38)
Brother's Keeper (43:58)
Of course the BD set looks better than the DVD; it's Hi-Def compared to Standard-Def, so it would be a crime if it looked the same. There is some visible grain in a few shots, and the odd strobe effect is present in a few of the shots of the prison yard, but the picture looks great. I tried to do a comparison shot of the DVD and BD by snapping some photos with my digital camera set up on a tripod, but the resulting photos just didn't do the BD justice. I'll have to try to come up with a better way to illustrate the differences.
I complained about the lack of a "play all" option on the DVD, and one has been included for the BD release. There's also a chapter placed after the opening of the episode, just as there was on the DVD set.
Episodes are all in 1080p.
Audio
The audio on the BD release blows the DVD away. The episodes feature an English DTS HD 5.1 audio track, and there's a lot more life to the soundtrack. I had the DVD in my Toshiba XA2 player, and the BD in my PS3, and I routed both through my Denon receiver so I could quickly switch between the same episode playing in the players. The BD had richer sounds; higher highs, and deeper bass. I heard things on the BD that I didn't hear on the DVD. There are subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
Completely missing from the release are the French and Japanese surround tracks, and the Japanese subtitles, which are mentioned on the packaging. I'd be a bit pissed if I were a French speaker who bought this expecting the audio track, only to find it was missing.
Commentary Tracks
There are 10 audio tracks for 6 episodes, and they're the same as the ones on the DVD release. I think it's a bit odd to double-up the commentaries like they did; I would prefer to hear 10 commentaries on 10 different episodes. These tracks range from somewhat interesting to pretty interesting. I wish there was something on the final episode of the season, but there isn't.
Pilot - Paul Scheuring (creator) and Dominic Purcell ("Lincoln Burrows")
Pilot - Brett Ratner (pilot director) and Mark Helfrich (editor)
Cell Test - Paul Scheuring, Dominic Purcell and Wade Williams ("Captain Bellick")
Cell Test - Matt Olmstead (executive producer/writer) and Silas Weir Mitchell ("Haywire")
Riots, Drills and the Devil (Part 1) - Paul Scheuring, Dominic Purcell, Amaury Nolasco ("Sucre"), Wade Williams, Robert Knepper ("T-Bag") and Sarah Wayne Callies ("Dr. Sara Tancredi")
Riots, Drills and the Devil (Part 1) - Robert Mandel (director) and Nick Santora (writer)
Riots, Drills and the Devil (Part 2) - Paul Scheuring, Dominic Purcell, Peter Stormare ("John Abruzzi"), Amaury Nolasco and Wade Williams
Odd Man Out - Garry Brown (producer), Bobby Roth (director) and Karyn Usher (co-producer/writer)
Brother's Keeper - Paul Scheuring, Dominic Purcell, Amaury Nolasco, Wade Williams, Robert Knepper and Sarah Wayne Callies
Brother's Keeper - Greg Yaitanes (director) and Zack Estrin (supervising producer/writer)
Deleted Scenes (4:56)
Just 4 deleted scenes, for 4 episodes.
Allen - 0:50
And Then There Were 7 - 1:50
Brother's Keeper - 0:51
J-Cat - 1:25
Alternate Scenes (1:54)
A single alternate scene exists for "End of the Tunnel."
Making of Prison Break (30:34)
A pretty good "making of" documentary, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen. Brett Ratner and Paul Scheuring talk about the inception of the series, and cast members are interviewed about their characters.
If These Walls Could Speak: Profile of the Joliet Correctional Center (9:19)
A featurette on the Joliet Correctional Center, the prison used in the series. This could have been longer, and gone into more detail.
Beyond the Ink (16:18)
Scofield's tattoo plays a big role in the first season, and this featurette examines the creation of the artwork.
Fox Movie Channel Presents: Making a Scene - Prison Break (8:24)
Produced for the Fox Movie Channel, this is a look at the crew filming a scene for the show.
Season 2 Promo (0:34)
A very short promo for the second season.
TV Spots (4:34)
7 promos for the show (one more than the DVD set), each one lasting approx 32 seconds.
Summary
It's quite obvious that the BD release is better than the DVD when it comes to video, and audio quality. The extras are nearly the same, with one extra TV spot on the BD, and the removal of the "Vanished" promo (which clearly didn't do very well in the ratings. Otherwise the sets contain identical content, leaving people who wish to upgrade to the BD release with a difficult decision. You aren't losing any content (of value), but you aren't gaining any extra content either, just a bump in the a/v for the discs. Is it worth the cost to upgrade? That's up to you.
I was also very impressed that the bonus material on the set was all in 1080i. The interviews looked fabulous, and it's a positive sign that the studios have been shooting bonus material in HD for a couple of years; hopefully we'll see other HD bonus material on upcoming Fox BD releases.
Fox hasn't announced any other shows on BD yet, so I'll have to cross my fingers and hope that we see FireFly released on BD in 2008. How awesome would that be?!
