The Wire: The Complete Series (2002-2008)

[henry00x]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

No way season 4 was amazing.

Season 2 was my least favorite, still my #1 show of all time though

[jarrod_inf]

Count me surprised. Never thought this would come out. Season 4 FTW!

[ijustblumyself]

Originally Posted by Hucksta G

Mine too!

Mine three

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by henry00x

I just read David Simon's blog post about the HD transfer

im not sure how i feel about this being stretched for 16x9, honestly thinking about getting the DVD set instead

The DVD set looks and sounds pretty bad, going to try to unload it asap.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Superb news - very good to hear that The Wire on Blu will be 16X9. Though I initially watched the show on the DVD sets & was fine with the 4X3 aspect ratio, 16X9 will look much better on a widescreen set...

[ZooTv]

Originally Posted by Illy Scorsese

Finally the day has come...

The Greatest thing to ever air in the History of American Television...

Day 1 Purchase.

This.

[Harlock415]

You know, I just realized that the DVD version I watched and bought was probably a bootleg when I got it from ebay. I can't check it now, since my nephew has it. Ironically he's a customs officer. I may buy the legitimate DVDs just because they are reframing. On the one hand I'm stocked it's coming in HD. But on the other hand, they are changing the aspect ratio.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Akijama

Love the show, even though it all went downhill after S3 and

[Show spoiler]and the murder of Stringer Bell

. Very gritty and realistic look into the inner workings of a drug dealers, the police and the city politics.

It will be great to revisit this show in HD.

Downhill after Season 3 Season 4 is if not the best, at worst 2nd best season in the series.

[saprano]

The digital is releasing way to ahead of the bluray.

Why can't they give us both 4X3 and 16X9?

[AwkwardBoner]

So much praise behind this show. Looking forward to blind buying on Blu.

[IroquoisPliskin]

SWEET JESUS! ABOUT DAMN TIME! one of my fav tv shows ever.

[Bates_Motel]

Shame it's not in OAR, whether it was "overseen" or not. There's just no excuse for "filling up a screen" to appease the uneducated when it was never meant to be that way.

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by saprano

The digital is releasing way to ahead of the bluray.

Why can't they give us both 4X3 and 16X9?

Hoping they reward our patience with some sweet bonus features, would love a lengthy documentary.

[cuzzin]

The cheese stands alone.

[Mandalorian]

I watched the first season on Amazon Prime, and never got past the first episode of the second season. This will definitely be my reason to do so.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by chronoclast

David Simon has put up an excellent blog post today about The Wire in HD. He's okay with the change to 16:9.

You know what, I just read this blog post, and now, I have reconsidered.

HBO can still have their 16:9 versions on TV and wherever else, but it pretty clear from reading Simon's comments that this series was never intended for 16:9. Regardless of how he feels about it, HBO are making a major alteration to the the series, and in essence, creating a "new" series for 2015.

I won't be purchasing the Blu-ray set if it's not in the 1.33:1 OAR.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

You know what, I just read this blog post, and now, I have reconsidered.

HBO can still have their 16:9 versions on TV and wherever else, but it pretty clear from reading Simon's comments that this series was never intended for 16:9. Regardless of how he feels about it, HBO are making a major alteration to the the series, and in essence, creating a "new" series for 2015.

I won't be purchasing the Blu-ray set if it's not in the 1.33:1 OAR.

Exactly

But there are other scenes, composed for 4:3, that lose some of their purpose and power, to be sure. *An early example that caught my eye is a scene from the pilot episode, carefully composed by Bob, in which Wee Bey delivers to D’Angelo a homily on established Barksdale crew tactics. *“Don’t talk in the car,” D’Angelo reluctantly offers to Wee Bey, who stands below a neon sign that declares, “burgers” while D’Angelo, less certain in his standing and performance within the gang, stands beneath a neon label of “chicken.”

That shot composition was purposed, and clever, and it works better in the 4:3 version than when the screen is suddenly widened to pick up additional neon to the left of Bey. *In such a case, the new aspect ratio’s ability to acquire more of the world actually detracts from the intention of the scene and the composition of the shot. *For that reason, we elected in the new version to go tighter on the shot in order to maintain some of the previous composition, albeit while coming closer to our backlit characters than the scene requires. *It is, indeed, an arguable trade-off, but one that reveals the cost of taking something made in one construct and recasting it for another format. And this scene isn’t unique; there are a good number of similar losses in the transfer, as could be expected.

WTF?


Other films retain their aspect ratio because that's the way it was shot, it's a part of history, it would be a disgrace to the filmmakers if we destroy their original vision. So why can't The Wire get the same respect?

[saprano]

Originally Posted by chronoclast

David Simon has put up an excellent blog post today about The Wire in HD. He's okay with the change to 16:9.

Heh. No he's not.

[Chareth]

If HBO scanned in the entire image on the negative, did the cleanup on that entire image (dust removal, color timing, etc), and only then got to work cropping for 16:9, a 4:3 image could, IIUC, be easily extracted for a Blu-ray release.

If they only started cleanup after cropping, then I can't imagine a 4:3 version is feasible. I hope HBO at least gave themselves the option rather than condemning the OAR to SD for eternity. Does anyone know whether doing so - cleaning up the entire frame - would be inordinately more expensive?

If there's a chance HBO took the comprehensive approach, then it's presumably worth lobbying them for a 4:3 Blu-ray release since it's still at least 6 months away. Given digital distribution and syndication would be the main incentive for this remaster to ensure The Wire is user-friendly and therefore profitable into the future, there shouldn't be any harm in making the Blu-ray release authentic to the original experience.

[StingingVelvet]

One wonders if they might be making two versions with the 4:3 version coming to blu ray and the 16:9 version coming to new broadcast, streaming and iTunes style platforms. That might explain the longer wait for disc as well.

I'm pretty sure there are examples of this happening before. I know X-Files made two masters, one 4:3 and one 16:9, when they remastered it for HD.