grue , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, there’s a real doughnut-hole in the '90s-2000s between when stuff was old enough to be remastered and stuff was new enough to be digital/HD to begin with. Also, I double-checked, and according to this article what I wrote before wasn’t entirely accurate: apparently the raw footage is on film, but the cut and edited product only exists on video. In theory, they could go back to the raw film and re-do the entire editing process, but it would be cost-prohibitive compared to how much consumer interest in an HD remaster they expect there to be.

There’s a really good Technology Connections video on the topic, by the way.

Finally, I’m not sure if “VHS” is strictly accurate. There are other varieties of videotape that might have been used.