Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: OverDhill on January 27, 2021, 07:42:55 am
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https://www.engadget.com/babylon-5-remastered-hbo-max-digital-download-080058907.html
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Oh I've been wondering when B5 was gonna be available to stream, I've never seen it but I know it was a major influence on FreeSpace. Today's my lucky day!
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Unfortunately, HBO-Max is NOT available in Canada.
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Unfortunately, HBO-Max is NOT available in Canada.
Welcome to the rest of the world - where the short-signed buisness strategy behind HBO-Max will have an impact, but we don't get the service that is supposed to make it worthwhile. :D
More on subject, probably it is the same situation as here on the other side of the Altantic where the Warner and Coglomerate have standing committments to local distrubtion partners in several markets that do not allow them to compete just yet.
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According to the link it isn't much of a remaster anyway, not with everything scaled down to 4:3 because of the CGI instead of actually remastering the SFX too!
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Remastering the SFX would require a hell of allot more $$$ than I think they're willing to commit. Let's face it, B5 never had quite the same following in terms of sheer numbers that ST:TNG had... more loyal and more vocal yes, but not the sheer volume. The big corporations are looking for projected number of sales rather than how beloved it is by its fans. I can't recall if the fact that ST:DS9 didn't get a remaster was because they couldn't find enough of the original 35mm film (or if perhaps they filmed it on VHS level to begin with and never HAD anything better quality TO scan), or if simply they didn't get enough money in sales from the TNG remaster to warrant moving on to DS9. I myself only have 1-5 and they were hard to find, and pricey as hell.
I'm sure us B5 fans would be overjoyed if it ever got the full HD remaster in the same vein as TNG (with perhaps more attention to detail than some of their contracted companies did), but I doubt they'd get enough revenue to warrant it. Now, if all of the original computer models, renders, etc. still existed, it would make something like that much less daunting, as some of the creators of FS custom cutscenes and animations can likely account, when a higher-detailed model of something is available, as long as the original source mission hasn't been lost (and nothing major hasn't changed in FSO's AI or physics) its a much simpler task than having to recreate the entire thing from scratch.
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JMS has been talking about this a bunch over the years. Remastering B5 is a complete non-starter; the work required is too prohibitive for it (incidentally, this is also why there have been no remastered versions of DS9 or VOY: Even leaving aside the added complexity due to them moving to a partially digital VFX flow, the TNG remasters weren't that successful commercially).
What could be done, and what Warner is for whatever reason refusing to do, is rescan the original film B5 was delivered on. Everything in B5 was printed to film, including the VFX sequences; rescanning those originals with a modern scanner would yield much better results than what's been done to date.
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According to the link it isn't much of a remaster anyway, not with everything scaled down to 4:3 because of the CGI instead of actually remastering the SFX too!
The widescreen was rather pointless anyway; since it was all intended for TV broadcast, nothing actually happens on the edges of the screen, so it just made everything look somewhat cramped.
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Check out this video showing the before-after of the remaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HS5K3MdMY&feature=youtu.be
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I remember watching a thing where someone took the CGI of B5 and made a GAN go through it to supersample it, and it worked really well. Maybe redoing the CGI is impossibly expensive, but doing a resolution upgrade using GANS seemed quite inexpensive.
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Check out this video showing the before-after of the remaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HS5K3MdMY&feature=youtu.be
WTF?
Which source was the "original" material?
My DVD's were never so dark and pale...
And it seem to be very blurred too.
Sure, the "remaster" is clearer, but the "original" source in this video is shown much worse than it actually is.
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Sure, the "remaster" is clearer, but the "original" source in this video is shown much worse than it actually is.
I'm watching the show on German TV right now and it pretty much looks as blurry as this...
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I just finished watching "Midnight on the Firing Line", (don't ask how I got it) and I can see the difference in quality for the live-action shots. Some of the space shots do look a bit color-faded though.
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What could be done, and what Warner is for whatever reason refusing to do, is rescan the original film B5 was delivered on. Everything in B5 was printed to film, including the VFX sequences; rescanning those originals with a modern scanner would yield much better results than what's been done to date.
Isn't Warner the studio that lost a ton of their archives to a fire?
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If they did, they didn't tell JMS about it.
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That's interesting https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1376029585309978627 (https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1376029585309978627)
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I assume he's talking about this sort of thing.
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Any improvement over the DVD release is welcome. I guess this will be available on Blu-ray eventually.
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I can`t vouch for the actual streaming release, but the download sources I`ve found have cut the ending from `Babylon Squared`. It ends with Garibali and Sinclair in the shuttle heading back to the station, cuts out to what would have been the commercial, and then does a brief pop-up of the final image of the station and the `executive producer`bit, and then straight to the credits. It cuts the conversation between Sinclair, Garibaldi, and Ivanova regarding the Flying Dutchman reference, as well as Delenn getting the Triluminary.
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I think I remember the Dutchman scene being in the HBO version, just watched it recently