Netflix claims HD streaming eps for seasons 1-4. Is it true?

Ok I just looked at the credits on The Leap Back.

Panaflex® Camera and Lenses by PANAVISION®

The picture quality and visible film grain on the Quantum Leap DVDs always suggested to me that the show was shot on 16mm film, which is not a particularly good candidate for an HD transfer. But Panaflex was a 35mm format, at least through 1989-1995 as far as what I can find through Google searches.

I don't know if Quantum Leap was edited on film or video. But at least for some of the seasons, the Quantum Leap credits/titles were done optically which suggests film editing.


And hey, anything's possible. After all, they are re-doing Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD (Blu-Ray). It's costing them a fortune, as they are having to go back to the original 150,000 reels of film and rebuild each episode from the ground up. Not sure if you saw that they came out with a 3 episode teaser disc in January with Encounter at Far Point, the Sins of the Father (Worf faces charges that his father betrayed the Empire to the Romulans), and the Inner Light. It looks fantastic.

Ok, I tested Another Mother and Dreams on my 24" 1920x1080 Acer monitor. Even though "HD" lit up and it said "Playing in HD", I did not see any improvement that would suggest it's actually in HD.

I took several screenshots both of indoor and outdoor scenes from these episodes and scaled them from 1440 x 1080 down to 640 x 480 and back up to 1440 x 1080 and then compared the rescale with the original screenshot at 300% magnification in Photoshop. I saw almost no discernible quality difference. Were these sourced from HD materials (35mm film), I would have seen some difference between a 1440 x 1080 screenshot, and a 1080p->480p->1080p rescale.

By the way, I queued up The Leap Back but the "HD" light did not even appear.

At this point, I'm calling this false advertising on Netflix's part, as this is probably the original DVD being played uprezzed.

It's worth noting that the amount of film grain evident throughout Quantum Leap is almost unbelievable. I don't know if inexpensive film stock was used, or if Bellisario really pushed for a vintage look, but when blown up on a 24" LCD, some scenes from these episodes look like they were filmed through a dust storm. I'm not sure HD (Blu-Ray) would do Quantum Leap any favors.

There is one HUGE advantage to watching Quantum Leap on Netflix. Seeing the episodes in near DVD quality but with the original music. Yes, I checked M.I.A. and it has Ray Charles rendition of "Georgia".

yeah it doesn't steam some episodes like ---the pilot aka genesis 1&2,a leap for lisa, rebel without a clue,private dancer,heart of a champion,the leap of faith,nuclear family,lee harvey oswald,disco inferno,good night dear heart,its a wonderful leap,the plays the thing,nowhere to run,running for honor
Okay think i got that these werethe reason i bought all the seasons! well that i could remember show titles of the ones i liked...leap of faith i adore this episode and well of course a leap for lisa because Al was the central focus I love Al.