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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

#311

Post by mr_toad »

watwut wrote: post #288
Groxx wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 episod…

If it’s like the rest of YouTube it’ll quickly be buried in a pile of reaction videos, fan edits, Russian voiceovers and low-resolution re-uploads, with black borders on all sides.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#313

Post by pseudohadamard »

watwut wrote: post #288
Groxx wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 episod…

Well, as long as they don't opt for the Ferengi MBA school, or the Darth Vader one: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further".

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#314

Post by pseudohadamard »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #216
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…

Without understanding the motive behind it, you should assume it is not good news. You're right to be skeptical of the upload count. All they're doing is sheltering the show on YouTube until the view counters rise to the point of another streaming service making a charitable offer. Then, poof all episodes are moved to another service without notice.

This is why I bought everything on DVD years ago, I can watch and re-watch as often as I like and there's nothing some "rights holder" can do about the content that I paid for with my money.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#316

Post by threethirtytwo »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #298
threethirtytwo wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can still see the CRTs behind LCARS, but I have to admit it is pretty cool in general. They had a bigger budget. But for space scenes, IMO the later episodes of B5 were amazing and beautiful. They just need a modern render and to turn down the saturation. TNG era ships and camera framing were much more boring, partly due to the smaller story.

I'm gonna give it a shot. And by give it a shot I mean watch all 5 seasons lol. But I still think TNG just looks better. I get that the space scenes were less epic and the scenes are less dynamic. That restriction enabled effects that were more grounded in fidelity so it holds up with the CG of today.

I do know they used CRTs in TNG but not often. Most of the LCARS stuff was just literally backlit plastic panels. Because of that it's much less jarring whereas babylon 5 I think the CRT screens were used everywhere.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#317

Post by jghn »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #310
jghn wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about a show that aired 30 years ago isn't "spoilers". Anyone who wanted to not be spoiled has had plenty of time to go rectify that situation by now.

> Anyone who wanted to not be spoiled has had plenty of time to go rectify that situation by now. Unless they're a young person hearing about this show for the first time, here. It's wildly unkind to suggest that just because you know the big plot twists, everyone else should as well.

At some point there needs to be a statute of limitations on this stuff. In general I find spoiler fanatics kind of silly anyways: if I don't want something spoiled I don't read online discourse about that thing. It's my responsibility. But whatever.

But let's suppose I *did* care about spoilers. I shouldn't be expecting everyone to walk on eggshells when they're discussing Gunsmoke or Happy Days.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#318

Post by theonemind »

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…

I don't think caring much about special effects is necessarily universal. Good special effects add almost nothing to my enjoyment, and bad special effects detract almost nothing.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#319

Post by simoncion »

mindslight wrote: post #249
pwg wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I want to mess with using a web browser for video in my living room No need for all that. Just use yt-dlp ( https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp ) to download them as video files, and then just play the video files as you would any other video file. Just tested yt-dlp on s1e1 to verify it worked, and it worked perfectly to download the video.

Nope. > ERROR: [youtube] Y235YEQstLo: Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-pass-cook... for how to manually pass cookies. Also see https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-y... for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies That's the latest version of yt-dlp, just downloaded. I…

Try the '-4' flag. YouTube pretty consistently flags me as a bot when yt-dlp hits it over IPv6, but doesn't (yet!) do so when it's done over IPv4.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#320

Post by philwelch »

JLO64 wrote: post #269
Izkata wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: The S4 finale that rates merely "good" is actually a rapidly put together alternate finale when they got renewed for S5, using some of that season's budget. This was so they could delay the real series finale to S5 (originally filmed for S4, when they were unsure they'd get an S5).

Definitely not my favorite episode, but I got a kick out of the similarities to A Canticle for Leibowitz during one of the segments in it.

That was a very conscious and deliberate homage.
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