Season 6............

This post has been edited by MacGyverOnline on 22 August 2020 - 09:01 PM

Season 7......

This post has been edited by martincr on 21 August 2020 - 05:28 AM

Season 3....although compressed resulting in poor image quality

Later series opening credits.....

Again, it beggars the question. If sites around the world are, and have been streaming the entire series of Macgyver in HD, then why are the popular pay sites like Prime and CBS Access still streaming that awful SD version? Given what a customer pays for Prime, you would expect HD versions of a given show if HD versions have been released.

But....i was told the same thing happened with other 80s shows on Prime, like the Dukes of Hazzard (well.....umm) and the CHIPS tv series. Both were streaming in HD.....then were pulled and resorted back to the SD versions only.

Awesome! I'm so looking forward to getting the full HD set!

Yes, I can't make any sense of it at all. It's just ridiculous.

Even crazier is that CBS has put the HD version of Star Trek: TNG on Netflix (which looks amazing BTW)... why not put all the HD version online instead of just 1 or 2?!

wow, that looks pretty sharp...

When channel hopping last week, I noticed that Season 3 of Baywatch was shown in HD quality on a Swiss channel. The German channel Nitro still aired the "old" version of MacGyver half a year ago... they're going to repeat it soon; will tune in to check if it's still the same version or not.

Image sounds good (but in the other screenshots the colors are pretty unreal and far from original color palette) but....the fonts are not the original from 1986-1991,but they kept the first season fonts!! Not good .

Hope the blu ray will be different!!

The Bluray is made using the original film stock and color settings as recorded by the photography team on the episodes so they will be the correct palette. We're just used to seeing them so clear and bright.

The season 1 Bluray looks amazing, so I expect nothing less from the other seasons.

The Bluray is made using the original film stock and color settings as recorded by the photography team on the episodes so they will be the correct palette. We're just used to seeing them so clear and bright.

The season 1 Bluray looks amazing, so I expect nothing less from the other seasons.

Hi!
Thank you for the explanation!

Yes,
the feeling of Blu Ray image is great and I hope it come out very soon!!

Hope Jano keep us updated!

There are reports that the CBS Streaming Service All Access will be rebranded as "Paramount +" next year. Maybe they will make the HD version available then?

https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/cbs-all-acc...ount-next-year/

I think that re-brand is a good idea. For me at least, the Paramount brand just seems more prestigious than does CBS.

But I just really need these episodes in HD to be stream-able. The pictures in this thread are amazing.

If they're really trying to make the name-change notable, I could see them wanting to be able to say something at the time like: "Multiple classic series now available in HD."

I hope the HD version will be released soon, and also the bluray, we are still in 2020 ...

Still no update about the German Blu-ray release? ;( any info about the aspect ratio of the later seasons? In the CBS promo remaster they were showing the later seasons shot comparison in 16:9. Will this be the master they use for the Blu-ray? Season one already look amazing, imagine an episode like Ghost ship in 16:9! This would be fantastic!

No. This will not be happening before spring or summer of next year at the earliest. They're keeping it as the last of the current three CBS shows (at the moment, the Charmed box is about to be finished) in order to have enough time to get additional bonus materials and hopefully get approval to recreate the original logo (which might or might not happen as CBS considers the one that was quickly put together for the old DVD covers and was seen on the season one BDs the new official one, so this will need some convincing...).

Anyway, no, there is no widescreen version. What was shown in the first teaser for the HD remaster was a cropped version of the full picture. That's not how the show was intended to be presented and wouldn't work since way too often faces and other things filling the full frame would be weirdly cut off.

For some shows, it's possible to open the frame and then have more image information on the sides, but for MacGyver, what you could see on the season 1 BD is already almost the full frame of the negative. It already had slightly more image information than the old tv master on all four sides.

To make clear what I'm talking about:

Here's an old comparison I did in 2018 between the old tv version of "Ghost Ship" and the fake "widescreen" version as seen in the first HD remaster teaser:



As you can see, there was about as much material added on the sides as was cut off at the top and bottom. With the typical 4:3 framing used in the 80s and 90s, this would just look odd when used for anything other than these few landscape shots. You'd have faces and other things that were supposed to be seen cut off at the top and bottom, while only non-essential new image areas would be added on the sides. (And I'm not even sure if the roughly 4:3 transfer of the season one BD didn't already show the full image of the film negative.)

For comparison, here's a scene from Gilmore Girls, which was originally framed with a smaller part of the film negative than MacGyver, which made it possible to open the sides for LOTS of new image information, while only a relatively small part is missing at the top and bottom (which is because most seasons were already filmed for a simultaneous 4:3 and HDTV airing):



Also for comparison, here's the old SD tv master put on top of the current BD master:



As you can see, as mentioned above, this has already quite a bit more image information on three sides (even though it's obviously a bit less than in that Ghost Ship "fake widescreen" sample).

Thanks, Jano!

Really appreciate the updates here.!

Thanks for this detailed reply Jano!!!! It's a little disappointing unfortunately. Fake 16:9, uncertain release date and even the uncertainty of having the original logo back for the opening is baffling. I guess fans will have to do the work. And let's not talk about why the HD version is nowhere to be stream yet in North America.

Looking into the Ghost ship screen grab, it look like there is a lot more image on the side that was cut, so it may be a fake 16:9, but maybe each shot could be adjust to fit today's television format and still look good. They did that for several tv series, selling 4:3 version on dvd and 16:9 for broadcasting. When using original film, much more can be done and it will look like it was film yesterday.

I did some tryouts after my post from last night. I guess it would be possible to open/crop the image to an okayish looking 16:9 version if done manually for each shot, but honestly, it would still have a wrong feeling to it.

Here are some screenshots of the season 1 BD, but cut in a way that emulates what it would look like in 1,78:1. (The black bars on the sides would be the area with additional new image information in addition to the already slightly opened current image.)

I guess it ultimately comes down to personal taste for everyone, but if you're like me, you'll see that a lot of these shots would just feel wrong, or at least somewhat off, since they were not composed for this format. The missing parts at the top and bottom will often result in a feeling of being zoomed in too much, especially for the faces, and are just not what a director of photography would compose them like.

Don't get me wrong, if it was possible to just open the sides and have more image without losing big parts and losing the original intention of the photographer, I'd be all here for it (for instance, I like the widescreen version of Gilmore Girls much better than the 4:3 version, but as mentioned, that was already shot with both formats in mind). But in cases like here where it's not really possible, I'll much rather have the pillarboxed 4:3 version that shows the show exactly the way it was intended instead of making too many shots feel off just to fill the whole screen of current tv sets.

But anyway, no worries, I can assure you that the BD set will become the world's best MacGyver release ever. Koch just released their Miami Vice full series box and it has already been applauded internationally by fans as being even a lot better than the US BDs.

I really hope that Bluray release is keeping all the "specials"

Like the third and fourth seasonīs different intros (Lost love & Parker house) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4UZ8hT-vMQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXqOqFWAaew

Hello Jano !! It is a real joy to know that soon we will be able to have the entire series in high definition !! Thanks for the work that is involved.
I am Spanish and I would like to ask you if it would be possible to include the track in Spanish for the episodes or the subtitles.
Thank you very much and looking forward to having it in my hands. I've seen great work with the Miami Vice box and it's a blast.
Thank you
Cheers

Koch confirmed German and English only for the Charmed box as they only have the German rights, so I'm pretty sure it will be the same for MacGyver. More languages only make sense for the internationally operating major labels that actually have distributors in several countries.

Good evening and thank you for this information, besides all the information on Macgyver Blu-rays and where Charmed are welcome ... Thank you again for the blu-rays of our favorite series.