Are You Being Served in HD or FHD

[Subtitles]

A relative has the boxset in DVD for the British comedy show from the 1970's Are You Being Served.
I have tried several times to see if the show was ever made in Blu Ray, but it isn't.
Streaming channel BritBox apparently has it in HD quality but it is not streaming in my country only in the USA and maybe in Canada.
I also checked the Amazon UK Prime Video but it says that the show is not available. Maybe this is because of geo restrictions but is available in the UK.
Please help by confirming that the show is indeed available in at least HD quality and on which streaming websites.
Thank you.

[jagabo]

That show was shot on video tape so any HD releases will be upscaled SD.

[GAhere]

That show was shot on video tape so any HD releases will be upscaled SD.

^^^THIS^^^

There was no such thing as "HD" video back when that show was done so even if there was a BlueRay version or a streaming service with it in "HD" it will not be in reality HD..

Simply can not put more detail into something that was not present in the original source, basically "remasters" to HD are nothing more than using a video scaler to upscale the SD video to fit HD screen. Does that by simply creating duplicate video lines and adding them into the video in the correct sequence.

Best you can shoot for is a commercially done good quality analog video tape to digital DVD version which used the studio broadcast master tape as the source. Broadcast equipment was the gold standard for SD, the video quality was degraded when broadcast OTA to fit into the broadcasters channel frequency allotment.

In a nutshell, just rip or watch the DVDs and be glad you have the best available copy of that show..

[flashandpan007]

One has to know what format they used to film the show. If they used cinema cameras, you can get a good 4k video out of it. But sometimes it could be out of focus, because they didn't had a 4k monitor to check the cams focus properly. Just look at older older movies. You can see it quite often.

[GAhere]

One has to know what format they used to film the show. If they used cinema cameras, you can get a good 4k video out of it. But sometimes it could be out of focus, because they didn't had a 4k monitor to check the cams focus properly. Just look at older older movies. You can see it quite often.

OP is inquiring about a British sitcom "made for TV" show produced in the 1970s..

OK, well then, the first known commercial use of "video tape" for TV goes back as far as 1956 when CBS (USA) started to use it.. Not sure when BBC started using video tape but I suspect not long after the USA..

Sort of highly doubt that BBC was using "film" for producing "made for TV" shows in the 1970s..

Actually doing a quick search yielded this..

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/april/vera-video-recorder


[Attachment 92369 - Click to enlarge]

So, extremely doubtful that BBC would have used film method for that program.

Physical Film would have been more likely in use for movie production only in the 1970s and the reason would be for much higher resolution film offered which was needed for the "big screens" of the movie houses.

Video tape and video editing offered a much lower cost to produce TV shows with considerably tape to broadcast faster speed and didn't require telecining process to get from physical film to electronic broadcast standards.

Was not unusual for TV broadcasters back then to broadcast movies made for the big screen (movie houses) but when they did, those movies had to go through a telecine process (film projector to video camera to video tape) which also reformatted the widescreen of film to the 4-3 TV size screen.. A very time consuming and costly process.

Further research uncovered this..

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0514520/trivia/

"The original pilot was recorded on colour cameras as part of the Comedy Playhouse (1961) series and had a "BBC Colour" credit at the end. However the original videotape was lost or wiped, so for years the only known copy of the episode was a black-and-white film-recording. In 2008 however, technical engineers began restoring the edition to full colour by utilising the colour signal information recorded into the monochrome film print. The remastered copy was finally screened on BBC2 in 2010 during a New Year's Day celebration of the series, being seen in colour for the first time since 1972."

So, the Pilot was recorded on color video tape, a backup black and white FILM was made of the Pilot and the original color video tape was lost/destroyed..

Pilot wasn't aired until 1972 and series ran until 1985..

Pretty much any made for TV show in the 1970s and later would have been done via video cameras and recorded to video tape..

1960s? well that could be a mix between film and video, as video technology matured it became much more cost effective over film..

[TimA-C]

Apart from anything else, . . . why? It was OK at the time. Now it's a nostalgic filler for 25 mins (if you were around in the 70s) But I don't know that it was one of the classics of British sitcoms. (The biggest surprise was how Miss Brahms grew up to be the indomitable Pauline Fowler in 'Eastenders' just a few years later.) Now, if it was 'Porridge' or 'Open All Hours' I'd understand. I'd still say stick with the DVDs, you'll be just as happy. And get to spend all that time you'll save yourself sitting down with a nice cuppa and some biccies, and watching the exploits unfold at Grace Brothers on your telly. (No, Mr Humphries, I'm not free. I'm watching Mrs Slocombe expertly deliver yet another double-entendre concerning her . . . !)

Hmmm. Seems I do remember a lot about it . . . maybe it was better than I was thinking it was? (Not the ones after Mr Lucas left. They weren't as good.)

[Subtitles]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment. I suppose I will have to be contented with the DVD boxset.

@TimA-C we were lucky in the 70's that the only TV channel we had then, bought the license to broadcast "Are you being Served" on a weekly basis. It gave people a lot of joy and something to talk about next day at work at lunchtime.
We loved all the actors and actresses from the show.
We also had "Open All Hours".
Oh well those were the good old days.