DVD and BLU-RAY Info LHOTP

Well I just finished watching Town Party, Country Party on the new remastered DVD set.... it was everything I had hoped for and more! I loved the better quality picture... it looked like it was shot last week! I also loved looking for and seeing the deleted scenes! Going to have to watch a lot more on this set!

I know people have posted a lot of comparison screenshots already, but I wanted to share another one... Absolutely unreal how much better the remastered DVDs are in comparison with the old ones!

Old DVD:


Remastered DVD:

I'm glad you are enjoying your new DVD set LauraIngallsfan.  Yours and the other screenshots on here show the difference between what you get when they transfer twenty year old video tape to DVD and what you get when they digitally scan the original 35mm film and put that on DVD or Blu-ray.  I only own the first four seasons of the old DVDs, but I've read that the quality actually gets worse starting with season 5.  

The messed up thing is that they are still selling the old DVDs on Amazon and people who have bought some of the remastered seasons are mistakenly buying the old DVDs of seasons that haven't been released yet on remastered DVD or Blu-ray.  They like the seasons they've watched, don't realize that two different sets of DVDs have been released, and go looking for future seasons.  Then to top it off, Amazon combines all the reviews for each season, whether it is the remastered sets from this year or last year, or the old DVDs that were released between 2003 and 2006.  

You can click a link for the remastered sets and see negative reviews from the previous sets mixed in, or you can click a link for the previous sets and see positive reviews from the remastered sets mixed in.  I read one review from a guy who obviously bought the remastered versions of the first four seasons and then ordered 5 and 6 thinking the quality would be the same.  He wrote that season 5 had horrible quality and if season 6 is anything like it, he won't be buying the last three seasons.  I don't even know why the old ones are still being sold.  It's almost like Amazon is hoping they can confuse enough people to clear out their excess inventory of the old DVDs.

If anyone here isn't sure which is which, all the remastered seasons have a gold strip near the top that says Deluxe Remastered Edition.

Thank you Toby! I didn't know that they transferred the old video tape to DVD for the previous DVD release... that would explain why it is such poor quality. I own all of the seasons on the old DVDs, but have not noticed the quality get any worse in season 5.

If amazon wants to still sell the old DVDs, they should put in the description that it is not the remastered version, and that there is a newer and better release. They should also be selling them for less than they are. Just like when I first bought my complete set, I didn't even know that they had a much better remastered version. But it worked out anyway, because I wouldn't have wanted to wait until all of the seasons get released in remastered form before owning them all. This way, I will slowly replace all of the old DVDs with the new ones, but at the same time I can watch the later seasons on the old DVDs while I wait.

You are welcome LauraIngallsfan. One of the Little House sites I read said that Little House was transferred to tape back in 1984. Uncut master tapes were made and then a syndication set of tapes was made for stations to air reruns. According to the guy who runs the site, it was standard practice back then for NBC to convert filmed series to tape and then store the original film in a warehouse in New Jersey.

Transferring from film to tape obviously resulted in a loss of quality, and then transferring from tape to tape to make the syndication sets probably further degraded the quality. For some reason NBC gave Imavision the syndication set of tapes to use for the 2003 DVDs, while many foreign distributors were given the uncut master tapes to use for their DVDs.

At the very least Amazon should stop combining the reviews of both versions and should probably differentiate them in the descriptions as you suggest.

The old DVDs do give you a way to watch the unreleased seasons and some of them have interviews with cast members that aren't available on the new releases.

I hope you continue to enjoy your remastered season 1 set. Besides "Town Party, Country Party", "If I Should Wake Before I Die" and "The Raccoon" are the other episodes that I know have deleted scenes. There may be more in season 1, but if there are nobody has listed them yet that I remember.

Wow, that would loose a lot of quality for sure. I wonder why a lot of the foreign distributors got the uncut versions, while we didn't? That seems strange to me.

I do plan on hanging onto my old DVD set, even when I get all of them in remastered form, because, like you said, there are special features and interviews that are not included with the remastered DVDs. I don't regret buying the older DVDs, I got a really good price for all of them on Ebay, and in my opinion, they have already paid for themselves in how much use I have gotten out of them.

I am loving this new DVD set though... I am sure I will be watching season 1 for a while. I watched Country Girls last night, and did notice that there weren't any deleted scenes in that episode. I also love the better picture, and better sound. I was wondering what other episodes had deleted scenes or not, thanks for that info... we will see if there are more than just those. I plan to watch another one tonight if I get the chance.

Does anyone know if there are plans to release the last three movies in remastered form? I ask because I saw the list of the complete remastered series on VUDU, but it didn't include those last three movies.

I hope so. I don't see why they would remaster the pilot movie and all nine seasons and not remaster the last three movies. In the original DVD releases, the movie set came out a year after season nine. I'm hoping they are included with season 9 on Blu-ray, but that may be asking too much.

I was disappointed that the movies weren't included on Vudu. My daughter and I recently finished the whole series except for the movies. If they aren't released in remastered form I won't buy them, but I will record them if they air on TV again.

It would make sense that they would. Also, since the pilot was included in season 1, I think it is reasonable to hope that the 3 extra movies would be included with season 9. We will just have to wait and see I guess.

I own the 3 movies in the old DVDs, I couldn't wait, and the ones that were on youtube were such poor quality that they were painful to watch. Plus, the youtube ones can disappear without a moments notice. There were some great extra interviews included with that one as well.

Well, season 1 remastered is so good that I just ordered season 5 remastered! I couldn't wait any longer.  

Dave, I am looking forward to the "Pa" moment, and looking forward to the deleted scene of Laura and Albert saying good bye in Family Tree.

LauraIngallsfan wrote:

Well, season 1 remastered is so good that I just ordered season 5 remastered! I couldn't wait any longer.  

Dave, I am looking forward to the "Pa" moment, and looking forward to the deleted scene of Laura and Albert saying good bye in Family Tree.

You're gonna love it!

I know Dave! I can't wait...

I just realized that Family Tree is in season 6... oh well, I have a bit of a wait to see that one.

Amazon tracking says that I should have season 5 no later than Saturday at 8pm!

LauraIngallsfan wrote:

Amazon tracking says that I should have season 5 no later than Saturday at 8pm!

I got Season 5 from Amazon in the mail today!

You are making it harder to wait Carol! I hope you enjoy it!

Season 5 just came in the mail!!! I'm not going to have a chance to look at it until tomorrow night though... First up, Fagin with Dave's favorite scene!

Right now, I'm watching The Man Inside.

You will be the first to know!

Well, I just couldn't wait any longer, so I watched Fagin tonight. I just finished... Wow, that scene was every bit as good as you said it would be!  
    Such a critical scene to have for the story, it is wonderful to have it now!

LauraIngallsfan wrote:

Well, I just couldn't wait any longer, so I watched Fagin tonight. I just finished... Wow, that scene was every bit as good as you said it would be!  
    Such a critical scene to have for the story, it is wonderful to have it now!

As sad as it is to say Matthew, I don't even bother with Television anymore. To have to watch these episodes sliced up more and more by the networks is just too much for me to bear. A couple of us on here have both the digital from Vudu and the restored DVD's. I guess the main reason I got the digital from Vudu is that they offered all nine seasons for 39.95 at the time. But that's me, I simply couldn't wait for the DVD's to come out.

There are cut scenes in practically every episode of season five. Glad you got it!

I was mad when Uverse dropped Hallmark in 2010, but now that the remastered sets have come out I also don't bother with television unless I want to remind myself how good the remastered sets are.  It would be nice if they put the remastered versions on TV and were more intelligent about where they made the cuts, but that probably won't happen while CBS owns the syndication rights.  

I also jumped on the Vudu deal but I'm continuing to buy the Blu-rays as they are released.  My daughter and I were able to stand the four months between the season 2 and season 3 releases because it was summer and 2 came out shortly after 1, but the four months between 3 and 4 were during the cold part of fall and winter and would have been torture if I hadn't bought all the seasons on Vudu.

On March 28th, we finished season nine exactly one year after we first watched the pilot movie.  In the past she has watched the first four seasons of Three's Company and all seasons of The Wonder Years with me.  We also watched Family Ties on Netflix but she only lasted until season six before getting bored.  I bought the last four seasons of Three's Company and we were going to finish that after Little House, but we only got through a few episodes of season five before she had me watching Little House with her again.  We have re-watched the pilot movie and the first seven episodes of season 1, but I'm still sprinkling episodes of Three's Company in so we don't get through it too fast.  I'm trying to pace it so that all the episodes and movies are available on disc by the time we get through the entire series again.

Davetucson wrote:

As sad as it is to say Matthew, I don't even bother with Television anymore. To have to watch these episodes sliced up more and more by the networks is just too much for me to bear. A couple of us on here have both the digital from Vudu and the restored DVD's. I guess the main reason I got the digital from Vudu is that they offered all nine seasons for 39.95 at the time. But that's me, I simply couldn't wait for the DVD's to come out.

I don't even have a TV, everything I watch is on DVD off of my computer. As of now, I have over 300 GB of little house DVD image files on my hard drive!   I am probably going to have to buy a bigger hard drive soon!

For $39.95, the Vudu deal would sure have been tempting.. but like I have said before, I prefer the actual discs. With the Vudu set, can you download those to your hard drive and watch them without the internet?

Davetucson wrote:

There are cut scenes in practically every episode of season five. Glad you got it!  

Wow, that sounds great! Going to try to watch one tonight after I get home from work... I am thinking that it will probably be the Lake Kezia Monster... Any deleted scenes in that one?