Evening all.

I was watching some X-Files dvds today and there is a very noticeable effect by which the moving image occasionally has a non-moving "clingfilm" effect. it's like a very fine mesh is between you and the image.

I realise that these were shot 15 years ago and then transferred to dvd later, but I can't recall seeing this on any other dvd. For the record I am viewing it on a crt telly, by a standard dvd player. I hate to think what upscaling and/or hd tv would do to the image.

Does anyone have experience of this?

Cheers

Which disk, happy to check my R2 copy on my hardware.

You are saying they are massively over compressed? How many episodes reside on a disc? Are the discs single layer?

Cheers Jarrak.

It's every disc upto season three so far!

Thanks

Hi Pocatello.

This isn't pixellation. There are three or four episodes on each dvd..don't know how to tell if they are single layer?

I'll dig out "Ice", my most watched X-File



Update..


Right, played the episode on my plasma (all user selectable video processing off) via the PS3 which was doing the scaling and de-interlacing. The image looked pretty much what I expected, some obvious compression issues made evident by the larger flat panel and a layer of noise associated with US NTSC content probably edited on video before transcoding to PAL.

Given the episode in question (rather dark) the image given the shows vintage and origin looked fine.

Easiest test is to stick it in the pc and run a rip program, if the file size total is over 4.5gb its dual layer. I think it might also have a golden sheen to it.

Cheers for the info...the box tells me that this is a dual layer dvd.

The "clingfilm" effect is likely to be the sheen across the picture that happens with US shows of this era that were transferred to tape for editing , unlike older US shows that were made entirely on film.

Assuming the discs are not "Asian Imports" or bootlegs of any kind , virtually all tv shows are on dual layer discs .

I'm watching X-Files again at the moment and just started season 4 and the images are no different to how they have ever been before - which is disapppointing when you think of the quality they have lost by using the transfer to tape process for so many years.

US shows earlier than The X-Files back to the late 80's and Star Trek TNG look even worse.

My X-Files boxsets are a mix of R1 and R2 and the quality is no better on the R1 despite them being in the original NTSC format .

I had always assumed it was the transfer into PAL that made these shows look bad but I recall when I first viewed Star Trek TNG on NTSC laserdisc and saw how shit it was it became clear that its the transfer from film to tape that costs the quality the most

Thanks snotrageater...nice nick...I had thought of this and will be looking at the later seasons tomorrow to see if the same effect is there.

Unfortunately all 9 seasons of the show will be the same .
Check out the 2 movies to see how good it could have looked

The effect should be present on pretty much all US shows of the same era.
One notable exception was Quantum Leap that managed to maintain all film production for the whole 5 years and thats paying Universal dividends now as that show is suitable for HD and is being shown on the Sci-Fi Channel in HD.

Unfortunately for The X-Files , the transfer to tape process pretty much rules HD out without considerable work and expense , especially for fantasy shows with extensive effects

I've noticed that. Is there a reason for this, e.g. did they transfer it via projecting onto a screen then videoing that or is there another reason?


Even in the early 90s when I first watched ST:TNG on a mid-size, near-decade-old CRT (not a demanding setup even then) it was obvious- and slightly distracting- to me that the picture quality was horribly soft and generally crap, even by the standards of the time.

And as you say (and as I suspected when I saw that the DVD transfers still looked bad despite the higher quality of video transfers in recent years), this is down to the lousy quality of the original video masters.

The worst thing is that even if they have all the source film intact, and were prepared to re-edit it, AFAIK a lot of the effects were created *directly* on video and so don't- and never did- exist in higher quality form.

All the clever upscaling in the world won't hide source quality that poor, and they'd stand out like a sore thumb if mixed in with hi-res film transfers.

While they could remake them from scratch in higher resolution (which I suspect they'll do anyway at some point), IMHO this clearly crosses a line in terms of authenticity to the original.
Last edited by Kodaz : 31-08-2010 at 22:33

Thats the problem with many shows of the sci-fi variety.
The effects were done on the cheap so making them into HD is impossible unless they do all new effects which then won't be the same as the original versions.
Of course the CGI upgrade of Star Trek TOS has shown this can be done well and to acceptable standards.

There are unconfirmed rumours that some of these shows like TNG and X-Files created the effects on 35mm film also , however , on TNG at least , its clear to see that most if not all effects sequences are video generated so a true HD version would mean returning to the filmed studio elements and literally rebuilding the show and doing it all over again .

Obviously this will cost a fortune but in the long term I think its worthwhile and I daresay Paramount may have already experimented on TNG.

Virtually all US shows of this era suffer the same fate , but standard drama like Dallas for example has no additional work over and above what was filmed in camera , so a simple rescan of the filmed elements into an HD master would be relatively simple compared to shows like Trek and X-Files.

I believe this has already been done with Seinfeld.
Other hit comedies like Frasier and Friends could undergo a similarly simple upgrade.

I say simple , but its a long way from that - its just simple compared to the fantasy shows in question

I've noticed this effect quite alot on Dave, mainly on shows from the 90s. It's really apparent on Red Dwarf - yet it's absolutely fine on the DVDs.

I assume it's transfers/compression that's causing it? Not to mention Dave's god awful bit-rate.

Actually the BBC tried the opposite effect which was to take shows made on tape and then the use trickery to "filmise" the image to make it look as if it was produced on film.

Its still done to this day but modern shows made with this intent during production don't seem to be a problem .

The Office for example was shot on tape but then filmised.

But older shows made on tape then filmised many years later don't appear to standup as well.

Some Tom Baker Dr Who was aired on UK Drama in this format . The Grange Hill dvd's were done and Red Dwarf too.

Not sure if they still do old stuff after complaints

I'm still having trouble envisioning the "effect" as you call it. Any screenshots?

Many thanks to all of the above posters.

Pocatello, screenshots might not do the effect justice, but imagine watching it through a screendoor or fine mesh. I must stress that this can't be seen for the majority of an episode, in fact most of them are fine. The titles suffer from it, though.

Cheers

A still image will not really exhibit the problem on either front as I think its connected to adjusting the frame rate so you need to see things in motion to pick it up

To be fair, TV shows have always had to make the most of a budget that's limited compared to cinema films.

The problem I have with ST:TNG is that they recorded their effects in a form that was blatantly poor quality even then. Perhaps with the limitations of NTSC back then it wasn't noticeable on US televisions of the time, and that's all they cared about?

I noticed that a lot of older US shows made on film looked okay on British TV at the time. Did they transfer directly from film to PAL video?


True; I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't possible, just that (aside from the time and money required) it wouldn't be a 100% authentic version of the original show, which matters to some people.


Yes, I thought the same thing. It'd probably be worth it for Friends, since that *still* seems to be very popular with the mass market and it has no(?) effects to be redone.


I might be wrong, but didn't the 90s BBC stuff (e.g. Red Dwarf 7) simply filmise by dropping one of the two successive 50Hz fields and duplicating the missing lines? IIRC it did give quite a good "filmic" look due to this reducing the temporal resolution to 25 Hz (like film), but I also noticed that it made the scan lines quite visibly coarse.

As far as I'm aware, shows like Red Dwarf 7, which were made with the intention of filmising, are also lit and shot differently to traditional video productions.

(Apparently this is what caused a problem with "Neverwhere"; it was shot with filmising in mind, but they later changed their minds).


Perhaps part of the problem is that older video footage in particular looks quite different to film (e.g. brightly lit, other artifacts), is shot differently, wasn't made with filmising in mind and all the processing in the world won't entirely get around that?

Or perhaps they just didn't like the fact that it wasn't how they first watched it.

Pre film to tape shows were produced fully on 35mm film and back then broadcasters were actually sent film prints from which they made their own telecine transfers.

Even in the mid 80's the BBC were still broadcasting live from a film print and this came unstuck when they were showing an episode of Star Trek around 1985.

As we know the BBC hated precredits sequences so they used to physically cut the film and move the precredits sequence so that the credits ran first.

When BBC1 showed Return of the Archons the film actually broke at the edit point at the end of the precredits sequence.
They were still using the same old battered prints they had been using since 1969 so it was not a surprise.

They then had a break of several minutes before it came back and unfortunately they missed part of the first Captains Log entry which explained the background to the whole episode.

I believe a VHS copy of this incident is on Youtube if you look.

ITV never seemed to go to the trouble of switching things around and both networks seemed to like it when the US tv shows of the late 70's stopped airing pre-credits sequences and instead opted for a short collection of clips from the episode instead , so BBC and ITV could easily just skip that part- and they did

Not sure why it starts with the Central logo but here's the Trek breakdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY6H3SXKw6o

out of interest i bought the X files ultimate box pack thingy

there was no info i could see about the picture or sound, but i think on the early discs
a) the picture is 4:3, and not as good as i expected
b) the sound is 2.0 stereo

it improves in the later series, i think

i was surprised the ultimate edition was not better than this - but i presume this was how the series was filmed (I think friends is 4:3 also, isnt it)

It changes to widescreen in season 5 I think.
It was made in standard 2 channel surround so the dvd is as it was.

The Trek dvd's had the sound all jazzed up to 5.1 but it's not really that important

If you are connected to a decent amp the 2 channel sound will decode to a good Pro-Logic 2x mix which is more than adequate

Ah. I guess that explains why TOS is available on Blu-Ray, which I had previously supposed was all about marketing, rather than enhanced quality.

I take it from your comments that the results are worthwhile?

Ah, explains why the older film-based shows never had that horrid soft look of US video shows. (Even when I was pretty young I noticed that...)


Strange, thought it would be much easier to do it from tape by then. Would have been more interesting if it had been accompanied by gremlins


I'd guess that the uploader appropriated that pastiche of the Central logo as their own ident. Some people do that kind of thing on YouTube...

Definitely.
The original Star Trek looks superb and the Bluray discs give you a choice of watching the original effects in HD or the new CGI upgraded effects.

Thr dvd only has the new effects and the original dvd release although supposedly "remastered" was grim by modern standards