Babylon 5 on Blu-Ray?

[Candlelight]

Is it likely to happen? The live-action stuff would be fine (Super35) but the CGI is all SD.

Is it worth it for the series or just stick to the current SD-DVD transfers?

 

[Lindley]

Considering the DVD quality, I suspect HD versions would look pretty bad.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

I kind of doubt it, the special effects would have to be entirely redone, I think.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Exactly. The EFX were only done at standard definition resolution.

Just like for the director's cut of ST:TMP. Only difference is, unlike ST:TMP where the raw video files of the effects presumably still exist, the files containing B5's effects have been lost. So they can't re-render them, they'd have to re-create them from scratch. Which does not seem particularly likely.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

It's a shame really, because I'd love the first two seasons to be updated, in terms of look, not the effect. I'd like to see them keep the same sequences and designs, etc... but simply be able to re-render them to a better look, closer to what season four could had done, if not to what Firefly and Battlestar Galactica were able to do in terms of ship effects. Of course, that would only add to the cost of why they wouldn't do it in the first place.

 

[Hermiod]

One problem can be seen in the season one DVD release.

Any shot with any kind of CG effect is a 4:3 shot cropped to 16:9. The result already doesn't look so good in standard definition.

 

[Pingfah]

^ That's true, they apparently designed them to be cropped so you don't lose any important parts of the shot, but they still have to blow it up, making it look horrible. And its the same across all 5 seasons.

Also, all the shots transitioning in to effects shots have the same problem, it effects quite a lot of the footage. And i've noticed personally that while they designed the effects shots themselves to be cropped, they didn't give the same thought to the shots leading in to them as the are often cropped in awful positions, losing peoples chins etc.

I don't think we'll see it unless they can somehow get the cash together to redo all the effects, but i'm not sure that is even possible, I don't know that they have the original footage for the lead in shots anymore.

 

[Hermiod]

^It shows up the most in live action shots that include some kind of effect. Even things like people firing PPGs, for instance, look bad.

 

[Pingfah]

^ Yeah, and it flits back and forth so much it makes it horribly obvious sometimes.

I actually watched the first season and a half on divx download, but then decided to buy the complete set on DVD instead as I was enjoying it so much, the contrast between the poor quality effects shots and the rest of the show suddenly became far more apparent.

Still, six of one and half a dozen of the other though isn't it, at least he had the foresight to shoot the show in widescreen, unlike Trek which seriously missed the boat on that front. I believe the original plan was to save all the 3D models etc so they could render the effects in widescreen at a later point, but then they lost them all.

 

[Hermiod]

^The sad truth is that TNG, DS9 and Voyager could even have had a HD release as everything was shot on film.

Problem was that it was all transferred to video for editing.

 

[Yoda]

I'd kill for some lovingly crafted high def TNG, DS9, and B5, but I'm not expecting it anytime soon. B5 needs it the most, the effects looked the worst to begin with, and then you have all the shoddy looking cropping on effects shots. It's amazing how little future proofing people do with these properties. I know JMS was at least trying, and it's actually pretty impressive that he was filming with 16:9 in mind when he did, but the end result is still a bit of a mess.

 

[David cgc]

I know JMS was at least trying, and it's actually pretty impressive that he was filming with 16:9 in mind when he did, but the end result is still a bit of a mess.

I read recently that they were actually willing and able to edit the show for HD back in the 90s when they were first making it, but the WB wasn't willing to front them the money for an HD monitor so they could actually see what they were doing.

 

[chrisspringob]

Had it been an option, I probably would have bought a fullscreen version of the DVDs instead of the widescreen. There simply were not these ridiculous cropping issues in 4:3 when the show first aired on TV. I don't think widescreen is inherently "better" so I'd be happy with the 4:3.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

HD and 1980s 1990s

^The sad truth is that TNG, DS9 and Voyager could even have had a HD release as everything was shot on film.

Problem was that it was all transferred to video for editing.

check out the thread
The Problems of Remastering TNG, DS9 & VOY
for why Babylon 5 won't be released on Blu-ray. Also it is not nearly as popular as TOS or TNG for a major return on investment for the company that owns the rights to home video release.

FYI
It was only

on September 1, 1988, the FCC narrowed the field significantly by its tentative decision setting guidelines for an HDTV terrestrial broadcast transmission standard

The ANSI/SMPTE standard stamp is important to the manufacturers and users of HDTV production equipment because of the need for common signal parameters for different pieces of the production process. Cameras need to be able to match with high definition videotape recorders, switchers and other signal processors. If standards do not exist, the risk of technical obsolescence or incompatibility becomes even more acute.

Oct. 1988

the American National Standards Institute accepted SMPTE 240M (the HDTV 1125/60[interlaced]production standard approved by SMPTE) as an American national standard for studio production.

in April 1989, an ANSI appeals board rescinded its earlier approval of the SMPTE 240M after a second appeal by Capital Cities/ABC.

the FCC defined each technology in accordance with industry-wide accepted definitions of these terms that were developed by the U.S. Advanced Television Systems Committee in 1989. As stated earlier, HDTV represents a signal that provides at least double the horizontal and vertical resolution of existing 525 NTSC on a 16:9 aspect ratio,

The FCC formalized what the marketplace was leaning towards in the development of simulcast approaches to HDTV terrestrial broadcast.

The target for the standardization selection by the FCC is the second quarter of 1993.

After the original 16:9 Action Plan of the early 1990s, the European Union has instituted the 16:9 Action Plan

SOURCE 1
SOURCE 2

So with all the specification on standards flux between 1988 and 1989 no content maker knew what HD format spec to go with and just stuck with the traditional TV release in 4:3. Sure VOY "Caretaker" VOY, #101
[First aired: 16 January 1995] was shot in 1994 could have been framed for widescreen as ER was back in 1994 (while shot on film).

even though it was not broadcast in widescreen until the seventh season when it began appearing in the 1080i HD format where NBC was being broadcast digitally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_(TV_series)
With the amount of visual effects for a Trek show the additional cost/time of rendering 25% more image was not worth it to producers until 2001 when ENT was in production and being produced for high definition and broadcast in widescreen standard definition during it's initial run broadcast until HDNET picked up the syndication in the USA exclusive rights in HD.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Babylon 5 would probably make the money, this isn't the first place I've seen people asking about/wanting/looking for an HD/BluRay release for the series. JMS claimed in mid 2006 that the DVDs have made over 500 million in revenue, and this was within the time frame of 2002-2006. The problem I am seeing with Babylon 5? WB wants to spend like, five bucks and make a million, and that just isn't going to happen.

 

[23skidoo]

A few comments:

Has anybody ever bothered to actually go ahead and remaster a few minutes of these so-called un-remasterable shows to see how it looks, or is this all based upon assumption? Up until I got my plasma at Christmas I was inconsolable over the fact that, based upon what I'd heard, I would never be able to really enjoy any TV programs made before 2005 ever again -- certainly not anything shot on video.

Yet it turned out those old Doctor Who episodes -- and even the frakking Starlost -- look great. I even watched a bit of my Starlost on an HD LCD set over the weekend. Yes, I know it's not a Blu-Ray, but my point being I was told outright to buy an SDTV and keep it in as good a working condition as possible for as long as possible if I never wanted to watch this stuff ever again. And it ended up being bullshit. 42-inch plasma, 720dpi, and it looks fine.

And that goes for The Avengers, Man from UNCLE ... and meanwhile the original Prisoner series which had special effects of even lower quality than TOS got released to Blu-Ray with no problem at all. Funny, so did TOS when Paramount put out its Blu-Rays.

Ah well, as long as Blu-Ray players continue to be backwards-compatible, who cares if B5 gets put on HD or not. Frankly, anything made before a few years ago (for TV anyway) you can't tell the difference anyway if you have a half-decent set. In a couple years you'll be able to download Freeware and do your own up-converting anyway...

Alex

 

[David cgc]

Well, as we've said, the show was shot on film, so the live-action stuff will go HD no problem. It's the visual effects, the live action mixed with visual effects, and the live action cross-fading to visual effects that are the problem. Now, if they still have the original films for the latter two types of shots, it's certainly technically possible to make an HD version of Babylon 5, not unlike TOS-R. Hell, I've thought about doing it myself for a couple of scenes. I'd only be able to replace the space stuff, and then only in DVD quality, but that'd be plenty for an experiment. Maybe this summer...

Actually, come to think of it, I understand the up-converting that was done for the visual effects was noticeably lousy. Here's an analysis of what happened.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

remastering to Blu-ray

...the original Prisoner series which had special effects of even lower quality than TOS got released to Blu-Ray with no problem at all. Funny, so did TOS when Paramount put out its Blu-Rays.

When The Prisoner: The Complete Series was remastered for Blu-ray) Everything was on film. Telecine to HD, cleanup dirt & dust= Done.


TOS-R did Telecine, cleanup dirt & dust, recreate visual effects, edit them in.
CBS Home Video knew that current Trek fans would expect better visual effects since 1987 Trek on TV had better effects than TOS so they created new visual effects especially since they knew fans had purchased the series more than once see:Trek double dip on TOS TV series?

Has anybody ever bothered to actually go ahead and remaster a few minutes of these so-called un-remasterable shows to see how it looks, or is this all based upon assumption?

A DS9 episode

The Trials and Tribble-ations episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is also included in upconverted HD only, as the series was finalized at 480p resolution.

...if CBS Digital had given the Deep Space Nine episode the full "remastered" treatment. But that's a whole other can of worms, and would be a real challenge.

SOURCE

TNG was also tested.

 

[Candlelight]

Has anybody ever bothered to actually go ahead and remaster a few minutes of these so-called un-remasterable shows to see how it looks?

By this I assume you just mean up-rez existing material?

I have access to the proper hardware and VT decks, but it would cost a lot to do, not to mention only having DVD as the source is pretty poor to begin with.

If it were on a DigiBeta master for example, then I might get a better result:

DVD Bitrate: 10.5 MBit/s
DigiBeta Bitrate: 90MBit/s
HDCAM SR Bitrate: 440MBit/s

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Has anybody ever bothered to actually go ahead and remaster a few minutes of these so-called un-remasterable shows to see how it looks?

By this I assume you just mean up-rez existing material?

No Candlelight I think 23skidoo meant for the studios to do tests with the 35mm film retelecine'd to HD and just cut in the 480i visual effect shots and upconvert them to HD to be able to see how they look next to each other.
They would look pretty awful if it were the original camera negative being telecined to HD.

Your average consumer with a HDTV and an upconverting DVD player have already been doing their own upconversions for years.