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Babylon 5 - Broadcast NTSC (4:3)? (Released) — Page 6

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ElectricTriangle: The image scales along with the rest of the UI in my case.

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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Looks like there isn’t a way to capture the raw video from Vudu, you have to re-encode it. I wonder where Vudu got their 4:3 copies? If only someone could rescan the original 4:3 masters the final version would be far superior.

I do like the color adjustments in Deadman’s remaster.

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AntcuFaalb said:
2. The intro is strangely in letterboxed 16:9.

The intro was always letterboxed, even on the original broadcast. It’s actually slightly wider 2.35:1 AR intended to give it cinematic scope. I’ll let jms explain:

jms said:
We’ve decided, in order to emphasize the cinematic aspects of our show, that it’s taking more of a movie approach to TV SF…to do the main titles in letterbox format.

And it looks really, really cool.

jms.

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AntcuFaalb -

Are you still proceeding with the oar captures? I have made it through the first three seasons of B5 and I have the strong feeling I’d rather watch them in their original 4:3 if they can be found at some quality that approaches the dvd’s. I would like to hold off on the dvd’s if this is coming but if its not i’ll carry on that way. I appreciate you considering making the effort in either case!

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AntcuFaalb said:

I bought all of the episodes on VUDU and I’ve been capturing them.

Unfortunately, there are two issues:

  1. The little progress bar from my player is in the image for the first second of the capture. This is unfortunately unavoidable.

Finally somebody is saving these! Thanks. The progress bar isn’t a massive issue.

Can the Vudu episodes be downloaded and kept (without re-encoding or capturing) on a hard-drive? Then at least they are preserved and working out how to extract them can be dealt with later.

AntcuFaalb said:

  1. The intro is strangely in letterboxed 16:9.

The title sequence? It always was 16:9 letterboxed on the original 4:3 broadcasts and the VHS tapes. (oh, mentioned above already ^)

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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The series is currently sale-priced at $49.99 again on Vudu. I bought the last episode to see if it was really 4:3 before I bought the whole series.

It’s not 4:3. It’s not only 16:9, but it’s letterboxed 16:9, so even if you take the Vudu player fullscreen on your computer, there are still black bars on all four sides of the image.

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I’m almost certain that there are a few episodes that are in 16:9 on vudu (Like 5? the vast majority are 4:3 though). Maybe you got unlucky and bought one of those. The episode previews showed 4:3 anyway.

Again, please somebody who lives in the US, buy these and preserve them. Thanks.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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Would love to see a sample clip from Vudu (can’t access in my country) to get a sense of the quality if there is one floating about?

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Dang now I know why my PAL DVD-set looked of from what I remember seeing on tv.
Is Vudu the only online source for the 4:3 versions?

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OK, since this thread is revived again:

A rip of all the 4:3 episodes from Vudu has recently showed up on the internetz.
Can’t really post any links here but it does exist.

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Really? Do you know which group released them?

George creates Star Wars.
Star Wars creates fans.
George destroys Star Wars.
Fans destroy George.
Fans create Star Wars.

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unmuscular_michael said:

OK, since this thread is revived again:

A rip of all the 4:3 episodes from Vudu has recently showed up on the internetz.
Can’t really post any links here but it does exist.

Wow! Can you PM me the information please?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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The VUDU “WEBRips” are still floating around.

EDIT: The following episodes on VUDU are not in their FS 4:3 broadcast format:

S1E14 TKO (LB 4:3)
S3E10 Severed Dreams (LB 4:3)
S5E03 The Paragon of Animals (WS 16:9)
S5E22 Sleeping in Light (LB 4:3)

These episodes retain 2.0 audio tracks and so are not without value.

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New “Remastered” versions in 4:3 are available from Amazon Prime Video and iTunes. It has been reported that some regions may not actually have the new versions yet are still the shoddy 16:9 ones from before. Should be ok in the US though.

Comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HS5K3MdMY

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If only the remastered 4:3 had a physical release on DVD or SD Blu-Ray.