Any rumors about Buffy the Vampire Slayer show coming out on Blu-ray?

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by LCT1000

Before Pivot started airing the 'HD' versions of Buffy, did it still crop seasons 1-3 when it showed them in SD?

I think I read that, yes, it was crop.

[Nico Darko]

Originally Posted by Nico Darko

I just watched a great special feature about the restoration for Star Trek TNG. I never really watched the show but I learned a lot about the remastering process by watching this.

I highly recommend it :


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25...process_school

Watching this great documentary, I'm starting to understand why restoring Buffy is a different kind of task. A big difference with Star Trek TNG is the fact that they mostly used miniatures, practical effects and hand drawn animation, which were actually filmed on camera and can easily be re-used. CGI effects (Computer Generated) on the other hand need to be re-rendered from scratch.

Buffy being a late 90s show, used almost only CGI for its visual effects. I guess that's why it's a lot harder to match the original effect, they have to remake it from scratch.

So I'm trying to find some perspective. Fox is spending the money to recreate some of the CGI, that's something. But even if the effects don't exactly match the originals, I'm sure they can do a much better job with the vampire dusting. In Darla's case, it just looks like they forgot to re-create the dust remains.

How are the CGI effects for The X-Files ? are they more true to the original ones ?

[slainery]

Originally Posted by Nico Darko

How are the CGI effects for The X-Files ? are they more true to the original ones ?

IIRC, the CGI for the first four seasons, as well as the stock footage, is upconverted.

[Nico Darko]

Originally Posted by EV1L

After running some test with upscalling/downscalling in different screencaps results is this:
Buffy video source real resolutions is somewhere slightly above 576p.
Folks that is not a good news.

Originally Posted by EV1L

Credits:
576p upscalled vs pivot screencap
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/90587

As you can see only the credits is in HD. This is sad sad news

Originally Posted by EV1L

Detail lost is possible due low bitrate and so on so on. But font looks to perfect/ not affected. So there is no doubt that pivot broadcasting in hd at the best what they got.

I hope im wrong and FOX just supplying crapy sd upscalle stuff to the channels with hd credits.

P.S i agree, i also not see the point for FOX to remaster effect or etc in sd. So there must be something big in the horizon.

EDIT2:
e10 576p upscalle vs pivot hd
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/90590

As we can see things did not get any better in newer episodes. We only see minor oversharp in hair detail. They are for real broadcasting an "upconverted 576p to full hd by FOX source"

Isn't that also (sort of) good news ? I mean I'd be worried if a real 1080p resolution looked that bad, but it makes more sense if it's upconverted 576p.

The HD font remains a mystery. But Fox is clearly using the original film negative, so I'm confident they have a True HD available. Why would they bother to re-render the CGI effects if everything was upscalled ?

No, if it really is upconverted 576p, either Fox or Pivot made that version for the broadcast (and calling it HD is a scam). And we still have to wait to see a real HD copy (it might unfortunately not be on Pivot).

What do you guys think ?

[Geoff D]

I did wanna say that all those "HD" caps looked nothing like HD, but I thought I might get shouted down for it so I didn't bother...

[IrishBuffyFan10]

Hello, I've been following this thread for a while but I need to get this off my chest.

Has anyone else considered that Pivot is de-noising the broadcast themselves as they think it may "look better"? The masters they're using may be fully crisp grained. It's not uncommon, in Ireland RTE broadcasts The Good Wife in HD but much darker brightness and the transmission broadcasts the dialogue with a little bit of a higher pitch than US/VOD copies.

I understand the remaster was a botched job with the Angel episode where they used Day into Night and clearly forgot to re-colour correct but many online telecast systems would have basic filters built in such as de-noising the transmission so it all appears smoother. Especially if they're broadcasting content most of the time that's modern and was shot Digitally where grain is not as common.

My two cents.

Don't judge the remaster until FOX releases a proper HD VOD release.

[Nico Darko]

I just sent an e-mail to Pivot, asking them why their HD looked like upscalled SD. Did they receive the episodes from Fox in this low resolution, or did they alter the masters themselves ? Did they think we wouldn't notice ?

I doubt we'll get a real answer, but it's worth trying, so we can stop speculating.
You can e-mail them as well... Maybe they'll reply if they get enough inquiries : http://www.pivot.tv/contact-us

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Nico Darko

What do you guys think ?

I conjectured 16mm negatives 1k scan master from the 90's a few posts ago.

(From which they made the 4:3 NTSC and PAL finished masters, you have to have the negatives on some video form before editing/grading/SFX/finishing if you finish in video.)

[Nico Darko]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

I conjectured 16mm negatives 1k scan master from the 90's a few posts ago.

(From which they made the 4:3 NTSC and PAL finished masters, you have to have the negatives on some video form before editing/grading/SFX/finishing if you finish in video.)

That could explain it, but I really hope that's not it. That would mean they're too lazy to work with the original film negatives, and chose to use SD negatives instead ? Would that be your theory ?

[Deciazulado]

Quite, but not exactly. Like this: In the 90's when making the show they filmed in 16mm negative, then scanned the raw film to video with the full frame (the extra image). Then they took those raw scan masters and finished the episodes on SD video.

Since the 1080 transmission seems basically just clean, 1.78 wide, upscaled ~576p x 1024 quality (a little better than 576i x 720 PAL video?) and apparently from mostly ungraded/neutral color shots, I conjectured they might be from 1K? video scans from the 16mm film (1K being 1024 pixels wide / as 35mm 2K is 2048 wide, 16mm being basically half 35mm) before the SD finishing. And that the version you're seeing/captured all across this thread is from there (before the SD finished masters).

Something like this:

A: 16mm neg

|
v

B: Highish resolution first transfer to video (1k 576p x 1024?) to cover SD derivatives

|
v

C: 4:3 480i and 576i edited PAL/NTSC broadcast masters with OAR framing/grading/SFXs

|
v

C2: NTSC/PAL VHSs and DVDs

The "HD" transmision being taken from Source B, instead of A (which would be in 2K quality) nor C (which would be in OAR/have to be cropped/have the original color grading, etc SD), except for shots (like SFX) they might not be able to re-do easily, which they edit into B from C to make B2:

A: 16mm neg

|
v

B: Highish resolution first transfer to video (1k 576p x 1024?) to cover SD derivatives


|
v

B2: The currect "1080" transmission

That's quicker and ea$ier than to re-do:

A: 16mm neg

|
v

B: New 2K 16mm transfer (done with 4K 35mm caliber equipment)

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v

C: 16:9 1080p edited HD masters with OAR framing/grading/SFXs

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v

C2: 1080p BDs

Since the question currently in the air is if they would have already done that ^^, then why decimate it and distribute those into 576p quality, for 1080 transmission?




Also, maybe then when we get to the 35mm seasons, source B bumps up to HD / 2K then,(w/o new scans), which would be true "1080" ?

We'll find out sooner or later.

[Nico Darko]

Awesome, thank you for the clarification !

I'm really hoping they didn't use the 1k video scan masters (source B). The 16mm seasons especially would really benefit from an original negative transfer (source A).

That's a lot of questions in the air.

[lstar337]

I cant see them using 1K scans, not if they are intending on a Blu release.

Also you can get a lot more than 2K from 35mm, more like 3.6K and 4K in optimal filming conditions.

Plus we already know from Pride & Prejudice that a decent quality scan can be obtained from 16mm.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by BGfan2

ok so tonight we got episodes 1x11 to 2x02.

Sorry. Tomorrow night !

[Nico Darko]

Originally Posted by lstar337

I cant see them using 1K scans, not if they are intending on a Blu release.

Another crazy theory would be that Fox had to use the 1k video scan negatives because the original film negatives weren't available for S1. But maybe they started using the original negatives with S2 ! Who knows ? it's fun to speculate

I guess we'll see tomorrow if there's a difference in quality with season 2.

Originally Posted by BGfan2

ok so tonight we got episodes 1x11 to 2x02. I'm really worried about episode 1x12. we must expect a natural opened widescreen version (not cropped) but with such a bright colour gama.. i'm afraid the hellmouth monster will look even more pathetic. Plus, it is not a CGI effect at all, i think. It was some "custome" or machine directed by a few guys i guess.

How will it look like? will we see peopple moving the moster? what do u guys think ?

Yeah, I'm very worried about the opened-up widescreen of those first 3 seasons, they might have some serious "goofs", and neither Pivot nor Fox seem to be fixing the shots, they don't seem to care (not for the tv broadcast anyway).

[#Darren]

I haven't been analysing the tech aspects of these screenshots much, but even given the improved detail, they look pretty SD to me. Simple as that.

As some have suggested, perhaps a higher quality SD source (e.g. PAL), or may be a 1K scan (at best).

BTW I find the cropping offensive, and am not a fan of inaccurate SFX reworkings.

[Nico Darko]

Originally Posted by BGfan2

for what i've seen here and there, in episodes 1x08 to 1x10 we don't have lots of goofs, am i right? the only one i've seen was Buffy at the gym in "Nightmares". Do you know about others?

Oh yeah, there are several. You have a few continuity errors due to widescreen (mostly in ep 1x09) and lighting equipment can be seen a couple of times. Most of these are very easy to fix with a small zoom-in, the fact that they are leaving them in the episodes shows a serious lack of attention (or laziness). I am not looking forward to discovering new ones in S2-3, it takes you out of the episode. I get that they prefer 16:9, but give us the OAR if you won't bother to fix (at least) the most obvious "goofs". Especially when they are not really goofs, given that it is the studio's fault that we are seeing them and not the filmmakers'.

The worst one is in ep 1x10, with a member of the crew hanging in the library (I mean come on ! that one creeped me out !).

[NileQT87]

But... but... I get so much extra enjoyment out of Angel's white cotton boxer shorts while not-so-nakedly attacking Wesley... Bless those creeping side image goofs.



Speaking of AtS, we'll have a cameraman to enjoy during the bedroom Tahlmer fight in Lonely Hearts when season 1 becomes 16:9. There's also a crew member in Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been? (hanging out behind the desk during the big light show with the demon). And of course, Angel has lots of reflections, most notably in the City of... alley puddle (which subsequently appears in every opening credits sequence--you can't blame an aspect ratio change for that one!) and the mirror at the gym in Judgment (another 16:9 error). I've heard Spike has a reflection somewhere in Buffy's house, too.

Arm! (By the way, there is a bit more picture on the 4:3 to the left--this frame needs to be scooted that way. I think this not-quite-16:9 version was an iTunes release.)

http://fallinginthecruelestway.tumbl...wer-right-hand

[Nico Darko]

I'm personally very annoyed by these widescreen "goofs". I love these 2 shows, they had great production value, and were beautifully shot/framed. I would hate to see them turned to ridicule because the studio is forcing them to be in 16:9, without even making the necessary adjustments (I still don't get how they could have released them on dvd that way).

I find it sad and unfair that all the hard work of the creators/filmmakers can be tainted by a studio's poor treatment.

[d514]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

A: 16mm neg

|
v

B: Highish resolution first transfer to video (1k 576p x 1024?) to cover SD derivatives

|
v

C: 4:3 480i and 576i edited PAL/NTSC broadcast masters with OAR framing/grading/SFXs

|
v

C2: NTSC/PAL VHSs and DVDs

Sorry, but I don't believe that for a second.

Why would someone do a 1k scan (or something around that resolution) if the final product is planed to be NTSC? PAL Masters are converted NTSC masters most of the time. Makes sense, too, because if they would create the NTSC and the PAL master from the 1k source, they had to do the special effects twice. And who would keep a 1k scan without special effects? And why would someone use this 1k master to create a pseudo HD version with new credits and partly new effects in HD? The quality improvement would be so marginal that it's not worth the effort.

I have seen the remastered pilot from a 1080i cap. Sometimes you can see the remains of the grain before it was scrubbed away. I'm 100% sure this is a new scan in HD or 2k (no one would make a new scan in SD resolution) but somewhere along the way everything was handled wrong.
- Some person just decides which part of the image is used for the 16:9 frame. Creating a 16:9 version for something that was meant to be 4:3 is difficult (and dumb, just keep it in 4:3) enough. But if you don't even use the full with of the 4:3 frame you make it clear that you don't give a **** about the original intention. Another thing which makes this a sloppy job: In the video comparisons you can see that the cuts between the takes are not in the same place they original were. It's often one or two frames more or less. This is probably not noticeable without a direct comparison but still. Look at the comparisons for TNG. The cuts are on the exact frame 99% of the time.

[#Darren]

The more 16x9 samples I see the more I hope for a 4x3 OAR BD release!