That is wild. I'm thrilled to see it.

I'm curious what aspect ratio it will be. I mean this was early 80s, it had to have been shot on video tape.

I'm fairly certain Knight Rider was shot on 35mm. Big budget shows like that were not typically shot on video, even in that era. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong though.

Edit: According to thedigitalbits, the show was shot on Panavision Panaflex 35mm film cameras.

Many (but far from all) sitcoms, news programs, soap operas, game shows, sketch/variety programs, some kids programming, and the like were shot on video, but basically everything else was shot on 16mm or 35mm. (I can't think of an action-heavy series or prime time drama from the era that was shot on video.) And there were some series with a mix (which I associate more with British shows and some comedy series; some SNL sketches were shot on 16mm).

Some series were shot on film but edited on video, though, especially in the back half of the '80s. Universal carried the finishing-everything-on-film torch longer than most.

I hope Miami Vice gets the 4k treatment and somebody else besides Mill Creeks gets it since their Blu-ray transfers looked awful on a 82" Samsung QLED.

They looked a lot better on Starz on demand when they carried the show.

I can't speak to Knight Rider specifically, but in general, a major network primetime TV drama like this would have been shot on 35mm in 3-perf format - as opposed to the 4-perf format used for feature films. 3-perf meant that each frame of film was shorter, and thus the production used less physical film and saved money.

The irony in this is that 4-perf 35mm captured a 1.37:1 image on the camera negative, which was later matted to 1.85:1 for theatrical projection. Whereas 3-perf 35mm captured an image closer to 16:9, and the sides were then discarded in post-production by zooming into the 4:3 center area for TV broadcast. Neither method was the most efficient way of capturing the intended final display aspect ratio.

In many cases, it is possible to remaster old TV shows for widescreen by going back and scanning the original camera negative for the whole width of the 3-perf frame. However, because the shows were actually composed for 4:3, this sometimes exposes lighting and camera equipment on the sides of the frame that were never meant to be seen. The HD masters for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (technically shot on 16mm, but same idea) are notorious for this. Even if not for flubs like that, you often wind up with scenes awkwardly composed with all the actors bunched into the middle of the screen with lots of dead space on the sides. (Many episodes of Gilmore Girls look like that in HD.)

Further, any visual effects in an action/sci-fi show like Knight Rider would have likely been completed and composited on video at 4:3 and then output back to film. In shots like those, you'd have to crop the top and bottom or stretch the image to get 16:9. Perhaps that's not as serious a problem on Knight Rider as it was on shows like Star Trek: TNG or Babylon 5, but it'd still come up a lot. For example, the opening and closing titles, or any shots with on-screen text, were composites probably completed on video.

In practice, most old 4:3 TV shows that get remastered for 16:9 wind up using a combination of open-matte on the sides for some shots, while others are cropped and/or stretched.

The best course of action would be to just remaster the show in the aspect ratio it was composed for, which would be 4:3.

Yeah, Knight Rider and even the first seasons of Airwolf were all shot on film. Once Jan Michael Vincent left and Barry Van Dyke took over - they switched to video, especially for a lot of the fx-shots in the latter. Knight Rider stayed shot on film until the end.

My understanding is that 3-perf wasn't really prevalent in American TV production until the mid-'90s. There were some experiments prior to that but nothing widespread or long-lasting.

Yeah, from what I can find, 3-perf didn't even exist until the 80s, and at first it was used primarily for films, since its 1.78:1 aspect ratio worked for 1.85:1 or narrower films. Still, 4-perf Super35mm was still common, and used for T2 and the first two Harry Potter films, since it allowed for more reframing options for the inevitable 4:3 TV version.

It wasn't until the mid 90s that TV shows started thinking about "future-proofing" their shows for eventual HD 16:9 presentation, but that wasn't universal. When The Wire HD remaster came out, an article noted that this 2002-2008 show specifically requested shooting in 16:9, even though it initially aired in 4:3.

https://cinematography.com/index.php...rf-super-35mm/
https://davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/

This article notes that Freaks and Geeks (1999) was shot 4:3, while X-Files initial run (1993-2002) started 4:3 and switched in later seasons to 3-perf 16:9 :
https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7...ate/index.html
ER (1994-2009) was shot on 4-perf 35mm for the bulk of its run.
https://www.studiodaily.com/2009/03/...-home-stretch/


For Knight Rider, being an 80s TV show, it was almost definitely shot on 4-perf 35mm, and not 3-perf.

Some more discussion on 3-perf
https://cinematography.com/index.php...rf-super-35mm/

I will defer to your knowledge and research. I thought three-perf production went further back than that (as I said, it was less about "future-proofing" for 16:9 than about saving money by using less film stock), but maybe not.

So hot want to touch the hiney

7/29/25

The remaining Vinegar Syndrome titles for May:

This cover reminds me of my editor when I was drawing editorial cartoons for the college newspaper. He said you need more labels and word balloons. I asked why and he said that's what editorial cartoons do to make it more obvious what's going on for people who don't get stuff unless it's obvious. Then the senior editor came around the corner and said wow, your last few cartoons have been great, keep it up. Oh, my editor was mad.

Maybe he's a movie poster design editor now and so mad that now he thinks Bridget Wilson's Veronica Vaughn isn't showing enough contempt for Adam Sandler's Billy Madison. People need it obvious, he thinks. A-ha! Word balloons! We need a word balloon here!

Poking around the Internet, this word balloon may have even been on the original theatrical one sheet poster?! Oh, man... That's sad!

I actually like the artwork lol

I like it, too, it's that word balloon. Just... a little on the nose, yes?

Yes lol

Yeah, saving money on film stock logically makes sense, but if they wanted to save money on film stock, they could've shot in 16mm. It's not just about saving money on film stock.

It's also about compatibility with existing equipment and workflows and services. When I was looking up info on 3-perf Super35, one conversation I found was talking about how hard it was to find a telecine that could actually scan 3-perf film, at least initially. So, when the entire film and TV industry was standardized on 4 perf 35mm, it was far easier to get cameras and shoot, edit, and scan on that. Movies started using 3-perf 3mm first, because even with the extra hassles of equipment, workflow, and services, it was still easier than dealing with anamorphic 35mm, especially in certain cases like special effects. Then, as equipment and services became more available to service the film industry, TV started picking it up, especially once they started planning for the transition to HD and the "shoot in 16:9, but compose for 4:3 center crop" became a strategy. But the TV industry shift happened well after Knight Rider.

Coming around Halloween from Blue Underground.




Thanks for the heads-up from @Disc-Connected.

Shout in August:

UHD:








Steelbook reissues:



Blu-ray:



Amazon lists a few other August titles that aren't currently for preorder on shoutfactory.com -- two additional steelbook reissues and Miami Vice:

Deathstalker I & II in 4K UHD. Not ever in my life would I have expected that.

Coming August 26th - a 50th anniversary edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

Truthfully I’m not the biggest fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but my wife likes it quite a bit so I’ll grab it. I’ve always found a lot of it to kind of drag. There are funny moments though.

The Keep (1983) – Cross Replica Limited Edition – 4K UHD + 2-Disc Blu-ray + CD – Imprint Collection #438

Pre-order


https://viavision.com.au/wp-content/...-1536x1129.png

I fart in the general direction of this post.