Last month’s poll asked readers whether or not they would buy M*A*S*H on Blu-ray, should it ever be released in that format (and there has been absolutely no suggestion that it will). Of the more than 200 votes cast, the overwhelming majority (66%) said Yes. Only 27% said No while 7% weren’t sure. Here are the full results:
Would you buy M*A*S*H on Blu-ray?
Yes (66%, 146 Votes)
No (27%, 60 Votes)
I don’t know (7%, 16 Votes)Total Voters: 222
I am firmly in the No category. I do not own a Blu-ray player nor do I have any plans to purchase one (I’d also need to purchase a high definition television). But could M*A*S*H even come to Blu-ray? The only classic TV shows I can think of that have been given the Blu-ray treatment are The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Star Trek, all of which were shot using 35mm film (with the exception of a few episodes of The Twilight Zone, which were videotaped).
Presumably, if those shows could be released on Blu-ray, there shouldn’t really be any technical hurdles to releasing M*A*S*H on Blu-ray either, aside from the damage to the original master materials for “Our Finest Hour” and perhaps any scenes involving elaborate special effects (like Klinger’s big red bird with fuzzy pink feet scene from “The Trial of Henry Blake“).
I’m in the same boat as you Arj; I don’t have a Bluray player, I don’t need a Bluray player, I have all the seasons I want on DVD, why do I need to buy them all over again just to watch them in a different format, and when “hi-definition” is a myth anyway?
I voted “maybe”, because I’d be interested in re-buying the series -IF- they did proper restorations to the transfers to correct the flaw that mars the opening and closing shot of literally every episode of the DVDs. In the DVDs, any scene that involves a fade-in from black or a fade-out to black is noticeably MUCH darker and MUCH less colorful than all the other shots in the episode. They didn’t appear that way on CBS way back when…!
If there are any experts out there with true insights — not just speculating fans — I’d be curious to know why those shots with the fade in/out weren’t cleaned up and color corrected for the DVDs. Is it that big of a technical hurdle?
(And, yeah, they’d also need to do a proper re-creation of “Our Finest Hour”, which could -easily- be done by re-editing all the b/w shots with the appropriate color clips from the previous episodes … using any Columbia House tape of that episode for a reference!)
What is the difference? I have no idea what Blue Ray is.
Blu-ray is basically a high definition version of DVD, meaning movies and TV shows released on Blu-ray feature higher video resolution and better quality. You can read more about the format at Blu-ray.com’s FAQ. Here‘s a YouTube video that shows the difference between Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD (standard definition) and Blu-ray (high definition). Also, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, you can see a comparison between The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD and Blu-ray.
I would definitely buy it again, on the condition that the prints get a proper restoration(particularly the first two seasons, which look rough at times). It’s entirely possible that this work is being done, even if it would ultimately be for syndication or streaming purposes. A restoration of the series, due to the enormous amount of episodes, would likely take more than a year to do.
David – the reason you see that discoloration is because in those days fades were achieved optically, and any kind of optical effect automatically degrades the source image. That why you see on MASH and many many other series. Since it would require recutting the shows from scratch in order to fix completely, it’s pretty unlikely to happen.
BIg Daddy – HD is no myth. MASH was shot and mastered on 35mm film, which has 4,000 lines of resolution. DVD’s are capable of displaying 720 of those lines. Blu ray displays over 2,000. The difference is pronounced. If I were able to show you a comparison of the two, you’d see a difference very easily.
I hope we get a blu release along with a restoration(and possibly better special features). The series deserves it and needs to be preserved for posterity.
I’ve read somewhere that part of the problem with M*A*S*H being so iffy on DVD was because it suffered from its own popularity: because the episodes kept being printed and reprinted all the time for syndication, it kept distorting the original source material… you can kind of tell: compare the first three seasons on DVD to, say, an episode of HOGAN’S HEROES on DVD. Both shows were shot on 35mm film, yet Hogan on DVD looks much sharper and clearer than M*A*S*H does. Seasons One through Three are a lot nicer on DVD than on TV, but there’s some digitalized imperfections: pixelation, bylines, those sort of things. Four and Five are the worst, the episodes are rather dark and fuzzy. Afterwards, each ensuing season on DVD got better and better, especially starting around Season Eight, the picture had gotten much more sharp by then.
So, I guess like they say, M*A*S*H suffered from its own popularity, though when 35mm film is properly restored, the end results are amazing. Shows and movies shot on 35mm film back then look much better than today’s digital “hi-definition” where you’ve got pixelizing, a slight blur to the picture, and somehow cropping it in widescreen automatically makes it look better? I don’t think so.
I’d love to see M*A*S*H on Blu-Ray, but again, only after some extensive work on the first few seasons. The transfers looks terrible.
Big Daddy – Some shows are still shot on film today. Film has a much high pixel count than digital video of today, and will beat it for years to come. However, what you’re referring to is more than likely how the show is edited as opposed to the quality of the transfer. Today’s shows often go for a desaturated, low brightness “smooth and pasty” look that I find absolutely horrendous – it’s not the quality of the raw video itself. Also, nothing is cropped to widescreen anymore, everything is filmed 16:9. It started that way in the 90s, and now everything on TV is filmed in 16:9. 4:3 Full Screen is dead.
Well, I’d like it to come back then. There’s nothing special about 16:9… I know people claim you lose 25% of the picture in 4:3, but I find it to be the reverse… in fact, this article I found a long time ago illustrates it perfectly, albiet in a cynical fashion:
http://www.ninjapirate.com/article/aspect-ratio
Of course, with widescreen TVs, the zoom allows you to erase the black bars, which makes it much less of an annoyance. But still, being a producer myself, I want to make TV shows, but I want them to look old-fashioned like back when TV was good – 4:3, 35mm film, soft lighting… heck, even already, a lot of the video content I’ve produced for YouTube has the classic Charley Douglass laugh track on them.
I produce weekly scripted television programs for my school, and I feel the same way. People have always commented on my cinematography because even though we film using digital camcorders, I render the video at 24 frames per second which makes it look as if it’s shot on genuine film. I’m no fan of the current “dimly lit, washed out” look most shows today carry, either. I usually light my scenes pretty well, and I like to use vibrant colors that pop.
As for widescreen, every classroom in our school has a 4:3 Television – so, we film in 16:9 with the 4:3 TV safety frame on during shooting, so that it can still be viewed properly when cropped, but the 1080p HD copies on the website look just like a quality Blu-Ray. People don’t realize how technical filmmaking can be without even touching special effects!
Do you have some links you could share Dalton? I’d really like to see some of your work.
Sure!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFhDq85HjsQ
Our show was a parody of “The Office” – Here’s a few things to note about these YouTube edits, though:
These episodes were posted by someone in our studio that used what we call the “raw” cuts as opposed to the finished broadcast copies – as such, the video is rendered at 29.97fps which retains the “digital camcorder” look, I haven’t cherry picked the digital color selection/lighting of each scene, and the audio can be a tad messy at times. The master copies are high quality and look exactly as they were broadcasted, which I can easily send to you if you’re interested in seeing what the actual finish product looks like.
I’d like to see some of your work, as well!
These are great, Dalton! Yeah, I watched all the episodes that were posted, and they were all really great – very clever parodies, really funny situations too. They remind me a lot of my own school days: granted, we didn’t do any shows like this, but we did do like a newsprogram/feed that broadcasted throughout the school, and used a lot of the equipment I see in your studio (as soon as I saw those monitors with all the different transitions on them, that took me back), and it was all set to music, so it was like a radio station with visuals; I was one of the D.J.s, my shifts were a lot like Big Daddy O’Reilly, lol. But yes, I’d really like to see what the actual finished products look like.
As for my own work, you can see it all here: http://www.youtube.com/JosephScarbrough Not too impressive, it’s a lot like the way they did those old Ernest commercials with Jim Varney… (haven’t had the big break I’m looking for yet, I do have one offer, but it doesn’t allow for a lot of creative freedom). All pre-2011 entries were shot on video tape with insufficient editing, so they’re more bare-bone and amateur at best; 2011 – present entries are shot digitally (which, like video tape, is rendered at 30fps), 2011 entries still didn’t have very adequate editing tools, so they look pretty bad, but the 2012 entries are much better, and the 2013 entries are even better.
I just want to say I learned a lot reading these comments on here. Thanks, guys.
I voted yes too…the 1970 feature is already on Blu-Ray, so seeing the TV series on Blu-Ray is the next most logical step for MASH.
I’d love to see M*A*S*H — restored and remastered from the 35MM original camera negatives — on Blu-ray!
Some of the M*A*S*H DVDs look like they were directly ported over from masters used for VHS. But that was the early days of DVD.
Blu-ray is capable of rendering high image quality. Blu-ray is to DVD like DVD is to VHS. Or like the CD to the LP. The restorations from 35MM series such as “The Prisoner” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” are phenomenally great.
DVD was very good in its day; it really was. But once I experienced Blu-ray, there was no turning back.
Decent packaging wouldn’t hurt either. Look at how the British released the series Frasier on DVD — http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frasier-Complete-Seasons-1-11-DVD/dp/B002D3ZJD0/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1418763080&sr=1-1&keywords=frasier — fantastic — and that’s another series deserving to be on Blu-ray.
Compare that to the US packaging of M*A*S*H Martinis collection on DVD with abrasive slip/sleeves — http://www.amazon.com/Martinis-Medicine-Complete-Collection/dp/B000HT3P5Q/ref=sr_1_2/192-9840027-8974818?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1418763466&sr=1-2&keywords=m-a-s-h
M*A*S*H is a quality series that deserves respect and is way overdue for full restoration and remaster and release on Blu-ray.
DVDs are good enough for me….with that being said…I’ll say no…but hey..you never know…
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