Re: 4% speedup/ HD DVDs of UFO?

Hi All,

Marc wrote:

>In general, everything on my website should be at the "correct"
>speed. <snip>


I compared the dialogue excerpts from your page directly with the
Carlton DVDs played on my PC. Oh yes, I noticed the difference!  
Initially everyone sounded like they were slightly "drugged" in the
excerpts by comparison, but repeat playbacks made the Carlton
soundtrack irritating! The difference was even more appreciable with
the music excerpts.

I'm now feeling depressed to think I have never heard a single
episode of UFO how it should be heard. I knew I was going to regret
trying this out!!




You're implying here that the NTSC DVDs don't have as sharp and
detailed a picture as the PAL ones then? Therefore, to get the most
truthful viewing experience, we should be watching the PAL DVDs but
listening to the NTSC DVDs?? BUT, then we would lose lip synch
because the PAL ones are running 4% faster??? Good grief!!!!



Just to confuse me further, Marc wrote:


>On the Space:1999 discussion group(s), there is much talk about that
>series receiving "the deluxe treatment"
<snip>
>I hear that at the recent Fanderson convention, a representative
>from Network said that UFO will also receive this Hi-Def re-
>mastering in the (near?) future.
<snip>
>I think most people thought the first UFO DVD release was fine
(certainly better than they sometimes criticized first DVD release
>of Space:1999), so I'm not really sure if there is any demand for
>another UFO DVD release.


Rob replied:

>I think the fact that UFO was filmed on 35mm is perhaps the reason
>why - the quality of the source would make it worthwhile to convert
>to HD whereas anything filmed on 16 or 8mm would be unlikely to look
>much different from a normal DVD conversion.

>For all we know, when UFO was digitally re-mastered, it could have
>been done at HDTV resolution (or higher) and then down-converted to
>standard DVD format, so the HD version may already exist.


Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this implies that neither the NTSC nor
PAL DVDs is as good as watching the original 35mm film. Can anyone
confirm this?

It looks like the quest for optimal viewing of UFO is never going to
be reached! Starting with video (copies or pre-recorded)and leaving
out the problems of colour balance and poor contrast they had,
watching UFO on video (250 lines?) on a modern 36" CRT looked awful
because the picture was so grainy, but it was tolerable on the
smaller screen TVs of a decade or so ago. The Carlton DVDs (5-600
lines?) obviously look much better on modern large TV screens thanks
to the higher resolution. But if the next generation of TVs are going
to be 48" or larger (plasma/ LCD), won't these DVDs start to look
grainy?


If it is possible to produce a HD version of UFO on DVD and I think
this means more lines of resolution (up to 1200?) than exists on
current DVDs, then they should get on with it! If I had the money,
I'd buy them, and the necessary hardware, if it meant a genuine
upgrade in viewing enjoyment! Or would it be like hi-fi upgrades – a
case of diminishing returns?

One other gripe I have is the picture ratio; 4:3 in the case of the
UFO DVDs. All TVs now are 16:9, although you can alter this on most,
but lose a lot of the screen if you go to 4:3! My TV can "zoom" into
the image to fill the entire screen but the image is cropped,
sometimes losing tops of people's heads. Furthermore, I notice a
definite loss of sharpness, another reason why I think an HD version
could be essential if I ever end up trying to watch on a 48"
screen and take full advantage! If they were remastered as HD DVDs,
can they not be made in 16:9 as well, or is this just not possible
with a 35mm film source?

Over on the Space 1999 list, Marc wrote:

>One of my inside sources tell me that for the Network DVD
>restoration, the source materials for the remixed 5.1 sound are the
>original "D E M" tracks, which are the dialog, effects, and music
>all as separate elements. This is significant, because in the past
>the Gerry Anderson series 5.1 mixes didn't have these tracks to work
>with, so the 5.1 mix was rather worthless.


Does this mean that the new Space 1999 DVDs have a soundtrack that
makes it worth listening through a Dolby surround sound system? I've
never bothered with the UFO DVDs, although the sound is much clearer
than was previously on video, for some episodes especially.

On your site Marc, the excerpts of music you have put there are at
the right speed, but not in stereo, whereas the excerpt from the
Fanderson CD is. The difference is quite amazing! It says there
that not all of the master tapes were available, so some of the
tracks on this CD are still mono.  

Can you tell from this CD which episodes it might be possible to re-
mix the soundtrack into stereo? Do the masters for the dialogue
still exist? Ditto sound effects? If so, could a Dolby 5.1
soundtrack for (some) UFO eps be possible? Sorry, I'll stop asking
difficult questions!! Imagine - HD DVD UFO in NTSC or PAL with Dolby
5.1 and AT the right speed.........dream on girl!!

Finally, I've only just realized that using punctuation marks in
posts is meant to indicate the mood of the writer. Doh! When a word
appears thus- *word* - what is this meant to indicate? Is there a
website where these are all explained?


Phew! I'm going to have a lie down now.


Sarah (UK)

> Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this implies that neither the NTSC nor
> PAL DVDs is as good as watching the original 35mm film. Can anyone
> confirm this?

Well yes, if you are watching UFO in a movie theater on 35mm film,
it would have the highest resolution of all (more than PAL, NTSC,
or HDTV), and be at the correct speed. All video formats are
compromises, even HDTV.

> If they were remastered as HD DVDs,
> can they not be made in 16:9 as well, or is this just not possible
> with a 35mm film source?

When remastering these old TV series onto HDTV, you have a choice --
chop of the tops and the bottoms of the screen, so that you get
a nice widescreen picture, but then something will be missing
on the top and bottom. Or just put black bands on the sides.
Personally, I'd prefer the latter, as I don't want stuff
chopped off.

> Does this mean that the new Space 1999 DVDs have a soundtrack that
> makes it worth listening through a Dolby surround sound system?

On the upcoming Space:1999 DVDs, they will give you a choice
between listening to the original mono or listening to a
surround sound version. However, past experience has shown
that surround sound versions of old shows a pretty cheesy --
they usually add some echo, or add sound effects that were
never in the original show, etc. So far I have always
preferred to listen to the original mono version.

In Japan, the UFO DVDs have a 5.1 surround soundtrack.
It sounds awful (in my opinion).

> Can you tell from this CD which episodes it might be possible to re-
> mix the soundtrack into stereo? Do the masters for the dialogue
> still exist? Ditto sound effects? If so, could a Dolby 5.1
> soundtrack for (some) UFO eps be possible?

I don't know if the isolated dialog or effects tracks still exist
for UFO. Apparently some people were surprised that these tracks
still exist for Space:1999. Also note that just because Fanderson
remixed some of UFO's music into stereo for a CD release, that
does NOT imply that these remixes would make their way into a
DVD release. For example, Fanderson remixed the music in Space:1999
into stereo, but these upcoming Space:1999 DVDs are NOT (I believe)
using these stereo music mixes -- it would blow their budget to
find all these tracks, synch them up, and get the volume to
go up and down like in the originals.

I think most of the episodes that appear on the Fanderson CD
are remixed into stereo. However, that's only a small subset
of all the episodes in the series. One notable exception
is THE LONG SLEEP, where not all of the music seems to be
available even in mono. (and some of the music from IDENTIFIED
doesn't appear to be available in mono either)


> When a word appears thus- *word* - what is this meant to indicate?

I use this to indicate bold (or underlined) text.

> Phew! I'm going to have a lie down now.

That's a lot of questions! You should spread them out
to conserve your energy! :-)

Marc

<<Finally, I've only just realized that using punctuation marks in
posts is meant to indicate the mood of the writer. Doh! When a word
appears thus- *word* - what is this meant to indicate? Is there a
website where these are all explained?


Phew! I'm going to have a lie down now.


Sarah (UK)>>



in my case, it indicates something dragon's doing. like *snerk* or *dragon dashing off to avoid the slings and arrows of outraged fans .........* this is because the list i was first on used :: to indicate a personal reaction/action and that confused other lists ........ for other people, it could be an attempt to get bold face on their font that didn't work (wierd is typing up a letter to a friend, falling into email mode and suddenly have a bold faced snerk ... *dragon considers this and wonders if maybe her brain is a little itchy today*) LOL



laters



dragon









Yahoo! Groups Links











---------------------------------
Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

CONTENTS DELETED

>Try a google for 'netiquette' - most sources will have good
>explanations of this kind of thing.

I found a good site in case anyone's as ignorant as me:

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/0963702513p59.html


Now I need to practice %-). Many thanks Sallie, Rob and Marc , for  
your replies {}.

Just to stay on topic, I'll just add I'm about to put on an ep – I'm in
the mood :-D

CUL

Sarah