Does anyone know what the story is behind the differences in disc art? Some are plain silver with only text on them, while others have nifty color photos depicting items Mac used in the show. Which style came first? Is there any difference in the actual content on the disc?

There seems to be differences in the way they're packaged too - my season 1 disc (plain silver) all have their own separate cases, while my season 2 (color pictures) has two disc per case. A set I borrowed once (season 3 I think) had all the disc in one plastic case, so there's another difference.

Yep the original release had the yellow labels with the pictures on all 7 seasons. At some point between the 7th season being released and the full series box set being released they started printing, what I can only assume to be a cheaper version of the discs, with the plain silver top.

I was first made aware of the plain silver disks when the full series box-set was released and people started saying how cheap and nasty it looked with the bad packaging and combination of old and new styled disks.

There was some packaging changes made between season 1 and season 2 onwards. As you say the first season had each disk in it's own plastic folder, but the remainder of the seasons came out with 2 disks per folder. I think if you look through the DVD discussions there was quite an extensive discussion around why they might have made those changes, I think the most common reason we came up with was cost and reduction of package size, so it wasn't so bulky on your shelf. Take a look throuhg the full series release topic if your interested, I think that's where most of that conversation happened.

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Funny how I read darn near every page in the Surveillance forum before I posted my question, but skipped over the couple ones that discussed it.

If they put it out on Blu-ray i hope we get a knife or something in it or bloopers something that fans been inching for.

The current complete series set that is being sold in Europe has the normal pictured style discs and also the box is little smaller than the US-version (I guess).
Wasnt the first release in US that had different style discs combined from leftover discs from some seasons and the result was mixed set.

They have now better sleeves, since every single discs is stored in its own papersleeve. And on my set there were none scratches present. Very handy sized package now.

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Also, I would not hold my breath and wait for the bluray-release. Maybe they could do that, but I see no point in releasing the series that was shot to video released on HD-format as it would not benefit from this new standard at all. After all this is the pretty much over the top set (the only letdown is absense of any bonus footage, interviews, specials and bloopers etc) and also the picture quality is still ok to watch from 40" HDTV.

Oh boy, paper sleeves. The studio must have gotten confused and thought they were releasing a Pearl Jam album. Nah, they were being cheap. Paper sleeves are fine if you only watch or listen to something once, then never again, but if it's something you really like and watch often, then the disc get chewed up pretty quickly. I hate getting box sets with sleeves 'cause it means the first thing I gotta do is round up some case$. >_<

I understand what you're saying about dvds, they do max out at the screen resolution the show may have been filmed in, but that dosn't mean they can't be improved on. There's some digital artifacts in dvds, it shows up in some disc much more than others. I think that's due to the recording or transfer methods they used, but blu-ray would solve that problem, I assume so anyway. This would entirely depend on how they transfer it though. They'll probably take the cheap & easy route of just copying the dvd set and little more, but if the MacGyver movie ever comes out and is a hit then anything is possible. That's what it would take, something to make the brand popular again so they could turn a profit. There's just not that many of us fans out there to justify producing an expensive set of disc with only marginal better quality.

Keep in mind there's only the assumption of how the show was filmed, not actual proof, not from anything I've read. If this was shot on actual film, and it still exist somewhere, and the studio is willing to do it, then blu-ray would be a HUGE improvement. It also could mean extra scenes. 8)

All this is just me guessing though, nothin more.

We have proof that it was shot on film here. Big reel to reel film cameras being used on set.

Unfortunately film stock doesn't last for ever and after 20 odd years I fear there would need to be some serious digital enhancement work done to recover the original film now and as you rightly pointed out, CBS would want to be turning a pretty good profit to warrant putting in that kind of work.

Hey, cool! I don't think I've looked at those pictures and realized there were cameras visible. They may never transfer it from film, but as long as it exist, anything is possible.

actually... if memory serves mo correctly... they filmed on film and then transferred to video tape to make it easier to edit and I think the DVDs are from the master video tapes... the original film may well be lost.

I'm wondering when we will get MacGyver on Blu-Ray because as best Buy told me two months ago everything is going Blu-ray now and the non blue ray DVds are going to fade away.

Maybe when the movie comes out.

It would make sense to do it then, but I can't see them making enough money from it to warrant the cost of transfer for them, mostly because they are too stupid to market the show properly.

The show is still well known and constantly being referenced that if they had their wits about them CBS/Paramount could push the show out and still make it a big deal.

How do you see it, was this all that Paramount is going release or is there even slight chance of getting bluray release aswell?

I might upgrade this and some other series to bluray, but then the blurays would have to have really much better transfer and quality otherwise I dont see any point in those.

Some show like Lost has really nice looking surroundings, enviroment and locations it was shot, but I have just felt satisfied with dvd-releases so far. Due to the fact, at first when started to collect didnt have bluray-player and now dont really feel spending so much money on single show just to get it in bluray.

I might be wrong about this, but regarding the picture discs vs the plain gray discs, I thought the main difference (aside from the look of the discs) was that the plain gray discs featured the unedited episodes in season 1, whereas the picture discs had a few minor edits. Wasn't "Thief Of Budapest" edited slightly on the discs with pictures? And I think maybe one other episode, though I'm not sure.

On a related topic-- Why was the theme song cut short on the Season 3 discs? And is it cut short on both the picture discs AND the gray discs, or just on the picture discs?

As for blu-ray releases: I wouldn't hold my breath. As others had said, there wouldn't be much point since the show wasn't shot in hi-def anyway. I do, though, wish they would release better DVD versions. Season 4, in particular, was poorly restored. And I would really like some extra features. RDA was willing to do interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff for the Stargate DVDs, so I'm sure he'd be willing to do some interviews for the MacGyver DVDs. I've seen Bruce McGill do numerous interviews on the Biography Channel for movies like Animal House, so maybe he'd be willing to talk a bit about filming MacGyver, too. And there MUST be some archival footage of stuff that went on behind the scenes.

No, that Edited versions where in the first release of the set. Paramount promptly fixed the issue once the fans started complaining about it.

And it was only the one episode that was edited - Thief of Budapest.

I think we'll find the only difference between the picture and gray labels is Paramount's profit.

Right, but wasn't the first release the one with the pictures? So when they re-released it (without the pictures), the problem was fixed. I have the grey discs for season 1, and it is unedited. Were there unedited versions with picture discs?

I'm not sure if there's a difference between the pictures and the plain gray DVD's. I bought the first 2 seasons of MacGyver separatley, then I found the Complete Series box and bought it.

One minor complaint is the packaging for the Complete Series box. They put the discs in film sleeves, which does not keep them from getting scratched up.

No. The gray disks came out after all seven sesons had been released with picture disks.

The edited disk was only in the first batch of picture disks, the subsequent batches of picture disks had "Original aired versions" printed on the back of the case and contained the unedited versions.

This all happened within about 6 months of the original release.

The show was apparently shot on actual film. If the film rolls still exist somewhere, the blu-ray difference would be huge. Regular dvd dosn't have the resolution of film. That's why you can see a difference in older movies on blu-ray vs dvd.

I've notice that sometimes the UK gets special editions and things on blu-rey that arn't released here in the states, so that's always a possibility. Of course with the low value of the american dollar, that could be pretty pricey, I don't know about the rest of you guys. Australia has a good assortment of releases too, I've gotten some box sets from there.

Is there any actual *prof* the dvd are from VHS masters? They look a little better than VHS... almost SuperVHS maybe, possibly another tape format?

Anyway, it could be worse, at least we have the WHOLE series. Think of the poor Smurf fans, who still only have two seasons available out of a ten year show! That's just not smufing right. To make matters worse, they tried to release each season split in TWO volumes here in the US. Anything to smurf your wallet.

Professional editing houses used either Sony Betacam or Panasonic MII video systems, which uses a very high quality format designed specifically for broadcast quality editing and mastering - not VHS.

So a transfer from those tapes to DVD would result in higher quality than VHS.

There's no actual evidence of film or video being used as the DVD masters, but if you look at the low picture quality of some of the early episodes, it's pretty bad, hue and saturation of some of the scenes is very noticeable.

History of broadcast video

No. The gray disks came out after all seven sesons had been released with picture disks.

The edited disk was only in the first batch of picture disks, the subsequent batches of picture disks had "Original aired versions" printed on the back of the case and contained the unedited versions.

This all happened within about 6 months of the original release.

Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification.

Now, regarding the shortened theme song on the Season 3 DVDs... anyone know what that's about? Was the theme song actually shorter that season when episodes originally aired? I can't remember.

Well the theme was rerecorded several times throughout the show - I think the first 4? seasons have different versions or lengths of the theme.

So if season 3 is shorter it's probably just the way they decided to go for that season.

I was thinking this over, and I remember that in the 80s, a lot of shows had two versions of their theme songs-- a full version, and an edited version, which was used when they needed time for an extra commercial.
Also, a lot of times when shows are put into syndication, the edited version gets used. For example, when I see reruns of "Family Ties" these days, they often skip the verse in the theme song ("I bet we've been together for a millions years...") and instead jump straight to the chorus ("What would we do baby, without us?")
It really sounds to me like the season 3 DVD of Mac is using the edited/syndicated version of the theme.
Or, like you said, maybe Season 3 just always used the shorter version. It's been too many years ago for me to say for certain. I do remember other seasons, though, using the shortened version sometimes.

Anyway, it's not a big deal, as I usually bypass the opening anyway (good music, but there's a limit to how many times I want to hear it!)

I know exactly what you mean, nowadays when I watch any of these shows from dvd I just usually skip the theme song (but some releases have chapters put so annoyingly that you cant skip). Back in the 80's it didnt matter too much as the episodes were watched from tv, once a week.

No matter how great theme music it is, after some (many) times of hearing the same might be too much.