Seasons 1 & 2 (StarVista)
BOX-ART
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Both box's feature family portraits of the current Harper family, with a rather appropriate "homespun" background & style.
MENUS:
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All discs feature a video with the main theme music playing over top. There are options for, "Play All," and, "Episodes." Disc four of season two includes a section for extras.
VIDEO
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For it's age, the video is decent. Mastered directly to composite broadcast tape, (As were most sitcoms in the 1980's) a native HD version is out of the question as there is no film to return to. Being mastered on tape there are several noticeable instances of dot-crawling, and interlacing galore. In addition to this the colors vary from episode to episode from bright and over saturated, to dull and bland. Obviously you shouldn't expect too much from an almost four decade old sitcom, the quality is similar to that of a LaserDisc transferred to DVD.
AUDIO
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While the original Warner Bros. release featured a Mono 1.0 track, this release features a dual mono 2.0 track at 192 Kb/s
While the premiere footage was restored, certain musical segments such as, "Harper Days," were removed due to StarVista not having the rights to the songs.
EXTRAS
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Season two includes the TV film, "Eunice," Various interviews and Carol Burnett, "Family," sketches are also included throughout the two sets. (The final three screenshots are of the Eunice movie.)
FINAL THOUGHTS
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NOTE: The big thing everybody was excited about when this version was announced was that the episodes included would be the original versions that NBC aired during the shows premiere. Once the show entered syndication several minutes of footage was shaved off of every episode. The old Warner Bros. box-set included strictly the syndication versions, so it's nice that this version includes most of them in there entirety. Despite this, the episodes, "Cell Mates," and "Mamas Boyfriend," still use the syndicated versions as StarVista later announced that the original extended master tapes were lost. (Either to degradation or simply just being physically missing.)
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Warner Brothers season one set wont get it's own review, as they repackaged it along with the rest of the series in 2019! Therefor it will be reviewed with that set, however, a comparison shot is pictured below.
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.33:1 (Original Full-Screen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: Season One: 3
Season Two: 4
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 Dual Mono (192 Kb/s)
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: Season One: 5 Hours 50 Minutes
Season Two: 10 Hours 42 Minutes
Season 3 (StarVista)
BOX-ART
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Keeping in tune with the previous releases the cover features a portrait of the current Harper family, ditching Buzz, Sonia, and Fran, and replacing them with Bubba & neighbor Iola.
MENUS:
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All discs feature a video playing with the main theme music over top. There are options for, "Play All," and, "Episodes." Disc four has includes a section for "Extras."
VIDEO
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While this season contains a bit more detail than the previous two seasons, there's only so much you can do with tape, it looks mostly similar. Again, with video that looks similar to that of a LaserDisc or VHS, it's good enough, and all we're going to get since it was recorded in that quality. After season two the show was canceled, but then revived not long after due to high ratings during reruns. The slightly sharper and more detailed image was probably due to a switch in the type of tape or cameras being used after the shows revival.
AUDIO
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This release also features a dual mono 2.0 track.
FINAL THOUGHTS
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NOTES: Every episode from season three onward is direct to syndication, therefor, the episodes are only around twenty-one minutes long. No extra footage was shot, so nothing has been cut as they were made this length from the get-go.
I don't own the rest of the StarVista sets, so I will instead move on to the 2019 Warner Bros. complete set. Besides, the StarVista sets have gone out of print and are getting quite pricey now!
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.33:1 (Original Full-Screen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 4
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 Dual Mono (192 Kb/s)
SUBTITLES: None
RUN-TIME: 10 Hours 8 Minutes
The Complete Series (Warner Bros.)
BOX-ART
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The box-art is pretty mediocre and amateurish for a big studio like Warner. Firstly, the patchwork pattern background looks blurry and makes the cover look like a bootleg, secondly, the image featured on the front is only the season one cast and isn't a great image to showcase that this is the entire series. The episodes are listed on the reverse side of the cover on the inside of the case.
MENUS:
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The menus are static with no animation or music, safe for season one which has some generic instrumental music. All discs have a menu with play all, episode select, and subtitles. Season one has options for English captions, French and Spanish subtitles, while seasons two through six only have English subtitles. The menus all have renders of the cast, most are inaccurate as to which cast are currently in the episodes on the disc though. One of the images on the season one menu is from the TV film Eunice, which is actually included on the season two StarVista set!
VIDEO
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The video quality of season one is roughly similar to the StarVista set, and the discs are a 1:1 copy of the 2006 Warner set.
Seasons two through six seem to be from the same masters that are on iTunes. Grain and tape artifacts seem to have been cleaned up, leaving a slightly DNR'd look. Some of the sets have eleven episodes crammed on them, yet never show any major signs of compression. They look decent, but a touch blurrier than the StarVista sets.
The only major issue with the release is the frame-rate. It seems Warner has reduced the overall frame-rate from the original 29.97 to a more modern/filmic 23.97fps for season two through six. Basically what this means is that motion seems quite juddery or laggy, and after all you are loosing some of the original fluidity!
AUDIO
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Despite the packaging saying that season one has Dolby Surround, the set features only 2.0 dual mono throughout the entire series. As far as I'm aware the series was never taped in true stereo and certainly not surround sound.
Note: While the StraVista sets sloppily edited out any musical segments that they couldn't clear the rights to, Warner has managed to include all of them!
FINAL THOUGHTS
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Personally I lean more towards the StarVista sets, the packaging & box-art is better, it includes the premiere versions, and even throws in some great extras, while this set has none. On the other hand, this set includes all the copy-written music StarVista couldn't include. It would be nice to have a set that combines the best of both versions, but if I had to recommend the series to someone on DVD, I'd say get the Warner set simply because It's cheaper! The StarVista sets are now rather expensive, since they've lost the rights, which is why I only own seasons one & two of those sets.
TECH. SPECS.
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ASPECT RATIO: 1.33:1 (Original Full-Screen)
NUMBER OF DISCS: 15
DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
REGION CODE: 1 / NTSC
AUDIO: English 2.0 Dual Mono (192 Kb/s)
SUBTITLES: English (All Seasons)
French & Spanish (Season 1 Only)
RUN-TIME: N/A
