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I
just (September-2009) finished watching all five seasons of the 2009 DVD release
of
Babylon 5: The Complete Seasons 1-5 (2009) (ASIN: B002DUJ9Q6) on a 61-inch JVC
digital TV and discovered that these 2009 DVD discs seem not much better than the 2004 release.(In fact, the 2009 optical media has the same part number stamped on as the 2004 release so this really is just a repackaging operation; 2004 disks came in a card-board box while the 2009 disc holders are in a plastic flip box)
Probably due to the high level of MPEG-2 compression, these discs looked slightly better when played on a standard-def Sony DVD player than a high-def up-converting Sony Blu-ray player or a high-def up-converting Toshiba HD-DVD player. I suspect this may be because 2004/2009 Babylon 5 DVD episodes are recorded in 480i (interlaced) format rather than 480p (progressive) format which is necessary for optimal hi-def up-converting.
To be fair, the 480i disks are still quite beautiful when played on a PC connected to a 19" LCD monitor.
High-definition Blu-ray
(option #1) (preferred)(Update: as of December-2011, it appears that half of the optical players in North America are now Blu-ray)Of course we all know how mental sci-fi people are for sci-fi content. I am convinced that most sci-fi people either already own a Blu-ray player, or would get figure out a way to buy one once their favorite sci-fi series was available in hi-def. If not, most people could fall back to playing Blu-ray discs on a Playstation-3 (PS3)
=== What You Can Do To Help ===
According to producer J. Michael Straczynski, as of mid-2006 "The DVD sales have raised over $500 million in revenue". The financial success of the DVD box sets has led to a renewed interest in further Babylon-5 work.Think of it, a half billion dollars in net revenue.
As an aside, the remastered release of Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS) uses eight DVDs per season or seven Blu-Ray disks per season. These Babylon-5 disks only use six DVDs per season -AND- also contain extra material including bloopers. Now consider the fact that Star Trek was originally produced for 1960's TV in a 4x3 frame whilst Babylon-5 was produced for mid 1990's TV in a 16x9 frame then broadcast in a letterbox format. It should be much easier to release Babylon-5 in high-def on Blu-ray since there is more original material to work with.
While a very small fraction of consumers complained that they missed extras on these discs, it is my experience that "extras" are rarely viewed more than once. I would have no problem seeing a bunch of extras squeezed onto a cheap "extras" DVD -OR- just made available for download over the internet.
Most non-technical people are surprised to learn that shuttered 3d goggles where first appeared in the mid-1980s for UNIX workstations. At that time this niche technology was only used by organizations with big budgets like NASA, the aviation industry, and Hollywood. Sun Microsystems was able to corner support for this technology by creating a 3d API for their Java language. For the past 5-years NASA people at JPL have used 3-d goggles every day to plan trajectory changes for the MARS rover missions.
In case you haven't noticed, all new technology for the past 20-years has been first developed for the computer industry then migrated over to home entertainment systems when it reaches a critical mass. For example, progressive-scan CRTs first appeared on computers. This innovation was quickly followed by larger resolution displays then finally LCD hardware. Why should you care? Many people today use Sony's Playstation-3 game console (a special purpose computer) to play Blu-ray movies on their big-screen TVs. Well, Sony has just announced that their Septemeber-2010 firmware upgrade will contain 3-d support. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20010230-1.html
Don't wait to buy a PS3 in September. Sony publishes PS3 firmware updates every 4-6 weeks using the built-in wi-fi interface (so all you need is access to an open wi-fi port; almost every technophile will already have one built into their cable/DSL routers; if you don't have one then maybe you can trade a case of beer for access to your neighbor's router)
PREDICTION: I'd bet a week's pay that Avatar in 3d will make its first home appearance on the Sony PS3.
If you are playing discs in a stand-alone player, poke around at some of the extra keys to see it anything special comes up. For example, when playing DVDs in a PS3 (PlayStation 3), press the small button under the red key to see encoding values as well as video bit rates. You will see the CODEC Type (eg. MPEG-2) but not other stuff like the frames-per-second (FPS), etc.
Just for comparison Purposes:
- MPEG-encoded standard-def TV will give you bit rates between 3 and 6 Mb/s depending on how much compression was introduced by your satellite or cable provider. Some talking-head stuff (the news) can get away with 1.5 Mb/s
- Standard-def 480i DVDs will give you rates bursting up to 7.x Mb.s
- Standard-def 480p DVDs will give you rates bursting up to 8.x Mb.s
- My Blu-ray copy of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" burst up to 37.5 Mb/s
If you've got a Windows-based PC and are using video player software like Nero ShowTime or PowerDVD or VLC then you already have access to some non-expert tools for further poking and hacking. For example, under Nero ShowTime you can enable the OSD (On Screen Display) to view technical parameters like frame format (eg. 720x480), frames per second (FPS), encoding methods (eg. MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG/AVC, VC1, AVC), etc. Some programs will actually display the phrases "480i" or "480p" while others will display phrases like "video mode: interlaced" or "video mode: progressive".
| Title | ASIN | Release | Format | FPS | Aspect Ratio |
Noticeably Better On All Displays? |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Babylon 5 The Complete Seasons 1-5 (Repackage) (2009) Season 1 Disks Contain this stamp: Widescreen 22855 (which can also be found on the 2004 discs) Season 2 Disks Contain this stamp: Widescreen 24242 Season 3 Disks Contain this stamp: Widescreen 24243 Season 4 Disks Contain this stamp: Widescreen 27972 Season 4 Disks Contain this stamp: Widescreen 24275 |
B002DUJ9Q6 (B0001M3MXY) |
2009 (2004?) |
|
30 | 1.33:1 Widescreen (Letterbox) |
|||||
| Babylon 5 The Lost Tales | B000PHX8RA | 2007 |
|
24 | 1.78:1 |
Y |
||||
| The Legend of the Rangers (2002) | B000CEXFYW | 2006 |
|
30 | 1.78:1 | |||||
|
The Karate Kid (Special Edition) ( from a $9 bargain bin ) |
B0008JIJ2E | 2005 |
|
30 | 1.85:1 Widescreen |
Y |
||||
| Crusade - The Complete Series (1999) | B00061QJSK | 2004 |
|
30 | 1.33:1 |
 |
 |
The pilot "The Gathering" was rendered by eight interconnected Amiga 2000 computers with Video Toaster boards which were connected to an IBM computer that stored the images in five gigabytes of memory. Foundation Imaging's computational power has increased tremendously with each work station now being equivalent to the original eight Amigas and Ron's being the equivalent to sixteen Amigas.
"We don't use expensive silicon graphics machines. We don't use high-end software. Initially all the 3-D computer animation was done on Amigas using the Video Toaster. Today, however, all the 3-D computer animation is done on PC clones and DEC Alpha platforms running on a readily available piece of software called LightWave 3-D. LightWave was originally part of the Video Toaster, but has been ported out as a software program available for many different computer platforms.
All special effects for Babylon 5 are computer generated. Foundation Imaging, headed by Ron Thornton, produced the special effects for the pilot movie and seasons one through three. Starting in season four, the special effects were moved in-house to Netter Digital Imaging, another subsidiary of the parent of B5's production company. The B5 effects teams, both at Foundation and at NDI, use Lightwave 3D by NewTek and specialized software to design and render the visual effects. For the pilot, the effects were rendered on a network of Amiga computers; later, Foundation used 12 Pentium PCs and 5 DEC Alpha workstations for 3D rendering and design, and 3 Macintoshes for piecing together on-set computer displays. The NDI team uses a similar array of equipment; see George Johnsen's comments below. CGI space scenes are clearer and have more realistic movement than model shots. Some interior shots such as docking bays are "virtual sets" combining live action with computer imagery. Computer-generated aliens make regular appearances on the show as well.
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Neil Rieck
Kitchener - Waterloo - Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.