Baywatch DVD drowns at sea

Now Baywatch is an interesting story in its own right. The first series, produced by NBC back in 1989, was fantastic. Excellent stories, a strong cast and textbook narrative directed with a slight MTV feel.  Then NBC pulled the plug and that was that. Except David Hasselhoff bought an option on the rights and took it to ITV (the independent broadcast network here in the UK) and London Weekend Television (producers of many a quality drama and now part of Granada) who funded a new series that would be syndicated around the world. This is when the emphasis switched primarily to swimsuited women and music-video editing which attempted to work stories around music videos. And that’s what made it such a worldwide smash.

So, when the worldwide release DVD release comes of the pilot and the complete first NBC season, I think most fans were looking forward to seeing the series as it originally aired. How disappointed they are….let’s look at the Region 2 released (by Network Videos) first:

Region Two : UK – Wrong theme song!

Well the fundamental issue here is the failure to use the original (and superior) theme song by Peter Cetera - “Save Me”. The pilot episode “Panic at Malibu Pier” used “Above The Waterline” by Kim Carnes and then subsequent episodes for all of the first season used a nicely edited version of “Save Me”. To replace this with the Kim Carnes track is unacceptable for a collectors’ release. Yes, financially licensing a commercially-released pop song from a mainstream record company is going to be vastly more expensive for DVD release than using the track that was commissioned specifically for the production , but in these days of ensuring authentic releases on DVD (and future formats) this should have been taken into consideration by Fremantle (the UK distributor), especially given the fact they part- funded the series in the first place alongside ITV and London Weekend Television. There have been cuts to the pilot to get it a lower rating through the BBFC as well. Again, if that was an issue, going for a higher overally package rating show have been the decision. But, this is all about maximising profits so no surprise there.

Region One : USA and Canada – Wrong season!!!!

If we thought the UK had been let down, imagine the surprise when fans first checked out their new Complete First Season DVD in the USA to find that it is in fact the Second Season!!!  Yes, they have released the first SYNDICATED season and called it Season One, which is just incorrect. The Jim Jamieson “I’ll Be Ready” track that served all seasons from two through to the end of the show is also replaced by the Kim Carnes track, which is another bizarre licensing decision.

German DVD: The one to go for

It seems the German release through distributor Kinowelt - “Baywatch – Die komplette 1. Staffel” has done things properly. This is the original , as broadcast in Europe which means no teaser trailers or coming next spots (we didn’t have those on European TV in that era), totally unedited episodes and the original Peter Cetera theme song . So being in mind the soundtrack is in English and you can switch the German subtitles off, it seems that the German DVDs will be selling by the bucket-load as it’s the only way to get the complete, unedited Season One of Baywatch.

Miami Vice Season One

This was the second of Universal’s ‘premium’ back catalogue release. When I say premium this differed from their previous TV DVD releases in the following ways:

1. More attention was paid to photo and artwork research.
2. Original master materials were retrieved from the archives at University City, CA and the isolated sound stubs utilised to create Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
3. Complete Season sets were introduced (as opposed to random one disc episode releases)

Now, the first release of this kind was the original Battlestar Galactica complete series which scored well. They dug out the original logo artwork, used decent library pictures and produced a superb Dolby 5.1 surround track from the original sound elements. Stu Phillips’ original stereo soundtrack masters were used and relaid against the FX and dialogue tracks. Married with the cleaned-up video, this was a 1978 show that looked and sounded better than it did on original transmission. 

A note about Universal’s archives

The whole case for the debate as to which back catalogue releases get the ‘premium’ treatment and others don’t (see Knight Rider below) is made stronger when you learn a few facts about how efficient Universal Studios has been in their approach to archiving their TV shows over the years:

1. They physically hold over 61,400 reels of color or black & white negatives, supported by over 154,800 reels of picture and sound preprint elements which include over 27.3 million feet of color interpositives or finegrains for television productions.
2. The original negative is archived along with the Edit Decision List and original production paperwork for future use.
3. Since 1976 Universal has spent approximately $30 million building and maintaining vaults
4. In 1986 they created a computerized tracking system
   for picture, sound and videotape element held in the library
5. In the mid-1970’s Universal’s sound department began protecting soundtrack masters. Original masters were copied onto 1/2 tape and the masters held in storage.
6. In the 1980’s physical cleaning and  repairing of original master elements was made and then transferred to both 32-track digital and analog 24-track protection masters.

This means that all TV shows in their catalogue should have their original, isolated music, FX and dialogue tracks properly catalogued and stored. So how does Knight Rider final season get released worldwide on DVD with the wrong soundtrack? Ditto on The A-Team Season Five.

So what about Vice S1?

The same approach was taken with the Season One worldwide release of Vice, but without the original logo – it’s close but no cigar.  The soundtrack (which was originally produced in MONO for season one with the exception of the pilot) was created out of the isolated elements but a major time/cost saving was made by Universal. They didn’t replace the commercial music cues with stereo versions, so although the new soundtrack is indeed Dolby 5.1 with spaced out FX tracks and ambiance – all music is in the centre channel.  Season Two onwards are fine as the original music stubs were stereo so it’s an easier job. But this makes a big audio difference!!!

Dempsey And Makepeace

Now, first off, I should say I am a great fan of Network DVD .  I worked with them when they first started as an offshoot of the Virgin group and the two guys who run it are passionate about the product, getting involved of all aspects of the release including research and even designing the packaging and menus.  The Robin of Sherwood videos and DVDs were a perfect example of a great Cult-Television product.

 Unfortunately , Dempsey and Makepeace (like The Professionals) falls into the category of ‘it’s got a a market, but not the  biggest fan following…’ which means it gets a very basic release. Now , I have reference copies recorded off-air of this series that were made on a very good VHS recorder with hi-fi sound and excellent picture reproduction (as far as you can with VHS).  And the original source materials held by London Weekend Television are now 22 years old. And they are the original TV / video masters from what I can see. This gives us grainy, colour washed prints with poor colour balance. If the original film stocks were gone back to and the sort of remastering effort that applied that was used on The Sweeney were applied , then we would have a fantastic looking picture. The soundtrack was always in good shape even on original TX back in 1985. Sharp, crisp well balanced audio. This has translated well to DVD.

 Again, lets hope more effort in the future is given to these ‘lesser’ releases. It shouldn’t really be down to the independent video companies to do this. The copyright owners should invest in their back catalogue to make it pristine using their vast resources. From a commercial perspective, this offers the best to future media which will , by its improving nature, show up bad source material in greater clarity

The A-Team Series Five on DVD R1 & R2

I recently purchased seasons 1 to 5 of The A-Team on R2 DVD. After buying the sole Season 5 VHS release back in the 1980’s , I knew that the VHS masters already had a sound problem. However the 15 years following has not improved Universal’s awareness of their own back catalogue…

The soundtrack should be in Stereo, not mono!!

Considering this was the final season broadcast from September 1986-March 1987 and other MCA Universal shows (including Columbo , Murder She Wrote and Knight Rider*) of the same season were produced and broadcast in MTS stereo (introduced in 1984 on NBC) , it is clear that this season of The A-Team was original produced with a stereo audio track. Further evidence of this can be heard when you listen to the final season opening theme on the Playback DVD’s (and also on syndicated repeats probably using the same revised masters) where there is obvious phasing on the music where the stereo tracks have been (badly) converted to mono and there is obvious phase shifting. You can hear this clearly on the opening bass drums which have no bass at all and also there are Simmons electronic drums fills missing notes where the original stereo master used extreme left/right pans on the drum fills. The original UK transmissons on ITV (where stereo wasn’t launched until 1989) were the correctly converted mono versions of the masters where this phasing is not evident and you can hear all of the instrumentation properly albeit in mono.

Season Five (1986-87) Opening Titles
[correctly phased mono master 1.36m] .
Music arranged and composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter.

A note on the original A-Team logo
Yet again, the packaging design is way off the mark using a stretched and out of proportion version of the Stencil font. The A-Team logo is clearly defined and recognisable with ALL first run merchandise from 1983-1988 using the standard licensed logo shown above (except the first season variation from 1983-84 that got used on publicity photos and some toys). Why do Universal think they need to change it? All movie DVD packaging is rigorously designed to with things like logo size , colour and type being pixel perfect, so why are their TV properties treated any differently?

Knight Rider Season Four on DVD – Mono downgrade!!

Knight Rider Season Four suffered the same removal of stereo fate…

Universal did exactly the same thing with the final season of Knight Rider , which we know for a fact (directly from composer Don Peake and also the original single disk Playback DVD releases) that this season was produced with stereo music and effects.

Listen to this clip from from the original music master tapes for the Season Four episode ‘Scent of Roses’ (Jan 1986) . This is how it should sound!!

Whoever made the decision at Universal during the remastering process to dumb these down to mono for a collectors release needs their head examining. Listen to the ambiance and drama created in a good Season Four episode such as Knight Sting in full stereo where good use is made of the audio channels and you will see what fans are missing. The packaging makes a big deal about how the DVD’s are fully remastered and looking fantastic…yes , they are and a great job was done visually on Season Four to clean up the images compared to the television masters that were visibly washed out even early syndication runs. But they should have applied the same care to the soundtrack , instead of performing a schoolboy error of mixing down to mono. Let’s hope one day a re-release fixes this fundamental flaw in this product. They managed a wonderful job with Miami Vice and Battlestar Galactica, going back to the original audio stubs and creating new Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mixes, so why do The A-team and Knight Rider get such poor treatment?

A note on the Original Knight Rider Logo

I’m sure the new logo is designed to attract ‘fresh audiences’ but this is a collectors’ product pure and simple and the original Gothic logo should have been used, as it was on all original licensed merchandise at the time and the original video releases. The typeface exists and is available as a standard foundry typeface (BTW not the dodgy out of shape TTF that is used on all fan sites) that can be used for print resolutions, so why didn’t the designers take the time to do their research properly? Shoddy.