X-Files (series) coming to Blu in ... I want to believe

[kemcha]

Fox will release them one at a time. They won't release them in groups until the entire series has been released. Fox had packaged and repackaged the DVD sets several times before they repackaged them a final time with that slipcase packaging and they released those at 3 seasons per run.

[double_l4488]

Originally Posted by chip75

I watched Triangle the other night on DVD and the quality was beyond awful, the picture looked like it was cropped and zoomed. I remember it been mentioned previously but what the heck happened? For some strange reason I remember it might have been shown letter-boxed on UK TV airings when other episodes that year were still 4:3? I knew something funky was going on when the time and location titles were bigger than usual!

Season 5-9, are all zoomed and not right. Something that has to be fixed.

[walkabout]

Originally Posted by chip75

I watched Triangle the other night on DVD and the quality was beyond awful, the picture looked like it was cropped and zoomed. I remember it been mentioned previously but what the heck happened? For some strange reason I remember it might have been shown letter-boxed on UK TV airings when other episodes that year were still 4:3? I knew something funky was going on when the time and location titles were bigger than usual!

I think it was shot on video and not on film. It involved single-take scenes and hand-held cameras, and keep in mind it was 1998 and there was no Arri Alexa. Therefore, I'm almost sure it was shot on video with DV SD cameras. It'll be the worst looking episode on the BRD set!

[chip75]

Originally Posted by double_l4488

Season 5-9, are all zoomed and not right. Something that has to be fixed.

Originally Posted by walkabout

I think it was shot on video and not on film. It involved single-take scenes and hand-held cameras, and keep in mind it was 1998 and there was no Arri Alexa. Therefore, I'm almost sure it was shot on video with DV SD cameras. It'll be the worst looking episode on the BRD set!

I looked into it a bit more. It seems FOX were all set to start a replacement program for the Triangle disc, they took details of over 300 people (which isn't much) but Chris Carter believed that the quality of the DVD was sufficient and he wasn't going to give FOX the master. So it will be most interesting to see what happens with the Blu-ray.

Triangle was a great episode!

[Villiam Hayes]

Originally Posted by walkabout

I think it was shot on video and not on film. It involved single-take scenes and hand-held cameras, and keep in mind it was 1998 and there was no Arri Alexa. Therefore, I'm almost sure it was shot on video with DV SD cameras. It'll be the worst looking episode on the BRD set!

I thought video couldn't be upgraded to HD,I read that on here.

[bsweetness]

Originally Posted by Villiam Hayes

I thought video couldn't be upgraded to HD,I read that on here.

That's why walkabout said it would be the worst looking episode on Blu-ray. The footage can be cleaned up a bit, but if it was shot on video, the resolution will be no higher than it already is on DVD.

[Maxwell Everett]

Originally Posted by walkabout

I think it was shot on video and not on film. It involved single-take scenes and hand-held cameras, and keep in mind it was 1998 and there was no Arri Alexa. Therefore, I'm almost sure it was shot on video with DV SD cameras. It'll be the worst looking episode on the BRD set!

No, "Triangle" was definitely shot with 35mm cameras, just like the rest of the series, with the sole exception of Season 7's "X-Cops" which used the "Cops" aesthetic of handheld video. Chris Carter says on "Triangle's" commentary track that there are actually more than 34 cuts used in the episode, hidden in pans or darkness.

[reece]

On a side note...I hope they fix that shockingly obvious clipping issue in the thunder sounds in Season 8's "Patience." Has anyone else noticed how whack that sounds?

[reece]

Originally Posted by TDSOTM

Do you mean that the DP basically had 16:9 in mind for seasons 1-4?

that is what the DP himself claims (shot for 16:9 and framed to 4:3 for broadcast standards at the time)

[Hypnosifl]

Originally Posted by reece

that is what the DP himself claims (shot for 16:9 and framed to 4:3 for broadcast standards at the time)

But there's a difference between actually composing shots for 16:9 and just "protecting" for 16:9 (so they won't look obviously wrong if showed that way)...for example, a lot of movies during the 1:1.33 television era were done in "matted" widescreen where they were protected for TV proportions but the top and bottom were meant to be matted off in theaters, and the directors were primarily framing the shots with the matted proportions in mind (which is why they're typically shown with theatrical proportions on DVD/blu ray). Do you remember whether the DP made any comments to suggest he or she was actually framing the shots with 16:9 in mind or just protecting for that ratio?

[Maxwell Everett]

Originally Posted by Hypnosifl

But there's a difference between actually composing shots for 16:9 and just "protecting" for 16:9 (so they won't look obviously wrong if showed that way)...for example, a lot of movies during the 1:1.33 television era were done in "matted" widescreen where they were protected for TV proportions but the top and bottom were meant to be matted off in theaters, and the directors were primarily framing the shots with the matted proportions in mind (which is why they're typically shown with theatrical proportions on DVD/blu ray). Do you remember whether the DP made any comments to suggest he or she was actually framing the shots with 16:9 in mind or just protecting for that ratio?

Bartley's exact quote is:

"We shot The X Files in Super 35 format and framed for 4:3. We protected for 16:9, because we knew it was coming."

So they were framing for 4:3, meaning that's where their focus was. He doesn't say exactly when they started protecting for 16:9, but the implication is that it began when he was hired, on the first episode after the pilot, "Deep Throat."

[reece]

Originally Posted by Maxwell Everett

Bartley's exact quote is:

"We shot The X Files in Super 35 format and framed for 4:3. We protected for 16:9, because we knew it was coming."

So they were framing for 4:3, meaning that's where their focus was. He doesn't say exactly when they started protecting for 16:9, but the implication is that it began when he was hired, on the first episode after the pilot, "Deep Throat."

exactly. I tend to agree with those that say the this "16:9 protection" is rather loose and does not fit the show as well as 4:3, but I'd still be very interested to see these episodes in widescreen. haha BTW, how many times are we gonna go in this circle? I think the bottom line is that there is no right or wrong answer...we'll just have to wait and see what Fox decides, but i'm betting on 4:3.

[mredman]

is it official now that they are coming out and a release date?

[stvn1974]

Originally Posted by mredman

is it official now that they are coming out and a release date?

Nope, nothing announced officially.

[Veronica Mars]

Originally Posted by reece

exactly. I tend to agree with those that say the this "16:9 protection" is rather loose and does not fit the show as well as 4:3, but I'd still be very interested to see these episodes in widescreen. haha BTW, how many times are we gonna go in this circle? I think the bottom line is that there is no right or wrong answer...we'll just have to wait and see what Fox decides, but i'm betting on 4:3.

I'd be surprised if they come out in 4:3. No matter how anyone here feels, no one can argue that the mass public likes their tv screens filled. Since money is the name of the game, I think sales will trump everything else. And I'd actually more scared if they do individual sales, that if they do 4:3, only the hardcore fans like me and most of the posters in this thread will keep buying it and then we could get that problem where they stop releasing seasons because of poor sales.

Personally, I'd like to see them in widescreen if they were protected for that, but I'll buy them either way.

[mredman]

Originally Posted by stvn1974

Nope, nothing announced officially.

Sadly this should be in the wish list area then

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by TDSOTM

Protecting for 16:9 means that they were aware of what would end up in the 16:9 image.

How much image loss would occur if Fox decides to open matte this to 16:9? We'd gain some image on the left and right, and would lose some image on the top and bottom.

Looks like we don't lose all that much. Plus, opening to 1.78 would give us more image than opening to 1.85.

But the trick is the special effects... They were probably done like Babylon 5 and created for the 4:3 image. Let hope someone at least kept the SPFX files.

fitprod

[iamnoone]

Originally Posted by Veronica Mars

I'd be surprised if they come out in 4:3. No matter how anyone here feels, no one can argue that the mass public likes their tv screens filled.

Generally speaking, the mass public will do what they've always done with 4:3 shows on their widescreen tv's, even recent 4:3 shows on tv: just stretch the image to make it fill the widescreen screen. Sure, all the people look fat and it's all distorted that way, but it doesn't seem to bother Joe SixPack. They never really understood widescreen movies and why there were black bars on old CRT's, and now that they have widescreen tv's, they just like that it's wide, and don't care that everything is stretched. Any retailer, bank, airport or wherever that has widescreen tv displays, it almost never fails any 4:3 image being shown is stretched horizontally to fill the screen. And no one seems to care or even notice.

[Maxwell Everett]

Originally Posted by TDSOTM

Protecting for 16:9 means that they were aware of what would end up in the 16:9 image.

How much image loss would occur if Fox decides to open matte this to 16:9? We'd gain some image on the left and right, and would lose some image on the top and bottom.

Looks like we don't lose all that much. Plus, opening to 1.78 would give us more image than opening to 1.85.

That's not how The X-Files was shot, though. According to DP John Bartley (Seasons 1-3) they filmed in Super-35 format, not standard 35mm "Academy" with space for an optical soundtrack (the gray area in your example). There were three ways you could shoot 4:3 while protecting for 16:9 (or vice versa). I'm not certain exactly which one they used, but it has to have been one of the three ground glass examples on the top row in this image here:



The middle one labeled "Common Top" was more prevalent in the early days of trying to protect for 16:9 while framing for 4:3. The other two are more common today for productions that originate on 35mm film. LOST was shot 3-Perf, for example.

This is how each of those above examples would look like placed over the 35mm film:

[Show spoiler]

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by Maxwell Everett

That's not how The X-Files was shot, though. According to DP John Bartley (Seasons 1-3) they filmed in Super-35 format, not standard 35mm "Academy" with space for an optical soundtrack (the gray area in your example). There were three ways you could shoot 4:3 while protecting for 16:9 (or vice versa). I'm not certain exactly which one they used, but it has to have been one of the three ground glass examples on the top row in this image here:



The middle one labeled "Common Top" was more prevalent in the early days of trying to protect for 16:9 while framing for 4:3. The other two are more common today for productions that originate on 35mm film. LOST was shot 3-Perf, for example.

This is how each of those above examples would look like placed over the 35mm film:

[Show spoiler]

Must we go through this for EVERY TV Show that gets released on Blu-Ray?