MASH and HD (1 Viewer)

[darkrock17]

Great! This looks so much better and will give the series a new half a century at last shelf life.

Let's face it, those shows look crap and dated in 4/3, going wide breathes new life into these.

If you want to keep watching them squared, the old masters are still out there.

I disagree, not every show from the 60's and 70's looks good in widescreen, I remember a few years ago when Cozi TV did that to Charlie's Angels, it was a total mess.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I disagree, not every show from the 60's and 70's looks good in widescreen, I remember a few years ago when Cozi TV did that to Charlie's Angels, it was a total mess.

They generally don't look good.

Even in this case, this was a good looking scene from one episode out of, what, 251? And I'm guessing the clock was a separate element that could be recomposited over the footage in an appropriate way.

But odds are they're not all going to have extra information on the sides, and we'll get into the usual bad looking tilt and scan cropjob. We've probably all seen what Fox did to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that was from the turn of the century when shows knew widescreen was on the horizon.

 

[darkrock17]

They generally don't look good.

Even in this case, this was a good looking scene from one episode out of, what, 251? And I'm guessing the clock was a separate element that could be recomposited over the footage in an appropriate way.

But odds are they're not all going to have extra information on the sides, and we'll get into the usual bad looking tilt and scan cropjob.

I think MASH and some other filmed series of the 70's could and would look good in widescreen. I would however have to see more examples though, but it could work.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I think MASH and some other filmed series of the 70's could and would look good in widescreen. I would however have to see more examples though, but it could work.

I generally hate the idea of it, but I'm willing to soften my stance if a home version is available with the OAR. I'm always fine with the "well, the proper version is out there in the best format available if you want to pay for it, let the masses have their cropjobs that fill their screens" option.

 

[darkrock17]

They could other both full and widescreen options, like did on DVD's back in the day. Win, win for everyone then.

 

[DVDvision]

It depends on how well the work is done. On the A-Team, you often have too much headroom, I don't know why. I guess they adjust the format and do the extractions straight, without correction, due to the huge number of hours to convert.
I have the first Wonder Woman series on widescreen and it looks so much better. As do the Columbo's.
Myself when I watch those show in the early DVDs masters, I can see the cropping left and right. It becomes bothersome after a while, so to give them space to breathe... is welcome.

 

[Bryan^H]

They could other both full and widescreen options, like did on DVD's back in the day. Win, win for everyone then.

Universal did that for the original Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately the widescreen is so bad it isn't worth watching, while the 4x3 looks great.

 

[darkrock17]

Not everyone going to get it right, the studios themselves won't pay to get the image just right, that's why we have companies like Shout Factory that will spend the time needed to make sure the picture looks as good as it did when it premiered how many years go.

 

[Mark-P]

"Colorizing and Cropping Citizen Kane would give that musty old "classic" new life! Let's face it, It looks like crap and dated in 4x3 B&W. The old, square, unrestored B&W version would still be out there if you wanted to watch it. Ted Turner had the right idea!"

It's amazing how a statement like that would automatically get someone rightly mocked, but doing the same thing to TV shows is a good idea.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and we've devolved to the point that if someone suggested cropping, colorizing, and digitally manipulating classic films now, people would go for it instead of fighting to preserve them they way they were meant to be seen. I can't tell anymore.

People often don’t understand why filmed TV shows have more real estate on the camera negative to work with than movies do. It’s because of the safety zones to compensate for overscan. There was an “action safe” zone and a “title safe” zone. As a result, half a century later you can crop the top and bottom to the same amount that would have been lost to overscan anyway and open up the sides to make a widescreen image that still shows everything you would have seen on an old tube tv. Movies can’t do this, in fact lots of old movies looked horribly cropped on tv back in the day because they had no safety margins for overscan. That’s why windowboxing became a thing for movie credit sequences.

 

[darkrock17]

People often don’t understand why filmed TV shows have more real estate on the camera negative to work with than movies do. It’s because of the safety zones to compensate for overscan. There was an “action safe” zone and a “title safe” zone. As a result, half a century later you can crop the top and bottom to the same amount that would have been lost to overscan anyway and open up the sides to make a widescreen image that still shows everything you would have seen on an old tube tv. Movies can’t do this, in fact lots of old movies looked horribly cropped on tv back in the day because they had no safety margins for overscan. That’s why windowboxing became a thing for movie credit sequences.

Very interesting to hear about that, I wonder what more we possibly aren't seeing on other classic series such as The Addams Family, Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, Green Acres, Batman and even The Twilight Zone.

 

[TravisR]

Very interesting to hear about that, I wonder what more we possibly aren't seeing on other classic series such as The Addams Family, Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, Green Acres, Batman and even The Twilight Zone.

Slightly more on the edges of the frame that you aren't meant to see and you get to lose information on the top and bottom that was meant to be seen. It's a lose/lose situation.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Universal did that for the original Battlestar Galactica.

Except, of course, for the USA release, you have to pay extra for the deluxe boxset (including both versions) to get the proper 4:3 ones..

 

[Stephen Bowie]

Wow. This is appalling.

 

[DVDvision]

We covered a lot of the technicals in the TV shows and TV movies gone wide thread.

You have to understand the model then was that all TV movies, and TV shows shot in 35mm, had the potential to be shown in theaters in foreign countries. So every TV movie and TV show shot in 35mm used the same model, that the image you would see on your TV was an extraction from a much larger image (a zoombox if you want), and that the film versions were extractions using the extra captured image left and right to make for 1.85.

So technically, doing them now in widescreen, is just taking the other option rather than the truncated for tube TV option.

The problem you may encounter from time to time is that those scans aren't done well. That's due to the insane amount of hours you have to scan if you want to get a TV show on rerun, or on Blu-ray, in widescreen.

So many times, the conversion might not be good, but that happens with film transfers too, botch jobs have been here since the dawn of video.

Another problem you have, like Studio Canal did with The Avengers, is that they do the 4/3 version by showing the whole 35mm frame which is also totally wrong. It may look 4/3 but you're seeing parts of the sets and headroom that wasn't destined to be shown, ever, on TV or in cinemas.

 

[TravisR]

We covered a lot of the technicals in the TV shows and TV movies gone wide thread.

You have to understand the model then was that all TV movies, and TV shows shot in 35mm, had the potential to be shown in theaters in foreign countries. So every TV movie and TV show shot in 35mm used the same model, that the image you would see on your TV was an extraction from a much larger image (a zoombox if you want), and that the film versions were extractions using the extra captured image left and right to make for 1.85.

Yes, there's extra information on the sides of the frames but it wasn't meant to be seen because it was composed for a 4 x 3 aspect ratio. That AR shouldn't be altered so people can fill their TVs.

 

[Bryan^H]

So technically, doing them now in widescreen, is just taking the other option rather than the truncated for tube TV option.

A 4x3 image is perfectly fine for any modern widescreen TV. There is no reason to go widescreen at all. No matter how well it looks, how crisp, how beautiful...it is wrong. It is being altered for convenience for the same crowd that complained about "letterboxed" movies on their 4x3 CRT televisions.

No matter how much you argue the point, if information is lost, it is wrong.

 

[DVDvision]

Actually no. You can clearly see for most shows the compositions and set-ups (of the actors in the frame) are for widescreen and not 1.37:1. All they did was make sure the essential information was centered.

1.37:1 fiction framing died in 1953 except for some arty films.

And nope it's not wrong to lose a little bit of information, it's essential to give all those shows further shelf-life. What you lose top and bottom is minimal, what you gain left and right is a more cinematic look and viewing life. Those shows were intended to be adaptable. They just continue to live their lives on the small screen.

If you like the original presentation, it's still out there anyway on DVD.

 

[Bryan^H]

And nope it's not wrong to lose a little bit of information, it's essential to give all those shows further shelf-life.

It is absolutely wrong, and a 4x3 image is still great in high definition.
No need for widescreen at all.
If you like widescreen, that is fine. But preservation of the original aspect ratio is being compromised for the people that think like you.
It is a convenience measure.

 

[TravisR]

Actually no. You can clearly see for most shows the compositions and set-ups (of the actors in the frame) are for widescreen and not 1.37:1. All they did was make sure the essential information was centered.

Yes because they knew the 4 x 3 AR would, except for extraordinarily rare exceptions, be how the show would be seen and so they didn't concern themselves with anything other than the 4 x 3 frame. Shows from less than 20 years ago that are 16 x 9 on DVD or Blu-ray will have the occasional crew member or piece of equipment in the 16 x 9 frame. If shows from that time period- when HD was actually on the horizon- were only concerned with the 4 x 3 frame, there's no way that they composed for a wider frame 40 or 50 years ago.

 

[Bryan^H]

Yes because they knew the 4 x 3 AR would, except for extraordinarily rare exceptions, be how the show would be seen and so they didn't concern themselves with anything other than the 4 x 3 frame.

Bingo!