Actually, according to the B5 Scrolls website, Babylon 5 was broadcast in Widescreen in the 90s in Portugal. And even if there were no digital broadcasts, stations could always use digital VTR’s for broadcast over analog (just like you can watch a DVD over analog composite, S-Video or Component Video).
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
I look forward to anything you post about the show. I've watched the whole thing through maybe 20 times. Yes, I liked it that much. I haven't watched it for a few years now, I'd kind of like to again but when Mr. O'Hare died right after the last time I watched the season 1 finale I haven't been able to.
IIRC, the 16x9 telecine was done in PAL for UK distribution, and then they just converted the live-action footage from that master to NTSC for the Sci-Fi channel widescreen rerun, which is what ended up on the DVDs. I think the edits were redone, because the UK and US widescreen version had different cropping for the VFX in some cases, and there was one wacky mastering error on Sci-Fi's first run, where a VFX shot of a Raider base in "Midnight on the Firing Line" was partially replaced with lead from the next shot of Londo beginning to disassemble his teapot. Anyway, the upshot is that I'm both frightened and intrigued by what a proper new scan of Babylon 5 would look like.
It depends on how big the screen is in your field of view. At the moment, increasing resolution is mostly a way to goose new TV sales, but its always possible someone might actually take advantage of that kind of resolution. A return to the domed-IMAX style of cinematography, where the video is designed to have too much for you to see at any moment, so you have to look around the scene, for instance.
Didn't know about Portugal -- presumably the screen was letterboxed as there were no 16:9 TVs back then. Also the broadcast would still have been analogue, as you state, no matter that the source was digital. Babylon 5 seems to have been badly prepared for the transition to HD. Is it likely that the suits at WB had no imagination and weren't willing to make the investment? Not the only ones, of course. We'll probably never get DS9 nor Voyager in HD.
Does it matter? They will still come along and replace the old. Also as I mentioned previously - it's not simply resolution, it's also about brightness and peak brightness. As more and more films and shows are made to take advance of this, older shows look duller and duller.
So, the upcoming microLED panel TVs will probably make old shows look even gloomier, then? The technology can deliver 30 times as much brightness per unit area than OLED, I understand.
According to the B5 Scrolls site, even Straczinski didn’t know about the issue till years later, as Douglas Netter didn’t let him know that Foundation Imaging needed a $5000 monitor in order to see the video in proper widescreen. (http://www.b5scrolls.com/#Screen1_01_7). Newtek, the developers of the Lightwave Software, had already put NTSC Widescreen into the program so in the program Widescreen was possible, but Foundation only had 4:3 monitors. And amortized over a season, the extra cost of the monitor would’ve been about $75USD per episode.
I'm pretty happy with 4K/HDR. So 8K panels will have to get ridiculously cheap to get me on board.
Who has that kind of room? Sounds like it would be a very niche product.
Who has that kind of room? Sounds like it would be a very niche product.
Who knows? I'm just spitballing. If prices continue to fall and screen-sizes continue to rise, movie-style home-theaters may become more common Home architecture is weird. A whole room just for sleeping in? A living room you actually, plus another living room near the front door with more expensive furniture you only use when company is over? Anything could happen. Fahrenheit-451-style full-wall screens. Maybe the screens themselves will be luxury products, but the content made for them prompt VR headsets to take off. I'm just saying, there's no guarantee that TVs will continue on their current track until we have the same forty- or fifty-inch screens sitting on the same TV stands fifteen feet away from the couch, except every pixel is the size of a single atom, so it's not nessessarily the case that we've already run into diminishing returns (though, as JoeZhang points out, the increased pixel-resolution is currently mostly a simple-to-understand number used to headline more meaningful advances in brightness, black levels, and color fidelity).
1x01 - Midnight on the Firing Line
I'm happy to report that Babylon 5 fits me like a glove so far... provided the rest of the season continues in this tone.
A station full of ever-compelling alien races, sniping and clashing when needed instead of hiding behind diplomacy and false courtesies. Yet these scenes of interpersonal confrontation also gave me much-needed details about recent history and prior wars and conflicts... assuming those details can be fully trusted.
Although I'm glad I watched The Gathering first, this pilot gave more time to characters that hadn't yet intrigued me, such as G'Kar and Londo. Dazzling interplay between those two in particular which I hope continues for a good long while. I also have a better idea of how each race is different from one another now. Storywise, I already get a sense that this is truly a series worth paying a lot of attention to, as many elements feel like they're to be paid off much later.
The main plot was resolved a little quickly and easily for my liking, and the human characters have yet to really interest me (come back, Commander Takashima and Dr Kyle!) but overall this was a worthy premiere that did its job in laying a foundation for what promises to be quite a rewarding ride.
- possibly my favorite scene involved Sinclair asking the Vorlon ambassador for their official position on the events. "Let them die out..." Utopia, this ain't.
- Tomalak as G'Kar!
- At first I'd likened Londo to a Quark-type; how very wrong I was. A far different animal indeed. Though, I'm sure I'll continually refer to him as Molinari instead of Mollari.
- I'm not sure if this was an intentional artistic choice or just a result of the effects but I like the mucky, mechanical, industrial feel of the technology despite its futuristic nature, as opposed to shiny and sleek.
- the telepath character is supposed to be a different character than from The Gathering? Or just a different actress?
- Delenn and Garibaldi watching cartoons on a computer monitor that looks rather like the one I played Age of Empires on 20 years ago.
- So... Vorlons can't sit down?
Rating: *** (out of 5)
(PS. I wonder if I'll be able to get through an episode without being reminded of "Hey Arnold!" whenever I look at the Centauri.)
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I'm happy to report that Babylon 5 fits me like a glove so far... provided the rest of the season continues in this tone.
A station full of ever-compelling alien races, sniping and clashing when needed instead of hiding behind diplomacy and false courtesies. Yet these scenes of interpersonal confrontation also gave me much-needed details about recent history and prior wars and conflicts... assuming those details can be fully trusted.
Although I'm glad I watched The Gathering first, this pilot gave more time to characters that hadn't yet intrigued me, such as G'Kar and Londo. Dazzling interplay between those two in particular which I hope continues for a good long while. I also have a better idea of how each race is different from one another now. Storywise, I already get a sense that this is truly a series worth paying a lot of attention to, as many elements feel like they're to be paid off much later.
The main plot was resolved a little quickly and easily for my liking, and the human characters have yet to really interest me (come back, Commander Takashima and Dr Kyle!) but overall this was a worthy premiere that did its job in laying a foundation for what promises to be quite a rewarding ride.
- possibly my favorite scene involved Sinclair asking the Vorlon ambassador for their official position on the events. "Let them die out..." Utopia, this ain't.
- Tomalak as G'Kar!
- At first I'd likened Londo to a Quark-type; how very wrong I was. A far different animal indeed. Though, I'm sure I'll continually refer to him as Molinari instead of Mollari.
- I'm not sure if this was an intentional artistic choice or just a result of the effects but I like the mucky, mechanical, industrial feel of the technology despite its futuristic nature, as opposed to shiny and sleek.
- the telepath character is supposed to be a different character than from The Gathering? Or just a different actress?
- Delenn and Garibaldi watching cartoons on a computer monitor that looks rather like the one I played Age of Empires on 20 years ago.
- So... Vorlons can't sit down?
Rating: *** (out of 5)
(PS. I wonder if I'll be able to get through an episode without being reminded of "Hey Arnold!" whenever I look at the Centauri.)
Lyta Alexander (pilot) and Talia Winters (series) are two different characters.
Widescreen Tv's were available from the mid-late 90's I believe, and the UK along with other European Nations began moving to WS around that time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen#Television
I think either you or I misremember what was available in the UK in the late 90s and early 2000s but it's not important enough to make an issue of it.
In the early to mid 2000s, I remember the only available widescreen TVs being very expensive, non-standard HD sets (for example, 1024i) and capable of displaying upscaled SD broadcasts in 4:3 full screen (with black side bars), in either 14:9 or 16:9 ratios with various degrees of cropping the bottom and top of the picture (letterboxing) to fit, or horrible, distorted stretching. There were widescreen SD TVs but they could only do cropping or stretching of 4:3.
I bought a 42" 1024-line set from John Lewis in about 2004 and it turned out to be an expensive lemon, although it did last a few years until I bought a 720p/1080i capable Sony TV in 2008. It's true that 16:9 720p/1080i was notionally available from about the mid 2000s -- I had a set-top terrestrial decoder -- but very little was broadcast in 16:9 until the late 2000s.
I might be remembering incorrectly, but it's a waste of time dredging up the past to no real point. Let's leave it at that.
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Good review! I'm glad you're enjoying B5. Yes, the the depth and complexity of the universe will continue to increase as the series goes on. No one is exactly who they appear to be. The characters of G'Kar and Mollari are favorites of many fans; they were played by terrific actors who sparked well off of each other.
There's a minor line between G'kar and Londo that doesn't pay off until season 5. That's the kind of show this is. It didn't need to be there for the later story to make sense but it's nice when someone says something, it fits "in universe" So many shows just have a character spew something convenient to the current story's plot or just a "cute" off hand remark that is contradicted next episode. Not B5. Although to be honest there are one or two mistakes that got in there but considering everything that's very minimal.
No, I don't think Vorlons sit down.
Next episode really shows off more of the mechanical technology.
I kept rolling it around in my head until I remembered
"Would you like some Spoo? It's quite fresh this week." / "Only Narns can stomach fresh Spoo."
How do we know the vorlons are not, in fact, sitting down in their environment suits?
Londo is the most intriguing character in the show. Constantly managing inner conflicts on all fronts, between his patriotism, his empathy, his political gamesmanship, his nostalgia for the ancient empire, his pragmatism, his hedonism, his desire for personal connection, his vindictiveness.
Londo is the most intriguing character in the show. Constantly managing inner conflicts on all fronts, between his patriotism, his empathy, his political gamesmanship, his nostalgia for the ancient empire, his pragmatism, his hedonism, his desire for personal connection, his vindictiveness.
They're radially symmetrical and look like they evolved from some kind of deep ocean creature. Sitting is probably an entirely alien concept to them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vorlons are not in fact incorporeal energy beings (like the Organians), are they? I used to think they were, but then I remembered how Kosh was poisoned and of course that couldn't happen if the Vorlons were pure energy.
Also I have this question about the final scene in War Without End II:
Also I have this question about the final scene in War Without End II:
The two Vorlons on either side of Valen - are they the two Koshes?
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