This reminds me of the fiasco with "Kung Fu" on DVD some years back.
Confidentially... Perhaps this is sacrilegious, but when I watch 4:3 shows, I use the "zoom" function on my HDTV to crop the top and bottom of the picture and fill the screen.
Kor
TOS BluRay set....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
This reminds me of the fiasco with "Kung Fu" on DVD some years back.
Confidentially... Perhaps this is sacrilegious, but when I watch 4:3 shows, I use the "zoom" function on my HDTV to crop the top and bottom of the picture and fill the screen.
Kor
You're forgetting one thing, the tapes from 1982 would've been in linear mono that would've been more muddy sounding and closer to the original broadcast audio, due to relying on the speed of the tape, which even in VHS SP/Betamax B1 was slower than the consumer audio cassette, whereas tapes from about 1984-1985 and onwards would've had Hi-Fi Mono that would've given you sound quality on par with about CD-quality audio.
And for MANT! in the 60's, 70's and early-80's a number of stations were still using the video chain method for playingback pre-recorded content. So the stations would've been projecting the film onto a screen and then recording the projected image with another camera for airing. Sure stations would've been transitioning to tape, but at the same time money would've also been an issue. Just look at the 6 Twilight Zone episodes that were shot on videotape back in 1960. Stations that were owned-and-operated by CBS at the time had 2-inch playback equipment, but other affiliates needed 16mm transfers of the videotape masters because they couldn't afford the cost of the 2-inch video deck. And even once 3/4-inch VTR's came on the market in 1971, not a lot of stations would've had $20,000 (about $100,000 in 2016 dollars, to compare a modern HDCAM SR VTR is about $106,000 USD) to spend on multiple decks at once. Plus smaller markets would not switch over til the 80's when Betacam came out. Even now there are still smaller markets, like CTV Kitchener, that are still broadcasting in SD and are probably still using analog VTR's, such as Betacam SP, and digital VTR's such as Digital Betacam/Betcam SX/DVCPRO50.
So, what are you saying in context of whether or not the tapes are close to the original broadcast sound mix? They honestly don't sound much different than the 1985 VHS tapes, as far as sound effects and music. What I mean is, the latter season engine rumble isn't heard in the prints on my 1982 or 1985 VHS tapes (and laserdiscs) of Mirror Mirror, The Tholian Web and Journey to Babel. However, the "original mono broadcast track" on the blu-rays does have it.
That is my understanding of the current crop of TOS Blurays that are out now. I was wondering if these blurays that will be released in June are just repackages of the current ones, or if these were different. I am sure it is likely the former, but was wondering if anyone had heard anything.
Yeah, I've read on a few different DVD/Blu-Ray web sites that these are just repackages of the season releases.
In comparison to Betamax, linear audio was the one section where VHS was superior, as VHS travelled at a faster speed than Beta (but if you have a VHS tape recorded in the SLP/EP mode, you can hear it more clearly, as VHS at SLP is moving at 1/3 the speed of SP, so if you flip between Hi-Fi and Linear at SLP the change is very noticeable, as you go from CD range to something sounding just a little bit better than a phone call), but it's dynamic sound range was limited, but when you compared it to VHS's Hi-Fi, you were only dealing with a difference of about 150hz, whereas with Betamax the difference is closer to 500hz. Plus with Beta most pre-recorded tapes were recorded in BII, which was even slower than BI. I've got two tapes of some Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1940's and 50's and the 1980's Spider-Man cartoon that are presented in Hi-Fi Mono on the Beta tape in BII. When I switch between the Hi-Fi and Linear tracks, I can hear a very clear difference. The Hi-Fi sounds extremely clear and has a wider dynamic range than the linear audio which is very muffled and very confined, and sounds like someone has placed their hands over the speakers.
So basically what I'm saying is that since 1985 the way the audio for video is recorded and played back has changed that with older mono audio tracks you are probably hearing more of what the producers heard in the studio, than you would've heard at home on TV. Also a lot of technologies no longer use just one audio track, but two, and double mono audio tracks so that there is sound on both tracks.
This brings up an interesting point -- I've been assuming all this time that if someone was able to find fan made audio recordings of the original NBC broadcasts (the kind often mentioned in fan lore) we'd have a good representation of the sound during the original broadcast. But what you're saying is that this sound might not accurately represent what the producers heard on the dubbing stage.
In fact, I swear I've seen a Bob Justman memo complaining that the sound he heard on NBC was a poor representation of what he heard on the dubbing stage, now that I'm thinking about this. Let me see if I can find that.
I'm reminded of a historical note with the 60's group The Beach Boys in one of their two-for CD's, and how their engineer in the 60's would plug a cheap speaker into their sound board after a mix on a single had been finalized so that they could reproduce how the song would sound over the radio in someone's car in the 60's with just one speaker. This was done because the Beach Boys and their engineer knew that the dynamic range of the songs would sound different over the radio than they would coming off of a vinyl record.
Unless you lived in the L.A. or New York City markets, STAR TREK sounded absolutely miserable on its original NBC broadcasts. Back then the networks originated their programming in New York and L.A., and the audio was sent to other network stations over dedicated phone lines - but still, PHONE LINES. I can recall watching network TV and finding some of the audio barely intelligible as all of the high and low frequencies were chopped off.
Because I lived in the Philadelphia area at the time, there were times that we could pull in the analog TV signals from New York, and the sound of the audio was so much better. In fact, that's what made the initial reruns in syndication appealing - we could now hear the audio direct from a film dub instead of coming through phone lines.
No, I don't long for those days at all and am quite happy with the current state of the series on Blu-ray - and even DVD.
Harry
Because I lived in the Philadelphia area at the time, there were times that we could pull in the analog TV signals from New York, and the sound of the audio was so much better. In fact, that's what made the initial reruns in syndication appealing - we could now hear the audio direct from a film dub instead of coming through phone lines.
No, I don't long for those days at all and am quite happy with the current state of the series on Blu-ray - and even DVD.
Harry
In Trek Nation, they stretch the Original Series footage to widescreen. I'll admit I didn't notice it at first, but when I did, I can't say I liked the way it looked.
P.S. Also, for some reason I'll never understand, the makers of the documentary decided to use the non-restored, black-and-white version of The Cage instead of the restored version even though it was obvious they had access to the restored versions of the rest of the epsiodes.
This reminds me of the fiasco with "Kung Fu" on DVD some years back.
Confidentially... Perhaps this is sacrilegious, but when I watch 4:3 shows, I use the "zoom" function on my HDTV to crop the top and bottom of the picture and fill the screen.
Kor
While you are obviously free to do whatever you want and I am in no way trying to attack your personal preferences, I've never understood people's aversions to the black bars on the top and bottom or the sides of the screen. Honestly, I forget that they are there most of the time. Also, I get a weird kick out of seeing the different aspect ratios through history. I cannot tell you how much I hate shows or online videos that fill in the black spaces of non-widescreen footage (usually news or phone footage or the like) with the zoomed in image of the sides of the video. Just let the black bars be there. People will be okay.
So to be clear about the Blu-rays and (most likely) the upcoming Blu-rays, you can watch both the original special effects or the new special effects? Are both seamlessly cut into the episodes? I don't want to watch the episodes with either versions of the effects and notice an obvious jolt in the video as the Blu-Ray inserts the appropriate footage. Also, are the original special effects restored (ie, cleaned up and the like)?
Nope. Wasn't possible because the original elements no longer exist. That is the whole reason for the CGI effects.
I got used to the black bars above and below on widescreen movies on my old style tv but the side black bars annoy da hell outta me! 
JB
JB
I never zoom when watching wide aspect-ratio video. I just have a thing against pillar-boxing. I like to take advantage of the width of the TV.
And with 4:3 shows on DVD and most on Netflix, for some reason my TV is incapable of pillar-boxing. It automatically stretches the picture horizontally. So I have to either watch it that way, with everything looking short and stout, or use "zoom" so that the picture is chopped off at the top and bottom but not stretched.
Kor
I really like seeing an old TV show in pillar-box format, and that's good because I have a lot of old shows on DVD. You're actually seeing more of the image this way than you ever saw on a CRT set, with its rounded edges. 4:3 shows look great on DVD.
What I do not like: wide-screen movies that came out on DVD before DVDs were optimized for wide-screen TVs. These movies are not only letter-boxed, but pillar-boxed as well, so the image is like a little island of film surrounded by blacknes on all sides.
What I do not like: wide-screen movies that came out on DVD before DVDs were optimized for wide-screen TVs. These movies are not only letter-boxed, but pillar-boxed as well, so the image is like a little island of film surrounded by blacknes on all sides.
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