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Author Topic: Classic TV shows on Blu-Ray & DVD Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-22-2011 04:52 PM                        One of the happiest day in my life was when my father bought the family a 25 inch RCA Victor television set in the mid fifties. Twenty five inch screens was considered large in those days because most were twenty one inch or smaller. We were among the first in our neighborhood to get a TV set and it brought a lot of happiness into our lives. Among the early programs on TV was I LOVE LUCY, THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, SEA HUNT, DREGNET and many others. As more people purchased TV sets, television show got better with more creative programming. As a person who loved science fiction and scary shows, THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THRILLER were among my favorites and I used to watch them almost every week. Both THRILLER and THE OUTTER LIMITS were recently released on home video. So far, four seasons of THE OUTTER LIMITS was released on Blu Ray and the entire THRILLER was released on DVD only. TheCostco store in my area has season one of THE OUTTER LIMITS and THRILLER in stock for a fantastic price and I could not resist picking them up. I forgot how much program material of THE TWILIGHT ZONE is in each season BD set but there is a lot on the threee Blu Ray set. I never realized how fantastic the piucture quality could be because I remember watching THE TWILIGHT ZONE in low contrast gray & white. On Blu ray, the picture is gorgeous in black and white and so is the mono sound. Beside the great stories written by Rod Sterling, each episode features many great film stars of the era as well as music scores by BErnard Herrmann, Franz Waxman and others. For a set that was released on DVD only, THRILLER looks fantastic with a picture quality that look just as good as THE TWILIGHT ZONE in true HD. THe set features over fifty hours of programing and so far I had the opportunity to watch only three hours of it. Beside watching current movies on Blu Ray, watching my TRILLER and THE OUTTER LIMITS discs should take me at least a month to view them all. Both THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THRILLER were released by IMage Entertainment and the retail price of TTZ is about a hundred dollars on Blu ray but Costco has it for about $47.00. THRILLER is $150.00 but Costco is asking about $70.00 for it. I really wanted to pick up THRILLER when it was released on DVD but had to pass because it was too expensive but Costco pricing is very reasonable for this fantastic show. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-22-2011 08:48 PM                        I think there's another thread on this somewhere but...the classic TV series I've collected on DVD are: Seinfeld All in the Family The Office Green Acres (where are the other three seasons, you bozos?) Mary Tyler Moore The Andy Griffith Show Adam-12 The Honeymooners (classic 39) ...and a couple more that I've just bought one season of, like The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Maude, Emergency and a couple others. Some TV shows date better than others, I've found.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-23-2011 12:49 PM                        Claude, it is not suprising that these two B&W series look great on BluRay because they were filmed in 35mm as were most top rated network series. When they went to syndication they went out mostly on 16mm where telecine equipment at the local stations was used to broadcast them. I ran a theatre in my college dorm running only 16mm and I used to play features on Friday nights but relied heavily on free stuff from sponsored films like shorts and documentaries on Sunday nights. One of the documentary staples was THE TWENTIETH CENTURY hosted by Walter Conkite. It was a great series and best of all it was a free loaner sponsored by Prudential (that's how I could afford it!). The quality was awesome. Black as night blacks. That's what you get from good 16mm optical reduction prints from 35mm negs. It had a spectacular theme too; I would always kick up the opening of the show a few ticks so they could hear it up on the third floor. If you ever come by that on DVD or BR, it's definately deserves a space on your library shelf. Try to find the episode on Eva Parone -- especially well done. Cronkite is a pleasure to watch. I was a big fan of THE OUTER LIMITS, whereas I didn't see much of THE TWILIGHT ZONE due to school. When I saw it in syndication it seemed a bit dated (and more like short subjects rather than full blown stories given the half hour format). But I admit, some of the classic episodes were lots of fun.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-23-2011 03:26 PM                        Frank, I was also fond of Walter Cronkite and used to watch his CBS newscast almost every night. I will look for THE TWENTIETH CENTURY and the one featuring Eva Peron I am enjoying TRILLER and so far I had seen seven episodes. Except the one I saw last night, the others I had seen so far were not very scary but they were all very well written and enjoyable. The spooky show I saw last night was originally aired on 10/25/60 and was titled THE PURPLE ROOM and it was about a haunted house. The house they used was the same one Alfred Hitchocock used in his film PSYCHO a few months earlier. Beside watching THRILLER during it's original broadcasts, a couple of episodes were released in a three disc laserdisc set by Universal and I bought that. One of the episode in the set starring the host of the show, Boris Karloff was extremely scary and was titled THE INCREDIBLE DOCTOR MARKESEN. As I remember, there are several others that are equally frightening and I am looking forward to seeing them again. THRILLER was also photographed on 35mm film and I just cannot get over how gorgeous the picture look even if it was from a DVD instead of a Blu-Ray. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 05-23-2011 05:07 PM                        Claude: when did Hawaii get live network? (before satellite.) Louis  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-23-2011 07:09 PM                        Louis, As far as I can remember, shows that aired live like newscasts were taped and flown in to Honolulu and promptly aired during the sixties but I do not think entire national newscasts were shown in their entirety when they were flown in on film (Kinescope). All of our local stations used only snippets during their newscasts the following day. With the introduction of satellite feeds, many national shows are shown in Hawaii on a delayed basis because of the time difference like the Academy Awards and other programing. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-23-2011 08:36 PM                        For years the three networks ran the evening newscasts at 7pm on the east coast. I was surprised when I went to college in the midwest to find they went on the air at 6:30pm there. I remember watching Walter Cronkite in my dorm and being bewildered at the fact that he seemed to make mistakes. I never heard him flub a word when I watched him at home in New York. Seemed the Indiana broadcast had a lot of times when he would make mistake, pause and then repeat a word or even an entire sentence. I later found out that the 6:30pm feed was live in the smaller markets, but in New York and Chicago and most of the eastern seaboard, the 7pm feed was the edited version. I envisioned a bevy of little editing nomes working frantically as the show aired live to edit out the mistakes. I guess CBS thought New Yorkers shouldn't see Walter flubbing a line! The other networks all did the same thing. There was no Fox network at the time.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-04-2011 08:30 PM                        I have just finished watching season one of THRILLER and with the exception of about three episodes, all the shows were well written and excellent. One of the nice thing about THRILLER is listening to Jerry Goldsmith's early film music during a lot of the episodes and as a special feature, one can listen only to the score after watching the episodes that featured his work. Most of the shows with supernatual themes are not as scary as the first time I watched them during their original television showings but they are still very entertaining. Although the complete THRILLER collection discs are DVDS, the picture and sound are excellent and have the quality of brand new prints after the original film negatives has been fully restored. I will start watching Season Two tonight and look forward to watching more THRILLER episodes during the next two weeks -Claude  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 09-03-2011 09:15 PM                        Anything with Boris Karloff is okay with me!  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-03-2011 11:46 PM                        I have finished watching the two seasons of THRILLER about two weeks ago and I enjoyed the set very much. I had originally purchased the multiple disc set of THRILLER on laserdisc many years ago before the DVD era but it only featured a very small percentage of episodes from the entire series. Included in the laserdisc set in my opinion is the best of the series titled "THE INCREDIBLE DR. MARKESAN and that is the reason I wanted to buy the complete DVD presentation of THRILLER. The Dr. Markesan episode is among the very few few in the entire series that had a horror themed story and it was incredibly scary . Many episodes are supernatural but most are stories that are only suspenseful. -Claude  |  IP: Logged

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