Quality

Wondering about the quality? It's fantastic! With the Blu-Ray format, you get more colors and more detail -- and both are delivered on this set. In fact, I discovered that my HD computer monitor doesn't have as good a color palette as my television while watching the same episode on both (at different times). There are colors on background paintings here that could not have been seen on televisions in the 1960s. Or 1970s, 1980s ... The high-definition picture also lets you appreciate the clean, hand-drawn artwork and paintwork. The video quality is greatly improved over the DVD release and they've corrected all of the problems from the DVD set listed here, and all but two of the audio problems listed here. There's no quality- or content-based reason to keep you from buying the Blu-Ray set.

There's a high-quality audio track for each episode, but I'm thinking it was not sourced from archival materials. This suspicion is based on the audio problems in the "Not fixed" section below. Those errors were not on the original broadcasts. Also, there's a noticeable change in quality during the commercial "bumpers" (the title card that pops up at commercial breaks). The bumper audio has not been included on any home video release -- at least, not since 1996 -- so I think the audio source for the Blu dates to that period or after and they had to recover the bumper audio from other sources.

Details

• Original end credits are used on each episode (as far as I can tell so far), so series creator Doug Wildey and others are credited appropriately.
• Race's ethnocentric insults of "heathen monkeys" and "ignorant savages," and Jonny's quip that included the now-outdated term "Oriental" have been restored. It is probably for this reason that the back of the box includes the phrase, The set "is intended for the adult collector and may not be suitable for children."
• The "Oriental Express" line has been subtitled. (Race's lines that were edited from the DVD were still subtitled on it.)
• The two, original versions of the opening credits are back.
• The series title card has been restored with the voiceover, "Jonny Quest, brought to you by ..."
• Chapters were created at the commercial breaks.

• The cover art was painted by Doug Wildey in the 1980s and uses the original character models. The DVD set used new artwork and the characters looked closer to the 1986 series or the made-for-TV movies from the '90s.
• You may not notice it like I do, but the video isn't rocking back and forth and up and down like it has on JQ broadcasts and home videos since the 1980s at least. (Look up the terms "telecine wobble" and "gate weave.") Every once in a while, as I watch the Blu-Ray, I think, "What's wrong with the picture?" and I realize that it's not moving around. There's a tiny bit of movement in a scene near the end of "Mystery of the Lizard Men," but I may be the only one who will ever notice it.
• The title card with its distinctive musical sting has been restored to the commercial breaks after Acts I and III.

• Some Bandit barks and noises are way out of sync in "Pursuit of the Po-Ho."
• When Race pops out of the water in "Pursuit of the Po-Ho," the splash sound effect is still missing.
• A line of Dr. Zin's is slightly out-of-sync in "Double Danger."
• In "Monster in the Monastery," there's a puzzling bit of audio dropped into the middle of a scene. More information here.

• The "ignorant savages" line is no longer subtitled.

• A documentary about the production of the Blu-Ray set. What elements were used?
• The 4-minute promo that ran on ABC before the show's premiere in September 1964. It would be fantastic to see it in restored color.

• If you watch part of a disk then quit and turn off your player, you cannot resume from where you left off. Thankfully, with JQ, there are no commercials before the disk menu starts, and the menu lets you pick an episode very quickly.