I was randomly watching some first season episodes of Family Matters on HBO Max and I notice the font/title card lettering used (opening credits/closing credits/written by/directed by etc.) seems to be changed. Has anyone else noticed this?

For some episodes, the initial Family Matters title card right at the beginning of some episodes seems updated, others look normal. Then when it rolls into the theme song, I am noticing the title card and the font/lettering for the cast seems updated as well.

I know it's not like that on the DVD. I'm not quite understanding why Warner Bros. would do this?

I have also noticed this with other streaming WB distributed shows, including Dallas, Growing Pains and Perfect Strangers. These shows stream on Freevee (Dallas) and Plex (Growing Pains/Perfect Strangers) and they too have had their fonts redone. In some instances, looking nothing like they originally did and this is a change from how they look on the DVD releases.

Thoughts as to why this is happening? Could it be a way for WB to save on paying residuals to the person responsible for the original fonts? I can't think of any other reason they would re-do this. It seems so random!

Not a WB show, but I’ve noticed TV One has new prints of The Cosby Show now in HD, and the fonts on it have been changed too.

When they do a genuine remaster for HD (as opposed to upscaling the original prints), it necessitates redoing the credits. And I guess they’re not spending the time to make it match perfectly to what it originally was.

When they do a genuine remaster for HD (as opposed to upscaling the original prints), it necessitates redoing the credits. And I guess they’re not spending the time to make it match perfectly to what it originally was.

Exactly. In the mid-80s, methods were developed to transfer the raw film footage to video tape and edit the shows that way. It was time and cost saving at the time, but has created problems here in the digital and high definition age.

The video tape is inherently standard definition, looked blurry and dark at the time, and looks really bad upscaled to high definition. In order to make these shows look good in high definition, they have to go back to the original unedited film, scan it all into a computer, and piece the shows back together all over again.

The credits and opening titles during that time were done by using a computer to generate the text onto the video tape, much in the same way text graphics are generated for newscasts and the like. So all of that has to be rebuilt from scratch. And like was said above, it seems WB is only concerned about getting a similar font and not the exact one. Could be a cost issue, who knows.