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26th May 2003, 19:44 | #1 | Link |
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Enterprise in HD?
Do any of you get Enterprise in HDTV from your local UPN affiliates? I wonder if anyone in America gets it. I know that the Australians get it in 1080i, which makes perfect sense, because it's an American show .
My own local UPN affiliate does broadcast in HD, but they're transmitting at a strength of 500 watts (or is it 1.17 kilowatts?), which is like a walkie talkie, and so the signal is only received half a block away from the station. |
27th May 2003, 20:40 | #3 | Link |
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@ neo_sapien,
Personally, I don't think it matters all that much anyways. I mean, first of all, they JIMMY it's quality. Yes, JIMMY!! They do something to it's "color space", and when you watch it on TV, it's sort of sun-flared or smoke-chizzeled or something. I can't begin to tell you how crazy I went through many times, in trying to figure out of all my captures, this show just won't work w/ me. Till I realized that they (between broadcasters and the makers [guard watchers] of these shows) vandelize the quality to maintain minimal copying or what-have-you. That's in addition to the BITRATE techniques they employ on Satellite streams. In short, they reduce the BITRATE, which in turn, lowers the quality of the stream. As far as I understand it. But, as far as ANY Star Trek showing (enterprise, voyager, ds9 and next generation) all these shows are JIMMY'ed So, I don't think it will look (benefit'wise) any better EVEN IF, you opt for an HDTV or HD source for your Satellite. I think it would be a waist in this respect. And, if they continue to plaugerize our source w/ the above mentioned BITRATE technique, we are in for more loss of quality. Sorry, for the rant.., 3 years ago, the quality was outstanding, now, its sucking worser as they add more channels.. and more channels.., and more channels.. - thanks to BITRATE nonsense. -vhelp
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31st May 2003, 00:49 | #6 | Link | |
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I've tried so many things to straighten out the color on recorded episodes of Enterprise, it drives me nuts. I'll be completely infuriated if Enterprise in HDTV is just a regular analog drab grey Enterprise that's been enlarged to 1080i. I think that up in Canada and in the U.K. the colors are just right, though. If you've ever watched a cap of the episodes made by FTV which comes in VCD and is capped in Canada via satellite on Tuesday nights (C-Band satellite I think), you'll see rich blue colored uniforms. You'd think that one of the most popular shows on TV would be allowed a quality method of distribution, at least. What really PISSES ME OFF is that they're giving other countries top quality, but the country of origin gets the quality equivalent of a palmjob from a shemale. |
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4th June 2003, 11:01 | #7 | Link |
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I have to agree. Enterprise is one of the poorest looking shows on TV. The los angeles UPN affiliate broadcasts it at 720x480 with a super low bitrate of 4.1 mbps. To me it looks like a low quality encode from an analogue source. The picture is blurry and macroblocks can easily be seen. Its so bad, I've reverted to watching it on my 13" piece-o-S*** w/ rabbit ears because it looks better that way and beats the crap out of the UPN digital broadcast. KCOP please fix this dreadful quality before next season!!!
-dano |
5th June 2003, 01:50 | #9 | Link |
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@ dano..
>> KCOP please fix this dreadful quality before next season!!! They will not fix it!! I believe that it's a conspericy. I believe that they don't want it broadcasted at the maximum qality that they would "normaly" air it as.. thanks' in part to the $$$ 's that they are counting on. As you know they are now selling the series on DVD. I've never actually purchased a copy nor encoded any of the DVD's. But, Donald Graft had uploaded a small tiny sample .VOB file (35mb) (encoding issues) and I got my first taste at what to expect in quality. IMO, I found it very good. Execpt for the issues w/ IVTC, thanks in part to the Progressive frames mixed into the Film part, that they inserted (blue screen) I found out why it was messing up the IVTC encoding. Anyways.. If they hadn't broadcasted ANY of the Star Trek shows (ds9/voy/ent etc) then, don't expect them to EVER do so in others. The ONE good thing about the ST Enterprise, is that they are airing it with good Telecine process. And, as such, the final IVTC method of Decomb.dll works perfetly. To date, I haven't found any issues what so ever. I admit, that ST Enterprise's color space is off. (part of the broad casters "jimmy" system) And, you can see blocks from this process. I usually refer to this as "chizel" or "solar flare" Another helper to this effect is the low bitrate used in airing this show. Mind you, other shows (non-star trek wise) follow this pattern too, but not w/ the same level of "jimmy" as in above.. but it's there too. Altering quality... I would not recommend messing w/ the color on these shows. I have found that in doing so, will throw the color space off the table at times. Messing w/ color on these already reduced "color space" will only result in poorer quality encodes. Belieave me. I've ben there and done it. Even lowering the light levels and/or messng w/ the contrast worsens the final quality. I've also seen this form of "color" issue w/ DVD titles too. Check out Red Planet.. this movie, if you mess w/ the colors on it, will pretty much get you the same symtoms as w/ the tv shows above. If you go to the "shower" scene, where they are standing and talking and (just after v. kilmer enters those audo-door) and note how the color changes on the sides of the auto-door, you'll see what I mean. So, best leave it as it is, and make the best of your encodes. Instead: * Consentrate on your IVTC (if you having issues, though, on ST E, you ...shouldn't have any issues w/) * work w/ a "bitrate" method ie, CQ / CQ_VBR / 2Pass etc * expore other tweaks and things in TMPG @ neo_sapien.. As for those PAL region movies/tv shows.. they use a sligtely different color space. Usually much better than NTSC world. If you want some demo's of such, get you hands on a copy of The Matrix in PAL. I could be wrong w/ this movie, but I did see a sample clip of a scene I was working on and coudn't believe the quality difference of the color space on that movie. I kept saying to myself, "why are PAL using this color space, and not NTSC ?" - - not fair. But, the reason has to do w/ all tech stuff, beyond my willingness to get into, here. Thats it for now. -vhelp
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5th June 2003, 13:17 | #10 | Link | |
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No, it's just that American versions have had their color spaces jimmied, and foreign versions haven't.
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5th June 2003, 13:24 | #11 | Link | |
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5th June 2003, 16:57 | #12 | Link |
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I have never captured any of the Enterprise digital episodes so I haven't noticed the color problems.
But could it just be the BT709 issue? US HDTV is supposed to use BT709 color for HDTV but it's unclear whether that or BT601 is supposed to be used for upconverts. You might try my conversion filter (Avisynth 2.5, YV12) at: www.trbarry.com/BT709ToBT601.zip There is just a subtle difference between the two color scemes. See a side by side pic at: www.trbarry.com/BT709ToBT601.2.jpg - Tom |
5th June 2003, 21:36 | #13 | Link |
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Part of the problem is that - while the live action scenes ARE filmed in 1080i the actual CGI is rendered at 480p
There was a comment on AVSforums about this. Someone was at a star trek event and rick berman showed the episode "Regeneration" (gret by the way) on a large screen. He even commented that "well, the CGI was not meant for the big screen" and it looked terrible according to the people at the events. The MPEG2 artifcats in chicago UPN rebroadcast of 1080i enterprise is horrible. The "ringing" and "crawling" on the walls is bad undot() unfilter (-20,-20) work WONDERS!!! SO does YV12Reducedby2() to get my back to 960x540 Crop undot () unfilter (-20,-20) Compress ot WMV 1000kbit 2-pass VBR Not bad for keeping around |
6th June 2003, 00:06 | #14 | Link |
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hi all.
@ trbarry and sjchmura.. I would love to try out some of those filter (in this case, w/ the ST Enterprise shows) and I will, but as soon as I find another monitor for my MAIN pc, which I use for most of my encodes.. and, I can finaly put back this crummy old fart of a monitor (very bad color space on it) to my 2nd pc, which I use mainily for my captures, using either my ADVC-100 else my Osprey-210 or DC10+ cards. I can't wait to find an new one this week (flat-screen i hope) Anyways.. @ anybody.. ..got any ST Enterprise sample pics or clips (even better) for us to verify that you all sufferng similar quality issues. @ trbarry and sjchmura, and others.. If you all are experiencing the same quality issues w/ these shows, ST Enterprise in particular, has anyone designed a specific type of filter just for this type of show ?? @ trbarry.. * I'm not sure what that "www.trbarry.com/BT709ToBT601.2.jpg" file is ...suppose to demonstrate here. But, they looked pretty much the same ...on my crummy monitor. * Also, what version of AVIsynth are these filters based on ?? ...Soon as I get my pc monitor straighten out, I'm planning on installing ...v2.08, if that is the recommned for most these filters, and will be ...trying my hand at YV12 capturing, soon as I figure out weather or ...not I'm using the actual codec for Analog capturing.. ie, ATI-YV12 ...and which cap app, vdub or avi_io for YV12 capturing. >> There was a comment on AVSforums about this. Someone was at a star >> trek event and rick berman showed the episode "Regeneration" (gret >> by the way) on a large screen. No doubt he used the "real" deal, and not what broadcasters use when they air this show Later on. -vhelp
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8th June 2003, 07:25 | #16 | Link |
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I just thought my local cable feed was crap. I've probably spent a whole day and then some trying to figure out the grey looking color issues when I first started capturing Enterprise.
It sorta ruins the whole experience of watching the show. I put up some screen shots. You'll notice the grey color as well as some filtering going on with the noise. On my cable feed UPN (Channel 2) is the noisest channel out of them all. http://members.cox.net/soul.fxpro/archer.png http://members.cox.net/soul.fxpro/tpol.png http://members.cox.net/soul.fxpro/display.png Needless to say I've sorta stopped capturing the episodes and even stopped watching them. Anymore it just really bugs me if I try to watch something of poor quality that's ment for me to enjoy. I guess all the time I spend to fix and avoid stuff like that makes me sick to see supposed "professionals" not even care. |
8th June 2003, 07:45 | #17 | Link |
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Actually, I remember commenting over on AVS right after the pilot that it looked like they were sort of cultivating a grey machine shop look to the set, as if they wanted it to look primitive compared to the other series.
- Tom |
8th June 2003, 11:17 | #18 | Link | |
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If UPN gets taken over by a decent company, do you suppose they'll start putting out Enterprise in color? |
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9th June 2003, 01:08 | #19 | Link |
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All I do is just keep my levels in check. I learned a long time ago not to mess too much with saturation and all the other stuff. The screenshots are taken after level adjustments, noise filtering, and XviD compression.
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9th June 2003, 03:35 | #20 | Link |
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@ neo_sapien..
>> If UPN gets taken over by a decent company, do you suppose they'll >> start putting out Enterprise in color? Hell no. Won't matter none!! This is from the source. They so order it to be broadcasted this way, and I believe that they "give" the source in this tained or jimmied way. So, weather ABC or NBC or HBO take over these shows, they will continue the carrying the SAME tourch. Heck, look at TNN. Is ST TNG any better quality ?? course not !! Add to that, the broadcasters bitrate distibution, and you have an even worser quality series. So, we have the following: * A - some shows are broadcast "jimmied" * B - and air-to-tv is bitrate starved If A doesn't get you, B will !! ..if not A and B !!
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