Roseanne on LAFF looks weird...

Has anyone seen the shows on INSP-TV?

 

I saw a few minutes of Roseanne on Laff last night because of this thread, and it looked like normal video tape to me.

 

Mama's Family isn't LAFF, it is on MEtv. Also, MEtv isn't converting to 16x9, it is something between 4x3 and 16x9 with smaller black bars on the sides. Not sure exactly when they started this, but it is pretty recent.

 

A lot of these new digital "oldies" channels are really doing a number on picture quality, digital compression, aspect ratio, etc. A new world of horrors!

 

Antenna TV seems to be doing it right (with no picture quality issues that I know of) plus they have a really great lineup of shows.

 

I have no problem with MEtv. Perry Mason and Gunsmoke look really good even zoomed a touch. I was watching Columbo late last night with a lot of outdoor scenes and the bikinis looked great. Oh, and the color was fine too.

 

MEtv is fine...LAFF is wretched/unwatchable.

 

I watch "Emergency!" (which is soon to be on Cozi as Universal/Comcast calls its children home) and the transfers are way better looking than the ones on DVD. For a while they were showing the zoomed ones on the sd channel, while the HD cropped the zoomed pictures! Lots of unintentional lobotomies on Randolph Mantooth

 

I have been watching the hour long Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone. Still it is the Gunsmoke they advertise as newly restored that really shines.

 

The reason Emergency! was remastered was because of the 2008 video vault fire at Universal, in which the original 35mm negatives were unaffected.

 

No pics of Roseanne please...I beg of you.

 

I just talked to a very nice woman at Carsey-Werner (the company that produced and distributes Roseanne) and let her know about the bad picture quality. She says she's going to talk to someone at LAFF about it to see what's going on.

Fingers crossed this will result in some better picture quality.

 

I hope MeTV doesn't take it off the air.

 

It's leaving at the end of the year.

 

I think Me-TV would love to keep it but their deal is expiring. I would imagine you'll see more of this- the old shows appearing on the streaming/digital channels of the companies that own them-they are probably becoming to valuable to lease out.

Interesting--I wish those versions would show up on DVD or better yet Blu Ray. I've watched them on Netflix and they are so much better than the DVD sets- the later ones, especially, are filled with scratchy 16mm syndication prints and look like garbage.

 

Wonder if this could have anything to do with this story from 2013:

Carsey-Werner to Remaster Six Veteran Sitcoms in HD | Broadcasting & Cable »

This article mentioned Carsey Werner remastering a number of shows "in HD", and I remember a discussion back around that time that it seemed odd, as a couple of the shows at least were shot on videotape rather than film.

So I wonder if this HD "remastering" project (undertaken after "Roseanne" had already been released on DVD by two different companies) might have resulted in this odd look.

 

No...

 

Their deal is expiring? With Emergency?

 

Yep which is why they are doubling up episodes--sorry for hijacking the thread--back to "ROSEANNE"!

 

That makes sense. It's a shame that we don't get Cozi TV anymore though.

 

Don't even get me started on the last few seasons and especially the last episode of Roseanne...

 

The Will and Grace episodes aired on WeTV look super-odd, stretched in a way that no aspect ratio adjustment can improve, plus incredibly poor picture quality even on HD.

 

If they're technically screwing with the shows, then it's bad. Period.

 

I don't even care if the shows are in HD or not (because it really doesn't matter with these old shows shot on tape anyway).

Just air them in their proper aspect ratio and without any video futzing please!

 

Compared to LAFF they look great. It is a sub channel and not HD, taking that into consideration, they look fine. Based on your other post you are obviously commenting on something you have never seen. Yes, I wish they would leave them alone but that isn't the case. I never said it was a good thing, just giving you facts.