Very interesting thread. I'm personally trying to find out what live colour TV shows were like back in the 50s and the closest I've come to seeing is excerpts of the Dinah Shore Chevy Show from late 50s and early 60s and 1960 Howdy Doody Show on DVD.
Anyhow commenting on those so called 88 cent DVDs, yeah they must of been 16mm worn prints of those shows as over here in Australia on Pay TV on the Fox Classics channel we have pretty much all the Lucy Shows from B&W of the 50s to colour in the 60s and 70s and they all are in top notch quality!!! The Lucy Shows of the early 60s look fantastic, rich with colour
!!! Anyhow this might not be so related to the 88 cent DVDs but about nearly 5 years back I bought a 60s rock video compilation and the quality of the clips was absolutely shithouse
!!! I can understand that kinescope films don't look that good opposed to video but these clips are bloody at least 5th generation copies which makes me wonder how they get away with selling stuff like this? There was also CCR's "Down On The Corner" Ed Sullivan clip which was in colour video but was at least 5th generation as the picture is very blurred, and yet I've taped that 1969 Ed Sullivan Show off Fox Classics in top notch quality!!! From memory I think the company of this video is Scopetone films or something.
Anyhow with films being broadcasted, these days they'll be of pristine quality when broadcasted off Digital Beta opposed to the old days when broadcasted off a telecine because the films have been digitally restored and touched up and put to Digital Beta whereas back in the old days when the film prints were directly played off the telecine the scratches were all there as well as the grain and even the brightness/contrast looked bad in some of them. How I know this is I'm a vintage domestic videotape collector and have watched some films from Philips VCR format videocassettes from 1978/79 and the movies were very grainy, too much intensity or contrast and scratchy, one example being 1954 "War Of The Worlds" which I found on a 1978 recording. Compared to the films, the live television shows of that day were pristine, though with the smaller portable colour broadcast cameras used outdoors the quality varies which some shots the picture is a little blurry and the colour looks a bit out but the 70s were still the early days of colour portable cameras.
With the early years 50s and 60s, restored 35 mm prints of films colour/B&W will look pristine today, don't know how they looked off the telecine way back then but I assume a little more grainier, scratchier and maybe bad too much intensity/contrast but still good but not as good as today with the digital restoration on them.
Videotapes, quality varies on condition of the tape and maybe brand of tape that's used, I have the 1960 final Howdy Doody Show colour special on DVD and the quality looks fantastic in some areas but a bit blurry in others and maybe slightly grainy but looks fantastic for a colour tape that's survived nearly 45 years old
!!! Anyhow looking at the few live colour excerpts and shows I have of the early era of colour, the quality of live shows can depend on the techo's camera adjustment, the Dinah Shore Chevy Show the colour looks a bit desaturated and chromium whilst that Howdy Doody Show the colours are really rich and same goes for the Andy Williams Show. A lot of the colour videotaped shows of the 60s I've seen are pretty much in pristine quality, the Ed Sullivan Shows I've taped off Fox Classics the pictures look fantastic on most of them.
Anyhow I use to think that in the 50s and 60s the quality of live television was of the quality of scratchy/grainy B&W kinescope films but learned a few years back that it wasn't the case.
Cheers
Troy