More SFM owned shows coming to BOD! (1 Viewer)

[LouA]

Warner Brothers is a gigantic company, which SFM is not. Its comparing apples and oranges. We'll see when the Real McCoys hits the market but I would expect they will be DVDRs like most BOD releases have been.

The reason I mention this is because WBA found out that it's easier with more popular titles like Dr. Kildare, Sugarfoot , The Lieutenant, etc to have a small pressing made of replicated discs already assembled and ready to ship. Shout Factory uses a similar strategy with items like the later seasons of Mr .Ed and Ironsides. And these are very small pressings . If the show is "sort of popular" it makes more sense to have them on hand rather than to burn and assemble each set as orders come in. And remember that the MOD release of season 1 of Highway Patrol didn't seem to go that well, with TGG releasing subsequent seasons as retail items . I don't have any idea who will handle this for SFM. So it crossed my mind that we might possibly get pressed discs on the Real McCoys and MRFD. I do have a preference for replicated discs , but that hasn't stopped me from buying over a hundred MOD movies and TV series , especially from WBA. I'm be buying what SFM offers regardless of the format . I'm happy we'll be finally getting these shows.

 

[DeWilson]

There is some work done with public domain material from time to time. It's the exception to the rule, but take much of season 1 of Petticoat Junction for an example. CBS still remastered it rather than just pulling the still attractive looking 16MM transfers for those particular episodes that were released by MPI in conjunction with the estate of Paul Henning. That's despite public domain DVD's of Petticoat Junction being available anywhere that sells public domain DVD's years before and which continue to this day (Just saw a set at a local convenience store of all places).

The remastering allowed them to finally put the episodes back in syndication - and they are on their 3rd or 4th Cycle on MeTV.

 

[jimmyjet]

this is also why it is not a big issue with the first three seasons of mrfd.

those first 3 seasons is just a small part of what an entire series release could be.

 

[LeoA]

The remastering allowed them to finally put the episodes back in syndication - and they are on their 3rd or 4th Cycle on MeTV.

The remastering happened back in 2008. MeTV just started airing these two seasons at the start of this year and is on its 2nd run through right now (The Curse of Chester W. Farnsworth, one of my favorite episodes, was on two or three days ago).

Furthermore, the CBS Syndication Bible states that seasons 1 & 2 are not currently available for syndication, "check with sales to confirm status". I suspect that DVD sales rather than syndication was the primary reasoning behind it since they don't seem too concerned with trying to syndicate these two seasons (And MeTV still shows the old transfers for season 3 to boot).

Either way, the point was that these 21 episodes are an example of public domain status not preventing remastering. It's a significant problem, but there's plenty of examples that show it's not insurmountable since such remastering for profit does happen from time to time.

In fact with the lag time and the timeframe for when most of your sales happen, I'm not altogether certain it's as big of an issue as we think for tv shows.

 

[jimmyjet]

In fact with the lag time and the timeframe for when most of your sales happen, I'm not altogether certain it's as big of an issue as we think for tv shows.

hi leo,

wasnt exactly sure what you meant ?

but if i understood correctly, were you saying that most of the original sales would have already taken place, by the time a second guy has the time to copy it, distribute it, and sell it ?

 

[LeoA]

Exactly, barring something foolish like a much too high MSRP at release, something on DVD will experience the bulk of its sales during its first several weeks on the marketplace, beating the public domain distributors to the punch.

I suspect that public domain status is much more an issue for a popular classic film like His Girl Friday, which was mentioned in the other thread as an example.

 

[jimmyjet]

that certainly sounds reasonable

 

[jetskier]

MRFD will be fine to upgrade the S6 released by Questar but that's a secondary priority for me compared to Joey.

Just wanted to correct and clarify that Questar was responsible for releasing Season 5 of MRFD, not Season 6.

Season 6 was released by a company called S'More Entertainment and they gave us the complete, UNedited versions that are around 25:35 - 25:50 in length including the beginning & ending credits and did, overall, an admirable job of it.

Even though Questar is now deservedly out-of-business, I sure didn't want them to get ANY credit for Season 6. S'More Entertainment deserves that credit, but unfortunately, they replied to an e-mail of mine and said they would not be releasing any more MRFD because it didn't sell well for them.

Season 5 was butchered by Questar and had several problems, mainly that they used the edited, syndicated versions - yeeeech!

BTW, I noticed that the SFM Entertainment logo was also on the S'More Entertainment release so S'More must have gotten their complete, UNedited copies from SFM.....meaning that if SFM has Season 6 in complete form, they should have at least Seasons 3 - 11 unedited. If SFM is going to start releasing MRFD themselves, that's good news for us.

Now, the SFM versions are still not from the master films because while they are acceptable, they aren't even close to the quality of, let's say, some of the Paramount releases - Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, Sgt. Bilko (S.1 & Best Of), etc.

I would hope that SFM would get the master films from whoever has them, before they start remastering, but I doubt that they even care enough to spend the effort.

 

[Neil Brock]

When SFM did the butchered 16x9 transfers of seasons 4-11 for Cozi, they also did a set of uncut transfers in the correct 4x3 aspect ratio, which hopefully will be what they use for the BOD DVDs.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Looking forward to Seasons 4-11 on DVD.
I will also be looking forward to seeing Season 4 for the first time since the LA markets on ran Seasons 5-9 in the late 70's when I saw this show.
I will upgrade season 5 when it comes out but I am satisfied with my Season 6. Those were unedited and nice transfers.
Any idea when the first release (season 4) will be available to order?

 

[DeWilson]

When SFM did the butchered 16x9 transfers of seasons 4-11 for Cozi, they also did a set of uncut transfers in the correct 4x3 aspect ratio, which hopefully will be what they use for the BOD DVDs.

If they had only saved the uncut transfers they made to make the edited "The Real McCoys".

 

[jetskier]

When SFM did the butchered 16x9 transfers of seasons 4-11 for Cozi, they also did a set of uncut transfers in the correct 4x3 aspect ratio, which hopefully will be what they use for the BOD DVDs.

That would be excellent, but I'm still wondering who has the actual original film masters? Usually it's the company that owns the network that originally broadcast the series - CBS ?, ABC ? Even though I'll probably buy the ones SFM might release in the future (as long as they are complete and unedited), I still claim they are not nearly as good of quality as the Paramount transfers of Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, etc.

I don't know why they couldn't be as good if SFM would digitally master from the original film masters. Yes, I know, some film masters weren't stored as properly as others, but the SFM transfers just look like old 3rd generation transfers, that could be improved greatly if SFM would go back to the original film masters and re-transfer.

Here's hoping they will.

 

[DeWilson]

That would be excellent, but I'm still wondering who has the actual original film masters? Usually it's the company that owns the network that originally broadcast the series - CBS ?, ABC ?

No, The elements would be owned by the production company and/or the rights holder.

So Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard produced and owned MRFD/TDTS, ABC then CBS networks air the series, most likely the usual one run, and then select episodes chosen for summer reruns. The sponsors of course were involved in the equation. Before syndication, NBC ran daytime rebroadcasts in the early 1960's.

The syndication rights were with Weiss Global Enterprises, and now SFM but the master elements, and ownership of the show were still under control of whatever business entity Danny and Sheldon set up to handle the series rights. But clearly SFM has access to the best available elements.

 

[John Karras]

I don't know why they couldn't be as good if SFM would digitally master from the original film masters.
Here's hoping they will.

Mainly because (as mentioned elsewhere) SFM is not a mammoth corporation with money to burn. The cost of remastering from the original 35mm elements for a show with this volume of episodes is cost prohibitive given the limited sales potential. Not to mention the cost of clearing all the popular songs that Danny sang during the run of the show, and the fact that even the incidental music on the show needs to be cleared since it was all composed by Earle Hagen who's estate (in this case) owns the publishing rights. SFM is only the authorized distributor for MRFD, they are not the ultimate rights owner and will have to work with elements that are readily available.

 

[jimmyjet]

are earle and jean related ?

 

[John Karras]

No relation.

 

[Neil Brock]

If they had only saved the uncut transfers they made to make the edited "The Real McCoys".

They didn't make uncut transfers of Real McCoys. Those were done for the sale to The Nashville Network in the late 90s. At the time, there was no DVD TV market and no reason to think that 25+ minute running time episodes would have any use. In order to get the full versions, they would have to go back and re-transfer the 35mm prints and that ain't happening any time soon.

 

[DeWilson]

They didn't make uncut transfers of Real McCoys. Those were done for the sale to The Nashville Network in the late 90s. At the time, there was no DVD TV market and no reason to think that 25+ minute running time episodes would have any use. In order to get the full versions, they would have to go back and re-transfer the 35mm prints and that ain't happening any time soon.

What I was getting at is that they would have had transferred the uncut episodes to work with to make those cut-down syndication prints.

 

[LouA]

Did anyone buy season five? ( Or any of the MOD Seasons ?) If so, are they complete episodes? DVD-r ? Anywhere else to buy it other than Amazon.com?

 

[kentmccord]

They didn't make uncut transfers of Real McCoys. Those were done for the sale to The Nashville Network in the late 90s. At the time, there was no DVD TV market and no reason to think that 25+ minute running time episodes would have any use. In order to get the full versions, they would have to go back and re-transfer the 35mm prints and that ain't happening any time soon.

yeah, what company would want to preserve their assets for the future and wanna be ignorant and stupid like studios wer ein past