Why isnt FARSCAPE on Blu-ray?

[BigFoot]

RoJoHen wrote:

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Oh man, if there were ever a show for me to own on Blu-Ray, this would be it. I already own all the DVDs, but I would totally be willing to spend the money on an HD version.

Same here.

[Mistral]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I never bought them because the DVD's were prohibitively expensive or those scattershot double-sided Starburst things. It'd be nice, Blu-Ray or not, to have some reasonably priced good quality season sets.

If my math is right, based on the difference between DVDs and Blue-rays, and taking into account what the MSRP was for the Farscape season boxes, Blue-ray copies should run about...(carry the two, then.....) about $220 a season. So, what, 4 seasons= $880? and then $55 for Peacekeeper Wars in Blue-ray? So you can own it all for $935US-if it ever comes out....

[Kiltak]

Actually a lot of older movies are being put on to DVD that were not shot in HD. If you do your homework you can find movies on Blu-Ray that go back all the way to the 80s, which were most certainly not shot in HD.

It's just a matter of converting it over to Blu-Ray. Now will the picture Qaulity be as good as a movie like Transformers, no. However when they convert it over it will look better then it did when it Aired on TV.

As to why it hasn't been put out on Blu-ray it's due to various reasons. The first of which is Blu-ray is still rather new and most people don't own one (I happen to be one of those people, though im getting on in March). Once prices start to drop on blu-ray and more people own them then the flood gates will open and will see tons of old movies being put out on blu-ray. However for now it will mostly be popular shows and movies that have sold very well on DVD and they think will do well on Blu-ray, most being new shows and movies.

The other reason may be due to who owns the rights. However I believe Sony does own all the rights to Farscape, which means were likely to see them on Blu-ray in the next few years.

Also Farscape has much bigger fan base then Highlander: The Series does and there putting that on DVD, so that has nothing to do with it.

As for the cost, it won't be any more then the rest out there. The First season will go for about $50 dollars or so, maybe $80 because its a BBC show if I'm not mistaken, which generally means much higher price. So at most you might pay about $400 dollars.

Right now Blu-ray is still relatively new. The players them selves are rather expensive at the moment. So a lot of stuff will be new or popular shows and movies, as time goes on will see more obscure movies and shows.

I would love to see Stargate: SG-1/Atlantis on blu-Ray, along with Farscape, First Wave, Star Trek, Heck even the Star Wars Trilogy. I just have to be patient, they will come to blu-ray in time.

[Ceridwen]

Kiltak wrote:

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Actually a lot of older movies are being put on to DVD that were not shot in HD. If you do your homework you can find movies on Blu-Ray that go back all the way to the 80s, which were most certainly not shot in HD.

Motion pictures are typically shot on film, which has a higher resolution than HDTV. Films from as far back as the beginning of motion picture history, if they've been preserved or restored to their original condition, will continue to look absolutely gorgeous in HD release on Blu-ray.

The issue is that, starting in the 1980s, video proved to be a much cheaper, more efficient method of storing and editing motion pictures. Video, however, has a drastically reduced level of resolution when compared to film or HD. In the world of television series, though, this didn't matter as much because television resolution has always been fairly low. This is why Star Trek (which was produced on film in the 1960s) is seeing a Blu-ray release, whereas The Next Generation (produced on video in the 80s and 90s) will require a complete re-editing from the film source in order to achieve HD resolution.

The question being asked in this thread is whether or not Farscape was shot or edited on film or video. If it was shot on film but edited in video, there's a chance it could be re-edited in HD but it would likely require a complete revamp of the visual effects (and the studio might find this cost prohibitive for such a cult series). If it was edited in a medium that was a high enough resolution, though, such concerns would be moot, and a Blu-ray release would be as simple as striking a new transfer.

[BigFoot]

^ I couldn't have said it better myself. Good post. It really pisses me off when people try to convince me that HD (as in 1080p) is better then film.

[Dane_Whitman]

Michael Chris wrote:

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I don't know if it was done in HD. The transfer on the DVDs is really bad. I wish it was on Blu-Ray though.

What are you talking about? Farscape looks great on dvd! The picture is sharp, the colors are vivid... It looks infinitely better than TNG and the first three seasons of DS9. I suppose you have a different set of Farscape DVD's than I have, but I find it hard to believe the difference is that big...

[RoJoHen]

^My DVDs look awesome as well.

[BigFoot]

^ Same here (I've got the Starburst Editions).

[Michael Chris]

I have the Starburst and it is one of the worst transfers I've seen...

[RoJoHen]

I have the original ADV release of the DVDs. I've never seen the Starburst edition in action, so I can't speak to that.

[Ar-Pharazon]

The Starburst editions looked good to me. And I watched them on an upconverting DVD player set to 1080i and a 40" LCD TV.

[Kiltak]

Ceridwen Troy wrote:

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Motion pictures are typically shot on film, which has a higher resolution than HDTV. Films from as far back as the beginning of motion picture history, if they've been preserved or restored to their original condition, will continue to look absolutely gorgeous in HD release on Blu-ray.

The issue is that, starting in the 1980s, video proved to be a much cheaper, more efficient method of storing and editing motion pictures. Video, however, has a drastically reduced level of resolution when compared to film or HD. In the world of television series, though, this didn't matter as much because television resolution has always been fairly low. This is why Star Trek (which was produced on film in the 1960s) is seeing a Blu-ray release, whereas The Next Generation (produced on video in the 80s and 90s) will require a complete re-editing from the film source in order to achieve HD resolution.

The question being asked in this thread is whether or not Farscape was shot or edited on film or video. If it was shot on film but edited in video, there's a chance it could be re-edited in HD but it would likely require a complete revamp of the visual effects (and the studio might find this cost prohibitive for such a cult series). If it was edited in a medium that was a high enough resolution, though, such concerns would be moot, and a Blu-ray release would be as simple as striking a new transfer.

They don't need to do all that. It's not nearly as complicated as you think. All they will do is take it run it through some software designed to clean up and improve the picture and sound quality. They did this before when it was converted over from VHS to DVD. Now they have even better software then they did before that can convert DVD to blu-ray quality.

Now keep in mind there is only so much they can do. Take Farscape for example, while the picture and sound quality will be a hundred times better then DVD it will not be as good as say a movie like Transformers, or a lot of shows that are now using digital cameras to shoot there shows.

I tell you right now that if they had to redo the special effects because of the way something was shot original to get it to blu-ray they would have had the same problem with DVD. In fact a lot of the older movies and shows would never have been put on to DVD.

Im gone give you a good example of what I'm talking about. Take the original Star Wars for example. You all remember the THX Version of Star Wars that game out in mid 90s right. What most of you don't know was that when he pulled Star Wars from the vaults he was going to do the Special edition, but the problem was the movies were degrading from sitting in vault so long. So he had to clean them up and restore the movies.

Now Lucas being the smart person that he is through head. Now the first thing he did was restore the original film. Then he took the film and converted it over to computer. Then he used software and made even more improvements to the films, both the picture quality and sound quality. He then put them on VHS and that became what we know as the THX version, which he released to the public.

He then set to work on doing the special edition. Then he released that to VHS, DVDs were not around at that point.

Now eventually he did put the movies on DVD, and again he ran it through software that improved the picture quality and sound quality as well as adding in some elements to the movie. He will do the same thing when ever he gets around to putting them on blu-ray.

The only reason or at least the main reason Farscape is not on Blu-ray, is because it makes no economical sense to do so at this point. Right now most people don't have a blu-ray. So a show like Farscape which does have a fan base, maybe not a huge one but it does have one, isn't going to sell well on Blu-ray at this moment because not enough people have them. In few years when blu-ray go way down in price and they become more common in house holds we will see shows like Farscape on Blu-ray.

Like said I wouldn't worry about it to much, it will be released on blu-ray in a few years or so.

[Ceridwen]

Kiltak wrote:

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They don't need to do all that. It's not nearly as complicated as you think. All they will do is take it run it through some software designed to clean up and improve the picture and sound quality. They did this before when it was converted over from VHS to DVD. Now they have even better software then they did before that can convert DVD to blu-ray quality.

No they don't. There's conversion software to make your DVDs look better on an HDTV than they do on a SDTV, but you don't need to buy Blu-ray Discs for that. It comes in higher end DVD players these days. However, just because it looks better than SDTV quality doesn't mean it's at full HD capacity like a Blu-ray Disc. A Blu-ray Disc encodes the picture (forgive me, cuz I suck at math) at more than twice the resolution of DVD (1920x1080 vs. 720×480) and at twice the frame rate (if you've got an HDTV that can handle the higher frame rate, at least). It is IMPOSSIBLE to make the DVD image get to that point. It is even less possible to get an old video image to that point (honestly, DVD has a high enough resolution that you start to see the flaws in video, let alone something like a Blu-ray Disc).

Edited to add: You also overestimate how easy it is to restore a film. It's often a painstaking process, and while digital tools have made it easier, not all restoration studios have access to the kinds of tools you're talking about. Even Lowry Digital (the folks who worked on the Star Wars dvds), with their breakthrough algorithms, have to go through and check each frame manually to make sure that the software is doing its job properly. When they don't, you get things like Darth Vader's neon pink lightsaber on the Return of the Jedi disc.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And before anybody mentions 'upconverting' standard def DVD players like they're the second coming:

As Colonel Sherman Potter might say, 'Horse hockey!'

Upconversion is universal. Even if your DVD player doesn't do this, your HDTV will. If they did not do this, then whenever you viewed a standard DVD on an HDTV setup, you'd just get a tiny box of image in the center of the screen surrounded by a foot of black on all sides. *Upconversion happens all the time*. And with any halfway decent HDTV, *its* upconverter will be better than any supposed 'upconverting DVD player' ever could be.

I mean, that's exactly why I bought the specific Blu-Ray player that I did: I can DISABLE its upconverter (for standard def DVDs). I don't *want* the DVD player to upconvert, because I know my TV will be better at it. Odds are, anyone here with an HDTV will be in the same boat.

[Ceridwen]

^ Good point, thanks.