Spoilers The Mandalorian season 2 discussion

[Reverend]

The problem with VHS was never image quality per see, it was image quality degradation. A brand new cassette with a decent transfer on a good quality player is as good (if not better) than the average 720p DVD. However, every time you play it, the tape gets a little worn out. Dust creeps into the machine. Grime builds up on the reader heads. The damn tape gets chewed. The autotracking no longer makes any difference. Sooner or later, your once great VHS copy is neigh unwatchable. DVD's on the other hand, while by no means indestructible, were FAR less susceptible to diminishing returns.

From the manufacturers POV though, the main draw was the massively cheaper fabrication and mastering process. No more moving parts, no more tape, no more bulky, heavy packaging. DVDs were cheaper to make, faster to produce, and MUCH cheaper to ship en masse.

Incidentally, I still own a DVD/VHS combi player...in a bag, in a closet (right next to my mountain of Star Trek Fact Files I no longer have any clue what to do with), even though I'm pretty sure I only have a handful of tapes (somewhere?!) and i don't trust that thing not to eat them. I also kept my portable Minidisc player, even though I'm pretty sure it's unusable thanks to the proprietary battery no longer holding a charge. So I may have some issues with hording old tech.

 

[fireproof78]

The problem with VHS was never image quality per see, it was image quality degradation. A brand new cassette with a decent transfer on a good quality player is as good (if not better) than the average 720p DVD. However, every time you play it, the tape gets a little worn out. Dust creeps into the machine. Grime builds up on the reader heads. The damn tape gets chewed. The autotracking no longer makes any difference. Sooner or later, your once great VHS copy is neigh unwatchable. DVD's on the other hand, while by no means indestructible, were FAR less susceptible to diminishing returns.

From the manufacturers POV though, the main draw was the massively cheaper fabrication and mastering process. No more moving parts, no more tape, no more bulky, heavy packaging. DVDs were cheaper to make, faster to produce, and MUCH cheaper to ship en masse.

Incidentally, I still own a DVD/VHS combi player...in a bag, in a closet (right next to my mountain of Star Trek Fact Files I no longer have any clue what to do with), even though I'm pretty sure I only have a handful of tapes (somewhere?!) and i don't trust that thing not to eat them. I also kept my portable Minidisc player, even though I'm pretty sure it's unusable thanks to the proprietary battery no longer holding a charge. So I may have some issues with hording old tech.

My mom has an external hard drive and RCA transfer cable and is moving VHS to digital storage. I intend to do the same but will keep the tapes until they wear out.

As for the fact files, I intend to digitize those as well at some point. I always liked them.

 

[Reverend]

As for the fact files, I intend to digitize those as well at some point. I always liked them.

I kind of already did. Who do you think supplied Ex Astris with scans back in the day?

I like them well enough (despite the low quality of the paper), but they take up WAY too much shelf space.

 

[fireproof78]

I kind of already did. Who do you think supplied Ex Astris with scans back in the day?

I like them well enough (despite the low quality of the paper), but they take up WAY too much shelf space.

Yeah, I am such a hard copy lover that having them to read in hand is my preferred method. Book shelf space or not.

 

[Noname Given]

The problem with VHS was never image quality per see, it was image quality degradation. A brand new cassette with a decent transfer on a good quality player is as good (if not better) than the average 720p DVD.

Yeah...no.

Standard VHS carried an effective horizontal resolution of about 200–250 lines - plus it's interlaced. That's about 1/5 the resolution of 720P.

Hell, it's a little (at best) over 1/2 standard DVD resolution which is 480P

 

[fireproof78]

If it works...

 

[JD]

I kind of already did. Who do you think supplied Ex Astris with scans back in the day?

I like them well enough (despite the low quality of the paper), but they take up WAY too much shelf space.

Yeah, I am such a hard copy lover that having them to read in hand is my preferred method. Book shelf space or not.

Hero Collector has been releasing Starship Handbooks that are actually made up of material from the Fact Files. So far they've done one with TOS Enterprise & Ent-A, one for the Ent-D, one for DS9 and the Defiant, and one for Voyager.

 

[fireproof78]

Hero Collector has been releasing Starship Handbooks that are actually made up of material from the Fact Files. So far they've done one with TOS Enterprise & Ent-A, one for the Ent-D, one for DS9 and the Defiant, and one for Voyager.

Interesting...

 

[Reverend]

Hero Collector has been releasing Starship Handbooks that are actually made up of material from the Fact Files. So far they've done one with TOS Enterprise & Ent-A, one for the Ent-D, one for DS9 and the Defiant, and one for Voyager.

My days of collecting Star Trek books are long over. Already have a shelf full of them, including but not limited to both TNG & DS9 tech manuals, Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, three versions of Okuda's encyclopaedia, the full Ent-D deckplans, various "art of" type books, chronologies, compendiums, star charts, I think I even have some unofficial blueprints made and sold by some fan that sent me a bunch in exchange for letting them use one of my old designs....and most of it has done little else but gather dust for going on two decades.

 

[JD]

Just thought I'd mention them.

 

[Shawnster]

Has anyone heard/read anything about production costs for Mandalorian? I'm curious what the budget was for the Quarren/Mon Calimari characters. I wonder if it's possible to have such detailed aliens on a continuous basis like series long.

Remember folks, I'm from the era where it was too expensive to di a bunch of Romulan ears so those background centurions were in helmets.

 

[JD]

It probably depends on how many you are going to have. If it's just one, I wouldn't think it would be that much of an issue, since you'd only need to make a few duplicate masks at a time.
If you are talking about constantly having hundreds of them wandering around in the every episode, that would probably get to too expensive.

 

[Reverend]

So far there's only been one or two "hero" animatronics in a scene at a time; for example, I suspect the Mon Cal barkeep was the same puppet/headpiece as the dock worker, just in a different costume. All the background players are likely in relatively simple silicone rubber pull-over masks with no articulation. So it's not as expensive as they make it look...but that doesn't mean it's exactly cheap either.

 

[Aragorn]

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[dupersuper]

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Good timing: he needs a new one.

 

[Tuskin38]

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[Moist_Cake]

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I read about this on the net a couple days ago. Very cool. I want to go see it.

 

[JD]

I just remembered something I've been meaning to ask. Was Mark Hamill actually on set when they filmed the Luke scene? I was under the impression it was a body double who had his face digitally replaced with Return of the Jedi era Mark Hamill's, but I've seen some social media posts from Mark Hamill that made it sound like he actually filmed the scene himself.

 

[Tuskin38]

I just remembered something I've been meaning to ask. Was Mark Hamill actually on set when they filmed the Luke scene? I was under the impression it was a body double who had his face digitally replaced with Return of the Jedi era Mark Hamill's, but I've seen some social media posts from Mark Hamill that made it sound like he actually filmed the scene himself.

He played Luke outside of the action sequences.
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/j...r-mandalorian-scene-hamill-on-set-1234606005/

 

[Noname Given]

He played Luke outside of the action sequences.
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/j...r-mandalorian-scene-hamill-on-set-1234606005/

That's very interesting and cool to know. Also I'm sure it helped when they had to map the digital deaged face of Mark Hamill onto the current 70+ year old Mark Hamill. Yes your face does change with age but I'm sure it was a lot easier for the digital artists involved in the end.