-
Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum
This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.
This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com -
You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.
The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....
... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.
Benefits of registering for a full account:
- Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
- Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
- Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
- You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊
Babylon 5 - HD versions
- Thread starter Substance
- Start date
Transepoch
Well-known member
Nobody watches Zathrus.
SimonSays
Well-known member
I catalogued my complete extended disc set... Not sure I'd buy it on K, unless the price was really good...
The new animated film is due on 4K UHD Blu-ray in August from Warner. What are the odds we will get this on Kaleidescape?
www.blu-ray.com
Babylon 5: The Road Home 4K Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital HD)
Babylon 5: The Road Home 4K Blu-ray Release Date August 15, 2023. Blu-ray reviews, news, specs, ratings, screenshots. Cheap Blu-ray movies and deals.
Transepoch
Well-known member
Fairly good, I would think, but what's the over/under on a $45 initial list?
I guess this isn’t happening for K
SimonSays
Well-known member
The D2D discount is pretty low though, I'm seeing the $24.99 seasons discounted to $23.02, except "The Lost Tales" which went from $14.99 to $1.68
TV series D2D is almost always a few bucks off. The Blu-ray set retails $135 and on sale for $93 now. If we get the HD downloads at $30 a season then $23-$25 with D2D, the entire set is similar to the retail of the Blu-rays. I am cool with this.
There it is. Now downloading. I will inform of the details later tomorrow once I watch a few episodes.
www.kaleidescape.com
Babylon 5 (Season 1)
A large space station orbits the dead world of Epsilon 3 in 2257, acting as an intergalactic United Nations. Sci-Fi, Adventure, Drama. Starring Michael O'Hare, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, and Mira Furlan. Purchase and download today in Blu-ray quality.
www.kaleidescape.com
The pilot episode “The Gathering” is included in extras in HD. It clearly is not native HD and surely upscaled from SD. It is only slightly sharper than the DVD copy I have. It is cropped to fit in 16:9 but this is the intended aspect ratio. From what I remember, the pilot episode was not remastered for the HD streams either.
Later episodes are surely native HD and looks amazing. They are marked upgrades from the DVD copies I have. The audio is DTS HD MA 5.1 for all episodes including the pilot.
Later episodes are surely native HD and looks amazing. They are marked upgrades from the DVD copies I have. The audio is DTS HD MA 5.1 for all episodes including the pilot.
They just corrected the download files for the Season 3. Now all 22 episodes are available.
They also added the remaining 2 seasons to complete the set.
We are now missing 4 movies in HD. 2 of them are available in HD on Apple store. Maybe we will eventually get them.
They also added the remaining 2 seasons to complete the set.
We are now missing 4 movies in HD. 2 of them are available in HD on Apple store. Maybe we will eventually get them.
I think I prefer the DVD (or the SD download) for the Gathering (Pilot). The HD version in the supplements is a poor upscale job. The colors are boosted which is not bad but there is massive ringing (halos around objects) due to heavy edge enhancement and sharpness applied. This is extremely distracting.
The entire episode is cropped to fit in a 16:9 frame. The DVD is 4:3 but open matte. The rest of the episodes in the HD versions are 4:3 and open matte. It is a shame they didn’t remaster the pilot episode.
The Gathering included in the HD version supplements and the US DVD is the TNT’s Special Edition version (1998) which is longer and has more character development. The visual effects are upgraded to bring them in line with the later episodes. The soundtrack is also changed to Christopher Franke’s (Tangerine Dream) as with the rest of the series.
The original pilot was aired in 1993. Its soundtrack is composed by Stewart Copeland. As far as I know the Japanese Laserdisc release is the only way to watch the original broadcast version.
The series look spectacular in HD (except the pilot)with a few minor issues. The live action scenes were shot on 35mm with Super35 in mind for later 16:9 broadcasts in the future. The entire series was scanned, telecine from 24 frame to 60 fields and recorded onto D2 digital composite tape (480 interlaced) In the mastering process. The CGI shots were rendered in 480 line 30 progressive frames. The original broadcasts came from these D2 tapes in 4:3 format in 480i60.
Warner Home Video released Babylon 5 on VHS tape and Laserdisc with 2 episodes on each, 3 to 4 discs or tapes release every 2 to 4 months starting in December 1998 for $29.99 each (110 episodes total, $1650 for the entire set. The Laserdisc releases are interesting because they have close enough bandwidth to D2 digital composite tape and therefore they are the nearest to the original broadcast quality. They also preserve the open matte 4:3 aspect ratio with 2ch LPCM lossless Dolby Surround soundtracks. Warner picked a weird order how these were released. The first and the last seasons were released in the first half of 1999 and the first several episodes of the second and fourth seasons were released in the second half of 1999. The remaining episodes of the second and fourth seasons, as well as the third season were expected to be released in 2000. Pioneer pulled the plug on Laserdiscs, ending the formats 22 year run in the US (Laserdiscs were continued to be released until late 2001 in Japan) therefore we never got the second, third and fourth seasons released in full (except in VHS).
Warner released Babylon 5 on DVD, one complete season package each, between 2002 and 2004. These were remastered from the 35mm film with Super35 process to be framed in 16:9 ratio. This was the intended aspect ratio of the director all along. He figured widescreen TVs would be more common in the 2000s. The live action scenes look slightly sharper than the Laserdiscs due to the slightly higher luma (brightness) and significantly higher chroma (color) resolution of the DVD technology. The CGI scenes were originally rendered in 480p30 in 4:3 full frame. For the DVDs, they were cropped and upscaled to 480i60 in 16:9. This caused these scenes to look distorted. So the DVDs had slight advantage over the Laserdisc in live action scenes but the Laserdiscs had the CGI shots much better.
Now with the HD releases, the live action scenes are re-scanned from the 35mm films in 1080p24. They are marked improvement from both the DVDs and the Laserdiscs. The Director’s intended aspect ratio is 16:9 (although the original broadcast was in 4:3). The HD versions are in 1.33:1 full screen. This might be a problem to some purist. I don’t mind it. The CGI effects were created in 480p30. This is the problem part. 30 progressive frames convert really nicely to 60 interlaced fields for the Laserdiscs and DVDs but can’t convert to 24 frames without dropping frames. So the CGI scenes on the HD versions will not have the best cinematic motion over the Laserdiscs or the DVDs. Since they are up-converted from 480P30, they won’t look much clearer than the Laserdiscs either.
As a conclusion, it might have been a better idea to encode these episodes in 1080i60. This way both the 24 frame film source material and 30 frame CGI segments would work without frame drops. Fortunately, all the CGI segments are seriously outdated on this show and no one will scrutinize them critically. Also, they only make up a few short scenes per episode.
Warner Home Video released Babylon 5 on VHS tape and Laserdisc with 2 episodes on each, 3 to 4 discs or tapes release every 2 to 4 months starting in December 1998 for $29.99 each (110 episodes total, $1650 for the entire set
. The Laserdisc releases are interesting because they have close enough bandwidth to D2 digital composite tape and therefore they are the nearest to the original broadcast quality. They also preserve the open matte 4:3 aspect ratio with 2ch LPCM lossless Dolby Surround soundtracks. Warner picked a weird order how these were released. The first and the last seasons were released in the first half of 1999 and the first several episodes of the second and fourth seasons were released in the second half of 1999. The remaining episodes of the second and fourth seasons, as well as the third season were expected to be released in 2000. Pioneer pulled the plug on Laserdiscs, ending the formats 22 year run in the US (Laserdiscs were continued to be released until late 2001 in Japan) therefore we never got the second, third and fourth seasons released in full (except in VHS). Warner released Babylon 5 on DVD, one complete season package each, between 2002 and 2004. These were remastered from the 35mm film with Super35 process to be framed in 16:9 ratio. This was the intended aspect ratio of the director all along. He figured widescreen TVs would be more common in the 2000s. The live action scenes look slightly sharper than the Laserdiscs due to the slightly higher luma (brightness) and significantly higher chroma (color) resolution of the DVD technology. The CGI scenes were originally rendered in 480p30 in 4:3 full frame. For the DVDs, they were cropped and upscaled to 480i60 in 16:9. This caused these scenes to look distorted. So the DVDs had slight advantage over the Laserdisc in live action scenes but the Laserdiscs had the CGI shots much better.
Now with the HD releases, the live action scenes are re-scanned from the 35mm films in 1080p24. They are marked improvement from both the DVDs and the Laserdiscs. The Director’s intended aspect ratio is 16:9 (although the original broadcast was in 4:3). The HD versions are in 1.33:1 full screen. This might be a problem to some purist. I don’t mind it. The CGI effects were created in 480p30. This is the problem part. 30 progressive frames convert really nicely to 60 interlaced fields for the Laserdiscs and DVDs but can’t convert to 24 frames without dropping frames. So the CGI scenes on the HD versions will not have the best cinematic motion over the Laserdiscs or the DVDs. Since they are up-converted from 480P30, they won’t look much clearer than the Laserdiscs either.
As a conclusion, it might have been a better idea to encode these episodes in 1080i60. This way both the 24 frame film source material and 30 frame CGI segments would work without frame drops. Fortunately, all the CGI segments are seriously outdated on this show and no one will scrutinize them critically. Also, they only make up a few short scenes per episode.