I think, however, that those time statistics on the box might be slightly too high, based on the data below.
But, the LITB episodes I have watched thus far have played perfectly all the way through on a Panasonic DVD player, with nary a hitch.and I'm not just giving you "The Business" in this regard either.Īccording to the stats on the packaging, the episode running times here average out to exactly 26 minutes per program (including the 40th episode in the set, the Pilot), which indicates to me that the following pleasing terms apply here: "Full"/"Complete"/"Uncut"/"Unedited"! And this is great to see, because the syndicated versions of this series that have been aired on commercial TV for decades have all had at least a few minutes sliced out of them due to commercial time restraints. I'd prefer it if single-sided discs were used for all DVD releases (TV shows and movies alike), which would also afford the luxury of some nice artwork for each of the discs. The "outdoor" shots look almost grain-free.Īnother very pleasing thing to me personally is the fact that all these DVDs pass the "freeze-frame test" with flying colors (i.e., when pausing or freezing an image on screen, the video doesn't "blur" at all it stays rock-solid and clear while in "pause" mode which, IMO, is a sign of a good film-to-DVD transfer).Īll things considered, I could not be happier with the way these episodes look on these DVDs! And thus far I have no complaints about the performance of the sometimes-temperamental "DVD-18" dual-sided discs that Universal insists upon using for most of its TV-on-DVD releases.
Interestingly, though, I've noticed that many scenes in these episodes don't seem to have any "grain" in them at all, while other scenes contain a lot more. The grain isn't very distracting (at least I don't have a major problem with the grain speckles that exist here). There is, however, a good deal of fine "film grain" contained within a lot of these episodes, but I'm assuming that is simply inherent to the type of film stock that was used for this series. Thankfully, Universal has done a bang-up job with the digital transfers here, and these shows (which were originally photographed on film, not videotape) look and sound fabulous on these DVDs. The video quality for these black-and-white programs is extremely good, and the audio is very good too (by way of the very pleasant and clean-sounding Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks that faithfully reproduce each episode's original Mono audio). The 1950s-1960s family sitcom "Leave It To Beaver" had never been made available to fans via any kind of major studio release on home video throughout all these many years of home-video formats (Beta, VHS, LD, or DVD) - until the long-awaited date of November 22, 2005, when Universal Studios Home Entertainment released "Leave It To Beaver: The Complete First Season" on DVD.Īnd the first 39 "Beaver" episodes look just terrific here.
The LITB "Pilot" Episode ("It's A Small World").Īre These Episodes Complete and Unedited? - Yes.ĭVD Distributor - Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Video Aspect Ratio - Full Frame OAR (1.33:1).Īudio - Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono (English only).Īny Bonus Stuff on the DVDs? - Yes. Number of DVDs - 3 (Dual-Sided Dual-Layered DVD-18).