Will The Golden Girls ever get a blu-ray release?

I hope so. It's leaving so many gays with blu balls.

Could we handle the excitement of Yvonne's leotard looking that crisp?

Can we get Golden Palace out on DVD first?

^ Cheech Marin

Disney would have to pay for it, right? It was a Touchstone Pictures Television production (that aired on NBC), which is why you see the ABC logo on the episode listings on Hulu (which is majority-owned by Disney).

Disney has the money--they should go for it!

So, apparently the version on the Golden Girls currently steaming on Disney+ (and also the versions aired on TVLand) is upscaled using the original DVD transfers. Basically with the technology available right now, this is the nearest the Golden Girls can get to being aired in HD. I suppose Disney could go back to the original video tapes and try upscaling from those BUT tape quality degrades faster and it may be that the original DVD releases from the early 2000s actually had better picture quality than the videos.

There can never be a true blu-ray release because the show was tapped on Standard Definition Video (like many sitcoms of the 80s). To give a boring technical lesson, video highest quality is 480P while film's native resolution is much higher than 1080P (the minimum for HD). Had the show been shot on film (like MTM, Cheers, Friends etc.) it would just require the original film negatives to be scanned in native 1080P. The picture on Disney+ is pretty good, but the technology just doesn't exist to take SD video and make it look authentically HD.

R6 It doesn't have to be HD to look good. For the DVD release the episodes were highly compressed because Disney didn't want to pay for dual-layer discs, so 7-8 episodes are crammed onto single-layer discs. (3 discs per season) It's like watching a YouTube video at 240p. I have other programs on DVD that look good on my TV. It's the compression that ruined the Golden Girls DVDs.

Shit

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST OP

THIS WAS SHOT ON TAPE FORTY YEARS AGO, NOT ON IMAX BY JAMES CAMERON!

^^It was shot between 1985-1992. So your math asshole

There is not a big public outcry to restore 1960s tv shows. I cannot imagine it will ever happen. Quite frankly I am surprised they filmed it in color.

^^ hi stupid.

R9 Exactly! My goodness, people have become so spoiled. The quality is fine. You act like the visual quality is as bad as a grainy silent film from the 1920’s.

Filmed with tape and not film, I doubt it.

I think R6 is right. The quality on Disney+ here in Canada anyways is much better than the DVDs. My husband and I watch GGs on Disney+ on our Samsung 4K and it looks great. Not HD but good.

It has nothing to do with being shot on videotape in the 1980s. The picture quality of the DVDs is poor because 3 hours of content was compressed to fit onto a single-layer DVD that was meant to hold 2. Dual-layer or double-sided DVDs would've been more expensive to use, so Disney went the cheap route, sacrificing picture quality. If the picture quality on streaming is better than the DVDs, great. I don't do streaming. I do physical media.

R6 As an aside, I was surprised to see how bad Netflix’s “4K/UHD” version of “Seinfeld” looks on my 4K TV. It was a filmed, not videotaped show. I think film has at least 4K resolution.

A confounding issue may be that Netflix’s 4K version is resized to 16:9 from 4:3 without black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. So, I think that may mean that the effective resolution of the source material was less than that of native film because the aspect ratio of only a portion of the original frame was stretched to convert from 4:3 to 16:9.

R17 They'll actually take something shot in 4:3 and crop the top and bottom off and stretch the remaining image to 'make it widescreen' because supposedly, the audience doesn't want to see black bars on the side. They'd rather have a partial and distorted image. I don't know if anyone's actually done a survey to see if that's what people prefer, or if studio execs are just assuming --since they know how retarded the average person is.

R18 They've managed to keep the shape of peoples' heads acceptable, but the "snow" on their faces is worse than a 480i signal from a TV transmitter many miles away (and yes, I still remember what that looked like). I was shocked at that when I started to stream the first episode. I've taken to streaming the show on my phone because the picture is so small the distortion isn't visible. Sad.

I forgot to write at the end of my first comment (R17) that I was mentioning this because it's an example of when even a filmed (rather than videotaped) old show is digitized, it doesn't guarantee a high-quality viewing experience.

I hate hate hate when the stretch 4:3 to widescreen. I won't watch it.

When we get the video of Bea shitting on Betty’s dressing room floor.

I hope so because the remaster Hallmark uses looks so much better than what’s on Hulu or the DVDs.

They need to correct some frames too because the boom mic is visible in certain scenes. How did that get past the editor?

If it happens, they should restore the cut microwave scenes.

Did they restore that cut scene for streaming?

I want this!

Hopefully, PLEASE.

I’m drinking fresh potato juice

It needs to happen ASAP

OMG

Isn't Disney run mostly by gay men? Don't they know the community wants this/needs this?

I read that it's the incidental music soundtrack artists that are keeping the project in limbo.

R32 Source?

How many times can you old queens watch the same crappy show?

R34 Apparently as many times as Rose could enter the Little Miss St. Olaf pageant.

Some of you are not understanding that Blu-Ray isn’t necessarily a format just for 1080p or 4K video. It’s a video or audio disc with a very high storage capacity for uncompressed video even at 480p.

R36 Today's artificial intelligence software can upscale the video from the U-matic masters to look even better. BETTER VIDEO than it was originally!

No Blu-Ray for Blue Rinses.

Too much AI upscaling is hideous! Most movies and tv programs look like animation!

R39 It doesn't even need to be done. Don't most players now have an upscaling feature? That would be sufficient. And if it looks weird that way, turn the feature off.

R34 it’s comforting

Can somebody who has hulu or Amazon Prime watch the episode with Blanche's pacemaker and see if they restored the cut microwave scenes? R24 posted the video.

Is it only eldergays own a blu-ray player?

R41 speaks the truth. Nothing cures a shitty day at work or worrying about life's problems like a few Golden Girls episodes.

A few lines of coke R44. That would cure a shitty day

Blu-ray??? What is this, 1988????

[quote]It doesn't even need to be done. Don't most players now have an upscaling feature? That would be sufficient. And if it looks weird that way, turn the feature off.

There are new and increasingly available digital techniques based in artificial intelligence that can convert standard def video into nearly flawless HD. It's not upscaling, but a re-creation of the missing detail. Quite exciting for fans of old shows, really.

Example of a version that runs on desktop PCs at link.

Only here can you get a Master Class on editing using The Golden Girls.

Has anyone done a PhD on the Golden Girls? Datalounge would be their ultimate primary source.

Eat my ass for a master class on FUN

R44/r45 I guess that distinguishes the thin people versus the fat people of this world

It’s a shame that there isn’t a nice new box set coming out, there is a market for it so they would make money. How many blu ray discs would be needed for all of the episodes?

Weren’t the Golden Girls against Ted Turner’s colorization of old movies? I don’t know how keen they’d be on Blu Ray technology.

I watched some of the Christmas episodes on my projector and they looked terrible. Pixillated and the image look stretched and unpleasant.

It needs some type of upgrade and Disney I'm sure knows people would be willing to pay for another Golden Girls set. The problem is Disney is not as open to their physical media line as they are to their streaming. They own Fox but many media collectors worry that Disney will not reissue Fox titles.

R52 AI upscaling would increase the size of the files. Even without upscaling, a lossless transfer would result in big files. Probably 3 discs. Same as the DVD release.

^ 3 Discs per season.

I can't believe some rich gay hasn't used his power/influence to make it happen by now.

Disney dropped the ball on this one.

I really want to see those old bags in 4k

Maybe DL can start a GO(LDEN) Fund Me!!!

You can't upscale the details without also upscaling the noise, as evidenced on Star Trek: TNG blu-ray. On certain episodes, they were missing the original film of certain scenes, so they upscaled videotape footage to fill the gaps, and those clips look awful.

Of course, even without upscaling, a lossless blu-ray transfer would be worlds better than what we have now.

The obsession with this show is the single saddest thing I've ever seen on Datalounge.

You obviously haven't seen my Christmas thread.