North America can now watch all seasons of MacGyver in Blu-ray quality thanks to the new ViacomCBS ‘Paramount Plus‘ streaming service which replaces the current CBS All Access platform and includes content from all the current Viacom-owned libraries, including Paramount Pictures and Television.
The news means North American will finally catch up with Europe and South America where they have been enjoying HD MacGyver on television broadcasts for the past year.
CBS originally announced the HD release back in June 2018. At the time of their announcement, they were already halfway through the series conversion with a full series completion date of Christmas 2018. This news sparked high hopes of a Blu-ray series box set, however, these were dashed when CBS released a season 1 Blu-ray set and then subsequently canceled any further releases due to low sales. Their focus seemed to then move to make the HD version available for distribution as Europe and South America began broadcasting the HD versions on local networks while North America was left with the much lower DVD quality until now.
The MacGyver HD library so far includes all seven seasons, but not the 2 made-for-TV-movies which, as far as we know, have not yet been converted to HD.
Fans will also be pleased to hear that German Production house Koch Films have purchased the rights to produce a full series HD boxset, which is currently in progress and will include special features and extras. There’s currently no release date or target for the completion or release of the boxset and it’s likely that production work will be heavily hampered by the ongoing Covid 19 situation around the world, but whenever we do see the set finished it will be an outstanding item to add to our collections if their Miami Vice set is anything to judge by.
You can find out more about Paramount Plus, including their price plans on their website.
I recently subscribed to Paramount+ in hopes to watch the original Mac in HD. Although the picture looks better than what was previously available on DVD or streaming, the episodes are not HD. They are still 4:3 ratio and not 16:9. It looks as though they did a remaster of the original SD to make them appear better but definitely not HD. Has anyone else noticed this yet?
Screen size has nothing to so with HD. There’s a good explanation about this in our forums: https://tinyurl.com/blurayformat
You’re right, looks like they’ve chosen to release them in a 4:3 HD aspect ratio. Must be 1440×1080 or the equivalent 720p resolution. I have a new receiver which doesn’t show me the playback resolution so I’m not certain which they went with. I wonder why they went with 4:3 instead of 16:9? Seems that they would have the option when doing the transfer. Unless the original framing from film was 4:3 only.
OF COURSE the original framing on the film masters is 4:3. The MacGyver series was shot and produced for television back in the 80s/early 90s.
There are 16:9 versions of Seinfeld which was also shot in the 80s and 90s. It looks bad though since it was meant to be shown in 4:3, you can sometimes see microphones or people on the edges.
Other versions just cut the top and bottom of the video to make it 16:9.
I am watching it right now on P+ and it is in HD. It was SD for a while which looked terrible, but looks great now! Which season and episode are you trying to watch?
anyone know if they cleaned up the video like dust and scratches?
Certainly looks like they have.