What happened to the original MV colors?

[AndrewRemington]

I’m kind of near-sighted, so I do have glasses but generally only wear them for driving or watching tv/films. I’ve worn my prescription sunglasses (which are brown-tinted) while watching TV, Miami Vice especially (sounds insane, I know), but it really makes the colors more vibrant for me! My sunglasses are not super dark either, so I can still clearly see everything on screen. It’s a lot of fun to watch these Vice episodes like that!

Anyone else who has brown-tinted shades, please give it try! By the way, I still just have the Universal DVDs.

Edited July 15, 2020 by AndrewRemington

[ViceFanMan]

4 minutes ago, pahonu said:

I’m no expert on this topic but I have a friend who in the 90’s used to work in film processing for Deluxe film lab in Hollywood, the 100+ year old company.
I learned a lot from him.  Of course, now everything is digital.

My understanding is that 35mm film like the ubiquitous Panaflex used for Miami Vice and most dramatic television for decades, has real issues with color degradation over time.  If the negative is not stored absolutely properly, it can start to degrade in as little as five years!  Also, the different colors degrade at different rates.

Add to that the transfer to video, which is what we were watching in the 80’s, and there is an immense amount of variability in color possibilities.  Even going back to the original negative for Blu-ray isn’t the “original” color because the negative has degraded and will have to be color corrected.

All these steps, from the original film development to the video transfer to modern color correction involve decisions by individuals along the way.  They all affect the colors.  If you take it to its logical end, our TV choice and even our own vision affect the colors we perceive.  

Bottom line, I think it’s hard define precisely what the original colors were for any film.  We definitely notice the changes over time, but what were the original colors...???

This makes a lot of sense, and I wondered if it wasn’t something like this for a few scenes & what appears to be color-fading. However, there are some colors that were changed or altered (such as with the show logo) when it first went to reruns...which would have been before the negatives had time to start degrading. All of a sudden we have a dark “forest” green & purple logo that was never used originally...and “fading” would not have produced those colors. 

[Vincent Hanna]

Maybe the prints used in syndication where better quality than the ones used in the original airing?

When they are remastering Tv shows, shouldn't they try to recreate the original vision rather than approximate how it looked on those crappy TVs? It would be like trying to guess what Lawrence of Arabia looked like originally by looking at a vhs tape or pan and scanned on tv in the 80s.

[Wayfarers4ever]

39 minutes ago, pahonu said:

All these steps, from the original film development to the video transfer to modern color correction involve decisions by individuals along the way.  They all affect the colors.  If you take it to its logical end, our TV choice and even our own vision affect the colors we perceive.  

Bottom line, I think it’s hard define precisely what the original colors were for any film.  We definitely notice the changes over time, but what were the original colors...???

Exactly. And it's because of this (plus my personal experience editing photo and video) that I find this such a fascinating topic.

[pahonu]

11 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

This makes a lot of sense, and I wondered if it wasn’t something like this for a few scenes & what appears to be color-fading. However, there are some colors that were changed or altered (such as with the show logo) when it first went to reruns...which would have been before the negatives had time to start degrading. All of a sudden we have a dark “forest” green & purple logo that was never used originally...and “fading” would not have produced those colors. 

The reruns, even the early ones, would likely not have used the same film to video transfers as the network used for the original run.  I worked in production for a few years in the 90’s and learned a lot.  This is actually postproduction we’re talking about, really distribution if we’re being technical, but the color decisions happen in postproduction.

The way it was originally done was this:  (sorry if this is redundant to you)

The show was shot on 35mm Panaflex film.  The negative is processed and a working print is used to edit the episode or the editing decisions can be made with a videotape transfer.  This varies from TV to motion pictures.  Once the editing decisions are done, the original negative is cut and printed.  That is the film print that will be transferred to video tapes and sent to all the network affiliates to show in the original run.

When a show is syndicated and sold to different stations, they have to go back and make a lot more videotape copies of the original print to send out everywhere, even globally.  Just transferring the original print to videotape involved decisions about color that could alter it.  That print could have degraded a bit even then.  There’s a story about Steven Spielberg saying that in under five years the blues of the ocean in Jaws were fading and the blood in Robert Shaw’s mouth was becoming more bright red.

[pahonu]

18 minutes ago, Vincent Hanna said:

Maybe the prints used in syndication where better quality than the ones used in the original airing?

When they are remastering Tv shows, shouldn't they try to recreate the original vision rather than approximate how it looked on those crappy TVs? It would be like trying to guess what Lawrence of Arabia looked like originally by looking at a vhs tape or pan and scanned on tv in the 80s.

They usually use the original print as a guide to the colors intended by the creators, BUT... the original print degrades over time and decisions have to be made about correcting colors, other decisions to, like contrast and brightness.  Interestingly, black and white film is far more stable in this way.
 

Think of it this way.  No matter how much we want to see the show as it originally aired, we just can’t because no recordings, of any kind, are totally stable.  This includes audio.  Remastering is all about trying to get it as close to what was intended as possible, but there is no version to work from that is exactly as it was when first created.

[pahonu]

I would also add that these color decisions were originally made for tube televisions that had far lower clarity and depth of color than TV’s of today.  Going back to the original negative or print to make a Blu-ray involves technicians making decisions based on today’s completely different criteria. 
 

I have always wondered what the original film print of the pilot back in 1984 would have looked like projected in a theater.  It would certainly have looked quite a bit different than what we saw on our old TV’s.  That might be one of the goals of Blu-ray technicians as they make new transfers, to make it look more cinematic as audiences expect today.  I don’t know that, just speculating.  Ultimately we can’t “see“ that “original” print anyway, as it has definitely changed in the last 36 years.  Sad but true!

[ViceFanMan]

2 hours ago, pahonu said:

I have always wondered what the original film print of the pilot back in 1984 would have looked like projected in a theater.  It would certainly have looked quite a bit different than what we saw on our old TV’s.  That might be one of the goals of Blu-ray technicians as they make new transfers, to make it look more cinematic as audiences expect today.  I don’t know that, just speculating.  Ultimately we can’t “see“ that “original” print anyway, as it has definitely changed in the last 36 years.  Sad but true!

I don’t know how it would have looked on a theater screen, as I don’t believe it’s ever been shown on one, but I have a DVD copy of the original 1984 NBC airing of the Pilot—granted it is an original VHS copy burnt onto a blank DVD, but the original tape was kept in very good shape/condition, and there weren’t really any (that I know of) transfers over the years to other tapes or DVDs. So, the colors, picture quality, and even sound are pretty darn awesome for something from 1984...and from what I can tell, the colors are pretty much how they originally looked! 

Edited July 15, 2020 by ViceFanMan

[pahonu]

1 hour ago, ViceFanMan said:

I don’t know how it would have looked on a theater screen, as I don’t believe it’s ever been shown on one, but I have a DVD copy of the original 1984 NBC airing of the Pilot—granted it is an original VHS copy burnt onto a blank DVD, but the original tape was kept in very good shape/condition, and there weren’t really any (that I know of) transfers over the years to other tapes or DVDs. So, the colors, picture quality, and even sound are pretty darn awesome for something from 1984...and from what I can tell, the colors are pretty much how they originally looked! 

VHS is actually a less stable medium than film.  It decays in several ways over time, one of which is simply watching it.  The magnetic tape itself also degrades.  I’ve read 10% in 10 years.  Transfers, as you mentioned, are the worst.  Generational loss is huge!  Also, most people don’t have the ability to store VHS tapes perfectly. VHS tapes at home are subject to dust and can also start to degrade as a result of tape-eating bacteria and deterioration from the elements such as heat and moisture.

You probably have no way of knowing, but the quality of the DVD copy you have is also very dependent on how often the original VHS tape was played.  If it was recorded then put away and stored properly, a BIG if, then you may have a reasonable copy.  I’m sorry to say though, that it’s not likely as close as you think.  

[ViceFanMan]

13 minutes ago, pahonu said:

VHS is actually a less stable medium than film.  It decays in several ways over time, one of which is simply watching it.  The magnetic tape itself also degrades.  I’ve read 10% in 10 years.  Transfers, as you mentioned, are the worst.  Generational loss is huge!  Also, most people don’t have the ability to store VHS tapes perfectly. VHS tapes at home are subject to dust and can also start to degrade as a result of tape-eating bacteria and deterioration from the elements such as heat and moisture.

You probably have no way of knowing, but the quality of the DVD copy you have is also very dependent on how often the original VHS tape was played.  If it was recorded then put away and stored properly, a BIG if, then you may have a reasonable copy.  I’m sorry to say though, that it’s not likely as close as you think.  

The tape was not continuously watched over and over, as did degrade tapes over time...it was only watched probably a couple times since the original recording. The box of tapes were stored for the most part (not a studio vault or store room, true) properly with temperature controled room and not a lot of dust or dirt contamination. 

It may not be as vibrant from the original 1984 airing/recording, but it’s darn close—I remember!  The colors are pretty much as originally aired...not much fading (as I’ve compared my original airings to the official DVDs & syndicated versions) & no alterations or editing. The original airings are as “original” as you’re gonna get & even if they’re not 100% like they were when originally aired...they’re definitely 97-98%!  

I’ve had tons of other shows over the years recorded in past days on VHS and I know what they look like when they do start to degrade or fade. Luckily my MV original airings have not done that, but they were also stored better, and not continuously watched over and over, which does wear out and degrade VHS tapes. 

[pahonu]

6 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

The tape was not continuously watched over and over, as did degrade tapes over time...it was only watched probably a couple times since the original recording. The box of tapes were stored for the most part (not a studio vault or store room, true) properly with temperature controled room and not a lot of dust or dirt contamination. 

It may not be as vibrant from the original 1984 airing/recording, but it’s darn close—I remember!  The colors are pretty much as originally aired...not much fading (as I’ve compared my original airings to the official DVDs & syndicated versions) & no alterations or editing. The original airings are as “original” as you’re gonna get & even if they’re not 100% like they were when originally aired...they’re definitely 97-98%!  

I’ve had tons of other shows over the years recorded in past days on VHS and I know what they look like when they do start to degrade or fade. Luckily my MV original airings have not done that, but they were also stored better, and not continuously watched over and over, which does wear out and degrade VHS tapes. 

You have something rare then.  Nice!

When was it transferred to DVD?  The sooner the better.  Over a decade and there’s definitely decay.  Were there DVD’s in 1994?  I don’t think they came out until later in the 90’s. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by pahonu

[ViceFanMan]

2 minutes ago, pahonu said:

You have something rare then.  Nice!

I think so...I’m sure it’s not 100% exactly like originally aired, but it’s darn close! It’s as close as I’ll ever get, LOL. 

[pahonu]

I just added to the post as I thought about the age of DVDs.

Still sounds about as good as you can get!

Edited July 15, 2020 by pahonu

[ViceFanMan]

53 minutes ago, pahonu said:

You have something rare then.  Nice!

When was it transferred to DVD?  The sooner the better.  Over a decade and there’s definitely decay.  Were there DVD’s in 1994?  I don’t think they came out until later in the 90’s. 

The actual transfer of the episodes to DVD was done about 8-10 years ago. They were the highest quality DVDs (for blank ones at that time) and I don’t even watch those over and over (they’ve only been watched twice) as I am paranoid they will eventually wear out someway (but perhaps not). They are also stored in a temperature controlled room and have special DVD covers I made...so they’re not in “open” paper sleeves or something where the elements can get to them. 

 

[Wayfarers4ever]

Ok so putting aside the issue of incorrect colors, I wanted to do a compare and contrast of all the different title shots.

I chose nine of the most representative images from each season (thanks for your hard work, ivoryjones!) and they appear in chronological order, from top left to bottom right. Also I did my best to control for brightness/saturation between the shots (the "in stereo" logo really helped) and any time I had to interpret/take some artistic license I decided to err on the side of too much saturation (especially the blues) rather than too little since that seems to be one of the main complaints of the DVD/streaming releases. Feel free to take it or leave it, pal 

Season 1 titles... you can see the addition of the glow for Calderone's Return

Season 2... gotta love those blues

Seasons 3 through 5, which each row representing one season. There simply isn't enough variation in the colors to do each of these seasons separately

It's really remarkable how they were tweaking these for damn near every episode, even if it was just the slightest brightening or darkening. That's some real attention to detail that makes the decision to forgo these in the later releases all the more baffling.

And if nothing else I hope these make for some damn sexy eye candy! 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Wayfarers4ever

[pahonu]

34 minutes ago, Wayfarers4ever said:

Ok so putting aside the issue of incorrect colors, I wanted to do a compare and contrast of all the different title shots.

I chose nine of the most representative images from each season (thanks for your hard work, ivoryjones!) and they appear in chronological order, from top left to bottom right. Also I did my best to control for brightness/saturation between the shots (the "in stereo" logo really helped) and any time I had to interpret/take some artistic license I decided to err on the side of too much saturation (especially the blues) rather than too little since that seems to be one of the main complaints of the DVD/streaming releases. Feel free to take it or leave it, pal 

Season 1 titles... you can see the addition of the glow for Calderone's Return

Season 2... gotta love those blues

Seasons 3 through 5, which each row representing one season. There simply isn't enough variation in the colors to do each of these seasons separately

It's really remarkable how they were tweaking these for damn near every episode, even if it was just the slightest brightening or darkening. That's some real attention to detail that makes the decision to forgo these in the later releases all the more baffling.

And if nothing else I hope these make for some damn sexy eye candy! 

Thanks for these!  The second season, row two, column three, looks like sky blue and red to me.  It jumped out as so different from the rest!  Do you know which episode?

[ViceFanMan]

55 minutes ago, Wayfarers4ever said:

Ok so putting aside the issue of incorrect colors, I wanted to do a compare and contrast of all the different title shots.

I chose nine of the most representative images from each season (thanks for your hard work, ivoryjones!) and they appear in chronological order, from top left to bottom right. Also I did my best to control for brightness/saturation between the shots (the "in stereo" logo really helped) and any time I had to interpret/take some artistic license I decided to err on the side of too much saturation (especially the blues) rather than too little since that seems to be one of the main complaints of the DVD/streaming releases. Feel free to take it or leave it, pal 

Season 1 titles... you can see the addition of the glow for Calderone's Return

Season 2... gotta love those blues

Seasons 3 through 5, which each row representing one season. There simply isn't enough variation in the colors to do each of these seasons separately

It's really remarkable how they were tweaking these for damn near every episode, even if it was just the slightest brightening or darkening. That's some real attention to detail that makes the decision to forgo these in the later releases all the more baffling.

And if nothing else I hope these make for some damn sexy eye candy! 

Yes, ivoryjones is very informed & well versed on the topic of the original “MV colors” and/or the changes & alterations...especially with the syndicated reruns. 

Awesome logo pics all together...I’ve seen them before separated out but it’s kinda cool to see them beside each other! 

The logo colors were, for whatever reasons, changed in the syndicated reruns for I believe Seasons 3-5...they were made this very un-MV-like dark green & purple.  It’s awesome seeing the original & “real” logos & colors! 

Below is the “fake” colored logo used in the reruns...& subsequently the DVD & Blu-ray sets:

Edited July 16, 2020 by ViceFanMan

[Wayfarers4ever]

18 minutes ago, pahonu said:

Thanks for these!  The second season, row two, column three, looks like sky blue and red to me.  It jumped out as so different from the rest!  Do you know which episode?

You're welcome! So the one you refer to comes from one of the all time great episodes of this show... "Definitely Miami"

[ViceFanMan]

4 minutes ago, Wayfarers4ever said:

You're welcome! So the one you refer to comes from one of the all time great episodes of this show... "Definitely Miami"

I love “Definitely Miami”...Season 2 is my favorite season & in my opinion had the best episodes overall & the best styled/colored logos! 

P.S. I added a pic of the fake logo in my previous post above. 

Edited July 16, 2020 by ViceFanMan

[Wayfarers4ever]

19 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

The logo colors were, for whatever reasons, changed in the syndicated reruns for I believe Seasons 3-5...they were made this very un-MV-like dark green & purple.  It’s awesome seeing the original & “real” logos & colors! 

Yep I'm well aware because I'm too young to have watched the show in the '80s or '90s and I've only seen it on the streaming services, which is a big reason why I've been so active in this thread -- I want to know the original colors, pal!

This is just a random musing, but knowing that that purple and dark green scheme came about some time in the mid-'90s, AND forest green and royal purple were such popular colors all through the 1990s, I have to wonder if that was someone's half-assed attempt at making the show not seem so eighties? Again it's just a random guess.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Wayfarers4ever

[ViceFanMan]

7 minutes ago, Wayfarers4ever said:

Yep I'm well aware because I'm too young to have watched the show in the '80s or '90s and I've only seen it on the streaming services, which is a big reason why I've been so active in this thread -- I want to know the original colors, damnit!

This is just a random musing, but knowing that that purple and dark green scheme came about some time in the mid-'90s, AND forest green and royal purple were such popular colors all through the 1990s, I have to wonder if that was someone's half-assed attempt at making the show not seem so eighties? Again it's just a random guess.

I truly don’t know why they changed the logo...there was no purpose or reason? The show went into syndication almost right after it went off the air, and the first couple years of the 90s were a little carry-over from the 80s...so styles weren’t that drastically different right away. The colors would not have been so faded and degraded at that time that they needed changed, either...so they had to choose to change the logo colors, for whatever reason? 

Edited July 16, 2020 by ViceFanMan

[pahonu]

2 hours ago, Wayfarers4ever said:

You're welcome! So the one you refer to comes from one of the all time great episodes of this show... "Definitely Miami"

Thanks for that.  I’ve seen it so many times and not noticed!  It must be seeing them all side by side.

[TylerDurden389]

Someone earlier in the thread said when you transfer VHS there's a generational loss in quality. I just wanna point out that you can get a perfect lossless transfer if you know how to rip VHS straight to digital on your computer. It's very complicated but it works. You need a pro-grade VCR (which are rare and expensive now), something called a Time-Base--Corrector (about $200), and a bare-bones PC that stills runs windows XP (for whatever reason, XP does a better job than Windows 7 and 10). You need it to be bare bones so that the PC is only running the programs you're using, and nothing else, so as to avoid frame drops.

You can mess around with the color, brightness, contrast, etc.. with the time base corrector before you rip. As long as you don't have any issues with dropped frames (which means you both lose frames from the recording, and it causes audio-sync issues). Then you can always edit those later with your lossless rips (usually .AVI format). There's a website called "The digitalfaq.com" where they have tons of tutorials that show you how to do this yourself. Lists of the best pro-grade VCRs (and where to find them), and they offer services to do it for you (about $20-$40 per hour of footage, depending on if you want the footage cleaned up). Great for people with tons of old home movies on VHS just sitting around in a closet somewhere.

I plan on doing it myself someday, but for now, I'm ok with my (unfortunate) dvd copies with 1 generation of loss. My relatives were OK with the copies I made them as well, lol.

Edited July 21, 2020 by TylerDurden389

[pahonu]

4 hours ago, TylerDurden389 said:

Someone earlier in the thread said when you transfer VHS there's a generational loss in quality. I just wanna point out that you can get a perfect lossless transfer if you know how to rip VHS straight to digital on your computer. It's very complicated but it works. You need a pro-grade VCR (which are rare and expensive now), something called a Time-Base--Corrector (about $200), and a bare-bones PC that stills runs windows XP (for whatever reason, XP does a better job than Windows 7 and 10). You need it to be bare bones so that the PC is only running the programs you're using, and nothing else, so as to avoid frame drops.

You can mess around with the color, brightness, contrast, etc.. with the time base corrector before you rip. As long as you don't have any issues with dropped frames (which means you both lose frames from the recording, and it causes audio-sync issues). Then you can always edit those later with your lossless rips (usually .AVI format). There's a website called "The digitalfaq.com" where they have tons of tutorials that show you how to do this yourself. Lists of the best pro-grade VCRs (and where to find them), and they offer services to do it for you (about $20-$40 per hour of footage, depending on if you want the footage cleaned up). Great for people with tons of old home movies on VHS just sitting around in a closet somewhere.

I plan on doing it myself someday, but for now, I'm ok with my (unfortunate) dvd copies with 1 generation of loss. My relatives were OK with the copies I made them as well, lol.

That sounds like a very good, if somewhat complicated, way to avoid generational loss.  The real variable using this method isn’t the copying though, but rather the condition of the original VHS tape, and I mean the physical magnetic tape inside.  The parts of this plastic tape begin to breakdown over time.  How old are the tapes is a big variable.  The tape includes the plastic tape itself, the magnetic oxide holding the signal, and the adhesive that bind that to the tape.  If stored improperly or played frequently the degradation happens quite quickly. Simple dust damages the magnetic oxide.  

Remember also, to simply watch the video, there has to be physical contact between the tape and the head reading it, like a stylus in a record groove.  That’s the nature of any analog system as opposed to a digital system that is optically read.  Every time it is played it is degraded slightly as well.  Essentially what you would be getting using this method is an almost perfect copy of a degraded tape.  

Don’t take this as overly negative.  I’m not discouraging anyone from doing this. The degradation will only continue if not preserved in some way.  The vast majority of films from the silent era are lost, many simply turned to cellulose dust in the film canisters if the nitrate didn’t catch fire first!  Just understand that a copy is only as good as the source material.

[ViceFanMan]

Yeah, the more you watched a VHS tape, the faster it wore out or degraded some. I don’t know if it instantly “degraded” the second you watch the tape, after the first initial recording, but if a tape is continually watched a bunch it begins to “fade” or wear out. 

Also, I think it sometimes depended on the quality of the tape used...over the years, back in the analog days, I always noticed a difference between a name-brand tape (Scotch, Kodak, etc...) and a cheap-o one. The name-brand ones seemed to keep their color, sound, & picture quality longer. 

The original airing tapes used for the DVD set I have were not watched a ton of times over, and they were properly stored. The person who did the transfers did a superb job of preserving/restoring everything and “bringing out” (probably not the right technical terms but you get the idea) the original way the show looked! When watching those DVDs (and Ive only watched them twice in the past 7-8 years or so) on a DVD player with HD or a Blu-ray player, I swear the episodes look HD...for something from the 1980s, they’re amazing!  They may not be ‘technically’ 100% perfect from the original airings...but I’d say 90-95%! 

Edited July 21, 2020 by ViceFanMan