CBS Mod Program (1 Viewer)

[Worth]

I'm pretty sure those wires were visible on 35mm prints at the theater when it was released. I never noticed the wires growing up watching it on small tvs from broadcast and then VHS. But later in the early 90's I got it on Laserdisc and watched it on a 50" TV and that was when I 1st noticed the wires. The original 35mm prints were definitely sharper than a Laserdisc at 425 lines of resolution.

Prints were sharper, but film also had grain, dust, scratches and gate weave, all combining to help hide that sort of thing. The stability of digital, even at lower resolutions, makes things like wires stand out all the more.

 

[MartinP.]

When they screened a new, at the time, 4K restoration print of The Wizard of Oz at AMPAS years ago, they talked about doing that restoration and then being able to clearly see the wires in various places and occasionally see things holding up greenery in the backgrounds you'd never noticed before. They made the decision to erase them.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Chiming in to this...
Love, American Style (seasons 2-5)
Love Story (1973 TV series)
The Renegades
Ryan's Four
Mr. Smith

~Ben

 

[Astairefan]

There are several shows I would like to see through their MOD blu program:
-Beverly Hillbillies/ Petticoat Junction (I don't care whether they start over on blu or just start off right where they are currently, although I would settle for both finished on dvd alone)
-Touched By An Angel
-the rest of I Love Lucy
-Gunsmoke/ Bonanza (same as Hillbillies/ Junction)
-7th Heaven
-some of CBS's recent/ ongoing scripted shows (the NCIS's, Elementary, etc)
I don't know on a few of these shows whether videotape was used at all (which would probably cancel out all hope), but a lot of these, and a few more of their sitcoms would be shows I would buy/ upgrade if made available.

 

[MatthewA]

I'm surprised there isn't at least a season 1 Blu-ray of Cheers since they've had HD masters since the turn of this century.

 

[Rick Thompson]

Prints were sharper, but film also had grain, dust, scratches and gate weave, all combining to help hide that sort of thing. The stability of digital, even at lower resolutions, makes things like wires stand out all the more.

That sort of thing is also why the special effects for the Star Trek: The Next Generation had to be done over for blu-ray. The originals were good enough for NTSC resolution, which hid many sins, but HD showed every single flaw.

 

[John*Wells]

Mayberry RFD S 1-3

 

[BobO'Link]

I'm surprised there isn't at least a season 1 Blu-ray of Cheers since they've had HD masters since the turn of this century.

The sad reality is DVD still outsells BR by a ~2:1 margin and most people feel DVD is "good enough" for TV fare. Many studios have abandoned BR releases for new series as they just don't sell as well, even those well suited to the medium. That makes them less likely to take a chance on classic TV series.

 

[MatthewA]

Don't blame me. I buy as many as I want that I can afford. But I just can't buy everything I want when it's a new release. Many of the shows that have had the "poor sales" excuses have been shows I bought, so how am I supposed to feel about being left hanging high and dry for shows we have been waiting to see finished for by now a decade or more?

 

[BobO'Link]

That sort of thing is also why the special effects for the Star Trek: The Next Generation had to be done over for blu-ray. The originals were good enough for NTSC resolution, which hid many sins, but HD showed every single flaw.

ST:TNG was more about it having been composited and posted on video tape at 640x480 for standard US transmission. There was no edited film version available for HD without fully re-cutting and recompositing everything, which is what was done. That, along with TNG on BR reportedly not selling as well as CBS expected, is also what's keeping DS9 and Voyager off BR, although, DS9 also has significant digital effects, starting with S4, that would need to be recreated for HD and Voyager suffers from source files for digital effects having been lost/discarded meaning a full rebuild. Essentially, both those would be more complex and expensive to bring to HD than was TOS or TNG, in spite of effects and sound updating done for TOS.

Here's a good article on the issues (although it needs editing):
http://www.treknews.net/2017/02/02/why-ds9-voyager-not-on-blu-ray-hd/

 

[mayberry66guy]

Mayberry RFD S 1-3

While The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, USMC are properties of CBS/Paramount, Mayberry RFD belongs to Warner--and I have kept hoping Warner would release Season 2 and 3 thru Warner Archives.

 

[Astairefan]

The sad reality is DVD still outsells BR by a ~2:1 margin and most people feel DVD is "good enough" for TV fare. Many studios have abandoned BR releases for new series as they just don't sell as well, even those well suited to the medium. That makes them less likely to take a chance on classic TV series.

I think there is more to why Cheers hasn't been started on blu. I think the fact that it is a SITCOM is why it isn't available, as it seems like there are very few sitcoms, past or present, being released on Blu-ray (which is why I, personally, hope that MAYBE the CBS MOD program can work around that).

 

[Richard V]

Example of "too good": the 1953 War of the Worlds on DVD. The strings holding up the alien ships show, taking me right out of film. No way did Byron Haskins or George Pal intend for that to be. We can only hope that the blu-ray (please, Paramount: license the damn thing!) will hide them via digital magic.

We've had some "spirited" discussions about this film in other threads regarding digitally removing the strings or preserving them. Passionate people on both sides of the argument.

 

[MatthewA]

I think there is more to why Cheers hasn't been started on blu. I think the fact that it is a SITCOM is why it isn't available, as it seems like there are very few sitcoms, past or present, being released on Blu-ray (which is why I, personally, hope that MAYBE the CBS MOD program can work around that).

With that show there's also the music rights issue. The DVDs were a mess in that respect IIRC. This is what really bothers me about CBS/Paramount: they either give you uncut shows or remastered shows but not both. It's like they cut back on one to pay for the other. I doubt this will change in Sumner Redstone's lifetime.

 

[MartinP.]

I doubt this will change in Sumner Redstone's lifetime.

Unlike his face.

 

[Guy Foulard]

Such scenes have always been "painfully obvious" to me in most productions - no matter how or where I've seen them and no matter what the quality of transfer. One of the reasons I've never been able to get into most Hitchcock films is his tendency to use rear-screen intercut with location, frequently in a single scene. It *always* takes me out of the film. It's bad enough that some TV shows did this for many outdoor scenes but at least those tended to be for the entire scene. That a director with Hitchcock's pedigree does this in the same scene in a major film just makes me shake my head in wonder.

Things get "too good" for me when wires holding props/planes/etc. become obvious. Frequently it was felt that by the time a film was transferred and then projected, such "tells" would not be visible. It's the same with many TV shows. They counted on the lower quality of the medium to hide how things were done.

This stuff never really bothers me. There's so much artifice in older movies and television that after a lifetime of seeing it, I just take it as part of the suspension of disbelief you have to bring to things from the studio-bound era. It's also fascinating to track the changes from location shooting to rear projection to backlot filming to indoor sets (sometimes all within the same sequence!). As far as strings go, that stuff brings me back to my youthful fascination with special effects artistry. And digitally removing strings from a Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds marionette isn't going to make it seem more 'real' to me!

What I find much more disheartening is the vast amount of CGI and digital manipulation in *current* films and TV. I feel like we've come full circle back to 1940s artificiality, but without as much creativity and artistry.

 

[MartinP.]

What I find much more disheartening is the vast amount of CGI and digital manipulation in *current* films and TV. I feel like we've come full circle back to 1940s artificiality, but without as much creativity and artistry.

Yes, exactly. Because they can, they do. They used to be called "special" effects. Not so special any more. Almost any show seems monochromatic rather than real. DO they shoot things in natural color any more? Movies all seem shot in blue and grays or yellow and browns.

When I saw a screening of ROCKY at AMPAS's Best Picture screening series years ago, the director talked about the scene where Rocky is alone in the arena where he's going to be having the big fight and he mentions his unease and that the giant poster/banner in the arena with his likeness...that they didn't even give him the right colored trunks. The director said the art department had painted that incorrectly and his trunks were supposed to be red (or blue?), but there wasn't time to fix it, so they added that line into the dialogue about his concern. It gave the situation a note of realism. He mused that if it had been made at that time we saw the screening, they would've just used a computer to change the color and that moment would have been lost.

It's my opinion they manipulate so much in pursuit of some kind of perfection, not realizing that imperfection can seem so much more real here and there.

 

[Astairefan]

With that show there's also the music rights issue. The DVDs were a mess in that respect IIRC. This is what really bothers me about CBS/Paramount: they either give you uncut shows or remastered shows but not both. It's like they cut back on one to pay for the other. I doubt this will change in Sumner Redstone's lifetime.

I don't disagree with you that there is more going on with Cheers. The main point I was trying to get across is the fact that sitcoms in general seem to be VERY poor sellers on blu (at least, as far as I can tell by their representation on the format), and that point alone is indicative of why that show (and so many others) aren't even being represented, especially since CBS's retail releases for the format seem to be more expensive, thus why we seem to get so many one-and-done releases on the format from them, even on their current shows.

 

[MatthewA]

They might sell better at a lower price.

 

[Stephen PI]

"WHIRLYBIRDS" please.