All In The Family streaming on Pluto TV (1 Viewer)

[nobajoba]

All In The Family is currently streaming on Pluto TV Classic Families channel. Upon direct comparison to the dvds, which I already have, I've noticed the streaming episodes are far superior in visual quality. Much more defined and clear picture and colors. Can anyone explain why/how this is? Going through AITF threads about the dvds poor quality, much has been said about the master tapes at CBS having been deteriorated over the years and nothing can be done to improve it. So how can Pluto TV be making such an improvement?

Any suggestions?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Just better compression of the source.

DVD uses the MPEG2 codec which isn’t particularly efficient when it comes to space or quality. It’s particularly poor at handling NTSC video sources, which is what All In The Family is.

In the roughly two decades since those DVDs were released, there have been many advancements in codecs used to compress content, and the codec being used by Pluto for streaming - most likely MP4 - is simply better at retaining all of the detail on the master tapes than MPEG2 was. In addition to that, because it’s streaming rather than being put on a disc, there isn’t a space limitation for file size that there would have been for the discs. This means that not only can they get better compression with the newer MP4 codec but they can also be allowed to take up more space for episode.

The combination of those two things can lead to the same master source looking much better in a newer stream vs an older DVD.

 

[nobajoba]

Thank you for such an informative and helpful answer. I really appreciate it. Helps me learn about technology more. It's too bad, for the purpose of ownership, that the quality can't improved for physical media. But streaming is awesome.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It looks like there's some post-processing going on there, too, when it comes to the PlutoTV versions. The contrast has been boosted, some artificial sharpening has been applied, and there are some weird de-interlacing artifacts.

That doesn't introduce any new picture information, but it can give the illusion of greater clarity when you get a certain distance from the TV screen.

 

[Garysb]

The DVD Complete Series set is now $32.99 at Amazon.

See on Amazon