The Shield on Bluray ; Why Sony should consider a release

[frenshprince]

Hi there,

I've read here https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3343, that The Shield serie is not bluray compliant for Sony, because it was shot on 16mm.
I can understand that, but disagree on their general comments.

I own the PAL and NTSC DVD edition of the complete show, and objectively think there is a lot of improvements to hope with an HD edition.

Let's take a look on all the benefits of a Bluray release.

Picture Quality
DVD video compression is mpeg2.
Results are not so great today, especially on movie with difficult photography.
Also, with four episodes on disc, compression bitrate is quite low, and you can see a lot of artefacts.
Particularly when you have a 1080p display.
AVC Bluray compression offers much better results, and more respectful to the original work.

Framerate and content
The Shield was shot on film 24p.
Unfortunately, NTSC DVD are in interlaced (29.97).
Which means that picture quality is not really close to the original, and with a lot of judder.
Unbearably to me.

Fortunately, PAL DVD are in progressive.
That means that picture quality is faithfully, and totally judder free.
It would be perfect, except that PAL DVD Edition has two major issues

1) Since PAL video are in 25 frame per second, video and audio are accelerate (4%) to fit PAL standards.
It's not really a big deal for video quality, but it is for audio.
Because, everything seems to go faster, with a different pitch tonality, and actor sometime seems talk with helium voice. Musics sound unatural as well.
I guess, if you don'k know actors original voice, you could live with that.
I can't.

2) Pal DVD are censored.
Not only for hardcore scenes (like the famous scene with Aceveda in season 3 ), but also for duration.
For exemple, season 5 final episode is 12mn shorter than original.
A lot of important scenes are cut off, because the french brodcaster had only a 45mn case on air for the shield, so he didn't make the dubbing for the entire episode.
Unbeliveable, but that's why I bought the NTSC DVD Edition.

Audio
Not really a big improvement to hope here, but PCM 24 bits track is always good to get.

Subtitles
DVD subtitles are only in four colors.
Which generates low quality and aliased text.
Bluray subtitles are far better, and more pleasant to read.

So let's resume :
Better compression, original framerate, uncensored, uncompressed audio, better subtitles.
Exactly what we need for this incredible show

[Guydowood]

I would love to have this show on blu. Hell if they can remaster both the original Star Trek and Next Gen, then this one should be easily done. Plus there's gotta be some demand on this.

[lolwut]

16mm is not a good reason not to release something on Blu-ray.

[brc2000]

This would be day one for me! Love this show!

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by lolwut

16mm is not a good reason not to release something on Blu-ray.

There have been many 16mm sourced movies and TV shows on Blu-ray that look spectacular, such as Breaking Bad S1 and S2, The Walking Dead, Hurt Locker, etc.

[WorkShed]

I wonder if HD masters exist for this. They better! I would totally buy this again for HD.

[Blades1370]

Typically TV shows do not sell as well on Blu-Ray as do their DVD counterparts. There are many TV shows that I wish they would release on the Blu-Ray format, but sadly I doubt many will ever see light of day beyond a DVD release. My own personal list would be:

Alias
Sliders
Castle
White Collar (past the 1st season)
Psych
Royal Pains
Babylon 5
Family Guy
Robot Chicken (something other then just season 5)
Futurama
Smallville (Seasons 1-5, redone 6 and maybe 7)
House (Seasons 1-5)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker

[unkie fester]

I have bouth the series twice now. The seasons by them slevs and then the complete series box set, so ueah i would completely re buy it on bd

[Guydowood]

I just tweeted to Michael Chiklis about to whom to bug about getting this series out on bluray.

[theusher]

Shawn Ryan just announced that the show will be converted to 4k:

Shawn Ryan ‏@ShawnRyanTV 34m
1. Thrilled to announce that after months of talking/tests that Sony and Fox are moving forward with a 4K conversion of The Shield.

2. I was dubious going in since the gritty, grainy look of the show is so essential to its impact. But the tests really won me over.

3. Since we filmed on 16mm film and not digitally, Shield is an ideal candidate for this. Plus we always filmed for widescreen safe.

4. This will be a big project and will take some time. Current plan is to have all complete by 15th Anniversary of pilot - March, 2017.

5. I will personally oversee and approve the work on each episode and make sure that the quality is what it needs to be.

6. The tests showed that in 4K the gritty look could be maintained while updating it for a 2015 audience. It really looks spectacular.

7. This conversion will allow for the release of Blu-Ray DVDs as well as comply with most streaming sites that will soon be all 4K.

8. I pushed hard for this and want to thank everyone at Sony and Fox, especially Steve Mosko for making this happen.

9. I've always viewed The Shield as a legacy show and even when we were making it I obsessed with how it would be viewed in 10-15 years.

10. This 4K conversion of The Shield will allow it to live on in the digital age and I couldn't be more excited.

11. Thanks to all Shield fans who clamored for this. Your voices were a big reason why Sony/Fox decided to move forward with this.

[fatediesel]

I've always wanted to watch The Shield but have never gotten around to it even though I've only heard good things. At this point I'll just wait for the 4K conversion.

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by theusher

Shawn Ryan just announced that the show will be converted to 4k:

Great news! This is one of the best shows ever.

[Slim Jim]

What's the point of converting it to 4K and not bluray? I'm not going to buy a whole new set up for on series

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by Slim Jim

What's the point of converting it to 4K and not bluray? I'm not going to buy a whole new set up for on series

"Remastered in 4k" scans often end up on Blu-Ray too.

[theusher]

What's the point of converting it to 4K and not bluray? I'm not going to buy a whole new set up for on series

7. This conversion will allow for the release of Blu-Ray DVDs as well as comply with most streaming sites that will soon be all 4K.

[Slim Jim]

Originally Posted by DaBargainHunta

"Remastered in 4k" scans often end up on Blu-Ray too.

Ok just making sure cause of I know ultra bluray is now coming out

[Lincoln6Echo]

Originally Posted by Blades1370

Typically TV shows do not sell as well on Blu-Ray as do their DVD counterparts. There are many TV shows that I wish they would release on the Blu-Ray format, but sadly I doubt many will ever see light of day beyond a DVD release. My own personal list would be:

Alias
Sliders
Castle
White Collar (past the 1st season)
Psych
Royal Pains
Babylon 5
Family Guy
Robot Chicken (something other then just season 5)
Futurama
Smallville (Seasons 1-5, redone 6 and maybe 7)
House (Seasons 1-5)
Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Babylon 5 would probably need a whole new ST:TOS-style remaster with its extremely out of date CG shots. Those were done during the infancy of CG effects using what was known as a video toaster. Not sure exactly how that technology worked, but I think all it did was to put semi-textured surfaces on a wire frame. The series could be easily remastered with today's CG technology. Once you build the models, you're pretty much done...just place them in the shots as they were in the original shots, run the correct lighting filters, and run let the computer render them out. The live action stuff is a bit different. It was shot in 16:9, but the effects were rendered in 4:3. So again, they would need to be re-rendered.

The good news is though that because CG creation has come so far since the early to mid-'90s, and companies can pump out weekly series like Clone Wars and Rebels, it surely wouldn't take long to re-render the short CG shots in B5. The live action stuff also needs to be cleaned up and restored like Lowry Digital did with the Bond films series, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones.

[Lincoln6Echo]

Originally Posted by theusher

Shawn Ryan just announced that the show will be converted to 4k:

Well, that's awesome news.... Now what to do with my DVD complete series set? I need to pop in some of those discs and see what they look like on my current setup. I don't think I've watched the set since I upgraded to BD, and i never finished the final two seasons.