DVD release question: picture quality

[bmasters9]

I have a question about the picture quality on the DVD releases of "Hardcastle and McCormick":

Do you think that the picture quality that the releases have is the way it was when "Hardcastle" was originally on ABC, or has it been remastered from older prints (kind of like what CBS/Paramount did with "Hawaii Five-O")?

[owlcroft]

I think everybody agrees that the video quality of first and second seasons is better than third and that we really don't know why that is. They even put an alert on the front of third seasons about "anomalies" being included from the source material, which might mean they didn't have originals to duplicate by that time. Why that would be, I have no idea. It could be another loss by the Cannell library (they had stuff stolen from a truck when moving to a new location), or it could have been the way the originals were stored, or a number of other problems.

I'm still just glad we got a commercial release at all, considering we'd been told it would never happen until some unnamed person had died. Every time I watch an episode, I thank VEI.

[bmasters9]

Aug 6, 2010 13:16:28 GMT -5 owlcroft said:

I think everybody agrees that the video quality of first and second seasons is better than third and that we really don't know why that is. They even put an alert on the front of third seasons about "anomalies" being included from the source material, which might mean they didn't have originals to duplicate by that time. Why that would be, I have no idea. It could be another loss by the Cannell library (they had stuff stolen from a truck when moving to a new location), or it could have been the way the originals were stored, or a number of other problems.

I'm still just glad we got a commercial release at all, considering we'd been told it would never happen until some unnamed person had died. Every time I watch an episode, I thank VEI.

Good points! I appreciate what VEI did too, in that we have the series on DVD, which I thought might never happen. I purchased all three releases, and enjoyed the series all the way through. And what you said about what happened to SJC's library when they moved to a new location-- that's very interesting. I was wondering why there were disclaimers on the final release about possible anomalies, but now I know. But above all, we are very grateful to VEI of Canada for coming through with the DVD releases of what, I strongly believe, is one of my most-favorite series of the past.