Baywatch (1989-2001)

[ionsi]

Fernsehjuwelen have confirmed that the HD-Versions of the episodes will be the altered versions (different music, different cut etc...).

But the original cuts of the episodes will be included as SD-Bonus including original audio in English and German.

News (in German):

https://www.schnittberichte.com/news.php?ID=14618

But as Fernsehjuwelen later told us, fortunately, the original versions including the original German & English soundtracks will at least be included as an SD bonus on the Blu-rays. So it will be possible for nostalgics to watch the original series as they know it. This is also a relief as we were also confirmed that these original versions "are no longer permitted to be aired on TV or VoD because of a limitation of the international rights holder."

[Swissangel4616]

oh man, I hate that crap with copyrights issues. That's way it's not anymore on TV. The same with Melrose Place. They also are NOT ready to releasing it on DVD because of music copyrights. Big Shame.

[DawnShadow]

How ridiculously stupid. They have the original soundtracks so with just a little bit of effort, they could easily restore them to the HD video.

There isn’t much cut from the episodes, and tons of the footage is upscaled anyway so why not just upscale the missing scenes and restore them into the HD versions? Laziness, plain and simple.

[ionsi]

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

How ridiculously stupid. They have the original soundtracks so with just a little bit of effort, they could easily restore them to the HD video.

There isn’t much cut from the episodes, and tons of the footage is upscaled anyway so why not just upscale the missing scenes and restore them into the HD versions? Laziness, plain and simplex

That is part of the News as well - it states:

Originally, they had even planned to offer the original German & English soundtracks as a third and fourth audio option for the HD master. However, too much had been changed and cut differently so that they finally gave up on this plan.

[DawnShadow]

I know, I read it. That’s why I added the second paragraph.

[McCrutchy]

Well, these sound like terrible releases. After butchering The World at War, Freemantle strikes again, it seems. If they couldn't afford most of the music in the show, to the point that footage is being cut from the episodes (e.g. the Little Richard episode with what, ten minutes missing?!?!?!), then they probably never should have attempted to remaster the series in the first place.

I can only hope that complete OAR HD masters exist (unable to be released, of course) and could be used if someone is willing to pay up in the future.

And this isn't even touching on the idea that Fernsehjuwelen thinks they can jam each season in 1.78:1 onto four discs PLUS carry SD versions of all the episodes on those same discs.

My pre-order is cancelled.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

My pre-order is cancelled.

It's such a shame. They'll probably cite the decline of physical media for lack of sales, when it's the content that's the issue, it's fine to dip in and out of Baywatch on Prime as part of a subscription, but to pay £35 for these is just asking too much.

I'm not sure which is worse Baywatch's or Buffy the Vampire Slayer's HD masters. Considering the appeal of both it's a tough call.

[moviegeek1992]

Originally Posted by chip75

If it's complete and botched to 16:9 it might be bearable, but if it's just cut to pieces then it's a hard pass.

Are the episodes on Amazon Prime cut?

[DawnShadow]

Originally Posted by moviegeek1992

Are the episodes on Amazon Prime cut?

Yes.

[elvisranger]

The are offering both versions ,even though the original ones are on sd, I will buy them eventually.

[DawnShadow]

They could have easily restored that audio to the new HD masters though. Shame they're so lazy.

[The Mole]

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

They could have easily restored that audio to the new HD masters though. Shame they're so lazy.

They tried but it proved to be too complicated, because of all the edits that were made to the HD versions, and therefore the plans were abandoned. Many of the original music video montages have been completely re-edited differently in order to fit the new music. So the old audio just does not fit there.Keep in mind: We are talking about over 200 episodes with every single one of them having some more or less severe changes done to them in the HD version. Restore the old audio to these masters would have been a massive time and therefore cost consuming effort.

I am a huge fan of the series and I cringe at what the rights owners did to it in the HD version. I rather stick to the old, worn-out SD DVDs then ever watch the episodes in their new, butchered form. But I can understand a small label like Fersehjuwelen saying: Sorry guys, we could never sell enough Blu-rays in order to get the money back it would cost us to fit the old audio to the HD masters (and then only having the more and more shrinking DVD and Blu-ray market as our way of distribution for this version, as TV and streming rights only allow the new audio to be used).

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

They could have easily restored that audio to the new HD masters though. Shame they're so lazy.

Has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with cost. The music was taken out for a reason and the edits were.made for a reason. Sadly it's a byproduct of music licensing and home video and what not that has crippled many other shows. Blame Fremantle for not paying up and having to make edits, but as this series had a lot of songs, it regrettably is what it is.

[newgen2005]

So are they including the unedited episodes in SD?

[DawnShadow]

Originally Posted by newgen2005

So are they including the unedited episodes in SD?

Yes

Originally Posted by DMRI2006

Has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with cost. The music was taken out for a reason and the edits were.made for a reason. Sadly it's a byproduct of music licensing and home video and what not that has crippled many other shows. Blame Fremantle for not paying up and having to make edits, but as this series had a lot of songs, it regrettably is what it is.

Do some research. Obviously if they're including the original audio on the SD versions as an extra, they can use it on the HD versions too. Has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with laziness.

Originally Posted by The Mole

They tried but it proved to be too complicated, because of all the edits that were made to the HD versions, and therefore the plans were abandoned. Many of the original music video montages have been completely re-edited differently in order to fit the new music. So the old audio just does not fit there.Keep in mind: We are talking about over 200 episodes with every single one of them having some more or less severe changes done to them in the HD version. Restore the old audio to these masters would have been a massive time and therefore cost consuming effort.

I am a huge fan of the series and I cringe at what the rights owners did to it in the HD version. I rather stick to the old, worn-out SD DVDs then ever watch the episodes in their new, butchered form. But I can understand a small label like Fersehjuwelen saying: Sorry guys, we could never sell enough Blu-rays in order to get the money back it would cost us to fit the old audio to the HD masters (and then only having the more and more shrinking DVD and Blu-ray market as our way of distribution for this version, as TV and streming rights only allow the new audio to be used).

Consuming effort is what I expect. I'm going to do it myself when this inferior product comes out so there's no reason a company full of people couldn't achieve it. Even if they have to insert some SD footage, it's far from unachievable. They chose the lazy option and sales are going to reflect it. If a team took the time to remove the audio, then another team can take the time to put it back in.

[chriszilla]

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

Do some research. Obviously if they're including the original audio on the SD versions as an extra, they can use it on the HD versions too. Has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with laziness.

Sorry, but you're the one who needs to "do some research". It has everything to do with cost. The number of man hours in an editing facility required to correct all of the edits would be staggering, and not even remotely economically feasible given the income the sales of these sets will generate.

It wasn't just a case of replacing songs wholesale; scenes were re-edited to fit with the new music. If you took the old song and paired it with the remastered footage, it simply wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

Consuming effort is what I expect. I'm going to do it myself when this inferior product comes out so there's no reason a company full of people couldn't achieve it. Even if they have to insert some SD footage, it's far from unachievable. They chose the lazy option and sales are going to reflect it. If a team took the time to remove the audio, then another team can take the time to put it back in.

The suggestion that they could just insert SD footage into an HD remaster is an uninformed one. The consumer complaints about that would be far stronger than what they'll get with this release.

Since you seem to think this isn't a monumental task, please report back to us on your results after you do some audio tinkering.

[chip75]

Baywatch's HD masters were created by illuminate Hollywood. Their proprietary process cuts costs compared to the regular eyeballing editing process (going through each episodes Edit Decision List and finding the relative footage from the canisters), they would have used the episode masters tapes to conform the first edit (along with the EDLs). It would have been very close to a finalized product and they would have been the broadcast episodes.

They would have then gone through each episode with a checklist of things they had to remove. I would assume that they have the original episode cuts (or very close to them as they would have to eyeball some shots and add SD cuts to missing footage) stored alongside their new cuts.

So the complete HD masters are tantalizingly close, but perhaps forever out of reach (like the first four seasons of The X-Files without the horrendous re-framing).

[DawnShadow]

Originally Posted by chriszilla

Sorry, but you're the one who needs to "do some research". It has everything to do with cost. The number of man hours in an editing facility required to correct all of the edits would be staggering, and not even remotely economically feasible given the income the sales of these sets will generate.

It wasn't just a case of replacing songs wholesale; scenes were re-edited to fit with the new music. If you took the old song and paired it with the remastered footage, it simply wouldn't work.



The suggestion that they could just insert SD footage into an HD remaster is an uninformed one. The consumer complaints about that would be far stronger than what they'll get with this release.

Since you seem to think this isn't a monumental task, please report back to us on your results after you do some audio tinkering.

I was responding to a user who was referring to music costs, not editing costs, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to chirp in.

You take the SD footage and upscale it, not that complicated. A lot of shots in the HD versions are presented this way as it is, so a few more isn't going to change the consumer complaints that you seem to think will happen.

I think it's pretty obvious that they'll get more complaints about the replaced music than some SD footage, but feel free to keep defending their laziness. You can just read through this thread and see that the majority of people who would have bought this are not going to do so. And that is because of the replaced music. So if they fixed the music, they would make a ton off this set, especially since they don't need to pay any extra licensing costs to do so.

I think you need to do some research, because I don't see why I'd be doing any audio tinkering whatsoever, besides possibly a slowdown. The main work I'll have to do is just upscaling footage and re-inserting, completed by muxing in the original audio. Just like this company could have done if they cared enough to do so.

Originally Posted by The Mole

But I can understand a small label like Fersehjuwelen saying: Sorry guys, we could never sell enough Blu-rays in order to get the money back it would cost us to fit the old audio to the HD masters (and then only having the more and more shrinking DVD and Blu-ray market as our way of distribution for this version, as TV and streming rights only allow the new audio to be used).

Sorry, but where have they stated this? Is this just completely made up?

The rights thing is obviously nonsense, as they are including the original audio as an extra.

[chriszilla]

Originally Posted by DawnShadow

I think it's pretty obvious that they'll get more complaints about the replaced music than some SD footage, but feel free to keep defending their laziness. You can just read through this thread and see that the majority of people who would have bought this are not going to do so. And that is because of the replaced music. So if they fixed the music, they would make a ton off this set, especially since they don't need to pay any extra licensing costs to do so.

I am not defending their "laziness". I am neither pro nor against this company. I get that you are passionate about this show, but the sales figures for this collection were never going to be massive, regardless of what version of the show was released. Physical media sales of most TV shows are simply not very profitable. Expecting a company to go back in and do massive amounts of edits, at great expense (regardless of what you may think) for a set that isn't going to generate a ton of sales is simply not realistic.

While it's unfortunate that the original episodes are going to be presented in SD, the fact that they are including them at all is actually very cool, in my opinion. It's almost certainly the last physical release the original edits will ever see, and the quality of the presentation has a good chance of being superior to any previously-released version, if the encodes are done with care.

I wish you luck with your project. As someone who has done that type of thing in the past, I can tell you that the amount of time it will take is exponentially greater than you probably imagine it to be (assuming you want the results to have a certain degree of professionalism to them, and are detail-oriented).

[SeaSponge]

Does Baywatch really have a fanbase that will notice every music substitution? I've been watching the series on Amazon Prime and occasional framing issues are much more noticeable than the soundtrack. I guess if the track replacement playing to Pammy's slow-mo run #3 in Season 5 episode 12 is inaccurate it could really detract from the dramatic tension...