52 minutes ago, 1974mdp said:

ITA. My teenage self had a huge crush on CN and was so sad when he was replaced.

Also, Tubi now has the early seasons to watch on demand as well!

Makes me happy to see the William J. Bell years becoming more easily accessible, which shows what a complete creative shïtter the soap has become in comparison.

1 hour ago, Anooj said:

I’ve made it to February 1999.

The first half of 1998 was very mixed in quality, held afloat mainly by the Rick/Amber/CJ material. But ever since May or June, when Ridge finally picked between his two women, the show’s been good. I love Amber’s pregancy storyline, and the Rick/Amber/Kimberly love triangle. Sheila’s psycho breakdown was entertaining, though it’s sad to see her gone from the show. I also greatly enjoy the Brooke’s Bedroom storyline, and the one about the return of Macy’s lost father. 

The only real weakness has been the Pierce/Taylor hypnosis storyline. First it consisted of weeks of interminable and repetitious scenes of the two arguing back and forth about the ethics of the program (it didn’t help that the show failed to establish how exactly Pierce’s technique differs from regular hypnosis). Then it went campy with Pierce’s assistant secretly hypnotizing Taylor into falling love with Pierce, which had some fun moments, but all of it got dropped in an unsatisfactory manner.

Also not a fan of how little we’ve seen Stephanie/James pair after Sheila left. It seems Bell was only slightly more invested in them than Stephanie/Jack, a pairing that mysteriously disappeared back in ’94. The sense of tragedy over Mary’s disappearance with Sheila is also nowhere to be seen, even though it really should be a part of their relationship dynamic.

Overall, I’d rate 1994-98 as such:

1994: 5 out of 10 - Easily the worst year among the 1987-2002 group, barely saved by the generally high quality of the January-February period, some fun moments with Sheila, and the Thorne/Macy Rotterdam storyline. But I hated Taylor devirginizing James due to an earthquake, the Prince Omar saga, the sidelining of Stephanie’s feuds with Brooke and Sheila in favor of the statutory rape storyline with Dylan, Connor becoming the show’s public toilet, the loss of momentum in Sheila’s storyline due to Brown’s maternity leave, and many other things.

1995: 6,5 out of 10 - There’s much garbage here too (Sheila’s disappointing exit storyline, Thorne being schooled in prison life by ”Slash”, the interminably long reveal of Taylor being alive to the wider cast of characters, the overall lack of storyline coherence in the 2nd half), but the best parts were genuinely entertaining: Anthony Armando’s villainy, Rick not wanting to be raised by Ridge, Maggie/Dylan, and Eric’s fake proposal to Sally.

1996: 7/10 or 7,5/10 - An extremely entertaining year, just lacking in overall macro-level storyline cohesion (e.g. the muddled nature of whether Stephanie/Eric are now a couple; Maggie gets framed for Stephanie’s poisoning, but the police inexplicably stop following this lead; Stephanie inexplicably not blaming Brooke for tampering with Bridget’s paternity test past a certain point, despite the letter’s true origin never coming out; Ridge’s sudden pivot to Taylor after Brooke kisses Grant). But if one tuned into a random section of the year, it seems a high quality example of how a soap should be, and is almost never boring.

1997: 7,5/10 - A far more cohesive year than 96, with a near-great first half, but somewhat less entertaining than ’96 overall (the Taylor/Thorne storyline, while interesting at first, eventually grows a bit grating and repetitious, as did the story where Sheila is living with Maggie and James while pregnant).

1998: 7/10 - If we went by just the 2nd half, it would rank above ’96-’97. But the low quality of the first half drags the overall rating down.

1999 is the best year since 1993! Can't wait to hear your thoughts. 

Those 360p versions they're uploading for Season 18 "FULL HD" are getting really annoying - worse than their 480p counterparts the channel uploaded years ago with the show clapper and episode timing at the bottom of the screen. Has anyone found the episodes are hard to snag in English now that they are offering lots of languages done with AI? Solutions? Thanks.

52 minutes ago, BoldKara said:

Those 360p versions they're uploading for Season 18 "FULL HD" are getting really annoying - worse than their 480p counterparts the channel uploaded years ago with the show clapper and episode timing at the bottom of the screen. Has anyone found the episodes are hard to snag in English now that they are offering lots of languages done with AI? Solutions? Thanks.

Whoa, I didn't realize they were offering it with audio in different languages! I've seen that done with subtitles, never audio. Would be more interesting to have one of the foreign dubbed episodes translated back into English to see how it comes out. I just tried with jdownloader and it grabbed the English version of episode 4607.

Edited June 24Jun 24 by BoldRestless

17 minutes ago, BoldRestless said:

Whoa, I didn't realize they were offering it with audio in different languages! I've seen that done with subtitles, never audio. Would be more interesting to have one of the foreign dubbed episodes translated back into English to see how it comes out. I just tried with jdownloader and it grabbed the English version of episode 4607.

Thanks for the jdownloader tip! It worked! Yes it's a recent thing they announced, quite a few audio languages generated in AI it seems. I can only imagine how some of the languages translated back into English might come out! ha ha

Thank God the Stephanie Brooke confrontation was not uploaded in 360. I was scared of that.

Shout Tv have better quality than the DVD-rips we already have. Or youtube.

Comparison.

DVD-version

SHOUT-TV

11 hours ago, Maxim said:

Shout Tv have better quality than the DVD-rips we already have. Or youtube.

Comparison.

DVD-version

SHOUT-TV

That's an impressive difference. It's a pity no one seems to know how to snag the episodes from there! Hopefully Shout sticks around so people can watch at their leisure anytime in the future.

7 hours ago, BoldKara said:

That's an impressive difference. It's a pity no one seems to know how to snag the episodes from there! Hopefully Shout sticks around so people can watch at their leisure anytime in the future.

They must have done some post-processing on the old DVD video transfer... or just did a fresh new transfer, because the quality is really stunning. 

Edited June 26Jun 26 by Maxim

screen recorder works for me on Shout tv. Im regording some episodes but with adds and not split into different episodes. will get to you latter to share the result.

6 minutes ago, Marquise said:

screen recorder works for me on Shout tv. Im regording some episodes but with adds and not split into different episodes. will get to you latter to share the result.

Do we have any idea if they plan to add Seasons 2-3... in Shout-TV.  

i have no idea. I will upload to the Vault what i have recorded, but It is from episode 192 missing the begining till the end of 196 with adds. I personaly don't like the idea to keep on recording with so many disturbtion. 

Edited June 28Jun 28 by Marquise

Does any good angel hapen to have the Videoland episodes from september 1999 on...?

Edited June 28Jun 28 by Marquise

Is Tubi the same quality as Shout TV?

13 hours ago, Marquise said:

i have no idea. I will upload to the Vault what i have recorded, but It is from episode 192 missing the begining till the end of 196 with adds. I personaly don't like the idea to keep on recording with so many disturbtion. 

Agreed. A screen recording is never going to be as good as a "backend rip", plus then including commercials to me seems to be (a very nice gesture) a waste of the screen recorder's time and hard drive space when we already have better versions without ads.

The secret is someone being able to work out a backend rip!