Life on Mars coming 27/10/08(uk)

[uk-guy]

play.com/uk has announced a date for one of the best tv series in recent years
from the bbc life on mars. series1-2 coming on 27/10/08

[uk-guy]

each disk had two episodes four in total per series just wondering if they can squeeze perhaps four episodes on to one bd might explain why they are going for £17.99 each the standard dvd were around £39 when released.

anyone any ideas.

[Sky_Captain]

Another Play.com pricing error?

[katharsis]

I hope that it'll be region free.
Love this show!

Unfortunately there will be a US rip-off later this year.

btw: Does anyone know if there will there be more Ashes to Ashes?

[Sky_Captain]

The U.S. remake actually looks interesting.

[uk-guy]

Originally Posted by katharsis

I hope that it'll be region free.
Love this show!

Unfortunately there will be a US rip-off later this year.

btw: Does anyone know if there will there be more Ashes to Ashes?

yes one more series coming of ashes to ashes

[Neil_Luv's_BLU]

Originally Posted by uk-guy

play.com/uk has announced a date for one of the best tv series in recent years
from the bbc life on mars. series1-2 coming on 27/10/08

Pre-ordered mine the moment I found it on play.com. Been hoping the BBC would release this on Blu-ray for a long time.

Just wondering though what format was the show shot in? I wasn't aware that it was shot in HD.

[uk-guy]

Originally Posted by Neil_Luv's_BLU

Pre-ordered mine the moment I found it on play.com. Been hoping the BBC would release this on Blu-ray for a long time.

Just wondering though what format was the show shot in? I wasn't aware that it was shot in HD.

alot of BBC stuff has been shot in hd eastenders has been shot in hd for about a year + i watched series 1 of life on mars last week on dvd and its in mint condition really clean so there is good hope that there will be really clean source material. to port over to blu-ray

anyone else on the forum know if life on mars was shot using hd or not?
let us know.

[uk-guy]

after a question was posted asking if life on mars was filmed in hd i went and did a bit of digging on google and sadly i found out that life on mars was not filmed using hd cameras. it was shot using

"super 16" whatever that is its suppose to be lower quality
hopefully some more knowledgeable folks on the forum might be able to tell us how this might look ported over to blu-ray?

awaiting good news fearing the worst

[Neil_Luv's_BLU]

Originally Posted by uk-guy

after a question was posted asking if life on mars was filmed in hd i went and did a bit of digging on google and sadly i found out that life on mars was not filmed using hd cameras. it was shot using

"super 16" whatever that is its suppose to be lower quality
hopefully some more knowledgeable folks on the forum might be able to tell us how this might look ported over to blu-ray?

awaiting good news fearing the worst

Yeah I saw that aswell. I'm not too worried about season 2 as first three episodes of that series were shown on BBC HD and looked amazing.

I don't see why companies like BBC can't bring all there non HD programming i.e. Doctor Who to Blu-ray if it was encoded right.

I always maintain that Doctor Who would look stunning on Blu-ray if encoded at say 720p (it doesn't need a 1080p encode). It woudl at least be a step up from the pixel haven that is DVD.

[Firstborn]

Originally Posted by uk-guy

after a question was posted asking if life on mars was filmed in hd i went and did a bit of digging on google and sadly i found out that life on mars was not filmed using hd cameras. it was shot using

"super 16" whatever that is its suppose to be lower quality
hopefully some more knowledgeable folks on the forum might be able to tell us how this might look ported over to blu-ray?

awaiting good news fearing the worst

I've been waiting to see if someone who knows their facts about film stock would answer this question for us

Unfortunately with the topic dropping off the forum i guess none of us who regularly use the Euro forum know the answer

So... I'm gonna stick my neck on the line and hazzard a guess

I too googled about for Life On Mars HD info and came flat up against a wall, so i'm not sure what your source is for the "Super 16" info

But lets stay with that.. it makes sense to me that the producers/director would want to shoot the series on something like "Super 16" to help capture a retro feel to the series that could not be achieved using video

From wiki-ing "Super 16" it appears to basically be a widescreen ratio version of traditional 16mm film stock

So theoretically we can say, that by being film stock, it does not technically have a 'resolution' in the same way that video or digital recorders would have

And we know that movies which are filmed on 35mm are scanned at 4K resolution as not much more can be gained at higher resolutions

therefor...

My guess is... if you were to scan 16mm film, which is just less than half the size of 35mm film in physical dimensions, then surely there is enough 'information' captured on the film stock for a decent 1K scan needed for a 1080p encode


But as i said... I'm no expert on these matters, and this is just a logical (but uneducated) guess

[uk-guy]

Originally Posted by Firstborn

I've been waiting to see if someone who knows their facts about film stock would answer this question for us

Unfortunately with the topic dropping off the forum i guess none of us who regularly use the Euro forum know the answer

So... I'm gonna stick my neck on the line and hazzard a guess

I too googled about for Life On Mars HD info and came flat up against a wall, so i'm not sure what your source is for the "Super 16" info

But lets stay with that.. it makes sense to me that the producers/director would want to shoot the series on something like "Super 16" to help capture a retro feel to the series that could not be achieved using video

From wiki-ing "Super 16" it appears to basically be a widescreen ratio version of traditional 16mm film stock

So theoretically we can say, that by being film stock, it does not technically have a 'resolution' in the same way that video or digital recorders would have

And we know that movies which are filmed on 35mm are scanned at 4K resolution as not much more can be gained at higher resolutions

therefor...

My guess is... if you were to scan 16mm film, which is just less than half the size of 35mm film in physical dimensions, then surely there is enough 'information' captured on the film stock for a decent 1K scan needed for a 1080p encode


But as i said... I'm no expert on these matters, and this is just a logical (but uneducated) guess

ok here is some links i found about super 16 http://cinematechnic.com/super_16mm/...uper_16mm.html

and the source that life on mars was shot on super16 http://www.forum.digitalspy.co.uk/fo...d.php?t=858282

take a look folks over at digital spy seem to think it will look really bad ported over to blu-ray

[uk-guy]

well based on the really good discussion over at digitalspy.co.uk i have to say i am very nervous about making a purchase again of life on mars series1-2

reason(1) i fear that super 16 just wont hold up in hi-def resulting in heavy grain

reason(2) i fear that all 8 episodes will be compressed onto one disk basically utilizing the space that blu-ray discs have just to save on production costs and not best film quality.

so i am going to cancel my pre-order and wait to see if these really are worth the purchase.

[NutsAboutPS3]

16mm is a lot lower quality than 35mm. Early Buffy was shot on 16mm, and even DVD is sufficient to expose the huge difference in quality compared to the later episodes shot on 35mm.

[uk-guy]

i have sent a e-mail to kudos requesting information regarding the life on mars series

i really cant understand why kudos would release one of the best television series to date on the blu-ray format given that all the information suggests that
it was shot using very low quility super16 like i have said in a recent post i have canceled my pre-order till i at least get a review on how it stands up in hi-def.

[Firstborn]

Wow... so this appears to be just a whole world of confusion

TBH i had found that digitalspy topic before... but i'm discounting it as it's largely just a bunch of people with no real knowledge just speculating (yeah... like i did on here a few posts earlier - lol)

So i've done some more googling

And it appears that there are many film makers out there using super16 with an aim towards transfer to HD

I came across a company (who's website i've now lost - damn-it) who do transfers for people of their old films in either 8mm, super 8mm, 16mm & super16mm. They had a a short section about was it worth transfering this size film to HD... with there answer being yes... and a couple of stat claiming that 8mm has a resolution of about 700 lines (just less than 720p) and 16mm film having a resolution of about 1200 lines (so easily exceeding 1080p)

I've also found this on Kodaks own website: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/servi.../faq2109.shtml -- where if you scroll down it says Super16 is basically the perfect solution for HDTV

So.. i guess there is enough evidence around that Super16 is easily capable of 1080p quality


But then as you also point out, there seems to be alot of places saying that the series are being squashed onto 1 disc each... which would result in quite a poor bitrate

I guess we'll still have to wait and see.

[richieb1971]

The difference is negligible on a HDTV imo. You got to remember a 35mm film can be blown up the size of a cinema screen with great detail. If you half that size for half a cinema screen then stick that on a 40" HDTV you still have a lot of room for tons and tons of detail.

The quality of the stock is the only factor that worries me. If its been shown on TV in super high quality I wouldn't even worry about it.

[lv426]

I posted this to uk-guy other thread

Originally Posted by lv426

According to wikipedia "Saw" was shot in super 16, Highdefdigest gave it 3.5 out of 5 for picture.


http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/saw.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...ot_in_Super_16

Quote highdef

how does this disc look? Pretty dang good, actually. Presented in 1080p, it is a very nice presentation that is all the more impressive given the film's low-budget origins

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by Firstborn

I came across a company (who's website i've now lost - damn-it) who do transfers for people of their old films in either 8mm, super 8mm, 16mm & super16mm. They had a a short section about was it worth transfering this size film to HD... with there answer being yes... and a couple of stat claiming that 8mm has a resolution of about 700 lines (just less than 720p) and 16mm film having a resolution of about 1200 lines (so easily exceeding 1080p)

Be careful, it's possible for people to make very misleading statements about resolution of sources. An analogue source like film can have a high resolution, but it's also a question of how much contrast you have at various levels of resolution.

Let me be clear about one thing - 16mm will look better on Blu-ray than DVD, so in that sense it is not a waste to put it on Blu-ray.

At the same time, however, while there may be some details in the source image that are revealed by using Blu-ray instead of DVD, the extra detail will not be the same as for 35mm, and it will look much worse on Blu-ray than something derived from 35mm.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by lv426

According to wikipedia "Saw" was shot in super 16, Highdefdigest gave it 3.5 out of 5 for picture.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/saw.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...ot_in_Super_16

According to IMDB, Saw was shot on 35mm:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/technical