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Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

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Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#281

Post by reactordev »

Dove wrote: post #278

We quote Babylon 5 on an approximately daily basis in this house. Definitely my favorite sci fi series. Well, that and Firefly. B5 won not one, but two Hugos, which were highly deserved. Whenever I get the itch to watch the whole thing again but I don't want to spend the time, I watch this (which is so thick with spoilers that you shouldn't watch it unless you've seen the series so many times that the Vorlons make se…

Star Trek, Star Wars shaped me, Babylon 5 opened my heart. It took me a few episodes to get through the awful CGI of the first season but the writing and characters were superb. It’s DS9 but way more political. Went to places Star Trek wouldn’t touch. Sheridan was one hell of a guy. Then I was introduced to Big Balls Bill Adama…

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#282

Post by moron4hire »

ghaff wrote: post #195
moron4hire wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having also been alive at the time, I can tell you I thought the effects looked hokey and cheap.

They were pretty good for the budget. (As someone else noted at least a lot were done on Amigas.) I really liked Babylon 5 at the time but there's a lot about it you need to overlook. I recommended it to someone and they told me it was the worst recommendation I ever gave them. The acting was a mixed bag from very good to pretty wooden. And the whole will it get renewed or won't it situation led to non-optimal organi…

"Pretty good for the budget" is not the same thing as "good".

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#283

Post by decafninja »

MindSpunk wrote: post #72
fao_ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Season one it was a traditional adventure of the week style show that was popular at the time and before. because having a multi season story arc was unheard of and still more or less is today so the first season was traditional TV and only when mildly successful did it have the ability to spread its wings. and it did so so well that it forced other shows like DS9 to also have seasonal story arcs. Unfortunately inc…

The first season is definitely the most conventional (for the time) and I think that reflects in some of JMS's statements saying the show was still getting onto its feet through the first season. Having the serialized story was very unfamiliar territory for Hollywood television back then, they were learning on their feet. If I recall correctly JMS wrote basically every episode after season 1, where as season 1 had a…

Tangent, but a cartoon I immensely enjoyed as a young kid popped up recently on my YouTube feed - Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. That day I learned JMS wrote the story and it too featured an overarching story that backed the otherwise “episode of the week” format.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#284

Post by threethirtytwo »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #264
threethirtytwo wrote: post #161

I tried watching this (I grew up with it remembering it's on TV) and while it's watchable, it's not that enjoyable in modern times because it hasn't aged very well at all in terms of the FX so it's hard to get immersed. I know if I stick with it, it will probably get good (doctor who was like this for me) but it's a huge slog. I feel Star Trek TNG lucked out with all the choices they made. The designs and effects gen…

TNG looked like crap compared to modern standards, and why they spent a lot of money to restore and fix it. Was expensive/unprofitable enough that no other shows got the treatment. There were comparisons on youtube.

I'm talking about more then just the remaster. On a fundamental level the effects of TNG can hold up today. Babylon 5 can't. This is for both the space effects and the technology effects in the space ships themselves.

The LCAR interface still looks modern and it's way better than the babylon 5 CRT screens.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#286

Post by fractallyte »

Telemakhos wrote: post #152
nephihaha wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's let down by its effects which even appeared ropey at the time. However, some good storylines.

Having been alive at the time, I can tell you that the effects were amazing then. B5 was one of the first shows to use computer graphics and partially-virtual sets. It wasn't limited by the number of times you could re-composite a handful of models together, so it showed whole armadas of ships. Windows didn't open onto a black felt field of stars but a green screen that allowed ships to pull up right outside the wind…

I always felt that Ron Thornton and his team at Foundation Imaging were sadly underrated and overlooked in computer graphics history.

B5's SFX had a dynamism and color that was unmatched at the time. I recently rewatched the series, and the later seasons still hold up just fine, graphics-wise (created by a different company, but reusing Foundation Imaging's original assets and esthetic).

And I love how the Star Fury's design was so carefully thought out - even NASA took an interest.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#287

Post by chocochunks »

sylario wrote: post #263
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

I am incredibly out of the loop in the world of blu-ray. Do you still need to buy a terrible video player to read them legally on windows ? I give so little attention to physical media that I do not even know if 4k blu-ray use the same blu-ray storage format or if it is some sort of upgraded blu-ray with more storage.

Officially? Yes, unfortunately. 4K is even more complicated. Technically 4K is the same discs, but sometimes they use the rare BD-XL 100GB discs that not all drives can read. There's also a bunch of extra DRM junk, so for 4K you need a new drive, new software and an Intel CPU from a specific time period as new ones don't include the bits for 4K Blu-ray DRM.

Unofficially you use MakeMKV and just rip the disc.

EDIT: Oh, apparently PowerDVD no longer supports UHD Blu-ray either so even the official way is dead now.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#288

Post by watwut »

Groxx wrote: post #219
dizzy9 wrote: post #133

Excellent news. Babylon 5 is underappreciated, but it has mainly good episodes and several amazing ones.[0] However, if I can be cynical for a moment: The article title is misleading. Only a few episodes have been uploaded so far. At the current rate of one episode per week, it will take until March 2028 to conclude all five seasons. That's assuming they post every episode, and allow the episodes to remain up in the…

Yeah, so far I see mislabeled-pilot, and episodes 3 and 4. That... does not (currently) look like "Babylon 5 is now free to watch". That looks like a minor probing to see if they can charge for it again somewhere. That kind of thing happens constantly , and it's rare that it ever finishes.

Based on other articles, the plan is to release an episode a week. They are giving us 90ties experience, I guess. They just somehow managed to screw it up.

They did not released episode 1, which gives an authentic 90ties experience In 90ties people missed episodes. And misnamed the pilot movie as episode 1 and mislabeled other episodes.

And they dont use playlist and will be simultanepusly releasing clips from episodes, so it will be wonderfull mess.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#289

Post by jghn »

Arainach wrote: post #271
zelphirkalt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched all of TNG, Voyager and DS9. To me DS9 will always be behind the other ST series. I felt like it was a bit too much of the social stuff, maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel, but I guess that is exactly what people like about it. The characters and their development and so on. I liked the Garak character for example, but disliked Zisko being some chosen one for the wor…

>it was a bit too much of the social stuff Because clearly none of the other series focused on social stuff, except... TOS, which featured an interracial cast (and kiss) in the 1960s, where nearly every episode was thinly-veiled commentary on communism, where they visited a literal Nazi planet, where they had a black woman as a bridge officer (in the 1960s)... TNG, which went into deep moral arcs, looked into militar…

I interpreted the GP as saying "social stuff" as in focusing on social interactions between the characters instead of having more action & adventure. "maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel" was what made me think this.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#290

Post by TiredOfLife »

tracker1 wrote: post #190
TiredOfLife wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they did the upscaling for HD release on HBO Max, they messed up a couple episodes. Those were not upscales.

They definitely aren't 1/4 SD (DVD) though... The original series was SD, shot in SD for the early seasons with 1/4 res CGI. The HBO Max release was 1080p with some wife screen usage... The extra pixels came from somewhere.

Series were shot on film. The HD versions are a mix of rescanned film and upscaled vfx shots
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