The masters used for the MPI DVDs were quite poor in general. It looks like they did little more than scan the film sources in as-is and then run the scans through an MPEG-2 hardware encoder. I don't know what film sources they used either, but I'm guessing they used a mixture of original negatives (which is the best possible source), interpositives, internegatives, and maybe even film prints (the worst possible source). Ideally, the best possible film source is used (original negatives) after giving them a thorough and proper cleaning. Then the characteristics of the scan (which, ideally, should be at least 4K), such as brightness, contrast, color, etc., are adjusted. This needs to be done by an expert, or you end up with problems such as crushed whites or an overly dark picture lacking in shadow detail, or bad color balance shifted to red, green, or blue.
Some episodes look significantly better than others, which I think is indicative of them not being fussy about what film sources they used, and them doing little or no post-processing of the film scans.
Here's an example of the variable quality:
This is a screenshot from the original version of
Ki'i's Don't Lie, which was included as a bonus episode on the season 1 DVD set:
And this is a screenshot from the syndicated version of the same episode, which was included on the season 3 DVD set:
The screenshot from the original version of the episode is much higher quality. Look at all the detail that's been preserved in the clothing (especially noticeable on Magnum's jeans), the wooden walls and doors, the actors' faces, etc. That detail is simply gone in the other screenshot. The colors are significantly different between the two screenshots as well.
For most of those two versions of
Ki'i's Don't Lie, the picture quality is equally poor, i.e., on the same level as the screenshot from the syndicated version. However, near the end when you reach the scenes of the original version which have different content than the syndicated version, you see it jump in quality. It retains that higher level of quality even in the end credits, even though they are the same end credits that are seen in the syndicated version.
My theory is that they scanned in a complete syndicated version, which was from a poor quality film source, and then they reconstructed the original version by splicing in scans from a different film source, which was higher quality to begin with. Again, this suggests that they weren't at all fussy about the quality of the film source (i.e., they just used whatever was most convenient), nor were they fussy about the quality of the whole procedure in general. The episodes which came out looking good did so by sheer luck.
Supposedly there's two complete series Blu-ray releases in the works, one for Region A and one for Region B:
http://www.blu-ray.com/search/?quicksea ... uraymovies
According to that site, Universal Studios is handling Region A and will be using the ancient MPEG-2 codec (which is very strange for a 2016 Blu-ray release), and "Fabulous Films" is handling Region B and will be using the more modern (and far more efficient) MPEG-4 AVC codec. Both codecs can look equally good, but MPEG-4 AVC requires less than half the bitrate to do so than the 20-year-old MPEG-2 codec does, which means fewer episodes can fit on a disc and/or there will be less room for extras. But the most important thing is: they need to use the best possible film sources and procedures, but I highly doubt they will. TV shows which don't have a huge following like Star Trek, don't usually get the royal treatment. I'd say we're lucky to even get a Blu-ray release at all, given that it's already been a decade since the first Blu-ray titles were released.
