181 (edited by ireactions 2021-03-27 08:54:40)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Now that all the Season 3 - 5 episodes are done, I'm going to revisit each episode of Season 1 starting from the beginning. We have here clips from the Pilot: Quinn discovering someone's borrowed his identity and confronting Smarter Quinn; Quinn showing the vortex to Wade and the Professor; and then the ending with the sliders fleeing Communist America only to find they are still not home.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Previous samples will remain at
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

In terms of video quality: Universal did a pretty good job with a high bitrate scan of the Pilot master tape for the DVD. However, for each subsequent episode, they immediately cut corners, reducing the bitrate and also not bothering to deinterlace the video scan. The upscale here is not much of an upgrade on the DVD because the DVD was already good; the upscale just removes a lot of artifacts from stretching the image to fill an HDTV screen.

What's odd: it was totally unnecessary to shrink the episodes so much for the 8.5 GB discs on which they released the episodes. It makes me wonder if they originally planned to present SLIDERS on 4.7 GB discs. And if the Pilot was a first effort that they decided to keep at a high bitrate while drastically cutting their time and storage on the rest. The result was a fuzzy, blurry image for the Universal DVD release that Mill Creek made about 1/4 even blurrier in reducing the file sizes by another 50 per cent.

Most of the upscaled episodes are close or equal to the upconverted Pilot, although there have been a few anomalies.

**

One of the fun/frustrating things about being a SLIDERS fan: we have to make our own materials. We had to make our own behind the scenes guides (thank you, TF) because the people actually working on the show by the end were wholly untrustworthy. We had to make our own media tie-in novels and episode guides because Brad Linaweaver collapsed both markets with his inept novelization and guidebook.

We almost made our own comic books (sorry to hear about the licensing and budget issues TF) because Universal chose a comic book company that couldn't seem to get comic books into comic book stores.

We had to complete our own scripts from story outlines from the series creator because he was discouraged from doing so by the FOX Network. We had to make our own twentieth anniversary special.

We had to make our own DVD cases because Universal and Mill Creek presented them in fragile foam or envelopes. And we had to do our own episode remastering because Universal could not scan a video tape and deinterlace it correctly despite having been in film manufacturing since 1912.

You learn a lot when you're a fan of SLIDERS. I am gainfully employed because of all the talents I had to develop to make my own SLIDERS stuff. But nobody should have to do this to enjoy a show.

**

It's strange: RussianCabbie and I have had a debate. He thinks the Pilot and Season 1 look washed out and desaturated due to poor asset preservation. But I actually remember first watching the Pilot in 1995 as a child -- and finding that the show looked dull, grungy, dirty and ugly compared to other TV shows where everything was colourful and glamourous and Season 3 finally looked as good as other shows on TV.

When rewatching the show in a 1999 marathon on the SPACE Channel, my opinion changed: the Pilot looked like a well-budgeted independent movie with the realism of a documentary and Season 3 now looked plastic and overconsidered and false. The desaturated colour looked plausible and genuine The 'ugliness' looked true to life with the worn look of Arturo's lecture hall, the wallpaper of Quinn's home from the early 80s and the frightening environment of Communist America.

I remember on my first viewing finding the Pilot a bit slow in its direction, but I later watched the film ANNA AND THE KING (1999) with director Andy Tennant creating lingering, effective, haunting shots of characters and locations. I went back to the Pilot which Tennant directed and found that his craft and skillful sense of shot composition and location and scale had been lost on me at first, and now I could appreciate the slow burn of his work as well as his ability to ricochet between humour and danger.

I often think that SLIDERS would have been better off as a low budget cable show on the Sci-Fi Channel from the Pilot, and while that might be true, it definitely would not have had the budget of this Pilot and would have had a very different look.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

What's odd: it was totally unnecessary to shrink the episodes so much for the 8.5 GB discs on which they released the episodes. It makes me wonder if they originally planned to present SLIDERS on 4.7 GB discs. And if the Pilot was a first effort that they decided to keep at a high bitrate while drastically cutting their time and storage on the rest. The result was a fuzzy, blurry image for the Universal DVD release that Mill Creek made about 1/4 even blurrier in reducing the file sizes by another 50 per cent.


What's most maddening is the SVOD downloads at amazon, itunes, cable providers are all of horrible quality.... and that is without restriction to a disc size.

I think the stuff on Comet looks better though than the svod downloads.

One of the things Freaks & Greeks blu-ray did was rescan film and then use the 16:9 frame, even though it was broadcast orignally in 4:3.  I guess no crew were caught in the shots.   So the ultimate would not only be a film scan but the full 16:9.  But you wonder if there might ever be image recognition technology that could "build out" / imagine the rest of the frame to make it 16:9.  This seems quite possible if you apply machine learning from 16:9 frames.  I'm not sure there'd be enough commercial application though for someone to develop this.

And yea I'll never stop believing the colors on the pilot were intended to look like that.  But I could be wrong.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

egg heads looks terrible on peacock

184 (edited by ireactions 2021-03-27 08:55:08)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Yeah, "Eggheads" almost killed me on this project. But for now! Clips from "Summer of Love": the teaser, the spider-wasp on Arturo and the ending.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

"Summer of Love" is the second episode of SLIDERS. Narratively, it's a bit scatterbrained with the team split into Quinn and Arturo running around together, Rembrandt being inducted into an abusive marriage, Wade stumbling into leadership of a hippie commune and commiting herself to the role. But the sheer charisma and drive and passion of Tracy Torme's scripting allows the story to piledrive through any problems.

There's a certain artlessness to Quinn giving a massive infodump about the war with Australia (and I have staggered into doing similar things in my own scripts). The comedy of Rembrandt stumbling into his double's funeral only to discover his double had a cruel spouse and isn't even dead after all is really funny. I'm a bit worried about Torme writing black people, however, and I have been informed that Rembrandt and the portrayals of black people are indeed a racist caricature. However, the person who told me that was white. I have also been told that Rembrandt's bursts of cowardice in Season 1 are demeaning to black culture and I am simply not equipped to comment on it except to say I found it funny and a good setup for the depth Rembrandt displays in "Fever" and "Last Days" as a man of great love, spirit, care and someone who, despite his initial terror, can make tough decisions in a pinch.

Ultimately, this is the second episode and Torme still hasn't quite figured out his series yet, hasn't figured out how to balance the four characters, hasn't figured out how the sliders should get involved in each world, hasn't figured out how to smoothly integrate exposition into the stories -- but he seems to learn how to write his own show with each page and his sense of fun, wit, charm and grace is enthralling.

**

Cyberlink PowerDVD has a neat Smart Stretch function. It zooms in slightly on 4:3 video, then stretches the edges of the video, reducing the percentage of the stretch as it gets closer to the center of the frame. This converts 4:3 to 16:9 while only losing at most 5 - 6 per cent of the frame. This appears to be proprietary, however. You yourself attempted a smart stretch on your own software and found that it distorted the frame. This doesn't happen in PowerDVD.

However, I don't use PowerDVD anymore. I used it on a home theatre PC, but I've since then replaced it with an Android TV box in my living room. Alternatively, I watch videos on an Android tablet. Watching anything on a laptop is rather cumbersome now because I have to plug in an external drive. I haven't found any Android TV or mobile apps with smart stretching and I've just accepted that 4:3 video will be pillarboxed. Zach Snyder seems to be into it with his JUSTICE LEAGUE cut.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

**

Cyberlink PowerDVD has a neat Smart Stretch function. It zooms in slightly on 4:3 video, then stretches the edges of the video, reducing the percentage of the stretch as it gets closer to the center of the frame. This converts 4:3 to 16:9 while only losing at most 5 - 6 per cent of the frame. This appears to be proprietary, however. You yourself attempted a smart stretch on your own software and found that it distorted the frame. This doesn't happen in PowerDVD.

However, I don't use PowerDVD anymore. I used it on a home theatre PC, but I've since then replaced it with an Android TV box in my living room. Alternatively, I watch videos on an Android tablet. Watching anything on a laptop is rather cumbersome now because I have to plug in an external drive. I haven't found any Android TV or mobile apps with smart stretching and I've just accepted that 4:3 video will be pillarboxed. Zach Snyder seems to be into it with his JUSTICE LEAGUE cut.

I think I have PowerDVD so i'll try it if I do. 

yes, I did do a smart stretch when I did an upscale and it mostly worked, but ultimately the more the characters moved to the side of the frame, the more they got stretched.  Which really started annoying me at times.   It looks fine when they are toward the center because no much stretching their

I'll have to see if I can check out power dvd's version to see if it feels better.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

"Prince of Wails"' end sequence:
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Someone recently asked me to define the style of each of SLIDERS' five seasons. I would argue that SLIDERS arguably had eight separate periods within its five seasons.

  • Season 1A: Alternate history for social satire and dramedy/horror and black comedy with an (intentional or not) emphasis on how the United States of America is the greatest nation in the world founded on principles of fairness, honour, respect and equality that are universal and from which any deviation leads to a horrific dystopia.

  • Season 1B: Alternate history for social satire and dramedy/horror and black comedy with a skepticism if not outright rejection of the fairy tale that the United States of America is in any way a just or equal society or could even pretend to be a utopia.

  • Season 2: Alternate history with black comedy/sci-fi technology settings with dramedy, high emphasis on chase sequences.

  • Season 3A: Action adventure with magic and sci-fi technology and alternate history in equal balance, little to no social commentary.

  • Season 3B: Horror, nihilism and contempt for all life.

  • Season 4A: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on sliding technology.

  • Season 4B: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on computers and worlds defined by advanced level of computer technology.

  • Season 5: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on technology in general (computers, but also cloning, biotechnology, neurosurgery, crystaline data storage, air travel).

"Prince of Wails" is clearly still in the 1A category.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Prince of Wales was a fun episode.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Yeah, I like "Prince of Wails" too. It's wonderfully charming and a pleasure. And now for an episode that is not a pleasure: "Fever" -- arguably one of the finest hours of SLIDERS ever made with an uplifting and positive ending that you can see here in HD.

https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Temporal Flux once remarked that SLIDERS was imaginative not in suggesting how things could have gone, but instead predicting what tomorrow might bring and "Fever"'s pandemic story hits so close to home that I have absolutely nothing to say about it except this: Wear a mask. Protect yourself. And your mask must be (a) water resistant on the outside to resist droplets (b) contain electrostatic filtering within the layers or with a PM2.5 filter to catch virally contaminated particles and (c) be in sufficient quantities that you can throw any mask you've worn in a paper bag to self-decontaminate over 72 hours while still having enough masks for the next three days.

**

In other news, UNIVERSAL SIGNS has apparently been available in a supposedly HD format on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/universalsigns UNIVERSAL SIGNS is a 2008 film starring Sabrina Lloyd. It's particularly funny because when I first started writing SLIDERS screenplays in 2011, I had trouble getting Wade's voice from watching SLIDERS itself. I saw UNIVERSAL SIGNS was for sale on DVD through the film's website, eagerly purchased a copy and anticipated playing it with my eyes shut to concentrate on Sabrina's voice -- only to discover it was a silent movie, performed entirely in sign language and had no spoken dialogue (or at least none you could hear). I eventually had to find DOPAMINE, also featuring Lloyd as a troubled schoolteacher, and that got it to work.

Anyway, it is supposedly in HD on Vimeo, but I bought and downloaded it -- and it's a shockingly poor image. It's 720p, but the bit rate is so painfully low that the video is filled with blocky artifacts and blurriness. It looks like it was filmed digitally but hypercompressed for online download.

However, I was able to run the 720p file through Topaz and deblock it entirely, smoothing out the artifacts and bringing out each strand of Sabrina Lloyd's hair and the marks and pores on her face. I emailed the company to ask if there were an AI option to also add an audio track to the movie with all of Sabrina Lloyd's dialogue made audible and they said they'd get back to me after Easter.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

**

In other news, UNIVERSAL SIGNS has apparently been available in a supposedly HD format on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/universalsigns UNIVERSAL SIGNS is a 2008 film starring Sabrina Lloyd. It's particularly funny because when I first started writing SLIDERS screenplays in 2011, I had trouble getting Wade's voice from watching SLIDERS itself. I saw UNIVERSAL SIGNS was for sale on DVD through the film's website, eagerly purchased a copy and anticipated playing it with my eyes shut to concentrate on Sabrina's voice -- only to discover it was a silent movie, performed entirely in sign language and had no spoken dialogue (or at least none you could hear). I eventually had to find DOPAMINE, also featuring Lloyd as a troubled schoolteacher, and that got it to work.

Anyway, it is supposedly in HD on Vimeo, but I bought and downloaded it -- and it's a shockingly poor image. It's 720p, but the bit rate is so painfully low that the video is filled with blocky artifacts and blurriness. It looks like it was filmed digitally but hypercompressed for online download.

However, I was able to run the 720p file through Topaz and deblock it entirely, smoothing out the artifacts and bringing out each strand of Sabrina Lloyd's hair and the marks and pores on her face. I emailed the company to ask if there were an AI option to also add an audio track to the movie with all of Sabrina Lloyd's dialogue made audible and they said they'd get back to me after Easter.

it's really cool sabrina was part of such a quality project like that.  and she looks great too.  i mean that was 13 years after the pilot (or whenever it was shot) but it's a very different look.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Just want to reiterate how great this experiment was and thank Ireactions for it.  I'm not sure Universal could do a better job than the samples.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I'll resume posting upscaled clips later this week.

192 (edited by Tucker 2021-06-07 21:56:46)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Everything I've seen here looks really good. Keep up the good work!

Also to add on a few things:

"Young and the Relentless" had Cleavant and Clinton Derricks-Carroll playing Rembrandt and Rembrandt-2 with Cleavant always taking the role whenever either Rembrandt was the focus of each shot, and with Clinton carefully angled so that any visual discrepancies between the two non-identical twins would seem due to the point of view.

I think the episode you mean is Greatfellas. In this they did a really good job of getting the two Remmy's on screen. Even looking at the HD-ness of it, I still can't tell which is which. From what Ib described to me a while back (I could be wrong) that they put Cleavant's head on top of Clinton's body or something?

As per Tom's request, here are Colin's key scenes from "O Brother Where Art Thou," which has one of the most obnoxious characterizations of Quinn ever: Quinn brings his innocent, naive brother sliding and promptly forgets about him in a hotel bar to flirt with an extra.

Oh god, I hate that scene for that reason. I think this top's Quinn's already pshycotic and out of character moment from earlier in the episode of him asking to slide open his brother's arm.

It's strange, though -- "O Brother" does present the traditional Quinn-intelligence quite well with the villains outwitted by some improvisational thinking -- except that it's Colin who demonstrates this cleverness, not Quinn Mallory.

Procededes to add to stories I plan to write but probably won't

Smarter Quinn being humbled by his cocky donation of sliding to the Kromaggs is interesting, but it presumes two things: 1) the Quinns have met before, and 2) VQ knows about the Kromaggs.

Here's another thing, albeit very very nickpicky. Mary, the Kromagg Interpreter in Invasion claimed that the Krommaggs took over her earth when she was a little girl. In the Pilot, Smarter Quinn claims that he was on his eighth slide. Timelines don't really add up. Also why does he give sliding tech to the Kromaggs? Like really. (They probably gave an explaination in the show that I have just forgotten about lol.)

I remember as I was working on "Net Worth: The Quinn and Wade Edition," you remarked, "I don't even need to ask you why you'd go to all this trouble for such a nothing episode. I already know why. You're a loon!"

Because it's an interesting experiment, that's why you did it lol. I ejnoyed Net Worth: The Quinn and Wade Edition and probably remember more from that version of it then the aired one lol. If you ever came back to Sliders writing, it would be interesing seeing you rewrite more S4 or S5 episodes with the original cast.

He told me he hated it for being everything he didn't want SLIDERS to be: formulaic, predictable and safe with the sliders saying good-bye to everyone and triggering the vortex offscreen to save a few bucks and sliding out, without any sort of closing commentary on consumerism or debt or anything thought provoking that would prevent it from being forgotten five minutes after watching it. He also hated Quinn punching out the mall manager like "GI Joe." (I didn't understand the reference then and I still don't.)

I can see why he doesn't like that ending. (We all knew he hates Action Hero Quinn of course.) The less focus on consumermism, the off screen vortex jump, the lack of risk involved. Ib once told me that my stories in particular lacked a sense of danger to them. That would be something I would need to fix if I ever came back and finished my stories. And at the end of the day, Torme probably wouldn't like my scripts very much either. That's okay, for an ameature, I'll take Season Greedings level of episodes if that's what I am.

His punches have the power of KICKS.

Doesn't he beat up like three different people in Paradise lost? Or am I missremembering again lol. Still prefer him asaulting the scummy mall manager over him beating up the doctor for no good reason in Exodus.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Tucker wrote:

I think the episode you mean is Greatfellas. In this they did a really good job of getting the two Remmy's on screen. Even looking at the HD-ness of it, I still can't tell which is which. From what Ib described to me a while back (I could be wrong) that they put Cleavant's head on top of Clinton's body or something?

That was a typo. This is the first time in recorded history that I have made a mistake. Now I know how everyone else must feel.

(That's a joke that the late comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie would make a lot.)

Clinton is on the left and Cleavant is on the right. Clinton's face is narrower and his face has a certain melancholy to it whereas Cleavant's face is wider and his natural expression seems to be a smile. Someone once remarked that there was an irony to Cleavant playing "The Cryin' Man" when he is always smiling.

**

My opinion of Tracy Torme is he finds fault with any piece of fiction that he didn't produce himself (unless it's a Western). I'm just guessing, of course, I don't truly know him. In an offline podcast, Torme said that he often avoids reading fiction because he doesn't want his own writing to be influenced by others.

Torme is extremely talented and his personal tastes are largely in sync with most fans. Also, the bulk of the series is riddled with stories that neither Torme nor the fans wanted to see.

However, there is a distinction between personal taste and technical proficiency. "Season's Greedings" is a capable, professional product even if Torme disliked it. In contrast, most of Seasons 4 - 5 are witlessly unprofessional and inept and definitely not what Torme or fans wanted to see. Writing should be evaluated in terms of what the author set out to accomplish and how well they achieved it, not whether or not Tracy Torme would like it.

I imagine that Torme would have been perfectly happy to buy your story ideas for SLIDERS but then rewrite them entirely to suit his own sensibilities and preferences if you'd been alive and in the industry when SLIDERS was on the air.

**

No subsequent episode of SLIDERS ever explained how the Kromaggs of "Invasion" had decades of interdimensional conquest but were only given the sliding technology between "Pilot" and "The Other Slide of Darkness." In fact, the Season 4 Kromagg arc contradicts "Darkness" as the Kromaggs had sliding before Quinn was even born and apparently shared a homeworld with humans.

The simplest explanation is that Smarter Quinn was insane and fabricating false memories and delusions. That's what I went with in my own SLIDERS writing. As for how Smarter Quinn recognized our Quinn -- if I had to come up with an explanation, it would be that most Quinn-doubles have a scar above their lip. This is a scar Jerry O'Connell sustained at the age of 11 that necessitated 74 stitches. Perhaps this happened to Quinn as well when he was attacked by a dog at a pound (as Quinn and his mother may have gone to a local pound to see if the runaway Bopper had been found).

Perhaps Smarter Quinn has noticed that while the majority of Quinn-doubles have scars, the scars are all subtly different in depth, length and angle. Perhaps Smarter Quinn always takes care to memorize the scar placement on each double and assign it a numerical value based on depth, length and angle which he then uses to identify and distinguish his doubles.

Some people of certain mindsets of total validity will read this theory and reasonably think, "That's ridiculous. The scars are totally identical because Jerry plays both doubles and you want people to think that Quinn can somehow tell the difference? Does Quinn have Superman's microscopic vision now? I get that Quinn Mallory is your very favourite character, but how many more superpowers do you need to give him?"

That would be fair.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

My feeling was that Smarter Quinn encountered a world where Kromaggs dominated instead of humans independently of the imperial Kromaggs and shared his technology with them for whatever reason.  Then he left there, never encountered another world with native Kromaggs, and assumed (incorrectly) they became the empire.

195 (edited by Tucker 2021-06-09 17:13:10)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I imagine that Torme would have been perfectly happy to buy your story ideas for SLIDERS but then rewrite them entirely to suit his own sensibilities and preferences if you'd been alive and in the industry when SLIDERS was on the air.

If I had been a writer on Sliders when it was on, or if somehow I was involved in the bringing back of sliders today, I’d probably be the Scott Smith Miller of it all where I can fabricate the idea but can’t write the script lol.

However, there is a distinction between personal taste and technical proficiency. "Season's Greedings" is a capable, professional product even if Torme disliked it. In contrast, most of Seasons 4 - 5 are witlessly unprofessional and inept and definitely not what Torme or fans wanted to see. Writing should be evaluated in terms of what the author set out to accomplish and how well they achieved it, not whether or not Tracy Torme would like it.

Well of course. Whether or not Torme liked Season Greedings, it’s a good episode. There are probably some other good episodes that he doesn’t like personally. I would think if you were the creator or author of a piece of work, you would have a certain mindset of how things are supposed to be and anything derivative from that mindset wouldn’t suit you.

Perhaps Smarter Quinn has noticed that while the majority of Quinn-doubles have scars, the scars are all subtly different in depth, length and angle. Perhaps Smarter Quinn always takes care to memorize the scar placement on each double and assign it a numerical value based on depth, length and angle which he then uses to identify and distinguish his doubles.

Well first of all your 'Smarter Quinn being insane' theory is pretty valid and makes a lot of sense. The only thing that I would find funny is that Smarter Quinn is not in the right mindset so he creates false memories of giving an alien nazi race sliding tech, yet he has microscopic vision to be able to analyze a specific scar on his doubles faces.

Perhaps this happened to Quinn as well when he was attacked by a dog at a pound (as Quinn and his mother may have gone to a local pound to see if the runaway Bopper had been found).

I always find it interesting how you’re able to come up with all this backstory info and explainations for the littlest details. I bet you probably have an explanation for all the different cast changes of Quinn’s parents lol.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I honestly have never given recasting much thought. As someone who loves superhero comic books (although I don't read them religiously anymore because superheroes are in TV and film), it once jarred me when a new artist took over because Steve Ditko's Spider-Man doesn't look like John Romita's Spider-Man who is distinct from the Spider-Mans drawn by John Romita Jr., Mark Bagley, Steve Skroce, Steve McNiven, Stefano Caselli, Stuart Immonen, Mike McKone, etc..

Over time, I came to accept that Spider-Man's underarm webbing comes and goes; Spider-Man's webbing is alternative loops of spaghetti or cross-hatched netting; his eyes are thickly outlined or thinly sharp; his spider-emblem shifts in size and position and alignment; his suit goes from a dark scarlet and navy to a vivid crimson and sky blue. Each penciller, inker and colourist will emphasize different aspects of the design and adjust Spider-Man to their preferences. To me, recasting Michael and Amanda with Tom Butler and Linda Henning swapped for Jim Turner/Tom Walcutt with Deanne Henry is like changing the artist in a comic book.

That said, there is a serious oddity in "Genesis" where Linda Henning plays Amanda Mallory but Marnie McPhail plays Elizabeth Mallory, Quinn's mother on Kromagg Prime. Why wouldn't a double of Quinn's mother be Linda Henning as well? David Peckinpah clearly made a mistake and got his new/old backstory confused, thinking Quinn's new parentage meant his mother had to be someone else. To me, this strikes me as a glitch in the "Slide Effects" simulation or the result of a corrupted timeline as explained in SLIDERS REBORN -- which to me served as a blanket explanation for every SLIDERS continuity error ever.

However, I confess, I am a bit doubtful of catch-all blanket-explanations for SLIDERS despite offering one myself. Ultimately, fiction is created by flawed human beings. When humans attempt to create an entire fictional world with its own history and laws of science, they are going to make mistakes in construction due to oversights and gaps of knowledge. Trying to claim that one can explain every error in previous stories implies that future stories will have no errors at all and SLIDERS REBORN has as many errors and plotholes as any of the SLIDERS stories it's trying to explain.

There's an episode of DUE SOUTH that I love where the lead character, Constable Benton Fraser (Paul Gross), is locked inside a bank vault with his partner, Detective Ray Vecchio (David Marciano). Fraser taps the door of the vault with a tuning fork to determine from the sound and echo how thick the door is and how long it'll take for bank robbers to drill through. "Where did you get a TUNING FORK?" Vecchio sputters. Fraser casually replies, "That's not important," noting and dismissing the plothole.

There's another episode of DUE SOUTH where Fraser meets a reporter, Mackenzie King, played by Madolyn Smith-Osborne, a tall, dark haired, lean, statuesque lady, and they team up for an adventure. One season later, Fraser meets Mackenzie King again; she is played by Maria Bello who is short, blonde and full-figured. Fraser accepts it.

At the start of the third season, Fraser returns to Chicago after a prolonged absence to meet Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) only to find a stranger sitting at Ray's desk played by Callum Keith Rennie. This man insists that he is Ray Vecchio, all the police detectives in the office declare that he is Ray Vecchio, the man has identification and a badge naming him as Ray Vecchio -- at which point Fraser wonders if he's lost his mind. Fraser tricks this impostor into providing fingerprints, bite prints, shoe size, height measurements -- and then finally finds the police captain and presents his evidence to prove this man isn't Vecchio.

The captain rolls his eyes and says, "Of course he's not Ray Vecchio" and explains that Vecchio has gone undercover with the mob on a secret mission that cannot be discussed, but to maintain cover, everyone must pretend that this man is Ray Vecchio and has always been so; the man's real name is Stanley Kowalski. This explanation is completely nonsensical and doesn't explain why an undercover operation with criminals require that the undercover police officer have someone else inhabit his life. It's not meant to make sense. It's a wry commentary on recasting and how everyone pretends the actor is the same.

There was a point to this, but I can't remember what it was.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Lol, I get it. You were trying to say that fiction is created by flawed human beings and that almost everything made is bound to have continuity errors that don’t have simple explanations.

Back on that one point, it is really weird considering I’m pretty sure Mrs. Mallory in Genesis even said “your real parents are our duplicates.” (Or it was said by the Kromagg Prime Michael Mallory) and then Quinn is able to have a different mother altogether yet look exactly the way he should. Your “glitch in the Matrix” explanation probably makes the most sense to that. Out of universe, it’s possible David Pechinpah didn’t like Linda Henning or something like that.

The only time continuity errors really become an issue is probably when writing fanfiction. In Forgiveness, I needed to give a date for the first slide. Well in the pilot it’s September something 1994, yet it’s 95 in Summer of Love. I just used the September date in 1995 for that part. It wasn’t a big deal lol.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

It's possible that David Peckinpah didn't like Linda Henning. A TV show where three-quarters of the contracted regular cast leave the series despite having at least 2 - 4 years left on their contracts is a TV show that's a toxic environment, a show that can't get people to stay, a show where the showrunner has clearly lost the ability to run a show or get through an episode without alienating anywhere from 5 - 25 per cent of his entire workforce.

However, Linda Henning is in "Genesis" -- the same episode that inexplicably introduces Marnie McPhail as Quinn's mother. Why did Peckinpah hire two actresses to play one role? The simplest explanation is that David Peckinpah's brain had warped severely from all the speedballs he was shooting up.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Probably the more complex explaination is that he knew Kromagg Prime Mrs. Mallory would be an on-going role and if he didn't like Linda Henning, he hired a new actress, while still kept her in that episode to explain her off in a way. But that's giving a little more credit then is needed to Peckinpah.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Just a heads up guys.  There's a DVD AI upgrade enhancer software package normally 200 bucks that is free today.

https://sharewareonsale.com/product-tag … tive-deals

Search dvdfab video enhancer AI on the page.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Sadly, I won't be able to try this software. I thought about downloading it, but ultimately didn't because my gaming laptop is currently upscaling all my DUE SOUTH DVDs to 720p and I can't stop it right now to try a different software. Maybe you could take a run at some of the SLIDERS episodes.

Anyway. Get ready to see clips of Quinn and Wade's first date tonight in FakeD. :-D

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

Sadly, I won't be able to try this software. I thought about downloading it, but ultimately didn't because my gaming laptop is currently upscaling all my DUE SOUTH DVDs to 720p and I can't stop it right now to try a different software. Maybe you could take a run at some of the SLIDERS episodes.

Anyway. Get ready to see clips of Quinn and Wade's first date tonight in FakeD. :-D

unfortunately, it didn't work on my computer, as I have an older version of Windows.  So no luck.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

And one Nvidia graphics card reinstall later, we are back! Presenting Quinn and Wade's first (and last?) date in FakeD: https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

And one Nvidia graphics card reinstall later, we are back! Presenting Quinn and Wade's first (and last?) date in FakeD: https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg


cool

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

The finale of "The Weaker Sex" in FakeD where Arturo tries to lose an election.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

There was a huge gap between recent sample updates because -- I'm actually not sure. I updated the driver to my Nvidia graphics processing unit and for some reason, Handbrake lost the ability to do GPU-enhanced video encoding. Instead of using the graphics card, the computer was using the Intel processor which was way too slow for daily encodes. I had to start from the earliest driver available and keep uninstalling and reinstalling each successive driver until I finally found the one that Handbrake could use to access the GPU.

Interesting to see Quinn and Wade have their first date in "Last Days" and then in "The Weaker Sex," Wade is apparently referring to Quinn as her boyfriend and Quinn is drying her hair after a shower. We somehow go from this to "Luck of the Draw" where Wade no longer wants to be romantic with Quinn for reasons known only to Sabrina Lloyd (which is to say, we know why Sabrina Lloyd didn't want to keep the romance, but we don't know why Wade wanted to end it).

It's also noteworthy that despite Quinn and Wade apparently being quite romantic in "Last Days" and "The Weaker Sex," Rembrandt was totally surprised to learn that Quinn and Wade had a romantic date in "Last Days" when it's mentioned in "Gillian of the Spirits."

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

"Eggheads:" Arturo's first scene with his late wife and Wade's reaction.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

"Eggheads" nearly killed me. For reasons beyond me, the Season 1 + 2 Dual Dimension set has Eggheads encoded at an even lower bit rate than all the other episodes in the set. I have no idea why. It's not as bad as the Mill Creek release, but it was still too blurry to upscale effectively. After four attempts, I manage to convince someone with the standalone Season 2 Universal DVD release to rip their disc and send me the file. This version of "Eggheads" was at the same level as the other Season 1 and 2 episodes on the Dual Dimension release, and this was the version I upscaled to FakeD.

Anyway. When writing SLIDERS scripts, I always come back to this scene to hear Arturo say, "Intellectual refinement's one thing. Moral refinement's something different." It helps me get his voice.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Interesting to see Quinn and Wade have their first date in "Last Days" and then in "The Weaker Sex," Wade is apparently referring to Quinn as her boyfriend and Quinn is drying her hair after a shower. We somehow go from this to "Luck of the Draw" where Wade no longer wants to be romantic with Quinn for reasons known only to Sabrina Lloyd (which is to say, we know why Sabrina Lloyd didn't want to keep the romance, but we don't know why Wade wanted to end it).

I would guess perhaps they tried or attempted a romance once more between Weaker Sex and Luck of the Draw but ultimately they (well more so Wade) decided it wasn't a good idea while they were busy sliding from world to world. Plus they wouldn't get much alone time with Rembrandt and Arturo around a lot. I always just thought that she only told the lady at the company that Quinn was her boyfriend even if they never established it fully because it would have been easier to get him a job that way.

It's also noteworthy that despite Quinn and Wade apparently being quite romantic in "Last Days" and "The Weaker Sex," Rembrandt was totally surprised to learn that Quinn and Wade had a romantic date in "Last Days" when it's mentioned in "Gillian of the Spirits."

Well I don't know Remmy but it's possible he saw them being cute together and was secretly shipping them lol. So then when he hears that they had an actual romantic encounter, he's like "yeah my friends are getting together, finally." Their romance in Weaker Sex was also a lot more subtle. All that happened was Quinn drying Wade's hair while they talked to Arturo. There wasn't anything more to it (that we know of).

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

"The King is Back" finale in FakeD.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Not sure what to say about this one. It is very funny, but music is not one of my strengths. Also, I don't know about Torme's writing for black characters. Some have criticized it as a racist caricature; some have seen it as based on Torme's friendships with musicians. All I can say is that Cleavant Derricks is a wonderful actor and I love how he takes Rembrandt's torment and makes it all funny.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

"The King is Back" finale in FakeD.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Not sure what to say about this one. It is very funny, but music is not one of my strengths. Also, I don't know about Torme's writing for black characters. Some have criticized it as a racist caricature; some have seen it as based on Torme's friendships with musicians. All I can say is that Cleavant Derricks is a wonderful actor and I love how he takes Rembrandt's torment and makes it all funny.

There's something I really like about the feel of that episode.  Not sure if it's the directing, production design, wardrobe, cinematography etc but it feels a little..... cinematic?  The way the 80s/90 comedies felt.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I really enjoy it, but I can't speak to the racial and cultural implications. I'm not accusing it of anything; I'm just saying that as a Chinese-Malaysian-Canadian, I am not qualified to say whether or not it is a respectful and appropriate presentation of black culture. I absolutely love this episode and deeply enjoy it, but if a black person wanted to tell me why I shouldn't, I would welcome it, hear it and reconsider whether or not I like it.

211 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-06-28 21:15:04)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

I really enjoy it, but I can't speak to the racial and cultural implications. I'm not accusing it of anything; I'm just saying that as a Chinese-Malaysian-Canadian, I am not qualified to say whether or not it is a respectful and appropriate presentation of black culture. I absolutely love this episode and deeply enjoy it, but if a black person wanted to tell me why I shouldn't, I would welcome it, hear it and reconsider whether or not I like it.

yes, it's fair to say it is very troupe-y.  john landis really disliked the Rembrandt character where tracy thought it was over the top political correctness to criticize.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

So... is it offensive? Is it not offensive? I don't know what I think. Will you tell me what to think? My copy of WHITE FRAGILITY is not helping me in this matter.

213 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-06-28 21:13:37)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

So... is it offensive? Is it not offensive? I don't know what I think. Will you tell me what to think? My copy of WHITE FRAGILITY is not helping me in this matter.

it's not really my place to say either way -- i'm pretty sure there'd be folks within the black community who would laugh at it and folks who would be offended. and the former may be a bigger group of people but if people are really offended, and there's enough of them, then their feelings have to matter, even if outnumbered.

i don't look at the episode with any sort of shame but i think people have a right to have a conversation about it and they should be listened to.  but right now, i have yet to hear of anybody having that conversation around that episode that who are within the black community.  it's obviously very old content and i think that sort of conversation would take place  if it were a new show on a platform like netflix.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

"Luck of the Draw": the ending in 720p.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Annie Fish once remarked in their review of "The Dying Fields" that "Life is cruel, and unusual, and completely unfair. So why bother? Why bother feeling? Why bother trying— why bother with anything? You shouldn’t. And this is what SLIDERS is really about. It’s the personification of cynicism. Of nihilism. Of existential horror taken to such a complete extreme as to become completely meaningless."

Part of this is seeded in "Luck of the Draw" where Annie Fish tacitly argues that the logical endpoint of SLIDERS is that all the sliders die horribly because they are interdimensional travellers, but they are interdimensional travellers with no combat training, no resources, total randomness in their journey, a makeshift piece of equipment that facilitates their journey that is unreliable and possibly unmaintainable, and that inevitably, they will slide to their deaths.

But... I don't agree with that. Sci-fi television is all about people beating the odds, not meekly submitting to them. "Luck of the Draw"'s cliffhanger was not borne of nihilism. It came out of confidence: Torme knew that SLIDERS would be back. He knew that FOX would get the last 13 episodes of the original Season 1 order on the air and get the full cost of their fee to Universal realized in ad revenue. It's also why FOX finished the second season of SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES; FOX would have lost money by not finishing out their original order even though the show's ratings were poor.

Torme knew SLIDERS' return would be delayed. That the show might return in a very different form as FOX wanted to 'retool' the show for what would be Season 2. But it would be back. And so, SLIDERS in Season 1 ends with a cliffhanger to keep the show in the viewers' minds and urges them to anticipate its return.

"Luck of the Draw"'s cliffhanger is not declaring that Quinn getting shot is the likely fate of everyone on the show; "Luck of the Draw" is declaring that SLIDERS will return. That the sliders will always come back.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I've decided to attempt another upscale from 480p to 720 on the first season of SLIDERS (Episodes 2 - 9). The results of AI upscaling on the Pilot and Seasons 2 - 5 have been pretty good. While Universal and Mill Creek overcompressed the video files to fit more episodes on fewer discs, underneath the blockiness was film grain in which AI video upscaling could read and rebuild detail, so that from Season 2 onward, you could see the texture of the sliders' jackets and a crisp rendering of Rembrandt's hair and the scar on Quinn's face. The pilot was also scanned at a strong bit rate where the subsequent episodes were overcompressed for DVD.

However, Episodes 2 - 9 of Season 1 seem even further compressed than Seasons 2 - 5. Upscaling on these episodes has yielded an image that remains fuzzy and blurry in stark contrast to the strong results of upscaling Seasons 2 - 5. Compare a shot from the Pilot episode (left). This same shot is used in the credits of the remaining Season 1 episodes (shown on the right). You can see that the image quality is severely reduced.

https://i.ibb.co/85hVhjH/compare.jpg

I'm not sure why this over-overcompression is specific to Season 1's episodes after the Pilot. I can only guess that Universal's home video department compressed the Pilot to a reasonable bit rate only to be told that Season 1 would be released on one disc or two single layer discs. Perhaps that's why the remaining Season 1 episodes were encoded to be so small, only for the home video department to decide to release Seasons 1 - 2 together in one set on higher capacity discs, leading to a higher bit rate after Season 1.

I'm told that the German blu-ray release (all 88 episodes in standard definition on blu-ray discs) has the least amount of compression and is a marked improvement on the Universal DVD releases, and I have been able to buy a used copy off eBay. It will take anywhere from 6 - 8 weeks to arrive by post.

I'm hoping that the blu-ray will contain decent standard definition files for Episodes 2 - 9, or at least files good enough for AI upscaling them to bring them to the same level of video quality as the AI upscales on Seasons 2 - 5.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Let us know how the German version compares to Universal. Not really related to Sliders but I've noticed countries outside of the US get blu ray versions before the United States. Never understood that.

slidecage.com
Twitter @slidersfanblog
Instagram slidersfanblog

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Actually, I was thinking about sending you a blu-ray set so you could review it on your Slidecage blog. :-D

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I've been contemplating in the past about getting a set.

slidecage.com
Twitter @slidersfanblog
Instagram slidersfanblog

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

I'm told that the German blu-ray release (all 88 episodes in standard definition on blu-ray discs) has the least amount of compression and is a marked improvement on the Universal DVD releases, and I have been able to buy a used copy off eBay. It will take anywhere from 6 - 8 weeks to arrive by post.

I'm hoping that the blu-ray will contain decent standard definition files for Episodes 2 - 9, or at least files good enough for AI upscaling them to bring them to the same level of video quality as the AI upscales on Seasons 2 - 5.

great news

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

It's news. I don't know if it's great because for all I know, the blu-ray quality is the same as the Universal DVD set and unfit for upscaling.

I don't know what to expect. I've never been able to get a hold of anyone who has both the Universal DVD sets and the blu-ray. I did try upscaling the Mill Creek version of "Summer of Love," however, and the Mill Creek video quality is simply too poor for Topaz to rebuild any of the detail. I am a bit worried that the blu-ray version of the Season 1 episodes will be bad as Universal's DVDs.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

It's news. I don't know if it's great because for all I know, the blu-ray quality is the same as the Universal DVD set and unfit for upscaling.

I don't know what to expect. I've never been able to get a hold of anyone who has both the Universal DVD sets and the blu-ray. I did try upscaling the Mill Creek version of "Summer of Love," however, and the Mill Creek video quality is simply too poor for Topaz to rebuild any of the detail. I am a bit worried that the blu-ray version of the Season 1 episodes will be bad as Universal's DVDs.

I suppose it's possible, although I think  I've also heard the german dvd-on-blu-ray copies were perhaps better.  Or perhaps I am thinking of the Sliders reruns in germany on NITRO.  Or maybe I am thinking of re-runs on The Hub.


You can email the german sliders site:
http://www.sliders-dimension.de/

here's their review, which translated seems to indicate its a bit better than the dvds
http://www.sliders-dimension.de/DVD/com … cb_de.html


Despite SD quality, the video material looks slightly better compared to the DVDs, especially when it comes to the colors. You can see a slight improvement in contrast with the BD and the image appears a bit grainier and sharper. Especially with the newer seasons, colors are more natural. The DVD, on the other hand, looked slightly muddy and darker. However , a mistake seems to have occurred in the editing of the video material, at least in the episode In the Warlock's Realm . Over the entire term to recognize so-called interlaced strips ( interlaced). So image artifacts when people or things are in motion.

222 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-09-17 17:42:10)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Has anyone ever heard about the quality of the Australian collector's edition release?

https://www.amazon.com/Sliders-Collecti … d=&sr=

I guess since it's in PAL format the frame rate may be stroby..

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I'd like to learn more about the Australian release too!

I had a nightmare last night that my grandfather rose from his grave to slap me for buying a standard definition blu-ray set that conceivably has the same problems as the Universal set.

It's unclear which episodes the German site reviewed to compare the blu-ray to the DVDs, so we don't know if the video quality is better or worse or equal.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I received the German blu-ray set of SLIDERS this evening. It's region free, plays on my Region 1 blu-ray player. This blu-ray set is the set that Universal and Mill Creek should have released. I am delighted with the video quality. The Season 1 episodes offer a good DVD quality image.

For whatever reason, Universal's DVD release has an excellent scan of the Pilot on DVD with a high bit rate. It's a clear 640x480 image, it looks good when upscaled on an HDTV, it looks amazing when AI upscaled by Topaz to 720p video. However, for the subsequent episodes, Universal overcompressed the digital files so severely that they are fuzzy, blurry, washed out, hazy and Mill Creek's release brought the Pilot episode down to the level of the other 86 episodes and made everything even blurrier.

On the blu-ray release, the pilot and all 86 episodes that follow appear to be at the same level of quality as Universal's DVD release of the Pilot. The files have not been compressed into blurry haziness. I can use Season 1, Episodes 2 - 9 from this blu-ray to get a great 720p upscale. However, that's less necessary because the high DVD level video quality of this blu-ray is so good that even lightly stretching the 640x480 image to 1080p on my HDTV yields very pleasant results. The stretched image doesn't have the crystalline sharpness that AI upscaling would add, but it still looks pretty good and is devoid of the blocky blurriness of the Universal and Mill Creek releases.

I'm not clear if Universal provided high quality digital files to this German blu-ray company, Turbine Medien, or if Turbine got a hold of the master tapes and did their own scans. It's peculiar that the files on this DVD are not the files used for streaming services. This blu-ray uses standard definition video files, but they are well-scanned, high bit-rate standard definition files.

I'm going to upscale Episodes 2 - 9 of Season 1 again and then upscale "As Time Goes By" from Season 2 and see if these SD blu-ray files yield better results than the Universal and Mill Creek DVDs. The Universal DVDs for Seasons 2 - 3 weren't as compressed as Season 1's post-pilot episodes. The Mill Creek versions of Seasons 4 - 5 were compressed but not to the point of eliminating the grain in the 16mm film. It's possible that the upscaled results for post-Season 1 episodes won't be any better even with the less-compressed blu-ray files. But it would be interesting to see.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I'm still in the process of upscaling "Summer of Love," but I've been further exploring the Turbine Medien blu-ray set and... it's interesting. Season 1 on the blu-ray looks good, certainly better than the Universal DVD releases. However, Season 1 on this blu-ray set does not look as good as Season 2.

I skipped ahead to "As Time Goes By" in Season 2 (all of Seasons 1 - 2 are on a single blu-ray disc). "As Time Goes By" is a quantum leap forward from the Season 1 video quality: I can make out every strand in Jerry O'Connell's hair, I can see the texture of his skin right down to the details of the scar on his face. And this isn't a high definition image: it's a 640x480 pixel image that my blu-ray player is simply stretching to 1080 pixels high. This 640x480 pixel video of "As Time Goes By" is actually superior to my 720p AI upscale of the Universal DVDs because there is so much more texture detail in the image. (I'm still not sure if upscaling this 640x480 picture to 720p via AI would necessarily make it better; it might be numerically at 960 x 720 pixels in the video file, but it might not look any different from simply stretching it.

When watched at living room-TV distance and with the backlight reduced on the HDTV, the "As Time Goes By" blu-ray SD looks close to blu-ray HD. Turn up the backlight in full and get up close and you can see that it's not quite as sharp, of course.

The blu-ray versions of the Season 1 episodes -- including the pilot -- are not at the same standard as what I've seen of Season 2. They do not look like near HD files on my HDTV. They have a fogginess, they lack the crystalline sharpness of the Season 2 episodes. Season 1 episodes on the blu-ray look like a decent DVD (as opposed to the Universal set looking very poor and the Mill Creek set being a blurry set of blocks). The pilot episode on both the blu-ray and the DVD have the same level of video quality which means that an upscale will be able to sharpen up the Season 1 episodes quite effectively and create good 720p files.

However, Season 2 on this blu-ray looks so good that AI upscaling any of the Season 2 blu-ray episode files seems totally unnecessary to me at this point, at least to the degree that I was doing it. Topaz has alternate algorithms for higher quality SD files; the Season 2 blu-ray might benefit from being boosted to 1080p or even 4K via AI upscaling.

I'm not sure why Seasons 1 - 2 look so different. Certainly, Seasons 1 had Peter Woeste as the cinematographer and Season 2 had Robert Hudecek. Woeste liked gray midtones, Hudecek preferred high contrast and shadows. Woeste's photography is more painterly and artfully in soft focus, Hudecek likes sharpness. But the massive difference in visual quality can't just be stylistic. For years, it looked like Universal and Mill Creek's overcompression was why Season 1 looked so bad because everything other than the pilot looked bad.

However, the blu-ray isn't overcompressed. Each episode is at least 1.6 GB large. I think that Season 1 used a film to tape transfer process that significantly muddied the results; it wasn't noticeable on original broadcast on a cathode ray tube television. But it's clear that not every film to tape transfer process is built equally: the original LOIS AND CLARK broadcasts had pretty decent 35mm photography even after the tape transfer, but any time there was a special effect, the video quality would drop into blurriness as though a lower quality video suite were now in play.

I think Season 1 must have used a different process from the subsequent seasons for the film to tape transfers for editing and effects. A process that yields poorer results, a process that has left the original master tapes of SLIDERS in Season 1 with a fogginess that is not due to overcompression (although the overcompression made it blurrier).

I think the AI can clear most of that away the way the AI could present a very sharp 720p version of the pilot using the high bit rate of the Universal DVD's version of the series premiere.

Anyway. I think my upscales of Seasons 2 - 5 are totally worthless. People should just buy this blu-ray from Germany. My Season 1 upscales might be worthwhile, though.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I def. hear what you are saying ireactions about a different process used in season one vs. season two in the production process of the assets because it def. seems to me that they changed something between those seasons.  And maybe even from season three on vs. season two.

In any case, it would be interesting to try to push season two in an upscale as far as you can.  1080 or 4k.  I continue to marvel at your clips in the last up-res and it seems like with the german blu-ray you are also benefiting from your blu-ray player's upscale algorithm.  Which is not something everyone has.

I think there's definitely a case being made here for us to make a push to Universal to re-scan the film for the season one episodes and up-res any special effects shots.  It would be great if we could push peacock to do it.

In anycase, the question remains -- why are they streaming compressed files that look like ass?  Are they gettting mixed up between how they store digital assets?  The german release looks better per your reports and we know with The Hub the content looked better (did they upscale it?).

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I've played the raw blu-ray video files on my computer and I can assure you that the excellent SD video quality of the Season 2 episodes isn't from my player or TV. Turbine's video quality is just that good. :-)

Why are the blu-ray files so good while the streaming versions are so terrible?
My theory: Turbine Media Group acquired copies of the master tapes from NBCUniversal and created their own digital files from the tapes. I have never seen The Hub's broadcasts, but if the quality was superior to streaming services and the DVDs, they may have done the same.

Bargain Bin Operation: Mill Creek said they didn't have the resources to do their own scans of the master tapes, but Mill Creek is a low budget operation. They cram whatever files they get onto as few discs as possible for the lowest price point possible. As you said, their SLIDERS release was for people who vaguely remembered the show and would pay the discounted $20.

Even Mill Creek's blu-ray releases, described as adequate in various reviews, compress as many episodes onto as few discs as possible (although reviews indicate that the compression isn't too damaging as the HD files have margin for reduction).

A Different League: In contrast, Turbine Media Group is a big budget prestige operation; their website sells blu-rays of classic horror movies from the 1970s to 1990ss in HD and 4K with steelbook packaging, vintage packaging art that's had digital aging effects to create a sense of authenticity.

Rescans and Remasters: Turbine advertises new releases of films where they have done their own 4K transfers and sound remasterings of DRAGONHEART, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, TWISTER, CRASH by David Cronenberg (and with Cronenberg's supervision). Not all of their blu-rays claim to be new transfers, however. It looks like they do remasterings if the files they've received are not up to their standards. Even for the blu-rays where they seem to be using the studio's files, they have Turbine-exclusive commentaries such as with CANDYMAN, THE HILLS HAVE EYES and AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON.

Existing Infrastructure: This tells me that Turbine has a facility for rescanning film negatives and videotapes into high quality digital formats, remastering sound and audio, and recording audio commentaries, and they were able to put SLIDERS master tapes through their in-house processes rather than taking whatever NBCUniversal sent Mill Creek and Netflix. It would definitely have cost Turbine time, but they wouldn't have had to rework their operation or purchase new equipment because they were already using that equipment for their remasters of TWISTER and whatnot.

_________________________________________


Season 1 Restoration
It takes 10 hours to upscale each episode of SLIDERS and that's after taking some time to copy the files to my hard drive and convert them to constant framerate with progressive video. Season 1 on the blu-ray looks like a good DVD transfer: clear but lacking in fine detail and a little fuzzy. That fuzziness is accentuated when stretching the image from 480 pixels to 720p; I think Topaz can likely reduce that. It's going to take me about 3 - 4 days.

The Pilot looked like an okay DVD video. Upscaling made it a very good DVD video. I expect the rest of Season 1 when upscaled will fall in line and look like good DVDs. That's nice, but not at the same level as the Season 2 blu-ray SD episodes which surpass the limits of DVD quality.

An Impromptu Scale
Let's create a scale of HD video quality. We'll put a blank screen at 0 out of 10. And we'll consider, say, a 1080p blu-ray of the latest Marvel movie at 10 out of 10.

Abysmal to Poor: I would put the Mill Creek DVDs at 1 out of 10 which is to say that there is a video image and it qualifies as being more than a blank screen. I would rate the Universal DVDs at 3 out of 10; they're viewable but blurry and covered in compression artifacts.

Middle of the Road: I would rank the Universal DVD version of the Pilot episode and the blu-ray version of Season 1 at 5 out of 10. Not overcompressed, decent enough DVD quality, but still on the blurry side.

Better Than Average: I would put my upscale of the Pilot and Season 2 - 5 episodes at 6 out of 10: serviceable, not distractingly poor, nowhere near a 1080p Marvel movie release, but certainly more good than bad.

Very Good: However, I would put the blu-ray SD release of Seasons 2 - 5 at 7.5 out of 10 in terms of HD presentation. They are still not HD, but the flaws of SD on an HDTV are largely absent and all the merits of sharpness and detail and clarity are strongly in evidence. Put your face up to the screen and you can see it's blurrier than a true HD image and short of the crystaline quality of CAPTAIN MARVEL or a Netflix episode of RIVERDALE -- but who actually watches TV that way?

I can get the other Season 1 episodes to 6 out of 10 with Topaz. However, it's really just for my own personal viewing. Season 1 on the SD blu-ray looks good enough and most people who'd play SLIDERS on blu-ray have a player or TV that can sharpen up the image.

_________________________________________


Future AI Upscaling
Once Season 1 is finished, I'll certainly AI upscale "As Time Goes By" to 4K. However, it could take 24 hours and my expectations are not high.

Topaz upscaling does not actually add detail to the video. Instead, it removes flaws. When you stretch the Universal DVD version of the Pilot or "As Time Goes By" from 640x480 to 1080p on an HDTV, you get an image that is stretched to the point of blurriness and the blocky artifacts of compression are even more present.

Cleanup: Topaz removes these distortions of stretching and compression with clever combinations of increased pixel contrast that's applied specifically to different categories of texture. Topaz's result is still a stretched image, but with all the blur and artifacts alleviated with pixel contrast and deblocking so that it resembles an HD image on an HDTV. However, that high definition look is an illusion; Topaz is not adding any detail, it's just clearing away the obstructions that distract from the detail underneath the stretch and compress.

The fogginess of the S1 episodes even in an uncompressed format is, in its way, a form of compression. It's from crunching down a 35mm film image to a standard definition videotape. And Topaz can alleviate some of the fogginess of the poor quality film-to-tape transfer in S1.

Hitting the Ceiling: In the case of the S2 - S5 blu-ray files: there is no fuzziness. There are no artifacts of compression. I don't think Topaz can do any more cleanup because the image is already clean. It's a standard definition 640x480 image, but the detail and depth contained within those 640x480 pixels are sufficient to scale to an HD screen without blurriness. The SD blu-ray version of "As Time Goes By" has more film graininess than the upscale. Within that SD graininess is texture that shows you pores in the actors' skin and their individual strands of hair.

I don't believe Topaz can improve this image. Topaz tends to smooth out grain in video files when upscaling them, extrapolating and increasing the pixels around the grains to create the illusion of detail, and ultimately producing high resolution video files that lack film grain texture. Topaz would likely, in bringing these files from SD to HD, cover all this detail with a waxy sheen. I suspect that the blu-ray video files, outside of S1 needing a sharpening pass, are best left alone.

My view: S2 - S5 on blu-ray are the best possible digital versions of the standard definition master tapes. They can't be improved by our current level of AI upscaling technology; at this point, the only improvement would be to rescan the original film to 4K and rebuild HD versions of the episodes.

(It'll be good to find out for sure, of course.)

Standard Definition Detail: Also, my upscaled video files, for wider shots, often had a watercolour blurriness because the AI couldn't lock onto any fine detail in order to increase it from 480 pixels to 720p. Examples include Arturo-2 holding his book in "Prince of Wails" with the text being unreadable; the stairs to Quinn's front porch in "Into the Mystic" being a mess of overlapping lines, or the sliders standing at a distance at the end of "Time and Again World". The upscale made these shots look like garbled video data. But in the blu-ray SD version, these shots look deliberately soft focused.

The blu-ray is just better. The DVDs have been garbage; my upscales have been garbage with some polish. Get the blu-ray. :-)

I will try AI upscaling the blu-ray SD version of "As Time Goes By" to 4K. It will take at least a day. But based on what I'm seeing, the results will probably be the same as having Handbrake stretch the image to 4K in 20 - 30 minutes and it will lose image detail and fail to gain anything.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

Skimming through some Season 4 episodes on the SD blu-ray. The level of detail in these low-compression files is amazing. And these episodes were definitely shot on 16mm film. I'd recognize this graininess anywhere -- specifically from watching five seasons of the TV show CHUCK, also shot on 16mm and also extremely grainy.

229 (edited by ireactions 2021-10-03 08:17:48)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

"Summer of Love" is looking well after the upscale, having gone from okay DVD quality off of the blu-ray to being a good DVD. Still nowhere near the splendor of the S2 - S5 episodes, but it's good enough.

It looks as good as my other upscales -- clear and clean (and a bit 'waxy' post-upscale) -- but it does not match the look of the Pilot upscale.

Left: SD blu-ray file. Right: Upscaled to 720p blu-ray file.
https://i.ibb.co/5W69T97/quartet-summer-of-love.jpg

In fact, looking at the Pilot and "Summer of Love" on uncompressed blu-ray, it's become clear: the Pilot and "Summer of Love" have very different standards of video quality. The Pilot does not have the soft focus look of "Summer of Love" and subsequent Season 1 episodes. I'm not sure why.

Yes, there's a different cinematographer for the Pilot (Glen Macpherson), but MacPherson still seems to gravitate to low contrast, gray-oriented filming like Peter Woeste. My guess -- and it is just a guess -- is that the Pilot used one particular method for film to videotape transfer -- then the rest of Season 1 used a different method, one that created the blurriness from "Summer of Love" to "Luck of the Draw."

Left: SD blu-ray file. Right: Upscaled to 720p blu-ray file.
https://i.ibb.co/P40v6mC/01.jpg

I wonder if it was deliberate in that the film to tape process for Season 1 after the Pilot seems to have smoothed out the grain texture of the 35mm film. The Pilot episode had occasional flickers of dust and scratches across the image that makes it so distinctly filmic. "Summer of Love" to "Luck of the Draw" are so smoothed out that it could be deliberate; an effort to present a clean image where all the dust and scratches of film have been almost airbrushed away.

It wouldn't have been particularly noticeable on a cathode ray tube television; in fact, the Pilot and "Summer of Love" didn't look any different to me when I watched it on the SPACE channel in the late-90s aside from the absence of dust and scratches after the Pilot. But in a digital format, the smoothing is deeply destructive because it destroys the film grain that, in high definition, presents fine detail.

Left: SD blu-ray file. Right: Upscaled to 720p blu-ray file.
https://i.ibb.co/3vnkW3h/02.jpg

I guess the Season 2 team went back to a film to tape method that left the grain alone.

In the original upscale I did of "Summer of Love," you couldn't make out anyone's hair: the Professor's beard and the top of Rembrandt's head was just a vague, dark, digital fuzziness. Now the hair is distinct and defined. Everything still has the soft-focus look of all the S1 episodes, but it's still more in-focus and closer to the Pilot episode without being a match for it.

Left: SD blu-ray file. Right: Upscaled to 720p blu-ray file.
https://i.ibb.co/JpCph48/3.jpg

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I'm hoping these screenshots capture some of the splendor of the blu-ray, in motion and scaled to an HDTV.

https://i.ibb.co/M2LbXmq/01.jpg https://i.ibb.co/09Kzqjw/02.jpg https://i.ibb.co/y6cFKd2/03.jpg https://i.ibb.co/Mpwbtn5/04.jpg https://i.ibb.co/xCF9zZP/05.jpg https://i.ibb.co/k6QXLgk/06.jpg https://i.ibb.co/YyNzhHK/07.jpg https://i.ibb.co/23ZLDhY/08.jpg https://i.ibb.co/XCHKFpP/09.jpg https://i.ibb.co/ThyypmQ/10.jpg https://i.ibb.co/R9XvpLJ/11.jpg https://i.ibb.co/rbZvMYb/12.jpg

231 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-10-03 08:41:49)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

I've played the raw blu-ray video files on my computer and I can assure you that the excellent SD video quality of the Season 2 episodes isn't from my player or TV. Turbine's video quality is just that good. :-)

love this entire post... will be re-reading it many times over.


ireactions wrote:

https://i.ibb.co/5W69T97/quartet-summer-of-love.jpg

just so i am understanding correctly, is image on left your original upscale (off universal dvd), right an upscale off the german release?


ireactions wrote:

I'm hoping these screenshots capture some of the splendor of the blu-ray, in motion and scaled to an HDTV.

https://i.ibb.co/M2LbXmq/01.jpg https://i.ibb.co/09Kzqjw/02.jpg https://i.ibb.co/y6cFKd2/03.jpg https://i.ibb.co/Mpwbtn5/04.jpg https://i.ibb.co/xCF9zZP/05.jpg https://i.ibb.co/k6QXLgk/06.jpg https://i.ibb.co/YyNzhHK/07.jpg https://i.ibb.co/23ZLDhY/08.jpg https://i.ibb.co/XCHKFpP/09.jpg https://i.ibb.co/ThyypmQ/10.jpg https://i.ibb.co/R9XvpLJ/11.jpg https://i.ibb.co/rbZvMYb/12.jpg



I always thought though universal s3-s5 releases were not so "dated" looking besides the 4:3.   Especially 4 & 5.

But these look really really good.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

On the blu-ray release, the pilot and all 86 episodes that follow appear to be at the same level of quality as Universal's DVD release of the Pilot. The files have not been compressed into blurry haziness. I can use Season 1, Episodes 2 - 9 from this blu-ray to get a great 720p upscale.

===================

ireactions wrote:

I've decided to attempt another upscale from 480p to 720 on the first season of SLIDERS (Episodes 2 - 9).

However, Episodes 2 - 9 of Season 1 seem even further compressed than Seasons 2 - 5. Upscaling on these episodes has yielded an image that remains fuzzy and blurry in stark contrast to the strong results of upscaling Seasons 2 - 5.

So it seems like ep  2 - 9 have large file sizes (1.6g) but doesn't quite hit quality of pilot, which is a bummer.  It would have been great otherwise.

It would be great if we could try to get a Discovery owned network to broadcast Sliders in re-runs again.  They owned The Hub.  I'd be curious to see what their assets are like for s1.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I have edited a previous post to clarify that on the left is the blu-ray SD image and on the right is the blu-ray image upscaled to 720p.

Regarding the post-Pilot Season 1 episodes: I've been able to look at the blu-ray SD version of "Summer of Love" more closely after upscaling it to 720p. A bit like looking at the video through a magnifying glass. I've realized that some of my previous comments on the Season 1 video quality were incorrect.

A closer look at the upscaled blu-ray version and comparing it to the SD blu-ray version makes it clear: the quality of "Summer of Love" is not at the same level as the Pilot on the blu-ray. The Pilot is very sharp and filled with detail from 35mm film. All the episodes from "Summer of Love" to "Luck of the Draw" lack that detail; they have a soft-focus look. It cannot be due to file compression because the files are around 1.6 GB each and have the same bit-rate as the Season 2 - 5 episodes and S2 - S5 look really sharp. The problem with Season 1 episodes is clearly in the master tapes themselves.

It appears that after the Pilot, the remaining Season 1 episodes were shot on film, then run through a film-to-tape conversion process that smoothed out the dust, scratches and grain on the 35mm film. Because the grain has been severely filtered out of these post-Pilot S1 episodes, there is a lack of fine detail and sharpness. Grain is what contains all these fine details. This is why the eight episodes after the Pilot have always been blurrier than the other 80 episodes surrounding them; it's present on every DVD release before this blu-ray set and it's present in this blu-ray set as well.

I have seen this anomaly before in LOIS AND CLARK on broadcast and in the DVD release. The 35mm film for LOIS AND CLARK looked like 35mm film (sized down to videotape) until there were special effects. When LOIS AND CLARK had scenes needing post production events (composites, video effects, background replacements), the film for those scenes was put through a different film to tape process that filtered out the grain (and dust and scratches) and also blurred the image.

Presumably, this 'cleanness' made it easier to add and overlay effects onto the footage.

I am not sure why SLIDERS' post-Pilot Season 1 episodes were subjected to this process for all scenes whether they had effects or not. It may have been an attempt to simplify production by having all film sequences transferred to tape in the same way regardless of whether they needed special effects or not.

It may have also been an aesthetic decision to clean up the shots by removing noise, dirt and scratches from the 35mm image with the thought being that for broadcast TV on CRT televisions, the loss of sharpness would not be perceivable to the viewer.

The Pilot episode has a lot of brief artifacts appearing across the image: specks of dirt and dust, small scratches across the negative. It makes it look like a movie. Someone processing SLIDERS at the time may have considered that a flaw. The next eight episodes look very denoised and despeckled to me with far fewer instances of dirt, dust and scratches. It shifts the 35mm film more towards the look of videotape.

Thankfully, there is a small amount of grain in the S1 episodes that remains present and the AI upscale has been able to give the image a slight boost in sharpness to make it look a bit more defined as a 720p video. It isn't perfect, but it's a nice step up and meets the quality of my upscales for Season 2 - 5 -- even if it doesn't meet the quality of the Season 2 - 5 episodes on the blu-ray.

It looks like with Season 2, SLIDERS changed its film to tape process; beginning with "Into the Mystic" (or "Time and Again World" if you prefer), dirt and dust and scratches reappear across the 35mm image. In addition, there is also graininess again once Season 2 starts.

A lot of studios and viewers see graininess as a flaw. As an obstruction over the image. Part of that is because modern audiences are used to digital video which doesn't have that graininess except when it's added as texture. But in film, the image is made of grain and reducing it is to reduce the rough texture of Rembrandt's hair or the wrinkles on Quinn's shirts or the muff of Wade's jacket or the pattern on Arturo's suit jackets.

234 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-10-03 11:41:27)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

I have edited a previous post to clarify that on the left is the blu-ray SD image and on the right is the blu-ray image upscaled to 720p.

Regarding the post-Pilot Season 1 episodes: I've been able to look at the blu-ray SD version of "Summer of Love" more closely after upscaling it to 720p. A bit like looking at the video through a magnifying glass. I've realized that some of my previous comments on the Season 1 video quality were incorrect.

A closer look at the upscaled blu-ray version and comparing it to the SD blu-ray version makes it clear: the quality of "Summer of Love" is not at the same level as the Pilot on the blu-ray. The Pilot is very sharp and filled with detail from 35mm film. All the episodes from "Summer of Love" to "Luck of the Draw" lack that detail; they have a soft-focus look. It cannot be due to file compression because the files are around 1.6 GB each and have the same bit-rate as the Season 2 - 5 episodes and S2 - S5 look really sharp. The problem with Season 1 episodes is clearly in the master tapes themselves.

It appears that after the Pilot, the remaining Season 1 episodes were shot on film, then run through a film-to-tape conversion process that smoothed out the dust, scratches and grain on the 35mm film. Because the grain has been severely filtered out of these post-Pilot S1 episodes, there is a lack of fine detail and sharpness. Grain is what contains all these fine details. This is why the eight episodes after the Pilot have always been blurrier than the other 80 episodes surrounding them; it's present on every DVD release before this blu-ray set and it's present in this blu-ray set as well.

I have seen this anomaly before in LOIS AND CLARK on broadcast and in the DVD release. The 35mm film for LOIS AND CLARK looked like 35mm film (sized down to videotape) until there were special effects. When LOIS AND CLARK had scenes needing post production events (composites, video effects, background replacements), the film for those scenes was put through a different film to tape process that filtered out the grain (and dust and scratches) and also blurred the image.

Presumably, this 'cleanness' made it easier to add and overlay effects onto the footage.

I am not sure why SLIDERS' post-Pilot Season 1 episodes were subjected to this process for all scenes whether they had effects or not. It may have been an attempt to simplify production by having all film sequences transferred to tape in the same way regardless of whether they needed special effects or not.

It may have also been an aesthetic decision to clean up the shots by removing noise, dirt and scratches from the 35mm image with the thought being that for broadcast TV on CRT televisions, the loss of sharpness would not be perceivable to the viewer.

The Pilot episode has a lot of brief artifacts appearing across the image: specks of dirt and dust, small scratches across the negative. It makes it look like a movie. Someone processing SLIDERS at the time may have considered that a flaw. The next eight episodes look very denoised and despeckled to me with far fewer instances of dirt, dust and scratches. It shifts the 35mm film more towards the look of videotape.

Thankfully, there is a small amount of grain in the S1 episodes that remains present and the AI upscale has been able to give the image a slight boost in sharpness to make it look a bit more defined as a 720p video. It isn't perfect, but it's a nice step up and meets the quality of my upscales for Season 2 - 5 -- even if it doesn't meet the quality of the Season 2 - 5 episodes on the blu-ray.

It looks like with Season 2, SLIDERS changed its film to tape process; beginning with "Into the Mystic" (or "Time and Again World" if you prefer), dirt and dust and scratches reappear across the 35mm image. In addition, there is also graininess again once Season 2 starts.

A lot of studios and viewers see graininess as a flaw. As an obstruction over the image. Part of that is because modern audiences are used to digital video which doesn't have that graininess except when it's added as texture. But in film, the image is made of grain and reducing it is to reduce the rough texture of Rembrandt's hair or the wrinkles on Quinn's shirts or the muff of Wade's jacket or the pattern on Arturo's suit jackets.


Thanks for clarification on the before and after.  I certainly see a difference.  I am assuming this is better than upres on a universal source as well as mill creek?

In terms of the season one post production process, outside the pilot, i think it makes sense to see if universal would maybe consider fixing those episodes.  But seems like even re-scanning tapes they are edited on wouldn't deal with the problem?  The problem was when it jumped from film to tape, and de-noised?  In that case, they'd have to do film.  It'd cost about $10-15k per episode to do the scan/edit/up-res with an outsourced house.

Maybe if universal or peacock ever got serious about salvaging library content.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

I think that the SD blu-ray has the best possible scan of the master tapes. I just noticed: they aren't actually 640 x 480 pixels, but 20 per cent larger at 768 x 576 pixels.

The blu-ray S1 episodes are not as overcompressed as the Mill Creek/Universal S1 files, so yes, the upscale is a massive improvement on my previous efforts. My S1 upscales before looked poor; they now look very good (but not great). I've actually deleted all my S2 - S5 upscales. The blu-ray has made keeping them unnecessary. I'm just going to keep the upscaled Pilot (no need to run it twice) and the new S1 upscales.

My suggestion for Universal would be to scan the videotapes of S1, upscale it to 720p, then run it through the AI again but not increase the resolution. This would be specifically to have the AI reapply another round of texture-specific sharpening (and it would be another 15 - 20 hours on my hardware.)

It's also possible that I can run the upscaled files through a Handbrake sharpening filter. I can't do it right now, however, because Handbrake uses the graphics card and the GPU is presently occupied with upscaling the rest of Season 1.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

I think that the SD blu-ray has the best possible scan of the master tapes. I just noticed: they aren't actually 640 x 480 pixels, but 20 per cent larger at 768 x 576 pixels.

I wonder if it's possible the German company got their hands on source files different than what universal america distributes to u.s. partners, or they keep stuff  in seperate folders.

Maybe there is some seperate set of assets (that maybe even have different  specs for conversion to pal, or requirements internationally), that are just better.  Perhaps provided by an enttity in Europe or Universal has some seperate folders for international assets.

If the  german company re-scanned tapes, maybe there are copies of masters for international partners floating around.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

My guess: Turbine licensed SLIDERS from NBCUniversal and requested the master tapes, which they scanned to digital files at their own facilities. However, I don't believe Turbine would be required to provide NBCUniversal with their digital scans; Turbine did it on their own equipment for their own release of SLIDERS and is only obligated to pay NBCUniversal the licensing fees and sales percentages.

I imagine NBCUniversal wouldn't be allowed to use Turbine's files without paying Turbine a fee for the resources and labour that Turbine put into rescanning the tapes on Turbine's equipment -- and NBCUniversal likely doesn't wish to pay Turbine for their work and isn't going to use their versions for streaming services when NBCUniversal's DVD files won't incur any further fees.

238 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-10-03 12:45:57)

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

My guess: Turbine licensed SLIDERS from NBCUniversal and requested the master tapes, which they scanned to digital files at their own facilities. However, I don't believe Turbine would be required to provide NBCUniversal with their digital scans; Turbine did it on their own equipment for their own release of SLIDERS and is only obligated to pay NBCUniversal the licensing fees and sales percentages.

I imagine NBCUniversal wouldn't be allowed to use Turbine's files without paying Turbine a fee for the resources and labour that Turbine put into rescanning the tapes on Turbine's equipment -- and NBCUniversal likely doesn't wish to pay Turbine for their work and isn't going to use their versions for streaming services when NBCUniversal's DVD files won't incur any further fees.

Yea. I'm just not sure universal would trust them with the master tapes. Wouldn't that be a bit of a concern?  Like they could even get lost in transit.

That said maybe universal would consider it an acceptable risk.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

The term "master tapes" may be an overstated misnomer. I think it unlikely that each video master of each episode of SLIDERS exists solely on a single cassette per episode.

There must be multiple videotape copies of the final edit of each episode. Copies would have been needed for review, for affiliate broadcast, for overseas airings, for advertising to cut ads and create create lower resolution copies to send to press, for archival purposes should production need a clip show.

Are there 100 cassettes for each of SLIDERS 88 broadcast hours? Probably not, but the number has to be more than one even if it's less than 100. Before digital files, there must have been a sufficient number of the cassettes to send to different locations for airing and conversion to alternate standards of broadcast and for NBCUniversal to send copies to companies like Turbine seeking to produce home video products while still having quantities remaining.

I think there would have also been some expectation, perhaps even contractual, that these tapes would be returned to NBCUniversal upon expiry of syndication and affiliate broadcast requirements. Surely the Canadian SPACE channel and Canada's Global TV aren't keeping SLIDERS videocassettes still. These wouldn't be cheap, consumer grade VHS tapes; this would have to be something like Betacam or U-Matic or DV cassettes. NBCUniversal might contractually require Turbine and such to pay penalties in the event that these materials are not returned upon a set deadline.

There may also be, from an accounting standpoint, value in retaining multiple copies of video masters because they can be assigned a dollar amount, that NBCUniversal can use to present the SLIDERS property as one of their many assets that adds to their company being worth a specific amount of money should they be courting investors or seeking to be purchased.

That said, a fan editor whose name I won't give -- he apparently managed to acquire copies of videocassettes of WONDERFALLS, LOIS AND CLARK, XENA, HERCULES and other 90s and early 2000s shows. He spent tens of thousands of dollars buying them. He seemed to have found former staff members at broadcast affiliates and home video distributors and marketing firms that had kept the tapes (so maybe they're not always returned). He scanned these tapes to digital formats and ran them through AI upscaling. He crowdsourced for donations to buy more of these master tapes and, I guess, was issued a cease and desist by various studios because he abruptly shut down his crowdsourcing and went dark.

Now, these were not NBCUniversal productions. But I don't think this hobbyist fan would have been able to get master tapes if the industry standard was to only have masters existing in a quantity of one; there must be more than one. But probably less than 100.

Re: Sliders DVD Releases (Universal, Mill Creek, SD blu-ray, Restoration)

ireactions wrote:

The term "master tapes" may be an overstated misnomer. I think it unlikely that each video master of each episode of SLIDERS exists solely on a single cassette per episode.

There must be multiple videotape copies of the final edit of each episode. Copies would have been needed for review, for affiliate broadcast, for overseas airings, for advertising to cut ads and create create lower resolution copies to send to press, for archival purposes should production need a clip show.

Are there 100 cassettes for each of SLIDERS 88 broadcast hours? Probably not, but the number has to be more than one even if it's less than 100. Before digital files, there must have been a sufficient number of the cassettes to send to different locations for airing and conversion to alternate standards of broadcast and for NBCUniversal to send copies to companies like Turbine seeking to produce home video products while still having quantities remaining.

I think there would have also been some expectation, perhaps even contractual, that these tapes would be returned to NBCUniversal upon expiry of syndication and affiliate broadcast requirements. Surely the Canadian SPACE channel and Canada's Global TV aren't keeping SLIDERS videocassettes still. These wouldn't be cheap, consumer grade VHS tapes; this would have to be something like Betacam or U-Matic or DV cassettes. NBCUniversal might contractually require Turbine and such to pay penalties in the event that these materials are not returned upon a set deadline.

There may also be, from an accounting standpoint, value in retaining multiple copies of video masters because they can be assigned a dollar amount, that NBCUniversal can use to present the SLIDERS property as one of their many assets that adds to their company being worth a specific amount of money should they be courting investors or seeking to be purchased.

That said, a fan editor whose name I won't give -- he apparently managed to acquire copies of videocassettes of WONDERFALLS, LOIS AND CLARK, XENA, HERCULES and other 90s and early 2000s shows. He spent tens of thousands of dollars buying them. He seemed to have found former staff members at broadcast affiliates and home video distributors and marketing firms that had kept the tapes (so maybe they're not always returned). He scanned these tapes to digital formats and ran them through AI upscaling. He crowdsourced for donations to buy more of these master tapes and, I guess, was issued a cease and desist by various studios because he abruptly shut down his crowdsourcing and went dark.

Now, these were not NBCUniversal productions. But I don't think this hobbyist fan would have been able to get master tapes if the industry standard was to only have masters existing in a quantity of one; there must be more than one. But probably less than 100.

Makes sense.  Though you have to wonder.... If these were copies second generation if there could be degradation there too.  Or perhaps they make multiple "masters" they find a way to all have them identical quality