MIAMI VICE & KNIGHT RIDER Series Blu-Rays Coming Sept.

[AndyDursin]

Hopefully these Complete Series sets will sell well. I picked up the AIRWOLF set for $40 from Deepdiscount a couple of weeks ago, so despite the $99 MSRP, they will be heavily discounted, quickly!

http://www.millcreekent.com/miami-vice- ... u-ray.html



http://www.millcreekent.com/knight-ride ... u-ray.html

[AndyDursin]

BN.com already offering 50% off of these basically -- $54 each with free ship:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-mia ... 3904632609

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-kni ... 3904632593

[Monterey Jack]

The Hoff coming in HDR...!

[Eric Paddon]

Not the kind of show I would have expected to see on 4K. I loved watching it as a teen (the peak season was Season 2 with Rebecca Holden, the two guest shots of Ann Turkel, "Goliath" and Hasselhoff's two hilarious turns as the evil "Garthe Knight") but it doesn't hold up well for me today.

Maybe this means Universal will do original Galactica in 4K at some point (a show that would benefit further from the process).

[Monterey Jack]

Everyone here knows the 80s NBC/Universal TV show I'm pining for the most in HD...



Only two seasons, and they couldn't even be bothered to release the second one on DVD.

[Eric Paddon]

Isn't part of the problem with doing 80s shows in HD the fact that by this time shows were being edited on video now? My understanding is that makes a remastering job trickier as opposed to older shows where all you're doing is remastering a 35mm film element.

[AndyDursin]

I'm surprised but also happy to see KNIGHT RIDER coming in 4K because hopefully it means others will follow. (I don't think KNIGHT RIDER is that amazing a show and never did, even though I watched it as a kid and had my KITT talking car!).

As far as the video editing goes -- it really depends on the show. However, many shows were shot on film and if so, they can easily be scanned at 2K or 4K. I'd imagine BATTLESTAR GALACTICA could easily be mastered in 4K, just as INCREDIBLE HULK could.

The bigger issue I believe isn't the editing (if the source elements were film those edits can be recreated) -- it's that some shows in the 80s and especially 90s were shot on film but the FX were done on tape and standard definition, and those elements aren't as easy to reproduce because they're not coming from film.

Even there, though, there are ways to make it happen.

Last week I bought LOIS & CLARK (the 90s Teri Hatcher-Dean Cain show) on streaming, which Warner remastered in 1080p. I was surprised how good it looked. Or at least 90%-95% of every episode is 1080p -- any time there's VFX, it goes into upscaled standard definition, and you can see the loss of definition there. Yet, is it workable? Sure. Because Warner wasn't going to pay the fortune Paramount did to rework the FX for STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION -- which they did, at apparently a sizable loss -- so what you get instead is a show where everything is high-def outside VFX shots which they opted to leave "as is". And the show looks great, better than it ever did in broadcast standard def, otherwise...on that show there was a lot more romance than there was Superman comic book action anyway (which these days gives it a refreshing vibe).