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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

#341

Post by db48x »

yrro wrote: post #107
MindSpunk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The "TKO" 'A' plot is silly but it has one of the most moving and memorable 'B' plots of the series!

Agreed! In fact it is kindof annoying. Every set of orderable elements has a worst element, therefore every show has some bad episodes. You want to tell new viewers to just skip those episodes if they want, but it’s practically impossible with B5. If you skip TKO because part of it is cliche then you also miss the essential key to understanding Ivanova.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#342

Post by db48x »

wdkrnls wrote: post #108
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…

I heard the original story with O'Hare was for Babylon 5 to blow up after an alien attack and for the Babylon 4 to be sent forward from the past to replace it. We saw hints for that in two different premonitions in season 1. That's a pretty big departure from the story we actually got.

That’s entirely possible. The story was deliberately quite fluid so that it could be adapted on the fly to unforseen changes in the cast.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#343

Post by db48x »

tracker1 wrote: post #321
TiredOfLife wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I thought you said it wasn't upscaled at all.

Rescanning the film is quite different from upscaling. Film is a lot of tiny silver grains embedded in a transparent plastic medium. Each tiny grain is photosensitive. Once you get through the whole process of exposure, developing, fixing, etc, etc then each grain of silver becomes a tiny dot of light on a projection screen. Not a rectangle or a square, but an irregular blob of colored light amongst a sea of irregular blobs of colored light. When we scan the film to make a digital video we sample those blobs and turn them into rectangular pixels, losing some of the information that was present in the film. Upscaling the video doesn’t recreate the lost information, but rescanning the film at a higher resolution can absolutely capture more of the information from the film.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#344

Post by account42 »

M95D wrote: post #98
WorldMaker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There sadly isn't one. The 4:3 Blu-Ray remasters are about as good as it gets in visual quality, but there's a "cinematic" feel lost from the 16:9 DVDs, but the quality difference is noticeable and unfavorable. It's a bit of a dealer's choice at this point if you want "best available quality" or "best available widescreen." Babylon 5 was filmed at a weird moment where they were prescient about HD TV and the coming wi…

So the version here on youtube is a 16:9 widescreen crop of a 4:3 TV crop of the original 16:9 filming? And the remaining CGI are only the 4:3 crop from the lost 16:9 originals? Did I understand corectly? Then, is there a version somewhere with original uncropped 16:9 live action and 4:3 CGI? I can tolerate side bars. To me, seeing the complete video frame is more important than a consistent frame format.

> So the version here on youtube is a 16:9 widescreen crop of a 4:3 TV crop of the original 16:9 filming?

Only for the pilot (The Gathering), the rest seem to be from the 4:3 remaster which is probably the best version - so both same as the Blu Ray and streaming versions.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#345

Post by account42 »

dangus wrote: post #301
sylario wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don’t bother with trying to use a player on a computer. Use MakeMKV and a blu-ray drive. Use modified firmware to rip 4K titles. Details can be found on MakeMKV forums. After you rip them you can re-encode them to save storage space using Handbrake. Either that or buy a 4K player designed for a TV, like a PS5 or the two most popular Sony and Panasonic players on the market. - PS5 is a good choice if you need a vertic…

> New release titles often skip blu-ray entirely, especially for demographics that don’t care for the format like kids content. Either that or new titles will skip 4K so you’ll be paying $25 for 1080p when $10 will get you 4K digital. Then when you redeem the movies anywhere code, you don’t get 4K because your blu-ray is only 1080p.

On the other hand, digital DRMed releases will only get you 720p on Linux while MakeMKV with 4K Blu-Rays works just fine. And besides, who would want to watch new releases these days. Also keep in mind that 4K is not the same as 4K - bandwidth matters a lot and streaming providers tend to cheap out there.

It's definitely pricey though but with some patience you can grab even 4K releases at $20-30 and then you'll have that movie (and that specific version of that movie) for as long as you want and not just for however long the streaming service/contracts stay up.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#346

Post by account42 »

iso1631 wrote: post #150
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…

> The Blu-ray collection appears to be available for about $100. It saddens me that people aren't willing to pay a pittance in cash (about $1 an hour) for entertainment. They're willing to spend their time, but not their money. This isn't just buying a 100 episode box set, it applies to people complaining "I'd have to spend $10 on $streaming_service to watch that 5 hour miniseries, that's terrible" too.

The problem with that logic is that the people who have the most time (kids/students) often don't tend to have a spare $1 per hour. Thankfully there are other options for them, yarr.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#347

Post by account42 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #256
dingaling wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we just forgotten the DRM issues with Blu-Ray? I can't even watch them on Linux without relying on leaked keys. That's why legal unencrypted availability online is such a boon.

Why do you care about "legal"? Buy some version to have a legal and moral right to watch the show, and torrent a good version you can actually watch.

Or rip the Blu Rays, which is pretty easy these days, especially for non-4K releases.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#348

Post by account42 »

lolive wrote: post #212
Throaway1982 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoyed it until they shoehorned in an attractive human + wierd alien romance to compete with Odo & Kira (barf) on DS9

Didn't rewatch it for decades. But isn't this romance a very background narrative arc until the very latest season?

The "making one of the unique alien main characters look more human to be a better sell as a love interest to the audience" part is unfortunately ever present though. Then again, they already went in that direction between the pilot and the first episode.

Re: Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube

#349

Post by account42 »

gspetr wrote: post #215
chasil wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary thing to know is that the actor who played Sinclair in season one, Michael O'Hare, suffered from mental illness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Hare His treatments were only partially successful. He reappeared in a cameo appearance early in season two ("The Coming of Shadows") and returned in season three for a two-part episode ("War Without End") which closed his character's story arc. At that…

You should delete the spoilers. O'Hare's personal history is important, but the part of the comment about his chronological appearances in the show is not.

Eh, being mentally prepared for his sudden departure in Season 2 is not the worst thing. This isn't something he writers intended as a plot twist after all.
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