Heads up, you can now get the entire series on Amazon Instant Video for $19.99 a season. I'm not sure how long ago seasons 4-7 became available since seasons 1-3 were already available for a long time, but now the rest of the series is available for purchase.
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I checked there, and it says that Seasons 4-7 are in HD! weird, isn't it? The entire series was shot on SD Video tapes... Can someone who purchased these "HD" versions confirm that they are at least higher quality than an average DVD? Thanks! I'm really tempted to buy those seasons. Seasons 1-3 I can buy from iTunes at the same price for a better SD quality. I just don't trust Amazon completely with streaming video quality...
,I bought a few season 4 episodes (seasons 2-4 are my favorites, although I also like some of each season), with two of my favorites being the two part season 4 finale episodes "The Looove Boat", since they're the last episodes before Kirk started changing the show, and I noticed the standard definition has the black bars throughout the screen. They're on the left and right side of the video screen (as expected with most SD episodes of TV shows), and on the top and bottom of the episode as well. I'm guessing the "HD" versions have it where the episodes are stretched out to fill more screen. I don't think it's in true HD since the show was 1985-1992 before HD.
shareHmmm, the black bars you mention doesn't mean that a show can't be a HD Remaster.
You can have HD video in all sorts of aspect ratios. It doesn't have to be only widescreen and fill your screen.
Almost all tv shows from the 50s to the late late 90s were shot/filmed using either an analog equipment or a film reel (like Theatres) equipment. back then, there weren't any widescreen TVs so directors had to find a middle ground so they filmed for the popular Aspect Ratio of TV sets of the time, which today on widescreen TVs have "black bars" on the sides to maintain correct ratio and not stretch the image.
"Growing Pains" was shot using analog equipment, which means Standard definition video signal at 29.970 fps, which also means a lot of ugly video noise from using low-quality equipment.
The Amazon Instant Video "HD" of Seasons 4-7 is NOT HD.
I bought an episode from Season 5 and It has all the characteristics of Analog video. It's just an Upscaled SD. it's only a "HQ" presentation. Sure, it looks better than a regular streamed Youtube video, but is not at all HD. An Official DVD looks better than this "HD" episode.
Also, Amazon does not let you download the episode to your PC or mobile devices for offline viewing. I'd stay away from them. DON'T BE FOOLED!
I didn't buy the HD episodes as I'd rather save a dollar considering the show wasn't filmed in HD. I find it bizarre that they released it in HD. Even iTunes doesn't do this. Shows that weren't filmed in HD when they first started don't seem to have HD versions available on iTunes, yet their later seasons which were filmed in HD are available in both HD and SD. The SD quality of the season 4 episodes I got so far seem to be pretty watchable and not at all bad quality
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