WWE Network... It's Here

[sek69]

I've never seen a company promote something so wrongly that their future is tied to like this. They do actually want this to succeed, right?

[Grimmas]

Really if they could just put up the CHV's I would be happy. I want to watch good copies of the Best of the WWF, damn it!

[Loss]

Those should mostly if not entirely be digitized since they aired on 24/7. They also said at the Vegas announcement that at launch their entire home video library would be there, even though it wasn't.

[thebrainfollower]

Sek I truly believe deep down Vince is a sociopath who wants WWE to NOT outlive him by much. So my answer to your question would be............sort of no.

 

 

Would love to see the CHV's up. I have about 100 of them from 85-95 but there's always more out there.

[flyonthewall2983]

Didn't someone say it would be impossible to convert some of those CHVs digitally due to how primitive they were? I remember some of them towards the end being encoded in EP mode.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Didn't someone say it would be impossible to convert some of those CHVs digitally due to how primitive they were? I remember some of them towards the end being encoded in EP mode.

See, that's just realistic, complicated, and boring. Let's just go with "megomaniacal super villain who wants to ruin childhoods and bury old timey wrestling cuz cocaine and blah blah"

[goc]

Didn't someone say it would be impossible to convert some of those CHVs digitally due to how primitive they were? I remember some of them towards the end being encoded in EP mode.

It hasn't stopped people on XWT-Classics.

 

Sek I truly believe deep down Vince is a sociopath who wants WWE to NOT outlive him by much. So my answer to your question would be............sort of no.

[thebrainfollower]

I guess I see Trump as Vince unchained.

 

 

Anyway yes some of the CHVS are VERY hard to make a copy of. Vince had amazing copy protection and the old 2 VCR's thing rarely worked back in the day. If that means WWE really has no way of putting them up today online........I doubt that.

[pantherwagner]

Pretty sure that they own the unprotected masters and, at an case, they should still possess the original footage.

 

Most of the CHV were posted on Classics or 24/7.

 

It would be a good Christmas present to have the Best of WWF series. "Best of the WWF" is potential false advertising as the tapes featured a lot of George Steele, Moolah and midgets. Enough little person wrestling that it makes you wonder if VKM himself had a hand on the match selection. However there were some great or rare bouts on these tapes such as the Paris 1987 matches (this tape wasn't actually on Classics as the original has got All Japan Women matches), Hogan defending the title vs Rude, Roberts/Duggan vs Andre/Rude, Adonis/Savage/Race vs Piper/JYD/Steamboat elimination, Hogan and Piper vs Race and Orndorff and plenty of other stuff with good workers like Tito, the Harts, Savage, etc.

[goc]

Pretty sure that they own the unprotected masters and, at an case, they should still possess the original footage.

 

Most of the CHV were posted on Classics or 24/7.

 

It would be a good Christmas present to have the Best of WWF series. "Best of the WWF" is potential false advertising as the tapes featured a lot of George Steele, Moolah and midgets. Enough little person wrestling that it makes you wonder if VKM himself had a hand on the match selection. However there were some great or rare bouts on these tapes such as the Paris 1987 matches (this tape wasn't actually on Classics as the original has got All Japan Women matches), Hogan defending the title vs Rude, Roberts/Duggan vs Andre/Rude, Adonis/Savage/Race vs Piper/JYD/Steamboat elimination, Hogan and Piper vs Race and Orndorff and plenty of other stuff with good workers like Tito, the Harts, Savage, etc.

One of these things is not like the other things. I've seen a lot of good midget matches. Not so much on George Steele or Moolah matches.

[pantherwagner]

 

Pretty sure that they own the unprotected masters and, at an case, they should still possess the original footage.

 

Most of the CHV were posted on Classics or 24/7.

 

It would be a good Christmas present to have the Best of WWF series. "Best of the WWF" is potential false advertising as the tapes featured a lot of George Steele, Moolah and midgets. Enough little person wrestling that it makes you wonder if VKM himself had a hand on the match selection. However there were some great or rare bouts on these tapes such as the Paris 1987 matches (this tape wasn't actually on Classics as the original has got All Japan Women matches), Hogan defending the title vs Rude, Roberts/Duggan vs Andre/Rude, Adonis/Savage/Race vs Piper/JYD/Steamboat elimination, Hogan and Piper vs Race and Orndorff and plenty of other stuff with good workers like Tito, the Harts, Savage, etc.

One of these things is not like the other things. I've seen a lot of good midget matches. Not so much on George Steele or Moolah matches.

 

WWF midgets? Of course we are not talking about Espectrito or Damiancito el Guerrero here.

[goc]

WWF midgets? Of course we are not talking about Espectrito or Damiancito el Guerrero here.

Who were the WWF midgets? I know there were some pretty good talents in that traveling troupe in the 80s like Little Tokyo and Cowboy Lang.

 

[pantherwagner]

Butch Cassidy, Haiti Kid, Lord Littlebrook, Karate Kid, Cowboy Lang, Little Louie, I guess you could say Littlebrook's troupe.

 

I have never seen any of them in a good match but I usually skip them or stop paying attention.

 

Actually the other day I saw a Stampede midgets mixed match with WWC's Barrabas and some other dude that was alright as comedy.

[Grimmas]

Little Tokyo is a legit top 25 favourite of mine.

[Bix]

 

Didn't someone say it would be impossible to convert some of those CHVs digitally due to how primitive they were? I remember some of them towards the end being encoded in EP mode.

See, that's just realistic, complicated, and boring. Let's just go with "megomaniacal super villain who wants to ruin childhoods and bury old timey wrestling cuz cocaine and blah blah"

 

 

Where are either of you getting the idea that WWE's archive consists of EP mode VHS tapes?

[flyonthewall2983]

Most of them were LP, but I remember a couple of them (mostly compilations) were in EP.

[BlueGuy]

All of the main line, numbered WF001 to WF140 something, were in SP. The only ones that were in EP were the 20+ 60 minute compilation tapes marked WS900 to WS920something. In other words, probably 85% of Coliseum Video releases were in SP.

 

Regardless of what speed these Coliseum Videos were released in, the company owns the actual studio masters that the VHS releases were made from. These studio masters are of much higher quality than any VHS. Grab any WWE Blu-Ray or DVD release with a Coliseum match (or even Turner/NWA/WCW) and you'll see it looks better than any VHS quality match. WWE has broadcast quality studio masters, not consumer quality VHS.

[Loss]

Has anyone seen the 24/7 ones? That should tell us what we need to know about the master quality.

[sek69]

I didn't watch all of them (as stated above, a lot of the matches were terrible) but it was definitely better than VHS quality. It was about the same as other stuff from that era like the TNT episodes.

[BlueGuy]

Yes, exactly what sek69 said. When Coliseum Videos aired on 24/7 Classics on Demand they looked noticeably better than VHS quality. It was essentially broadcast quality. As a result, even the very few tapes that were released in EP would be in the WWE libraries in broadcast quality.

[flyonthewall2983]

They've started adding Raws from 2000.

[jushin muta liger]

For what it's worth, the Stampede category is still showing up in my Watchlist, but there are no shows available, of course (Roku).

 

Did anyone catch this week's Breaking Ground, and did it look - for lack of better terms - oily and out of focus? Wasn't my connection, because I tried Unfiltered for a couple of minutes as a test and it looked perfect, as did content on other streaming services.

With Breaking Ground looking oily and out of focus, the footage looks like it was shot at a certain frame rate and they made the show in a different frame rate. They probably shot some of the stuff at 24 fps and they edited the show at 29fps.

[Bix]

The one thing I did notice about the Best of the WWF stuff quality wise was that I guess in the mid '80s, equipment was still primitive enough that you could see the generation loss. They were noticeably fuzzier than everything else from the same time period and the dubbing to make the compilations makes sense as the reason why.

[pantherwagner]

The one thing I did notice about the Best of the WWF stuff quality wise was that I guess in the mid '80s, equipment was still primitive enough that you could see the generation loss. They were noticeably fuzzier than everything else from the same time period and the dubbing to make the compilations makes sense as the reason why.

 

The same thing happens sometimes when they show clips of previous week (or the week before that) during the NWA WCW on TBS episodes currently on the network. The footage looks like an old school 3rd or 4th generation VHS, still good quality but kind of blurred.

[MikeCampbell]

I'm surprised to see that the RAW with the Radicalz debut got to see the light of day. Watch the Christian vs. D-Von match and drink everytime JR says uses the adjective 'damn' to describe the Dudleys.