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Babylon 5 - Broadcast NTSC (4:3)? (Released) — Page 4

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Did somebody of you guys check the 4:3 pilot I uploaded on myspleen a couple of months ago ?

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Shame what happened to this project. Showed some real potential 😦

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The entire lot are on Vudu and with the exception of The Gathering, they all appear to be described as 480p/Fullscreen. I’m tempted to just snag the whole load, if there’s an option to download them but I’d need to sort out a proxy as I’m based in the UK.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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 (Edited)

Here’s what I have gathered so far. Am I missing anything? Are there better sources available for what I’ve listed below?

In 4:3…

Most of the show
VUDU

The Gathering
DVD

TKO (S01E14)
iTunes

Severed Dreams (S03E10)
VHS? 😦

The Paragon of Animals (S05E03)
LD #5.3

Sleeping in Light (S05E22)
LD #5.12

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

Just checked: They’re in widescreen on Amazon Instant Video, unfortunately. The hunt is on!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Does this mean that Vudu remains the best source if you want to enjoy B5 in the original 4:3?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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 (Edited)

There must be some way of getting these from VUDU. B5 in 4:3 is really high on my wishlist. It’s frustrating that the episodes are floating about in various places but I can’t purchase copies of the wretched things.

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I take it they can’t be downloaded onto your computer and can only be viewed whilst on the VUDU site? The reason I ask because I haven’t sorted out a proxy yet, so I haven’t been able to check.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Chewtobacca said:

There must be some way of getting these from VUDU. B5 in 4:3 is really high on my wishlist. It’s frustrating that the episodes are floating about in various places but I can’t purchase copies of the wretched things.

The easiest way would be to find someone with a good HDMI capture setup. I’d be more-than-willing to do it, but I don’t have the money right now.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Understood! I wasn’t actually expecting anyone to do it – just expressing frustration at the situation. 😃

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Could this not be accomplished with stream grabbing methods?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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JayArgonaut said:

Could this not be accomplished with stream grabbing methods?

It most likely can, but I’d still need to purchase each season from VUDU and they’re going for $40 per at the moment.

If we can find four other people (including yourself) interested in this, then we can perhaps have each one send me the $40 and I’ll do the capturing, but I’ll do the first season with my own money as a show of good faith.

Would that work?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Oh, BTW, I discovered that I technically have an HDMI capture setup at home. I didn’t realize that an HDMI splitter I was using for legitimate splitting also strips HDCP and I also have a Blackmagic UltraStudio MiniRecorder.

I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work.

I also just discovered that the PS3 VUDU app lets you download streams to the PS3 HDD, so we can totally rule out internet connectivity issues during capture.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

AntcuFaalb said:

JayArgonaut said:

Could this not be accomplished with stream grabbing methods?

It most likely can, but I’d still need to purchase each season from VUDU and they’re going for $40 per at the moment.

If we can find four other people (including yourself) interested in this, then we can perhaps have each one send me the $40 and I’ll do the capturing, but I’ll do the first season with my own money as a show of good faith.

Would that work?

That would definitely work. I was going to make a similar suggestion myself. 😃

I’ll happily send you the money for my share. Let’s see who else wants to pitch in for the remainder. Can we discuss some of the details via PM?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Does anyone here have a VUDU player that will display the bitrate of the incoming stream? I want to know what value I must exceed with my encode.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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^ Failing that, just use a high CRF value. What do you envisage as a delivery format?

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 (Edited)

Chewtobacca said:

What do you envisage as a delivery format?

I’m thinking just a bunch of MKVs with H.264 video and AAC audio.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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That sounds good, and as there’s no need to hit a certain file-size, CRF encoding is definitely the way to go. As you know, values ranging from 22 to 18 (inclusive) are considered standard. In this sort of situation, my preference is for 16. Perhaps you could encode one episode with that value and see how it turns out.

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Chewtobacca said:

That sounds good, and as there’s no need to hit a certain file-size, CRF encoding is definitely the way to go. As you know, values ranging from 22 to 18 (inclusive) are considered standard. In this sort of situation, my preference is for 16. Perhaps you could encode one episode with that value and see how it turns out.

Good idea. Will do!

In the future I’m hoping someone will do a follow-on project to properly deinterlace the SPFX sequences.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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But that’s the problem: they can’t be successfully deinterlaced, because of how they were made. It’s possible to IVTC the live-action shots, but then you’re left with a VFR, and VFR encoding is not straightforward. I think it’s better to keep the episodes 29.97fps and let any deinterlacing/interpolation occur upon playback.

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Chewtobacca said:

But that’s the problem: they can’t be successfully deinterlaced, because of how they were made.

Can you expand on this a bit please? Thanks

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

The live-action scenes were shot at 23.976fps and telecined: they can be inverse telecined. The effects shots were created at 29.97fps and can’t be inverse telecined: they can be decimated, but that leaves you with jerky movement. One can go ahead and deinterlace them, but the result will be a mess because they’re not really interlaced in the first place. (There might be some hybrid material, but going from memory and a quick look at the first disc, there doesn’t seem to be much.)

Of course, I was assuming NTSC. The effects shots in the PAL versions are more of a mess and do exhibit combing and, I think, some field-blending.

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Chewtobacca said:

The live-action scenes were shot at 23.976fps and telecined: they can be inverse telecined. The effects shots were created at 29.97fps and can’t be inverse telecined: they can be decimated, but that leaves you with jerky movement. One can go ahead and deinterlace them, but the result will be a mess because they’re not really interlaced in the first place.

So the SPFX are 30p?

If this is the case, what if we used motion compensation to generate 4 intermediate frames for every group of five and then drop the originals? This would give us the 4:5 ratio we need without jerky movement.

A ab’ B bc’ C cd’ D de’ E | F fg’ G gh’ H hi’ I ij’ J

The only issue left, I think, is figuring out what to do between each group of 4 because the lack of an intermediate frame there will result in its own jerkiness.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3