Flipping through the channels I just came across "Cheers" on a local channel - I have to say it is a beautiful transfer - widescreen, framed nicely for 16:9. Oh, the beauty of film!
Here we go again! Note that this is a show completely shot in 4-perf 35mm negative, framed for 4x3, and reframed and blown-up for 16x9! They did use a slightly bigger negative area during the 2K scans, so it's not a gross compromise, but many of the shots do still cut the actors off at the knees (necessary for 16x9). I agree, the guys at Sunset Post in Glendale who mastered this show did a terrific job on it. It's tremendously sharper and has better color than the show ever did in the 1980s. There was also a 4x3 version done at the same time, but I tend to doubt this will ever be seen outside of home video.
I always remember the show looking dark and kinda washed out looking in its original run and earlier syndication. Do you know why? I think around the time the show was issued on DVD, the television re-runs looked dramatically different, and a lot better overall.
Yeah, a couple of reasons: ABC did the original print transfers at their Prospect & Talmadge facility, and their equipment was crap, old 1970s RCA film chains. About halfway through the run (maybe 1986-1987), they started transferring from negative on Rank scanners and editing the show on tape, and it started looking better. I believe all those transfers were done by Modern Videofilm. That's also where we did all the syndication work on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. The last couple of seasons of these shows, around 1983-1984, were also transferred to tape for ABC because Paramount decided they'd rather give ABC a tape than a print. I did the last season of Laverne & Shirley myself, and have some funny memories of co-producer Tony Marshall coming in to supervise. This was the season where Shirley "mysteriously disappeared." BTW, I believe most of the Cheers episodes were mastered in HD by Craig Buddrick, who does very good work.
I think, perhaps incorrectly, that WGN runs the remastered 4x3 version. Not positive if it's actually the remastered version or not, but it does seem to me to look quite a bit sharper than the old syndication package usually did.
At the station where I work we air Cheers in 4x3 every morning. I would say that they are definitely the non-remastered versions.
I downloaded Cheers from the iTunes store, in 1080p HD, and I can confirm these are in 4x3 aspect ratio. Looks fantastic!
MeTV shows this in 4:3. Looks very good on the remastered episodes. (Believe it or not, we have an oddball station here -- KVOS in Bellingham, WA -- that actually runs MeTV on its MAIN channel, not a subcarrier (or whatever the correct terminology is).
Been watching a few episodes shown on UK tv recently and it does look a great deal better than how I remember seeing it previously. Much sharper and more natural colours. However, I have found them easier to watch if I switch the TV to 4:3 mode. I think we are getting a stretch mode version.
i am finding a lot of annoying AR difference between UK Freeview channels when it comes to old TV US shows. e.g. Cagney and Lacey/Rockford Files on BBC2 recently was automatically in 16.9 stretch mode.so i hit the 4.3 option. yet other channels sometimes such as CBS Action [Hawaii Five-O] display correctly on automatic mode. you'd expect the BBC would be the ones getting it right..........not wrong.
No idea. There's all kinds of stuff that's been transferred, mastered, and then vaulted. I have no idea why the studios and distributors sit on shows like this. Seinfeld has been done on HD for about 8-9 years now, and as far as I know that's not out in Blu-ray. I have no idea why Sony is dragging their heels on this, unless they're just too distracted with North Korean terrorists to worry about Seinfeld at the moment.
