Sci Fi's trashy DS broadcasts

[Gothick]

OK, am I going out of my mind, or has the quality of Sci Fi's DS feed gone waaaayyyy below par???

I had the show on both yesterday and today.  Yesterday's viewing was very brief, but it looked, in the scene between Carolyn Loomis and Daniel in Angelique's room, as if someone had smeared brylcreem all over the camera lens (hmmm... maybe Buzz was visiting the studio that day?)  I don't remember this problem on my tape of that episode.

And on today's show, I noticed instantly that the feed looked grainy and washed out, compared to my MPI tape.  This was during today's second show, which is one of my favorite episodes in all DS, and I've viewed my own tape of it many times.   I found myself wondering whether the source material for the broadcasts is low grade copies of the masters rather than a higher quality thingamujig?

I know NAHSSINGK (bellowed with Magda Rakosi elan) about technical details of today's television broadcasts, but I notice that TV Land always maintains a high quality image when they run old shows, and I don't understand why Sci Fi can't do the same for DS.  I guess it may be the only Sixties show they are running now, so perhaps they just don't care anymore.  (Come to think of it, on TV Land's Bewitched marathon, one of the Dick Sargent era--ca. 1970 shows ran as a blurry, grainy film copy, where clearly no one had bothered to strike a new print of the episode for whatever reason.)

btw, when they were running that TACKY Stargate promo DURING the start of Act One, and acidic schmutz was belching all over Carolyn and Barnabas, I really felt the programmers were adding insult to injury!

Makes me profoundly grateful I don't rely upon Sci Fi for my DS viewing...

G.

[Raineypark]

Hmmmm.......

As long as we're on the perpetually problematic topic of the Sci Fi Channel and Dark Shadows......isn't the current run of the show going to conclude early next year?  Does anyone have a clue what happens after that?

Please, don't anyone suggest I start collecting the DVD sets.  Not unless they're planning to bring out a specially edited series containing ONLY those scenes with John Karlen characters.  For THAT I would toss my Amex on the counter and risk a scene with my husband!!

[Patti Feinberg]

Steve....they're (at Sci-Fi) probably too busy filming their disgusting, distasteful, lurid, offensive 'promos' (you know, the one with the 'human' woman frenching with the alien thing).

No time for quality control....

THESE MAKE ME SICK PUKE PUKE.

Can I get an amen?

Patt

[Happybat]

you know, the one with the 'human' woman frenching with the alien thing.

Patt

You mean the tongue tickling doggie?  If so, here's my AMEN to that!  Truly disgusting pap ... and while we're on the subject I'm none too crazy about the fire breathing baby or the skull popping dragon either!

Blechhh! 

[jennifer]

Steve....they're (at Sci-Fi) probably too busy filming their disgusting, distasteful, lurid, offensive 'promos' (you know, the one with the 'human' woman frenching with the alien thing).

No time for quality control....

THESE MAKE ME SICK PUKE PUKE.

Can I get an amen?

Patt

Amen!

jennifer

[Philippe Cordier]

I haven't noticed the visual quality being different, but when I put in one of my tapes from the last round to check an episode I missed not long ago, I noticed that the loud HISSSSS throughout the broadcast from the last time was GONE during the more recent broadcast.

I don't think this was a problem with my videocassette, either.

Someone on the forum wrote about some efforts that had been made to remove this hiss, I think.

There seems to be a dramatic improvement ... now that I already taped the entire series during the last SciFi run!   

[Dr. Eric Lang]

OK, am I going out of my mind, or has the quality of Sci Fi's DS feed gone waaaayyyy below par???

I haven't noticed any difference in the quality (or lack thereof) between this and the last run on Sci Fi. My main beef is towards the end of the series (from 1970 PT on forward) there is a very annoying "reverse echo" in the soundtrack, wherein you can hear the dialogue, sound effects, screaming, etc. a moment BEFORE it is actually heard. It's very distracting.

but I notice that TV Land always maintains a high quality image when they run old shows, and I don't understand why Sci Fi can't do the same for DS.

TV Land is "all digital" (supposedly) and the only episodes they run are those that have been digitally re-mastered. They only run the first season of The Flying Nun, for instance, because seasons two and three have not been "digitized."

[Julia99]

I'm so glad others are unappreciative of the nudie models on SCIFI's promos. . i actually stopped what i was doing  (dishes, conquering middle earth or something) the first time i saw it. . stunned.  .but then i guess SCIFI's main audience is?? what?? adolescent males?

[Cassandra]

Dr.Eric Lang wrote:

My main beef is towards the end of the series (from 1970 PT on forward) there is a very annoying "reverse echo" in the soundtrack, wherein you can hear the dialogue, sound effects, screaming, etc. a moment BEFORE it is actually heard. It's very distracting.

I have the same problem Dr.Lang.  It's so annoying at times too.  I watch the show with my parents at night and we have to keep the volume way up because of my Dad's hearing, so you can imagine how much worse it is to hear dialogues at such a high volume before they're actually said.    The screaming is the worst!!

Cassandra

[Luciaphile]

I'm so glad others are unappreciative of the nudie models on SCIFI's promos. . i actually stopped what i was doing  (dishes, conquering middle earth or something) the first time i saw it. . stunned.  .but then i guess SCIFI's main audience is?? what?? adolescent males?

Which is why there's always the obligatory well-endowed character in a tight-fitting outfit on any Star Trek show 

You people have absolutely got to read Sharryn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun Best depiction of fan culture and  the appeal of sci-fi/fantasy. Ever.

[jennifer]

Dr.Eric Lang wrote:

My main beef is towards the end of the series (from 1970 PT on forward) there is a very annoying "reverse echo" in the soundtrack, wherein you can hear the dialogue, sound effects, screaming, etc. a moment BEFORE it is actually heard. It's very distracting.

screaming must be the ghost[ghost]of peter bradford trying to return!

jennifer

[Trask]

In the early years of analogue tape production and the subsequent attempts at archiving, many a "master" or "first generation" tape reel was stored very tightly wound or pressed together in a perhaps inappropriately controlled climate.

Over long periods of time (NOT Parallel, BTW) many of these old tape reels degenerated by varying degrees, producing a compromised "ghosting" effect, especially when dynamically challenged (overdriven) by an unusually loud phrase. Eventually, these "ghostings" (haha) become imprinted on the tape itself.

In an unusually quite passage at times this effect can be heard as well on many early rock recordings by groups such as Led Zepplyn or Mountain where audio levels might have been overdriven beyond he capacity of the medum.

These master tapes, if at some point in time left too long in compromised storage, can prove very difficult - if not impossible - to be corrected in the mastering process as the magnetic properties of the compressed tape have been permanently altered with age.

So there you have it - what you never wanted to know about bad analogue recording techniques and storage!!!!! Arrrgh!!!

Trask

PS-Please forgive any mispellings as I am not used to posting and could not find the spell checker that I rely on far too much...

(I know it lives here somewhere)

[Midnite]

So there you have it - what you never wanted to know about bad analogue recording techniques and storage!!!!! Arrrgh!!!

LOL.  Thanks, Trask!  It's great to see you.

PS-Please forgive any mispellings as I am not used to posting and could not find the spell checker that I rely on far too much...

(I know it lives here somewhere)

Unfortunately it doesn't.  This YABB version, which we've been using about 4 months, doesn't offer a spellchecker mod.  But since the feature is so popular, especially among your hosts , MB will find a way...

[Brian]

Please, don't anyone suggest I start collecting the DVD sets.

Since the MPI tapes were first introduced in 1989, I bought some of them, on and off, and not always in consecutive order.  I taped the show off SciFi several years ago to fill in my missing tapes.  Eventually, when the price dropped to about $10.00 per tape (equal t $2.00 per episode), over a period of a few months I brought tapes 93 to 200 (episodes just preceding 1897 to the end of the show).

Alas, we now have the DVD releases (who knew back in 1989?) with 40 episodes, plus extended interviews with cast members.  If you watch for specials on various sites or in stores, you can get the sets for as littie as $40.00--that's $1.00 per episode.

So, now I'm working on replacing the MPI tapes and SciFi recordings.  . .

And on the DVD there are no SciFi commercials to interrupt viewing. . .

And John Karlen's interview is on the first set (with more interviews by him to follow, I imagine.)

Brian

[CastleBee]

Steve....they're (at Sci-Fi) probably too busy filming their disgusting, distasteful, lurid, offensive 'promos' (you know, the one with the 'human' woman frenching with the alien thing).
Can I get an amen?

A big Amen from me too Patti! YUCK-OLA on those promos. The French kissing creature is nasty, but those guys wrestling who start to "grow" together in a kind of strange partial morph is downright disgusting!  Proof IMO anyway that just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.  But, I'm sure that adolescent male target audience someone else mentioned are probably as happy as they would be if they were attending a bodily function joke convention. LOL!