Classic TV Programs (originally on film) converted to HDTV - Page 4

A couple of minutes is still a lot of program. Personally, I believe that any editing is wrong.

I prefer unedited to edited broadcasts. But given a choice of losing two minutes versus losing seven minutes, I'll take the former.

And it's not like editing programs to allow for more commercial time is anything recent -- I remember seeing our local independent station (KSTW Channel 11 in Tacoma) chopping the hell out of "Star Trek" and "Hogan's Heroes" reruns back in the mid to late seventies. If the commercial load was lower than usual and the butchering thus less severe, I counted that as a good thing...

I'm not sure where you heard that, but watching episodes back to back, I can clearly see the same few streets slightly redecorated being used again and again.

EPIX aired an episode of The Outer Limits (1963) during "Shatner Pa-loooza" in HD.

Season 2, Episode 2 - Cold Hands, Warm Heart. It looked pretty good.

I don't know if they had this single episode scanned in just for this event or if the entire series has been scanned in in HD. However, this is the first and only time I've seen this show surface in HD.

I read about them showing that episode and one other last year. Did they show it again recently? I'd like to try to catch it. Thanks.

Doug

EPIX aired an episode of The Outer Limits (1963) during "Shatner Pa-loooza" in HD.

Season 2, Episode 2 - Cold Hands, Warm Heart. It looked pretty good.

"Pretty good" and The Outer Limits are mutually exclusive.

Statements like this confuse me. Are you saying that, in your opinion, The Outer Limits was usually very good, or very bad? I really liked the original series, and purchased the DVD set of it. Someone really screwed that up though.

How did they screw it up? It looked fairly good (for DVD).

That said, I'd love to have both seasons in HD, based upon new masters, and w/ subtitles, and lossless audio (2.0 mono, please), and how about one or two documentaries about the series?

Doug

The episodes were not aired in the order that they were shot.

This is explained on the director's commentary on the DVDs. Look for episodes directed by Robert Altman or Ted Post. These two are fountains of information about television production in the 60's.

Double post - sorry!

At the risk of seeming a troll (I guess I am as far as The Outer Limits is concerned), I would say not necessarily very bad, but I am hard pressed to think of any episodes that are much better than a hair over mediocre. Even the makers of the show admitted they had no budget to begin with and by the second season they had even less (I think some of the last shows are among the best, or, at any rate, least worst).

I bought the set when I found it cheap some years back, figuring surely there were some shows that were good-ish other than The Galaxy Being, The Sixth Finger, The Man Who Was Never Born and The Zanti Misfits, but for the most they were what I sized them up to be when they were first broadcast: simple-minded science fiction with monsters (some, admittedly, pretty creepy-looking) and lots and lots of talk. And Robert Towne wrote for the show!


I agree that the transfer looked good. Lots of Conrad Hall photography with high contrast and super-duper wide-angle lenses. Very grainy, and about all high-def would get you would be sharper film grain.

I thought Demon with a Glass Hand was very good, for example.

They messed it up in the sense that 1) there were "chapter marks" during each of the episodes, but they were not where the commercials were, in in most cases, were not in any logical place at all. I did not mean the quality of the video was bad, just the person responsible for that aspect of the DVD making was completely out-to-lunch on that. And 2) mine at least were made on dual sided, dual layer disks! I really HATE that!

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I never used the chapter breaks, but that is definitely a flaw. Also, I agree w/ you about the double-sided discs. So far, I haven't ruined any, but it's always a worry.

Doug

It would depend on the channel. Networks like MeTV that are often on sub-channels wouldn't have enough bandwidth available to broadcast in HD, so they probably won't change anything. Networks without that restriction might upgrade.

If Image does the Dick Van Dyke show on BD anywhere as great as they handled Twilight Zone, we should be in for a treat.

Star Trek TNG is another. Since the conversion isn't yet finished, I doubt CBS will update the syndication versions until the entire series is complete, particularly since some film elements were stored out of place and they've had to go back and redo a few things as they've found material they thought was lost.

TV Land HD is coming to Time Warner Cable at the end of this month.

The comment about I love Lucy in hd... In one of my visits to cbs television city. Several yrs back the video library manager took us in some of the tape vaults.. One of the items I picked off the shelf was a can of I love Lucy 35 mm film.. I ask you it was there and they were going to do a hd transfer on it.. So it's definitely been thought of...

According to a industry magazine article about 8 or so years ago (it is in the AVS archive somewhere), I Love Lucy was digitally remastered to HD.

In the article was a side by side picture of the untouched frame and the same frame remastered in digital HD. The difference was stunning. Why it hasn't been released in HD is something that only CBS can answer since they own the rights as well as the actual film having bought it for $4 million from Desi and Lucy when Desilu bought RKO Pictures having come to realize after the fact that filmed scripted shows had value in something new called "syndication", something that Desi Arnaz unknowingly invented when he put his own money up to shot I Love Lucy with three 35mm film cameras, after CBS wanted a kinescope film version shot from video because it was cheaper to produce.

To add to that, Desi realized that shooting with 3 cameras wasn't exponentially more expensive than using one because there was a huge savings in the amount of time it took to shoot by not having to move the camera and lights. By using a fixed lighting grid and 3 cameras, they could shoot a scene much more quickly by getting all the angles in every take.

It also helped with audience reaction to the jokes, since they were fresher without the need to do them a half a dozen times. Plus, waiting to move equipment around makes your audience restless. Now days, they can use what is known as "sweetening" (adding fake laughter to fill out what the audience reax was) or simply use the reaction from another take. For example, "Home Improvement" often used audience reaction from rehearsals performed in front of an audience.

One thing to note, Desi got away with a lot of what he did due to a lack of understanding about TV show financing. Shows would amortize the initial costs (like sets used throughout the series) over the course of the season. Desi calculated those costs into the pilot, meaning all the episodes that came after appeared far cheaper by comparison. By not having those initial costs partially included in each episode, it made the extra expenses of production appear less expensive than they really were.

I wouldn't call that "lack of understanding." I would call it genus!

Well, now it is since he was able to buy back the rights to his own product for far less than he sold it for...

...but, if you require everything to be paid for up front in the pilot with current costs, you won't get your series made based on the high cost of the pilot. It would likely be assumed the pilot cost is reflective of the cost of the rest of the season. As a result, I don't think that tactic would work well today.

I was making a joke. I know no one makes TV series like anymore. No one would invest.

Best of I Love Lucy Seasons 1 - 5 are available via iTunes in HD 1080p. Best of Seasons 1 and 2 are available via Amazon in HD and are free with Prime sub.

Oh, I know you were joking...of course, it should be pointed out that no one ever made shows quite like Desilu did.

Heck, when you have Lucy saying, about Star Trek, something along the lines of "I don't understand any of it, but I think people will like it", you know you're not talking about a typical executive.

Now days, if a studio chiefs don't get it, they assume no one will.

"Can we put some sort of explainer in there - then add a cartoon cat that likes pizza with anchovies?"
"Actually, sir, it might be funnier if the cat didn't like anchovies..."
"Brilliant! Greenlight it!"