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Aside from the pilot episode, out of curiosity, what percentage of shots in s1 would you say have special effects in them?  I have a guess in my head but don't want to influence your answer.

Yea there as some abusive buyers from what I understand but it's probably a one percent or less incidence rate.

I once got screwed by a merchant as a buyer.  I never took it up with eBay support.  Waited too long.  I thought he'd act like a reasonable person but it's incredible the things people are willing to justify themselves.  I am sure that happens with buyers too who decide they don't want something.

Who knows, maybe at some point we can ask Turbine to do an SD on Blu-Ray for the North American market, where they can get their hands on those NTSC masters.  And quite honestly, if they ever did, with some of the knowledge you've picked up here, if they were willing to try to upconvert the stuff to 1080, it might help.

I'm not sure though the demand is great enough for a Sliders blu-ray on SD for the north american market. It would have to look really really good to attract hard-core fans to re-buy.

One thing I really do love though about the blu-rays though is how many episodes they can fit on disc.  It's a lot more user-friendly than other home releases.  I wish they had a "play all" button though.

Out of curiousity, does the LQ setting work best for non-pilot S1 episodes on close-up shots, and the problems it introduces only come when the camera is more zoomed out and there's less fidelity in the image to work with?  You may have already addressed that here, but I dont recall.

Yea, I was saying it would be nice if there was an AI tool that formed grain around objects rather than flatly across the image.  The link I pointed to I thought may have done that (for photos) but I could be wrong.

I think the first couple of seasons were tough for tracy but season 3 and dealing with peckinpah is what was really something that was hard and was the lasting taste he had.

Tracy is indeed very fan friendly... just today he did another episode of "The Prisoner" rewatch with a podcaster on youtube who is a sliders fan.

I also noticed how he said he'd never do a woke version of Sliders or something cookie cutter to chase where hollywood is going.  I don't think he's at a stage in his life where he's driven by money, and I think moreso just interesting things.

He does have a fully written pilot he did for the pitch so maybe if there's not a go, he'll find a way to get it to a sliders fan site, as he's shared some of his other concepts in the past.

I say it for a few reasons but if you've heard him go into details either peckinpaugh stuff, that was really hard for him.  Tracy isn't a type A personality like a lot of showrunners, at least back then, could be. In other words he has less asshole in him, and it didn't always do well with power accumulation or jockeying in those environments.

I think the experience was frustrating for him but once it got to peckinpah and the guardian, that's when it became super personal.

I have heard some more stuff from a former crew member helping shape some of my thoughts here but I want to leave that out.

As far as sliders coming back, I think we all know it's pretty unlikely.  It would be great if peacock took a chance but... well you know.  It's not like 2012 or even 2015.  It's 2021.  I hope to see it but won't get hopes up.

What has been beautiful about the last couple of years has been seeing bitter JRD talk nicely about sliders again.  Ask for fans to help and even emailing the CEO of universal himself. 

It's been nice to see Sabrina positively acknowledge it.  After she went through her own trauma.  I don't think she had good feelings about it for awhile.

It's been nice to see Jerry and his revival attempts.  And seeing him get together with Cleavant again to talk possibilities.

And it's been nice to see Tracy not just look at all the bad stuff but be able to think about the good stuff. 

So in some ways we've had a little revival.  If the group ever sees the probable writing on the wall (that universal won't green light them) i could see them willing to participate in something Tracy has written and put together with no character names or show title... and just released for the fan groups.  Sound effects on an audio drama doesn't take a genius and they can easily record dialogue on a cell phone mp3 player in an hour.  Send a quick email from LA, New Zealand, Africa/Canada. 

We don't need it but if Tracy had someting written or in mind... everyone might as well do it.

Then again maybe the actors would be more by-the-book than I think.

Anyway it's just an idea

the Universal upscale with the lq setting is clearly better there...

I don't think we have to do anything more but my sense is all the creatives involved would be up for it.

It took a long time for Tracy to get over the trauma he suffered on the original series and how he was marginalized. But all the cheerleading from fans, from John, Jerry,  cleavant.. I think allowed him to move back into a creative head space around it and push some of these issues aside and feel good about the original sliders core.  I also think JRD coming around and even Sabrina developing some good feelings lately indicative that they appreciate what they achieved, they appreciate each other and they appreciate the fans.

And Jerry would be up for something like that if he knew the doors were closed.   I think they all would want to give the characters and the fans a proper and deserving send off.

So yea it's not so much about what we as fans need to do to create content but I think this time it's about recognizing the feeling that all of the original creatives have and perhaps suggesting an outlet to channel it.

I feel like John, Jerry etc might look the other way and do it on "the low" and Tracy might want to do it because he has always appreciated how fans have stuck with the series to this day.  If universal says no he frankly might feel it's something he can offer (like he almost gave earthprime a story a few years back).

I don't think we need this but if they'd like to do it then it would be cool to do.

Anyone see those star trek fan films?  Jon Povill even wrote and  directed one of them.

I'm starting to think it's time to do a Sliders return "off the books". No use or the title Sliders.  No use of even the character names.  But a script written by Tracy, audio recorded on mp3 recorders on ones phone by our core four all from their homes around the world.  And produced by fans into a 20 to 40 minute audio drama in which the sliders get home.  Universal wouldn't come after it if it was just informally released on sliders social channels.  I think the actors would do it for the fans. I think Tracy woiud consider it as well. 

This assumes of course universal gives Tracy their pass on his discussions with them on a revival series.

You could say I'm definitely not a purist, but I do empathize with Star Wars fans.  I think originals should always be accessible...

That said, in this case they are.  Via DVD.  And with Sliders on a service like Peacock, that should be appealing to a broad audience, and not the purists.

I don't mind tinkering with the original intent of cinematographers here, given that whatever look they have been going for assumed better conditions, and the content airing on SD.  Everything now is interfering with the look they hoped to achieve, so it basically doesn't work under the current conditions.  And yes, I think additionally their vision got out of whack anyway with how the content was maintained/produced. 

Plus, frankily, when you have some dated looking elements (most apparent in the pilot, with the wallpaper in quinn's home, or the wardrobes, or wade's look, or the computers..), you have to try to make sure the material looks more newly shot or the age of the program feels more out-of-date.  Stale.  If the picture looked as good as The Prisoner, let it be a period piece... but it can't even show the period with clarity.

i'd also argue for a peacock, the content should perhaps be dynamically cropped to 16:9.  It's 2021.  Look at how HBO Max takes pride in their library.  Sure's it's archival stuff but give consumers a half way decent experience, not just the schlock Universal sends you.  Even Seinfeld is cropped.

I'd love to see Tracy oversee somesort of upgrade, or restoration for Peacock.  Let him decide.

Modern tvs really should have an SD mode but then again maybe this is such a small use case.  It's just ironic situation.

I haven't compared the universal dvd vs. turbine blu-ray on the pilot.  I will say if I was ever put in charge of a restoration project, I would tweak the colors on almost every episode.  Not necessarily just to match the original intent (which could have lost some color as it was transferred/edited) but also to make it seem like it was shot more recently.

I usually thought the coloring was pretty good on the dvds/streaming S4/S5 content but veered toward dated as you go back.  After my changes to the pilot, with the up-res, it was pretty convincing to me that peacock could have a version of sliders that a 15 year old could enjoy and experience for the first time because it's much more watchable.  It felt HD or like a remastered scanned from negative thing.  Surprisingly, not that far off from Back to the Future (1986) blu-ray.   The only clues with the better look Sliders to the dating of the show are the cars and clothes but it doesn't ruin it.

A 16:9 image helps but I dont know how you can do a crop that isn't dead-center all the time. It worked for the pilot (though wasn't perfect and made all the shots more intimate) but you'd want to dynamically adjust it to make it work better in other episodes.

It can be pretty frustrating that a older shows look far better than sliders... I was really surprised how incredible The Prisoner (streaming on IMDBTV and amazon prime) looks.  Obviously filmed and edited on 35mm.

I remember seeing this awhile back. The site may have reprinted it.

I just checked some more episodes and honestly not seeing it. Maybe Goodfellas was handled differently in the original editing / post production.

Even darker lit parts of The Good, The Bad and the Wealthy don't have the issue.

Revisiting this, it's apparent this is not necessarily an issue everywhere.  It's most apparent in low-light situations, perhaps just early seasons, and perhaps also influenced by motion.  I'm looking at greatfellas which has darker scenes.

I'm not sure if its grain, but it may be partly that. So not sure if my initial description was accurate.

Mmm, I'm talking about what looks like digital noise (each "piece" very square) around the edges of let's say moving characters in wide shots (not on pilot).  Perhaps it's an effect of my dvd player trying to keep up with the pal /  ntsc conversion.  I should prob try to buy a cheap pal player to check.. if they are avail in u.s.

I wonder if some dvd players process the pal to ntsc conversion better.

I just did a comet vs. german release vs. original up-res samples comparison on goodfellas.

then universal dvd Rules of the Game vs. german release.

On the dvd/sd on blu-ray comparison, there was a clear advantage to the german release.  The universal release had a comparative noisy haze over the entire picture.

On the greatfellas comparison, the upres blew the german release out of the water.  The german release was an order of magnitude better than comet.

it's difficult for me to say if the german release looks better than peacock on goodfellas.  Close ups may be better and peacock seems to have more of a greenish hue to the image (i think) but on farther shots there is a far amount of pixelation on the german release that is smoother with peacock.  Then again, standing 12-14 feet, away the german release just looks better.

Got it working on another DVD player.  Certainly looks an order of magnitude better than the CometTV broadcast (happening now).

On a 40-inch tv, you can see the issues with the content upclose (sharp, pixelated noise on turbine vs a very fuzzy Comet image) but it looks pretty decent from 12-14 feet away.

I'll still have to compare against the universal blu-rays. I'm still hitting the higher pitched audio issue but I'm am not noticing the frame rate issue nearly as much.

My german blu-ray came!

The packaging is very nice and the prints on the discs themselves are gorgeous.

The menus are also really nice.

Unfortunately, playing PAL didn't work on my blu-ray player where I have a projector.  So I tried it on an XBox.  Fortunately, Xbox played the episodes but I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the image quality.  I had it on a good quality HD tv (about 70 inches) and it may be that it couldn't scale for that size well or the xbox's upconvertor on the blu-ray didn't upconvert pal format (or maybe because it was sd on blu-ray it didn't upconvert it like a dvd it would). 

I tried the pilot and the first episode of season 3.  The pal format actually caused the strobe / frame rate effect that you commonly see with some of the European shows played on PBS.  Weirdly, the english audio was blatantly out of sync in some spots (I wonder if this would happen on all blu-ray players or just xbox?) and the voices were a bit more high-pitched than i ever remember hearing them on other Sliders sources..

I'm gonna do a comparison against the universal dvds on that same xbox/tv to see how it compares as maybe I am being overly harsh.

I am pretty sure or at least hope we will see more gains with the tech in the future. You have to believe that if AI can understand what a crisp image of at least a human (or car or building or tree) looks like, it can make an intelligent guess at what the SD content intented.

I was reading some 2004 DVD reviews of the dual dimension s1&2 release and surprisingly, the reviewers were almost all fairly complimentary of the transfer and image.  Only one bad review on that.  Everything probably looked good on tube tvs. A theme that was consistent though is the blacks were problematic.  It would be good if AI had some HDR changes although I guess TVs can do that. 

I think part of turbine's secret was simply PAL files and maybe less compressed dvd files.  Other pal dvds may have been a gig  or less per episode.  Who knows if they re-scanned the tapes... i don't think we'll find out.

Oops this was discussed  already.  In any case I wonder if sliders was edited in at least 576...  if so that may mean universal could theoretically create something better for North American market.

i assume you mean

this

vs this?

Gotcha.  VLC player has a nice film grain effect where it's easy to at least see how it helps S2&3 though I get it wouldn't be the same as natural grain.

Also, s4&5 really lacked locations vs. 2&3 so I wonder if lighting plays any role on the superior look of 4&5.  The colors seem to pop pretty nicely.

shouldn't 35mm look better than 16mm?  I am assuming you are saying s4 & 5 were shot on 16mm then.  Wouldn't 35mm look better?

Or are you saying 16mm will up-res better in topez because the gain will give it something to "latch" onto?

The zoom function can cut off info but in this case it's worth the trade off for a more overwhelming and encompassing image size.  Mostly the framing just seems closer than really losing elements needed for the story.  At least on the two episodes I tried. 

I'll definitely compare the sd on bluray once it arrives, especially with the image on a 135 in projection ... because that's where issues reveal themselves most.  I was honestly shocked how well the up res looked on pilot and s3 that big.

Here's the up-res'd content projected onto a white wall in a dark room from a 600 dollar projector from about 15 feet away.  Making for a 135 inch screen. You can see the couch next to the image for scale.

These are of s3's The Guardian.  The  pilot looks equally as good.  Beautiful image like newer content.

In the photos above,  I actually used the projector's zoom feature to zoom in on the image so it would crop 16:9 from within the 4:3 native image, and then scale that cropped image up to fill the screen.

Other s1 (non-pilot) episodes and s2 can't use this zoom feature without not looking great.  But s2 still looks very solid at 4:3, and s1 non pilot to a lesser degree.  All are LIGHT YEARS better than the Peacock at 135 inches.  In that case, s4 episodes look worse than up-res'd s1's.

I'll be trying the up-res samples from earlier this year on a 135 inch projected image today.  The peacock content of course looked awful. Let's see what happens here.

A gentleman who does making of documentaries/special features for dvd companies on the notion that the master tapes were re-scanned for the Turbine release:

Interestingly enough... the resolution here says it was upconverted:

resolution: 1080p (upconverted)
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Amazing- … ay/174005/

Turbine actually commented several times in this thread here:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=289083

Perhaps adding upres on S2-S5 german release could have grain effect added in after the smoothing.  But as you said, it really comes down to ROI.

I asked Bill Hunt, founder of Digital Bits if he thought Uni would send master *tapes* to Turbine.  Here's his response (maybe he fails to distinguish between tapes and negatives):

If Universal actually rescanned everything it's plausible they are so disorganized that they didn't then provide that stuff for Peacock etc.  Another theory would be german release is in PAL.  Maybe that helps?  idk. 

I reached out to someone at universal who deals with a bunch of management of their digital stuff and licensing it out.  He has given me a couple responses in the past but for the most part isn't very responsive.  I've very much tried to push them to do up-res's etc.  Everything I've gotten the sense of is unless the licensee asks for HD (and the deal i guess big enuf) it's not gonna happen otherwise. 

If we keep chirping to peacock maybe they will press universal's internal team on these matters.