all in the family seasons 7-9 (1 Viewer)

[Joe Karlosi]

I did notice the slightly unusual look to Season 7 (which is not the case with Season 8) right away, and at first it threw me a bit. I got past it very quickly and enjoyed Season 7 very much, and I'd never realized before how good that particular season was. So it worked wonders for me. I'm past it and I don't care --- SHOUT FACTORY is aces in my book. I have a couple of friends who are big fans of AITF and they still don't know what I'm talking about when I ask them if they spotted any "faux film look" to Season 7. They could not even spot anything 'off' when they watched their copies!

 

[Jack P]

When the encoding issue was brought up, a number of us rightly asked if something was going to be done about it, because it represented a simple case of failing to do the job right in the same way they botched other releases with cut episodes. What I then saw was how Shout and many of their supporters went into a circle the wagons mode of trying to have both sides of the issue by saying that while there was an encoding problem, this was still somehow the "best" the show ever looked and that those of us who had a right to be annoyed by the botch job were a bunch of oddball eccentrics. Since such a standard hasn't been used for those who *to this day* won't hesitate to make a comment about music replacement or cut episodes (and rightly IMO) my concern is that such a blase attitude is going to be an open invitation for similar screw-up jobs to happen again in the future on other videotaped source material projects and AITF S7 is sadly not an isolated incident when it comes to that. BCI did the same thing with the "Password" set, the same problem is also evident on Sony's S6 of "The Jeffersons" and my biggest nightmare would be seeing a piece of rare videotaped material come to DVD only to suffer the same fate because it seems there are a lot of people in the business so prejudiced in favor of a "film" look that if they see the material looking more like film than tape they'll somehow convince themselves it's an improvement when it isn't and not catch an encoding problem of this magnitude which Shout didn't do until after it was too late.

We're all sensistive on the need for TV to be released uncut and with music intact for the sake of preserving the original content. Videotape source material needs to have the same consideration IMO.

 

[JohnMor]

I'm sorry, but the encoding problem was BARELY noticeable (on at most two episodes; the two-parter with Janis Paige). Overall, the video was much improved over prior sets. And it did not change the content of the episodes, so it's hardly comparable to music replacement or syndication cuts. As it has been corrected with this set, it's time to move on.

 

[Jack P]

Here we go again.

How in the world can there be a "problem" which alters the look of a program from the original (and which was present on *every* episode I watched in this set complete with the herky-jerky movement common to every kinescoped program I have ever seen) that then has to be corrected for the next release, yet the set somehow managed to look "much improved" over those sets where it was done *right*? If this was an "improvement" then why even bother to acknowledge the encoding was wrong and just let's see every release from now on done this way?

That's my definition of trying to have both sides of an issue. And I'm sorry but for me, this kind of issue is just as important as music replacement or syndication cuts because it stems from the same general area, which is alteration of the original source material. The more I read people saying a botched encoding job results in a better look picture the more I wonder how long its going to be where this kind of lax oversight in transferring material to DVD is going to become the norm. That to me is what has me revisiting this issue because I know that economic realities made the ship sale for good on S7, but if the lesson to be taken from that is that what happened was no big deal, that *isn't* a healthy attitude for the future of TV on DVD that comes from this kind of source material IMO.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Some of the earlier Sony volumes of AITF were really lacking in quality. I just recall them bothering me far more than the encoding thing with Season 7 did.

I can't recall all of them now, but one of the seasons (the one with the episode EVERYBODY TELLS THE TRUTH, about what happened when the refrigerator broke) had episodes where the video was really blurred and looked like a dupe not even worthy of syndicated quality.

I recall episodes where sometimes the top of heads were literally cut off when people were standing. Some of them were zoomed in too much, resulting in the framing problem.

One of the seasons had eps where the banister spokes would actually bend, as the camera panned.

I just found the SHOUT Seasons 7 and 8 to be far more crisp and sharp. Yes, there was that encoding thing with Season 7, but I soon didn't even notice and - as I said earlier - I have two friends who love the show and watched their DVDs and think I'm imagining it, as they did not notice at all!

Great job, SHOUT! Like I said, if you ever go back and re-issue the first 6 seasons the way you've presented Season 8, you've got my money and I'll re-buy.

 

[Jack P]

I have no problems with the earlier seasons other than Sony's colossal nerve in putting the unaired pilot in an expensive bonus set instead of on S1 But if S7 gets reissued with correct encoding I will gladly toss this one out in a microsecond.

 

[JohnMor]

All I can say is there was NO herky-jerky movement on my setup AT ALL. The first 2 episodes did have a (very) slight slower effect, but the remaining episodes did not. The clairity and sharpness were MUCH improved over the Sony sets. At no time on my set-up did any episode look anything like a kinescope. Now, I'm not sure if that has to do with my particular blu-ray player or not, but that is the way it appeared on my setup. I'm sorry if that's not the way you experienced it. Maybe they'll reissue S7 someday. I hope you contact Shout! about it as vociferously as you post about it here. That would be a step.

 

[MatthewA]

Although I haven't bought season 7 because of the issues with it, I don't think the clarity had anything to do with the accidental de-interlacing. Perhaps they started using improved equipment this season?

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Originally Posted by JohnMor
All I can say is there was NO herky-jerky movement on my setup AT ALL. The first 2 episodes did have a (very) slight slower effect, but the remaining episodes did not. The clairity and sharpness were MUCH improved over the Sony sets. At no time on my set-up did any episode look anything like a kinescope. .

Same here. There was something "off" but it didn't last very long.

I just went recently watched the entire run of all the shows and I wish I would have taken notes on which episodes looked so awful on the Sony sets so I could point them out to Jack P. If you go back and watch them I'm sure you'll take note of lost of transfer problems. By comparison, Seasons 7 and 8 are MUCH sharper.

 

[Jack P]

S1-6 and S8 looked like videotape. S7 didn't. That was the bottom line with me and is all that matters. Perhaps S7 would have looked magnificent compared to earlier seasons if the encoding had been done correctly but the instant I see that fake fuzzy gloss over the whole screen and the lack of sharp realism that I associate with videotape, that's when all else no longer matters from my standpoint.

I remain deeply concerned about the fact that this was something the "professionals" weren't capable of detecting until long after the fact, because it leaves me wondering if we have enough "professionals" who understand what videotape source material is supposed to look like. I've seen DVD review critics who don't often seem to know that because they'll complain about how a videotape program looks in comparison with a film program and think that if had a "film" look it would somehow be an improvement and I've even seen professional documentary filmmakers like Ken Burns take videotape material and turn it on *purpose* into a film look; his series "Baseball" even had a "tape to film" credit!. That is the reason why when I see these kinds of screw-ups happen on videotape source material released on DVD more than once, and then see a collective yawn on the seriousness of this kind of thing, it annoys me a good deal because I think this does qualify as a matter just as important as the other things people will still raise their voices about for years after the fact. I frankly suspect if those who think as I do hadn't pointed this out, we'd be seeing a S8 done the same lousy way and people would be calling that an improvement!

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Jack P
I've seen DVD review critics who don't often seem to know that because they'll complain about how a videotape program looks in comparison with a film program and think that if had a "film" look it would somehow be an improvement and I've even seen professional documentary filmmakers like Ken Burns take videotape material and turn it on *purpose* into a film look; his series "Baseball" even had a "tape to film" credit!.

??? I'm not following this chain of thinking at all. Ken Burns' Baseball doc WAS done on film. It was his preferred medium. Therefore any videotaped material they wanted to use had to be transferred to film. It wasn't to give it a look unlike video. That's why it had that credit. It has zero to do with transfers and even less to do with an accidental encoding error.

It seems very strange to me to say a documentary filmmaker HAD to use videotape for his whole project, just because some of the material was originally on video. Would we expect a documentary film maker who wants to use video not use any material that was originally on film? You can't have a documentary be part videotape and part film. The final work is either one or the other.

 

[Jack P]

There is other source material in the documentary that left the videotape material intact (clips of the 1975 ALCS and final games of the 1967 season) but then the extended spotlight turned the telecast videotape material from the 1975 and 1986 World Series into kinescoped versions. So in short, the argument that he *had* to do it that way is not valid. He decided quick glimpse material could be left alone but stuff that was more important had to have a "film" look but never mind that he was degrading the source material in the process. What Burns did there is what I'm talking about when I think there are "professionals" who are convinced that if something can look like film, they'll think it constitutes an "improvement" which is why I think there was an incredibly lax mentality when it came to not spotting the problem on S7 of the AITF release.

And I have only seen about several hundred documentaries over the years that are a mixture depending on the source material being used for the footage so the notion that it has to be all one or the other isn't valid either.

 

[David Rain]

Don't expect any of the previous sets to be improved upon or re-released. We're lucky the show has gotten this far considering that, I assume, the sets are not selling that great. I'm hoping for a complete series set at some point but I would not expect anything to be done differently with that, either. I wish this entire series could get the remastering that it so rightly deserves. Is that even possible ?

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Originally Posted by Jack P
S1-6 and S8 looked like videotape. S7 didn't. That was the bottom line with me and is all that matters. Perhaps S7 would have looked magnificent compared to earlier seasons if the encoding had been done correctly but the instant I see that fake fuzzy gloss over the whole screen and the lack of sharp realism that I associate with videotape, that's when all else no longer matters from my standpoint.

Well, to each his own.
But I'm surprised you would think that as long as it's videotape, "that's all that matters". Because the quality of the transfers (or whatever word is appropriate here) for Seasons 1-6 were sometimes REALLY "off", even though it was tape. I had old syndicated broadcasts from TV on VHS which looked better on many of these. The episodes still need to be sharp, and framed correctly without being "zoomed" or having info cut at the top of the screen.

Would you at least say that the quality on Season 8 beats 1-6?

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Originally Posted by David Rain
Don't expect any of the previous sets to be improved upon or re-released. We're lucky the show has gotten this far considering that, I assume, the sets are not selling that great. I'm hoping for a complete series set at some point but I would not expect anything to be done differently with that, either. I wish this entire series could get the remastering that it so rightly deserves. Is that even possible ?

I certainly wouldn't expect it or get my hopes up, but I'm just saying it would be nice and I'd re-buy them.

I can't take the "these are not selling" argument yet again, though, because SHOUT still manages to get things done, regardless that they may not sell as much as FRIENDS did.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Jack P
There is other source material in the documentary that left the videotape material intact (clips of the 1975 ALCS and final games of the 1967 season) but then the extended spotlight turned the telecast videotape material from the 1975 and 1986 World Series into kinescoped versions.

And I have only seen about several hundred documentaries over the years that are a mixture depending on the source material being used for the footage so the notion that it has to be all one or the other isn't valid either.

Really? Please explain how you splice videotape and film together for exhibition?

 

[Jack P]

If the documentary is produced for *television* that's how you do it. Even that which you use on film (including interviews) is then edited onto videotape for broadcast which means tape source material can remain tape.

When I used the term "filmmaker" to describe Burns, I am not talking about someone who makes films for theatrical showing.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Jack P
If the documentary is produced for *television* that's how you do it. Even that which you use on film (including interviews) is then edited onto videotape for broadcast which means tape source material can remain tape.

When I used the term "filmmaker" to describe Burns, I am not talking about someone who makes films for theatrical showing.

? Sigh. We're obviously not communicating here.

So, moving on. At any rate I'm really looking forward to picking up S8 and spinning it this weekend.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Anyone interested in Season 9? Anyone know if SHOUT is planning it?

 

[Jack P]

? Sigh. We're obviously not communicating here.

So, moving on. At any rate I'm really looking forward to picking up S8 and spinning it this weekend.

No, I guess not, because frankly I don't see how such an elementary point about how it is NOT necessary to turn videotape source material into a "film" look but people do it anyway seems so hard to grasp in some quarters. But in the process this is revealing more to me just how widespread this problem has the potential to be with videotaped source material in general for future TV on DVD releases.