What about stuff that was shot on video?

[plissken99]

In particular, I'm thinking what if Star Trek The next Generation TV series were to come out on DVD? I believe it was shot on video, and looks quite rough on DVD. Would there be any improvement in HD?

[hongcho]

If the ST:TNG was shot on film, I guess they could do an HD tranfer. If not, there wouldn't be any differences.

Hong.

[Dan Average]

TNG was shot on film, but the effects shots were composited on standard-definition video. Same with DS9 and Voyager. The only Trek shows that would benefit from HD are the original series (which was done entirely on film) and Enterprise (shot in HD). I assume the animated series was done on film too.

[mhafner]

Everything with studio masters that have more resolution than DVD will look better in HD. That includes standard definition studio masters (with less chroma subsampling than DVD).

[Kram Sacul]

Some tv shows are just stuck in standard def land.

[Dan Average]

Everything with studio masters that have more resolution than DVD will look better in HD. That includes standard definition studio masters (with less chroma subsampling than DVD).

Why would they have to upconvert standard-definition material to HD to take advantage of such improvements? Don't Blu-ray and HD DVD allow standard-definition content as well as HD?

[WriteSimple]

[QUOTE=Dan Average]TNG was shot on film, but the effects shots were composited on standard-definition video. Same with DS9 and Voyager. The only Trek shows that would benefit from HD are the original series (which was done entirely on film) and Enterprise (shot in HD). I assume the animated series was done on film too.[/QUOTE]

I believe Enterprise was shot on film first and then HD but the VFX was done at HD quality because it was transmitted in HD.


fuad

[Adam Tyner]

[QUOTE=WriteSimple]I believe Enterprise was shot on film first and then HD but the VFX was done at HD quality because it was transmitted in HD.[/QUOTE]You're both right. The earlier seasons were shot on film and the later seasons (after the budget was slashed) were shot on HD video.

[Dixie Flatline]

[QUOTE=Dan Average]Why would they have to upconvert standard-definition material to HD to take advantage of such improvements? Don't Blu-ray and HD DVD allow standard-definition content as well as HD?[/QUOTE]
I think his point is that BD/HD-DVD would allow SD material to be stored with 4:4:4 sampling (full chroma resolution), unlike DVD, which uses 4:2:0 sampling (chroma stored with half the H and V resolution of luma) to save space. Even without upscaling, it would still be an improvement over DVD.

[John Mason]

Even material that's shot on video, if it's 24PsF (segmented frame, as with Sony's HDCAMs) is perfectly compatible since it's 24p, similar to film. Video material shot at 1080/60i (30i), another HDCAM mode, is interlaced, just like live 1080i HDTV, and is used for documentary/travelogue programming on HDNet, INHD, PBS-HD, Discovery, etc.

When directly recorded 1080/60i material is put on 1080 DVDs, it must either be deinterlaced (to 1080/60p), mostly for fixed-pixel displays, or shown with 1080i CRTs delivering images at 60 fields per second, which becomes 30 fps when the eyes/brain merge the TV fields. Film material delivered within 1080/60i broadcasts has repeated TV fields--so-called 2-3 pulldown--that combined with a slight speed change during telecining makes film's 24p frame rate match that of the 1080/60i (30i) broadcast TV standard.

Some displays/processors now have a reverse-telecine circuit for 1080/60i carrying 24p material that extracts the TV fields only for the original 24p film (not the pulldown fields), recreating the original 24p movie frames. If the movie frames aren't displayed at an even multiple of 24p, such as 48 (as in theaters), 72, or even 120 (some new Brillian RPTVs), motion judder may result (as with 60 fps, for example, that requires additional pulldown.) -- John

[Dan Hitchman]

The trouble is, will these TV shows with 1080p masters get placed on the disc as 1080p encodings or will the studios "git stoopid" and place the 1080i (or 720p in the case of ABC and Fox) downconversion for TV broadcasts on the discs-- or worse yet 1080p to 1080i to 1080p and then put on disc?

Dan

[azmodien]

The biggest improvement on SD shows will probably be due to lower compression. The image will be free of compression artifacts and noise. A lot of the shows on DVD look pretty crappy because of this.

Plus more episodes per disc.

I cant wait for newer shows. We are assuming though, that the studios will take the time to master the video correctly for HD. I suspect we may see some of the same old transfers in 1080 resolution. A great cost cutting measure would be to just repackage some of the older shows with a sticker that says "Blu-ray - High Defintion!!" for people who dont know any better. I know at least columbia tristar has mastered their entire library in HD.

I hope Im wrong, I am looking forward to some Buffy season sets.

[ryoohki]

They played some Ep of Charlies angel like a year ago in HD pillar boxed.. looked better than dvd, nothing Awesome, but the added detail was there..

[SJKurtzke]

Perhaps AVSForum could compile a list of series shot on 35mm?
Video?
Etc.?

For instance:
Show_______Years Run_____Aspect____Camera Format______Studio
Seinfeld_____1989-1998____1.33:1____Panavision 35mm_____Sony Pictures HE

(sorry, IDK how to do tables in posts)

[Adam Tyner]

There have literally been thousands and thousands of TV series (TVShowsOnDVD's database includes over 8,000), so such a list would be prohibitively long, unfortunately.

[FoxyMulder]

I believe a lot of shows were shot on film right up until the early to mid eighties when video was introduced because it was a lot cheaper..... For example the television show Dallas was originally shot on film as were many seventies shows but video was much cheaper so by the mid eighties film was really phased out for television shows.

I think the only Trek show to be shot in high definition was Enterprise ( final series ) but the original sixties show was shot on film so would benefit from a high definition transfer.

[Adam Tyner]

[QUOTE=FoxyMulder]I believe a lot of shows were shot on film right up until the early to mid eighties when video was introduced because it was a lot cheaper.....[/quote]I think you're confusing shooting on video vs. editing on video. Video was a popular format for half-hour comedies, but some of the more popular sitcoms and pretty much every drama were all shot on film. Since a lot of those shows were shot on film but edited on video (like Star Trek: The Next Generation), the only way to take advantage of the resolution of film would be to go back to the original elements, spiff them up, and recut the episodes. That's extremely pricey, although Sony thought Seinfeld justified the cost.

[FoxyMulder]

[QUOTE=Adam Tyner]I think you're confusing shooting on video vs. editing on video. Video was a popular format for half-hour comedies, but some of the more popular sitcoms and pretty much every drama were all shot on film. [/QUOTE]

I remember reading something about it but for the life of me i can't remember the article..... i do remember reading though that the effects shots for shows like Star Trek: TNG and Babylon 5 ( shot on Super 16 according to my research ) were done in low resolution so the effects work will look pretty bad if transferred to HD and it would be difficult without re-doing all the effects ( that won't happen )

More likely they will use HD's standard resolution for older shows ( be it Blu-Ray or HD-DVD format ) which will enable one disc to house an entire series plus extra's and thus they can re-package everything again.

Anyways i'm no expert on this so don't take what i say as anything but the musings of an interested person....... i think it'll be a decade before HD takes off (thanks to the format war) and standard definition is here for a very long time yet as most consumers are very happy with it.

[Sinner]

I'm a newbie at this but is there stuff that can't be remastered to HD?