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Was SD 16:9 ever tried in America?

(June 2014)

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DT
DTV
'Friends' is being shown in 16:9 HD on Comedy Central. You often see edge of sets and crew.
Obviously it was originally tx'd in 4:3 SD
They must have remastered the original film prints


They did something like that for the first season of House which is in 16:9 in some instances but was originally filmed in 4:3. Season 2 onwards were in 16:9 and that was a few years before HD came around. (Also interestingly the Pilot of House was filmed in Black and White)
LL
Larry the Loafer
Does anybody know where a similar article is relating to the Friends re-releases where the edge of the sets could be seen etc? I remember reading it when Comedy Central started showing the HD episodes.
JB
JasonB
'Friends' is being shown in 16:9 HD on Comedy Central. You often see edge of sets and crew.
Obviously it was originally tx'd in 4:3 SD
They must have remastered the original film prints


I have one of the recent anniversary box sets with the extended episodes on them and watching them on a HD tv, the picture is pretty good for something filmed in SD! These are in 4:3 though.
MS
Mr-Stabby
DTV posted:
(Also interestingly the Pilot of House was filmed in Black and White)


Really? Why was that, do you know? I thought there was something odd about it when i watched it recently. The colour did look very artificial, in fact it was barely there at all.

Interesting posts by the way everyone, thanks Smile
NU
The Nurse
The UK series Bugs used another clever post-production system to cope with 4:3 and 16:9. They shot on Super 16 - which has a close to 15:9 aperture. They telecined this anamorphically in 15:9 - and then edited in the 15:9 domain. For 4:3 deliveries they DVE-ed the final master to a centre cut-out, cropping a bit left and right, for 16:9 deliveries they DVE-ed the final master to a 16:9 full-height by cropping a bit top and bottom. Odd thinking back on it now...


Fascinating - I re-watched the whole lot recently on DVD ( don't judge! Smile ) and all 4 series were 4:3. And it has to be said, not great quality. I don't remember the format in which they were transmitted.

Shame it doesn't have the following of Dr Who - I guess we'll never see a re-telecined version on Blu Ray...!
PE
Pete Founding member
Will UK shows be as remasterable as US shows though given we tended to use video and 16mm film rather than 35mm? Whilst Red Dwarf was technically impressive (if poorly edited) it was quite a different style of remastering to what is occurring currently with US shows.
SE
seamus
NBC Owned and Operated Stations run "Cozi TV", which is broadcast in 16:9 SD as a digital subchannel, though much of the content is 4:3 anyway. There have been efforts to put two HD subchannels together (ABC has done this with their soon-to-be defunct "LiveWellHD" network, but this mutually lowers the bitrate on each subchannel, and typically only works with subchannels that are 720p, not 1080i.
Last edited by seamus on 24 June 2014 5:12pm
EL
elmarko
'Friends' is being shown in 16:9 HD on Comedy Central. You often see edge of sets and crew.
Obviously it was originally tx'd in 4:3 SD
They must have remastered the original film prints


I have one of the recent anniversary box sets with the extended episodes on them and watching them on a HD tv, the picture is pretty good for something filmed in SD! These are in 4:3 though.


It was filmed on actual film not video which is why it looks ok in HD. Resolution isn't really measured the same when using film.
MS
Mr-Stabby
Pete posted:
Will UK shows be as remasterable as US shows though given we tended to use video and 16mm film rather than 35mm? Whilst Red Dwarf was technically impressive (if poorly edited) it was quite a different style of remastering to what is occurring currently with US shows.


There have been some examples. The 1970 Doctor Who all-film episode 'Spearhead from Space' looks great in HD. A lot of the Gerry Anderson and other ITC stuff shot on 35mm looks great in HD.

That Red Dwarf remastering was horrible in every possible way. It was done at the same time as the Star Wars re-release but with 1/10000 of the budget. The original has actually aged less than the re-mastered version, which is an odd idea ha.
NG
noggin Founding member
The UK series Bugs used another clever post-production system to cope with 4:3 and 16:9. They shot on Super 16 - which has a close to 15:9 aperture. They telecined this anamorphically in 15:9 - and then edited in the 15:9 domain. For 4:3 deliveries they DVE-ed the final master to a centre cut-out, cropping a bit left and right, for 16:9 deliveries they DVE-ed the final master to a 16:9 full-height by cropping a bit top and bottom. Odd thinking back on it now...


Fascinating - I re-watched the whole lot recently on DVD ( don't judge! Smile ) and all 4 series were 4:3. And it has to be said, not great quality. I don't remember the format in which they were transmitted.


Believe S1-3 were TX-ed 4:3 and S4 was TX-ed 16:9.
CW
cwathen Founding member
Pete posted:
Meanwhile the rubber band stretch was so complex they only did three stock shots and used the same three going to warp shots for the entire run. The only reason the engines flash as it goes to warp was to disguise the change between the 6ft model (for the close up detail) and the 2ft for the rest of the shot. It's incredible the effort that went into these and I love how we can now see the sheer detail and craftsmanship that went into these shows in such clarity.

Reportedly also since those 'Enterprise going to warp' shots lasted the whole run, Industrial Light & Magic appeared in the end credits of every single episode, even though they had only worked on the pilot. TNG eventually dispensed with the 6ft and 2ft models and started using a 4ft model (although of course all the stock footage from the earlier models was still used)


In the final analysis, the decision made by Star Trek to mainly use model shots up until the late 90's (most of DS9 and some early Voyager was still done mainly by model shots rather than CGI) is what has allowed those effects to hold up pretty well after all these years, even though they were sticking with an older technology whilst other shows had moved on. Competing shows such as Babylon 5 were 100% CGI from day 1 - and their effects now look really creaky as the technology just wasn't mature enough for a permanent move away from models at the time.

JasonB posted:

I have one of the recent anniversary box sets with the extended episodes on them and watching them on a HD tv, the picture is pretty good for something filmed in SD! These are in 4:3 though.

As has been said, 35mm film can be scanned at a resolution even higher than we are currently using for HD, thus there is a substantial quality improvement to be seen from HD reversions of old programmes as the original SD versions that were used when the programme was transmitted never showed the full detail of the picture that was there.


Ironically, as production largely moved away from film and on to videotape (which Friends did not), it means that many programmes from the 60's and 70's can be remastered into HD with much better results than later programmes from the 80's and 90's can as they were often recorded on SD videotape and as such are inherently SD in a way that 35mm filmed programmes are not. You can reprocess and upscale as much as you like, but you can't create what isn't there.
MS
Mr-Stabby
You do have to ask why shows like 'Friends' shot on 35mm! Especially i'm assuming multi-camera. It must have cost a fortune!

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