The Babylon 5 Blu-rays are amazing

[Katie Boundary]

On DVD, the live-action parts of Babylon 5 were pretty grainy and dirty. I always assumed that this grain and dirt were in the original film reels. Looking at the Babylon 5 Blu-rays, however, has shown me that this is not the case. They're shockingly sharp and clean. Then, I remembered that the DVDs weren't created directly from the original tapes and film reels. They were derived from whatever bastardized widescreen bullshit the Sci-Fi channel had created, so that was at least one additional round of generational loss. On top of that, the DVDs were encoded as 100% hard NTSC, and MPEG tends to not like that, so that probably created a bit of extra digital noise. The Blu-rays were probably created directly from the original film reels. Either that, or they were subjected to some digital noise reduction, like a lot of stuff is these days. Or both.

The CGI shots are also shockingly undamaged considering that they had to be somehow converted from 30 fps to 24 fps. I haven't seen any blended frames so far, so either they decimated one out of every 5 frames or they did some kind of motion-interpolation bullshit to generate completely new frames. My money is on the latter since I don't notice any skipping where the missing frames should be.

I'm sorry for ever doubting that Babylon 5 could look this good. I was wrong.

[StainlessS]

Thanx for that Katie, I thought were only available on DVD.
I've spotted complete series on amazon and also a local vender (I'll purchase today/tomorrow).
DVDs were/are full of horrid nasty bits.

[RetsimLegin]

... whatever bastardized widescreen bullshit the Sci-Fi channel had created....It's my understanding (E&OE) that whilst 16x9 wasn't (yet) a thing, it was anticipated and so the actual film content was made in that format. However, the CGI content was only ever rendered 4x3. So, in the case of a 16x9 presentation (as on DVD) the filmed part is actually correct and on a 4x3 presentation, it is cropped. And the converse is true of the CGI. In the UK, the series was broadcast true 16x9 using the full film frame and cropped GCI. I can't speak for what the SciFi channel used. Whilst I have no doubt the restoration work on the BDs is excellent, it's not entirely true to say that either a true 16x9 or the 4x3 presentation is "right".

[Selur]

Didn't HBO Max also release a remastered 4k version of Babylon 5 a few years ago?
(I think Apple is streaming those nowadays,..)

[Katie Boundary]

It's my understanding (E&OE) that whilst 16x9 wasn't (yet) a thing, it was anticipated and so the actual film content was made in that format. However, the CGI content was only ever rendered 4x3. So, in the case of a 16x9 presentation (as on DVD) the filmed part is actually correct and on a 4x3 presentation, it is cropped. And the converse is true of the CGI. In the UK, the series was broadcast true 16x9 using the full film frame and cropped GCI. I can't speak for what the SciFi channel used. Whilst I have no doubt the restoration work on the BDs is excellent, it's not entirely true to say that either a true 16x9 or the 4x3 presentation is "right".

You'd have a point if the whole thing was edited on film or digitally... but it wasn't. It was edited on tape, in fullscreen NTSC. When lightning bolts, PPG shots, or other digital effects were painted directly onto the screen, it was done in fullscreen NTSC. When green screens or bluescreens were used to combine CGI with live-action, it was done in fullscreen. When on-screen credits faded in and out, they did so at an NTSC frame rate. The completed broadcast cuts of the episodes only existed in fullscreen NTSC. This is what makes B5 a fullscreen NTSC show; the aspect ratio of the raw film clips (and the raw CGI, for that matter) is irrelevant. "More" is not necessarily "more correct".


When a widescreen version was made for the Sci-Fi Channel reruns, it wasn't just the CGI shots that got the top and bottom 1/4 cut off. The composite shots got butchered too. Lots of little things also got changed. In particular, a lot of the on-screen text got redrawn and repositioned:

https://i.imgur.com/KvPbfFk.jpeg

I have no idea what horrible things must have been done to it to convert it to PAL for UK broadcast.

Didn't HBO Max also release a remastered 4k version of Babylon 5 a few years ago?

Someone did. I don't remember who. And yeah, I think that's the same version that's on the Blu-rays.

[RetsimLegin]

I believe the 16x9 UK DVDs were a mix of directly captured film (as available) and transcoded NTSC (where any CGI was involved, so no film content available), re-edited together, with the film content rendered (correctly?) at 16x9, and the cgi (including composite) shots zoomed and cropped. There is certainly a massive image quality difference between the non-FX scenes and those with FX. For DVD, the film elements are actually pretty good aside from film marks, which were not restored. But your images above show what was "lost" from the 16x9 frame in order to fit it to 4x3. OK - nothing important; it was filmed with 4x3 cropping in mind.

[Selur]

Someone did. I don't remember who. And yeah, I think that's the same version that's on the Blu-rays.
I think the Blu-rays were a downscaled (1080p vs 4k) version of it.

[ricardo.santos]

The video looks a lot better on the bluray release but there's some croping/pillarboxing...
https://i.ibb.co/5TRttSg/B5.jpg

[StainlessS]

I cant believe just how dodgy it is to get the disks out of the case (I went with blurays from Amazon.co.uk @ £66).
Afraid of breaking the disks I typed into Google, "babylon 5 bluray how to remove disks",

and would you believe it, there were a number of hits.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=babylon+5+bluray+how+to+remove+disks&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZw2dlaxI0ZxjerIIUEBNUqLcvrC3OjXk

The first link does not seem to match my "spindle locks" (for want of a better description), I'm sure that I will eventually figure it out,
even if it means drilling out the damn daft locks.

Unbelievable.

EDIT: ClickMe
https://i.postimg.cc/w1Sjqyvp/20241014-225402.jpg (https://postimg.cc/w1Sjqyvp)

EDIT: A Pair of Flat, long nose pliers nicely squishes the lock mechanism, a bit fiddly.

[Katie Boundary]

The video looks a lot better on the bluray release but there's some croping/pillarboxing...
https://i.ibb.co/5TRttSg/B5.jpg

Everyone in 1993 knew that the show was going to be edited and broadcast in fullscreen, and that the CGI was going to be rendered in fullscreen, but JMS demanded that the live-action stuff be shot in widescreen and cropped to fullscreen for some stupid-ass reason. The DVDs added the cropped parts back, and the Blu-rays restored the original broadcast aspect ratio.

[StainlessS]

I'm not sure but think that BB5 had a couple of episodes broadcast in wrong order, also think that the 'wrong order' may have been repeated in the DVD rendition.

Am I correct on that, and if so was wrong order repeated in blueray. [And what Series/Episode Nos involved].

I seem to remember that if watched in broadcast order, that it dont all make sense [eg referencing things that aint happed yet].

[Katie Boundary]

A minor annoyance: at the very end of the end credits of the broadcast cuts, there was originally a voiceover of a guy saying "Babylon 5 is produced by Babylonian Inc and distributed blah blah blah" and whatever WB's logo was at the time. This was preserved on the DVDs (although the WB logo was squooshed to 16:9), but on the Blu-rays, the Warner logo was updated to their modern spinning CGI bullshit and the voiceover was cut out. I'm currently going through the first two seasons and fixing all of this manually in Premiere.

I'm not sure but think that BB5 had a couple of episodes broadcast in wrong order, also think that the 'wrong order' may have been repeated in the DVD rendition.

Am I correct on that, and if so was wrong order repeated in blueray. [And what Series/Episode Nos involved].

I seem to remember that if watched in broadcast order, that it dont all make sense [eg referencing things that aint happed yet].

I think you can watch season 1 in pretty much any order, as long as you watch "A Voice in the Wilderness" parts 1 and 2 back-to-back and save "Chrysalis" for last.

In season 2, "Soul Mates" and "A Race through Dark Places" got flipped, and "Knives" and "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum" got flipped. I can't be arsed to check what order they're in on the DVDs or Blu-rays.

Seasons 3-5 were aired in the correct order.

[StainlessS]

Ta very much Katie.