Babylon 5: Enhanced 4K & 1080p Edition (DVD 16:9 & HD 4:3 Fusion) (a WIP)

This project started during the first Covid-related lockdown back in March 2020 and has been continuing ever since.

The “Enhanced Edition” features a combination of the 16:9 aspect ratio PAL-DVDs (for all live action scenes) and the 4:3 aspect ratio HD remastered versions (for all CGI/VFX effect shots), which were stretched to 16:9 to conform to the live action segments.
Basically, this is a higher quality version that focuses mainly on the “clean-up” of visual aspects of the show, like: Reduced motion stuttering (stable 23,976 FPS), deinterlacing, cross color reduction, noise removal, deblocking, dehaloing, deringing, anti aliasing, reduction of color banding, sharpening.
All borders have been slightly cropped to eliminate the “VHS-tape look”.
Slight color grading has been added to enhance the color representation.
Furthermore, the audio tracks have been slowed down to correct for the PAL-shift.

The releases (4K) are encoded as follows: H265 (mkv) at 20 Mbps with Main 10 @ L5 @ Main, BT.709 @ 10 bit, resolution at 3840x2160p (16:9 aspect ratio) with English and German AC3 5.1 audio tracks at 640 Kbps.
45-minute-episodes take up between 6,5-7,5 GB of space per episode.

The releases (1080p) are encoded as follows: H265 (mkv) at 2,5 Mbps with Main 10 @ L5.1 @ Main, BT.709 @ 10 bit, resolution at 1920x1080p (16:9 aspect ratio) with English and German AC3 5.1 audio tracks at 256 Kbps.
45-minute-episodes take up between 1,2-1,4 GB of space per episode.

The realisation of this project is a very complicated multi-step approach (f.e. using several instances of AI-upscaling software), so it may take a while, but it continues to go on.

If you are interested in getting to know more technical details or in watching the “Enhanced Edition”, send me a private message!

Set of comparison images for Season 1, episode 1:

https://imgur.com/a/Y1EifvZ

Set of comparison images for TV-Movie "The Gathering (Special Edition):

https://imgur.com/a/QeygXFH

Set of comparison images for Season 1, episode 2:

https://imgur.com/a/dNsKHNx

Sorry I haven’t been around much. Was sick (including hospital and recovery time), but I am getting back into things. Actually, I am planning on revamping a few things including a latest quality update. I will keep you guys updated.

That’s kind, but I guess I’ll be doing my quality updates to what I have done so far first and then I’ll see, ok?
It’s a bit of a state of flux at the moment, but I am back at work (right now the DS9 pilot will be upgraded, release to follow soon).

b5historyman said:

Since a friend of mine has a lot of actual original CGI assets he is currently working on a project reworking them to 1080p

I heard (on sci-fi-meshes I think) the originals were all lost by the studio that demanded to be the sole custodian of them. Were they found, or are there other things to the story…? Are his the assets of the old LightWave meshes/scenes or…?

Because those same-ish original LightWave scenes, it would almost be hilarious watching a modern system re-render out the same even at mere 1920x1080; I’d imagine shots that took a room of Amigas a week to render in the early '90s would be poured out in a mere minute or two on a (buffed-out) modern workstation. (Yeah, my sig gives away why I’m in this territory here 😃)

@Cave Doctor:
This is amazing. I was aware that some VFX work seemingly survived, but I had no idea to what extend. So basically you would just need the upscaled live action footage from me, correct? Or would you require the whole episode as I have done it (Live Action 16:9 from DVD and 1080p VFX/CGI stretched towards 16:9 from the HBO Max / Amazon release)?

As I am re-doing things (quality updates) it would be good to know. Perhaps we could work on episode 1 (MotFL) and see how things go?

CaveDoctor said:
It’s a misconception that they were lost.
If you look on youtube, there are several rerenders of visual FX from the series that somehow turned up despite being lost.
Some things had to be fixed, but the scenes weren’t lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKj-N5j0SBY&t=1s
The live action footage is upscaled to 4k for this one, but the VFX are all rerendered from original files, with replaced texture maps.

Wow, really cool (and a relief to hear)! Thanks for that info/link 😃

@CaveDoctor:

Ok, so the whole episode, no problem. It could take a bit, as I have said, I am doing two other updates as well.

@CaveDoctor:
Sounds very interesting. I will provide you with the first episode of season 1 as soon as I get around to it. I would be very curious to see that HD overlay before the Redux - that’s something I could imagine myself wanting to have 😉 (in case it works).

Really looking forward to seeing this.

Hello again community. I am sorry to say that I have to take a break for a while (don’t worry, my projects are not dead, nor am I going to abandon anything) and I don’t know how long that break will be.
I have recently lost a family member and I have to deal with stuff.

I tried to distract myself with work and my projects here, but it’s really up and down and not consistent.

I will let you know as soon as I am back, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable to give you a timeframe (which I couldn’t, anyway) that may or may not work out.

Please don’t be worried, I will come back to you guys.

Until then.

Hello again guys.

Sorry that I haven’t put up anything yet, but things are crazy around here. Covid came back with a vengeance, rules are changing daily and we are doing everything we can to keep up.

I am feeling truly guilty. I have rendering the pilot episodes of Star Trek (DS9 and VOY) as well as the first episode of season 1 of B5, but I just simply can’t find the time to watch them in order to note down what corrections have to be applied. Then they would have to be rendered again and after that I could upload them.

I will do my best to hurry up, but it’s very difficult at the moment.

I will keep you posted (this post will be copied into the other topics for time-reasons).

Hello there guys. Just wanted to let you know my upgrades are nearly done, the workflow is set, things are moving along. With this post I wanted to provide you with a little christmas tease to show you the latest results.
The following snippet is from the first episode of seasons 1 of B5 (the first act including the opening/intro), but for size reasons I reduced from 4K to 1080p, which didn’t effect the quality much (after all, it’s just to give you an impression of what’s soon to come).
If all goes well, the first episode should be done some time this week.

Here are comparison images:
https://imgsli.com/ODc2NTU
https://imgsli.com/ODc2NTY
https://imgsli.com/ODc2Nzk
https://imgsli.com/ODc2ODA
https://imgsli.com/ODc2ODE
https://imgsli.com/ODc2ODI

Here the sample (no unpacking, no password required; about 116 MB):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mrmigyzv6rqwki6/SciFi-Upscale - B5 Sample (1080p from 4K).mkv?dl=0

Things that have been modified/improved upon (compared to what I did before):

• better sharpness handling
• more grain retention / adjusted grain addition
• better color management (specified input as SDR, output as Rec. 709 with Gamma 2.4)
• added contrast and texture pop
• reduced motion stutter (either through integration of NTSC-material or motion flow / frame interpolation)

Let me know what you think!

Well, I know the debate about stretching without cropping to conform to 16:9 by heart.
Trust me, I have already caught a lot of crap for doing that.

I agree, planets look a bit “egg-shaped” and it’s certainly not according to everyone’s taste. But all I can work with are the materials I have available. Since I am not a CGI-artist and have no experience in VFX or blender work, I can’t recreate the effect scenes.

I am aware of Tom Smith’s work and it’s absolutely beautiful and stunning. It would be a dream come true to have such effects available. I actually considered contacting people who have knowledge in such areas.
And here comes the reality check (which shocked me a bit as well, but still, here it is): I actually got hold of someone who runs his own effects company and they are doing work for SciFi, but there were three problems:

1. Legal issues (that one is obvious, I guess I don’t have to explain further)
2. Time-related issues (60 seconds of completely re-done effects - which includes creating models, calculating movement, textures, blender work and such - would take about 2 weeks to do, working 24/7)
3. Money-related issues (again, 60 seconds of CGI would cost about 1.500 Dollars)

So, as you can see, there are problems I can’t solve. Re-working effects is a long, expensive and difficult task. I am an enthusiastic amateur, doing the best I know to do with what I got.
This is it.
If you don’t like it, that’s ok. You are under no obligation to take it.
But please remember: I did mention that I was stretching the effects. Of course, it’s always a difference to look at pictures and the video. I get that.