The Six Million Dollar Man - The Complete Series

[joined in progress]

Let's try this again. Basically, everything outside the yellow lines is missing from the Time Life set. The bottom and right hand side of the screen are affected the most. BW Part 2 is similarly impacted, but not as bad as Part 1.







Secret of Bigfoot Part 2 is missing footage on all sides of the screen:

[do.wayne.ClassicFilm]

Originally Posted by joined in progress

Does anyone know if this set uses the "zoomed in" versions of BW 1 & 2 and Secret of Bigfoot Part 2? That was one of the big letdowns of the Time Life set.

I never realized the zoomed cropping on the Bionic Woman two parter and the Secret of Bigfoot. Honestly, I haven't watched either of these SMDM episodes on a high definition television. When I originally watched my SMDM Time Life DVD collection, I viewed the series on a CRT television 📺 and I'm not sure how much picture cropping would've shown up on my old set, something I didn't notice at the time. The CRT television set is long gone. Zooming probably shows loss in picture detail. I'll have to check these two episodes out on a high definition television set. The picture uploads perfectly explains what you meant by "zoomed in".

[The Bionic Matt]

Originally Posted by bionicalain

Amazing. Talk about having an eye for detail. How did you realize that ? Thanks for bringing this issue up. It's certainly something to check on up-coming releases.

Originally Posted by do.wayne.ClassicFilm

I never realized the zoomed cropping on the Bionic Woman two parter and the Secret of Bigfoot. Honestly, I haven't watched either of these SMDM episodes on a high definition television. When I originally watched my SMDM Time Life DVD collection, I viewed the series on a CRT television 📺 and I'm not sure how much picture cropping would've shown up on my old set, something I didn't notice at the time. The CRT television set is long gone. Zooming probably shows loss in picture detail. I'll have to check these two episodes out on a high definition television set. The picture uploads perfectly explains what you meant by "zoomed in".

For myself, having watched these two favorite two-part episodes countless times since their original broadcasts in 1975/1976, the difference was immediately obvious. I still have VHS recordings of almost every episode from late 1978-1980 when SMDM first went into syndication on local TV stations (after being cancelled by ABC in the spring of 1978). I also have recordings of the Sci-Fi Channel broadcasts and just about every VHS and DVD released outside the U.S. prior to the TimeLife set. But my main source for watching these particular episodes since 1979 has been the MCA DiscoVision laserdisc releases. Although slightly edited to reform them as "movies" (by removing portions of the credits from their original two-part presentations), the laserdiscs have always had the best video transfers — and being in CAV format made them all the better. There is no zooming done on the transfers. Not counting the occasional video drop-outs and minor speckles inherent to the DiscoVision format of the era, they remain reference-quality transfers for the show.

I haven't seen the new German blu-ray with my own eyes, but the screencaps certainly show the transfers to be the best yet (not factoring in any potential compression issues, which my eyes will certainly pick up). I'd need to see screencaps from the two episodes being discussed to know if they've been zoomed on the blu-ray set, but I'd doubt they have been. I'm guessing that problem occured during an old telecine job done back in the 90s.

[The Bionic Matt]

Another problem to look for would be day-for-night shots. The last time (pre-HD) telecines were done for the show, several scenes that were shot as day-for-night were not properly darkened, so they appear awkward to fans who are aware of the way they are supposed to look. Here's an example from the opening of "Return of the Robot Maker", with the original on the left (properly darkened for its night appearance), and the TimeLife version on the right (with its more daytime look).

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And here's an example from the opening scene of "The Bionic Woman — Part I" episode. This one is awkward because we know the scene is taking place at night, since Austin uses the infra-red mode of his bionic eye. Then the heavy of the story (Malachi Throne) uses his own infra-red device to witness Austin breaking into his truck and escaping into (what's supposed to be) the darkness. The version on the TL set is almost daylight, so the use of the infrared devices makes no sense (that is unless you are familiar with the original presentation).

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[do.wayne.ClassicFilm]

Originally Posted by The Bionic Matt

For myself, having watched these two favorite two-part episodes countless times since their original broadcasts in 1975/1976, the difference was immediately obvious. I still have VHS recordings of almost every episode from late 1978-1980 when SMDM first went into syndication on local TV stations (after being cancelled by ABC in the spring of 1978). I also have recordings of the Sci-Fi Channel broadcasts and just about every VHS and DVD released outside the U.S. prior to the TimeLife set. But my main source for watching these particular episodes since 1979 has been the MCA DiscoVision laserdisc releases. Although slightly edited to reform them as "movies" (by removing portions of the credits from their original two-part presentations), the laserdiscs have always had the best video transfers — and being in CAV format made them all the better. There is no zooming done on the transfers. Not counting the occasional video drop-outs and minor speckles inherent to the DiscoVision format of the era, they remain reference-quality transfers for the show.

I haven't seen the new German blu-ray with my own eyes, but the screencaps certainly show the transfers to be the best yet (not factoring in any potential compression issues, which my eyes will certainly pick up). I'd need to see screencaps from the two episodes being discussed to know if they've been zoomed on the blu-ray set, but I'd doubt they have been. I'm guessing that problem occured during an old telecine job done back in the 90s.

I binge watched the Time Life SMDM dvd set when it was first released. I remember at one point, SMDM was ranked 4th on TVshowsOnDvd.com for 'most wanted' television series on dvd. Wonder Years was #1 and I think Wild Wild West was right up there too.

Like another member alluded to earlier on the thread, life is too short, 1080p is better than 480i and it can take years for a better rendition of the SMDM on blu-ray. I know this release has a lot of content on fewer blu-ray discs, that the episode titles are in German. It's been reported that Elephant Films plans to release this series in 2020... yet 'another year' set back. I originally heard of Elephant Films' plans to release SMDM on blu-ray in late 2015- early 2016. It took Revelation Films 'five years' to obtain a high definition film source and release Irwin Allen's- The Time Tunnel on blu-ray. We have a choice of playing the waiting game and seeing 'if or when' Elephant Films is going to do something— or cave and settle for the Turbine release which is 'currently' the best visual media release of the SMDM thus far.


This is just a post for anyone 'in general' following the thread, it's not directed towards you. I was pretty turned off upon hearing of Elephant Films' plans to postpone their SMDM blu-ray release for yet 'another' year. That makes what— 'four' postponements now?

[joined in progress]

Originally Posted by bionicalain
Amazing. Talk about having an eye for detail. How did you realize that ? Thanks for bringing this issue up. It's certainly something to check on up-coming releases.

I think Bionic Matt brought it to my attention first. Another thing I noticed is that Secret of Bigfoot Part 1 looks a lot better in the "Last week on TSDM" recap that ran at the beginning of Part 2. For whatever reason, the recap footage is a lot brighter/clearer than what's seen on the DVDs.

[joined in progress]

Thanks for the review. Let us know if "zooming" issues arise in this set as well.

[The Bionic Matt]

Originally Posted by bionicalain

One issue that has really bothered me with the North American release, a few years back, was the very poor sound quality of the episode RETURN OF BIGFOOT. On French regular non-restorated DVDs (PAL), the soundtrack (music) is very clear. In English, it has never been... not even after the restoration process.

Unfortunately, this German bluray does NOT improve on the English audio for this episode. The sound is as bad as ever. BUT the German audio provides a very CLEAR audio/music track. For me, this is the proof that thee must be an crispy clear audio track of this episode. Why can't they use is to replace the poor one on the original version ? I wonder if we'll ever get this one right...

Unfortunately, that audio problem is much more widespread throughout all three seasons of The Bionic Woman DVD. The problem is more pronounced on some episodes than others, but very few episodes are unaffected.

When first released, it was "Deadly Ringer—Part I" (from Season 2) that was the first episode to get fans in an uproar, due to some clearly missing dialog in the opening scene. Although no other instances of missing dialog were found, there were plenty of other scenes where the music and/or sound effects were severely "muffled" or in some cases, were too loud in the mix as to drown out the dialog. A few good examples of this can be found in "Kill Oscar—Part I", "Road to Nashville", "Doomsday is Tomorrow", "The Night Demon", and "Sanctuary Earth". The cold-open scene from "Kill Oscar I", right through the main title and into the first act is very problematic. The audio is severely muffled, losing its clarity and sounding like a muddy mess. The best way I could describe it would be to cup your hand over your mouth and speak. The resulting sound — albeit a bit exaggerated — is what these problem scenes are like. In the case of "Kill Oscar I", in the first scene where Jaime talks to Callahan at her desk, there is a point where the problematic audio literally stops and the proper quality kicks in during their conversation. It's very noticeable and draws attention to the fact that something was wrong.

While working with the folks at Fabulous Films on their U.K. edition of The Complete Bionic Woman DVD Collection (which utilized the same newly-created masters as Universal's previous U.S. releases), I was able to convince them to make as many improvements to these audio problems as possible, using previous masters as a source to "patch and repair" the areas where needed. "Road to Nashville" was a particularly complicated one to repair, as the episode is loaded with music — much of which had been adversely affected. I was very pleased with how many improvements were able to be accomplished, but contractual release timing prevented several others from getting the same treatment.

Since then, I've seen several other Universal shows that have been remastered from film with new HD masters created for use on DVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, every one I have seen has been plagued by the exact same audio flaws that first emerged on The Bionic Woman DVD sets. After Bionic Woman, I noticed the problem on Universal's DVD release of Quincy. Then on Mill Creek's Blu-ray releases of Airwolf, Knight Rider and The Rockford Files. I was midway through my second binge-watching marathon of the complete Rockford Files DVD set when the Blu-ray set came out. So I picked up the new set and started watching from the point I had been at on the DVD set (somewhere early in Season 4). While the picture quality was a huge improvement, I was immediately infuriated to discover that same audio problem. That same muffled sound. That same muddy music. One thing I noticed more of was missing foley effects (the occasional missing sound of a car door slamming or background noise in a park scene, for example). When I noticed it (or better, lack of it), I'd pop in the DVD to compare the scene, and sure enough, the DVD was always fine. I was so frustrated by it that I went back and finished binging with the old DVD set.

My guess is that this problem originates with whomever/wherever/however the new HD masters are being created. The problem can effect any or all of the dialog, music or SFX tracks, and can be as short as a few seconds, or as long as a complete act. As described for The Bionic Woman, sometimes the problem appears — and then disappears — right in the middle of a conversation, but typically it tends to be at natural breakpoints (scene edits or commercial break-points). It seems hard to believe this could be caused by damage to the original elements. It almost sounds like it could be faulty equipment, such as dirty heads on tape equipment. Or an engineer simply screwing something up in the process. But I find it troubling that anyone in the industry who does this sort of thing for a living could possibly not hear the problem — and then allow it to be released as-is.

[surfinhank]

Originally Posted by The Bionic Matt

Unfortunately, that audio problem is much more widespread throughout all three seasons of The Bionic Woman DVD. The problem is more pronounced on some episodes than others, but very few episodes are unaffected.

Do you happen to have the SD on Blu-ray set of The Bionic Woman? Were any of these problems on that set? I've come close to getting it a few times but I was worried that they probably used PAL sources which would have that sped-up audio issue.

[PissedOffPeoN]

If only criterion would pick up this series and overhaul all the print damage and audio problems .

[joined in progress]

I have a German Sci-Fi Channel version of Return of Bigfoot 2 and the sound/music is perfect, so this is correctable.

[joined in progress]

Originally Posted by bionicalain

Which opening credit do you have ? The original is a BW opening BUT with a different picture form Martin E. Brooks... I also saw it in Finland years ago with perfect English audio. It would be nice to have this on DVD.

Six Mill (albeit the German version).

[The Bionic Matt]

[quote=bionicalain;15859851]

Anyways, the point is that a clear English audio track IS POSSIBLE, with French DVD and now German bluray audio tracks proving that crisp audio musical track do exist. The problem is clearly at Universal/USA. And if PLAYBACK (UK) was able to correct some problems, it means others distributors can do the same.

Playback (U.K.) didn't have to correct any of these audio problems, since they didn't exist on the masters they used at the time. Same with all masters used in other territories for all DVD releases and broadcasts. The problem didn't appear until new HD masters were created for The Bionic Woman's 2010 release. (A problem which has also plagued several other Universal shows mentioned in a previous post).

I have just about every official home video release (including laserdisc, VHS, & DVD) from many regions (NTSC and PAL) of both SMDM and BW dating back to 1979. Here are a few pics of most of the collection (the VHS tapes of the 1979-1981 syndication run, SVHS Sci-Fi Channel recordings, many early U.K. VHS releases and French single-DVDs are not shown). So needless to say, I have plenty of references to prove the audio problem under discussion has never been an issue until recently.

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[The Bionic Matt]

Originally Posted by bionicalain

Alain: Sorry, I meant "Fabulous"... I have the same products... including Japan, and TV digital recordings from Finland. We have never had Return of Bigfoot 2 on DVD until the 2011 release... and the sound problem on The Bionic Woman episodes, as far as I can tell, is only on the English US/Canada DVD version. So agreed that the problem is new, and should be possible to correct.

Fabulous Films' U.K. box set of SMDM is identical in content to TimeLife's set, with the addtion of still photo galleries (from my collection). All of TL's bonus features were ported over. The only difference is that FF created new menus for their discs (and they are hideous compared to TL's).

FF's Bionic Woman box set utilized the same masters used for Universal's individual season releases in the U.S., although they were reauthored so there were no more than four episodes-per-disc, compared to Universal's five EPD. The FF set also included the same featurettes that appeared on the U.S. releases, in addition to extensive still photo galleries (again, from my collection).

A huge bonus for BW fans who have the FF set is the inclusion of all three reunion movies at the end of the Season 3 collection. These movies are also included in both the TL and FF SMDM sets. In the U.S., the only way to obtain the reunion movies is on Universal's stripped-down version of the TL SMDM set, which omitted most of TL's bonus features. It's a shame (and even a disgrace) that Universal did not also include the reunion movies in their BW Complete Series box set — especially considering they reauthored them so all three could be crammed onto one disc!

By the time FF started to work on their BW set, the U.S. releases had been out long enough to discover the many audio problems they contained. So there was at least time to fix many, but not all, of the problem spots before release. The fact that it's been eight years since the shows first were released on DVD, there is no excuse for the problems to remain on any further releases. There has been plenty of notification to Universal, and there are numerous sources for better elements that could be used to repair the affected episodes. At this point there really are no legitimate excuses.

[Takeshi666]

[quote=The Bionic Matt;15860611]

Originally Posted by bionicalain

Playback (U.K.) didn't have to correct any of these audio problems, since they didn't exist on the masters they used at the time. Same with all masters used in other territories for all DVD releases and broadcasts. The problem didn't appear until new HD masters were created for The Bionic Woman's 2010 release. (A problem which has also plagued several other Universal shows mentioned in a previous post).

I have just about every official home video release (including laserdisc, VHS, & DVD) from many regions (NTSC and PAL) of both SMDM and BW dating back to 1979. Here are a few pics of most of the collection (the VHS tapes of the 1979-1981 syndication run, SVHS Sci-Fi Channel recordings, many early U.K. VHS releases and French single-DVDs are not shown). So needless to say, I have plenty of references to prove the audio problem under discussion has never been an issue until recently.

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You must really like this franchise You should get the old Kenner doll to complement that collection!

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by The Bionic Matt

Playback (U.K.) didn't have to correct any of these audio problems, since they didn't exist on the masters they used at the time. Same with all masters used in other territories for all DVD releases and broadcasts. The problem didn't appear until new HD masters were created for The Bionic Woman's 2010 release. (A problem which has also plagued several other Universal shows mentioned in a previous post).

I have just about every official home video release (including laserdisc, VHS, & DVD) from many regions (NTSC and PAL) of both SMDM and BW dating back to 1979. Here are a few pics of most of the collection (the VHS tapes of the 1979-1981 syndication run, SVHS Sci-Fi Channel recordings, many early U.K. VHS releases and French single-DVDs are not shown). So needless to say, I have plenty of references to prove the audio problem under discussion has never been an issue until recently.

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You really are The Bionic Matt! Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Nice collection there.

[AmishParadise]

"Hey. It's your pal, The Six Million Dollar Man. Well, 35 million if you adjust for inflation."

Happy Honda Days with the 6 Million Dollar Man :30 - YouTube

[PissedOffPeoN]

Which is better the movie versions on disc one or the TV? Also first time watching this and WOW! It looks so good .

[The Bionic Matt]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Which is better the movie versions on disc one or the TV? Also first time watching this and WOW! It looks so good .

All three pre-series movies were originally broadcast in 1973 as 90-minute specials. When the series proper ended in 1978 and was then prepped for syndication, the three movies were re-edited to form two-part episodes. The editing involved the addition of approximately 25 minutes to each movie, including not only extra opening/closing credits and recaps, but also several minutes of footage borrowed from later SMDM episodes and even other Universal movies. Martin Balsam was brought back five years later to provide narration as Dr. Rudy Wells to augment much of the "padded" scenes for the first movie (which became the two-part "The Moon and the Desert").

Of the three movies converted to two-part episodes, the first one fares the best. The others ("Wine, Women and War" and "The Solid Gold Kidnapping") are almost unwatchable, suffering non-sensical editing that alters plotpoints (such as geographical locations and timelines), in addition to the rescoring of several music cues. In short, they are a mess worth avoiding — at least for initial viewing. However, I am always glad when they are included as "bonus" material, simply as a means to compare them to how they were originally broadcast. After viewing the rest of the series, you might want to watch the two-part versions of the movies to see how many of the changes you notice.

If I had any local friends who were also bionic fans, I'm sure we would have already created and played a drinking game based on the bastardized versions of WW&W and SGK.

[The Bionic Matt]

[quote=Takeshi666;15861879]

Originally Posted by The Bionic Matt

You must really like this franchise You should get the old Kenner doll to complement that collection!

Do you mean these?

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