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2023-04-04 21:08:18

ireactions wrote:

I know I'm supposed to get up to speed with STAR TREK, but I suddenly felt this urgent need to rewatch XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS which is a really fun show, basically Wonder Woman in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece.
Then it occurred to me that my XENA viewing experience would never truly be complete unless I also rewatched HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS which is basically Superman in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece. Then it occurred to me my XENA-HERCULES viewing experience would never be truly complete unless I watched YOUNG HERCULES as well which is basically SMALLVILLE in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece.
These 90s syndicated fantasy shows are fun and Hercules and Xena are such great characters: Hercules is a relentlessly good natured, affable, charismatic hero (too bad Kevin Sorbo's gone insane) and Xena is like a female version of Wolverine: cunning, assertive, ruthless, noble, tormented, sardonic and with a bit of a mean streak.
May not be getting to STAR TREK any time soon...

Was Hercules with Ryan Gosling?

I think I saw it streaming on the NBC app a couple of years ago, pretty wild that existed.

2023-04-01 11:22:28

@quinnslider it seems like artemis, artemis dehalo (is that the same thing?) and gaia may be the top algorithms.... ib used a lot of artemsis bouncing between different quality settings depending on the season, i believe. his process is written up on page 1 of this thread....

(also gaia is slower but you may have enough processing power to use it -- it may be more ideal for later seasons).

On a general note, picking up on some of what ib was saying on limitations with topaz, I was thinking the next great future technology might not focus on existing film grain, but rather re-build the image altogether. taking the input of what you have given it, comparing to what a house in HD should look like, or a grey coat, or a piece of furnature, and rebuilding each element in the frame, trying to closely match its form and lighting but also recognizing what in HD it should look like. as ib has explained, currently a solution like topaz is grabbing on the grain in the image to understand it better and building out from there, but when you have sources that lack grain (which Sliders s1 is limited on outside of the pilot) it's hard for topaz to get much more out of the image in terms of filling in missing lines of resolution. i will say it was much surprior to what an avisynth script was able to do with my brother's old documentary footage, so I think it is indeed quite an accomplishment. but in the future of any of the technology for this use case may be more similar to the AI image generators we have now, only 1000x better and better able to accurately reconstruct what a 4k scene should reasonably look like based on a low quality source.

2023-03-31 10:27:47

Na you're both artists and craftsmen and preservationists and poets!

It's thrilling to have a corner of humanity that takes on these interests and values.

2023-03-29 02:42:06

Or was the non hd color version more how it played on the old tube tvs?

2023-03-28 17:44:46

pneumatic wrote:

Here's that first qtgmc preview again, but this time tagged with SD colours - specifically "-colorspace 6 -color_primaries 6" in ffmpeg (6 = rec.601/smpte170m)
qtgmc 720x540p60 Rec.601 tagged.mkv
I'd expect VLC should read the tags and do the conversion properly. Without the tags VLC probably just assumed nothing and didn't do any conversion, which is fair enough.

yes, now the colors of qtgmc.mkv match the bwdif + qtgmc repair.mkv

2023-03-28 16:20:31

pneumatic wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
One question, when you compare the reds between the two videos, are they the same for you?
edit: here's a before/after: https://imgsli.com/MTY1NDY1
For reference, look at Arturo's skin pigment and red coat.
Yep, it's way off on the old SD one, and I'm pretty sure it's cause your media player isn't converting SD colours to HD colours to suit your display mode which uses HD colours.
But that's my fault cause I assumed that media players would see the file's resolution is SD and convert them to HD colours, as that's how mine operates - https://imgsli.com/MTY1NDcz
I'll run off another copy with the mkv file properly tagged for SD colours and then it should look fine on your end and all media players. Sorry about that - good catch.
edit: btw, the colour is still slightly different on mine too, and I think it's cause my media player uses slightly different formulas to do the conversion compared to the Avisynth filter I used.

I'm using VLC, which is obviously a pretty sophisticated media player..

In the old SD one, are you suggesting that it isn't doing shades of colors well, so it sort of averages out a given tone to the nearest SD color (which may be more pronounced)?

2023-03-28 15:44:22

pneumatic wrote:

May have found a good balance with an alternative QTGMC solution. It's like the original QTGMC solution but resolves a bit more resolution when camera is still.
Pros:
* full 480p resolution on static elements (credits text, moments when the camera is perfectly still etc.)
* QTGMC smoothing and antialasing on moving parts of the image (also reduces moire more than QTGMC alone)
* perfect frame pacing (spinning earths and Mindgame sections are 30fps & 60fps)
Cons:
* no smoothing of the field alignment issue on static elements (since those are just weaved to 480p)
Preview: bwdif deinterlace + qtgmc repair.mkv

Looks better overall to me. Compared the two files (qtgmc.mkv to this one)

One question, when you compare the reds between the two videos, are they the same for you?

edit: here's a before/after: https://imgsli.com/MTY1NDY1

For reference, look at Arturo's skin pigment and red coat.

2023-03-28 13:36:21

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/stat … 1698696224

2023-03-27 09:54:20

pneumatic wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
It did upscale to look pretty good. BUT, ireactions later used topaz to upscale the documentary for us with Topaz (artemis dehalo algorithm) and it was substantially better. And things looked so gorgeous, he got a license to topaz and did it in the gaia algorithm, which he showed the end result to a tv producer, who could not even tell the footage was shot in 2003 and resuscitated from old dvd files! So since you are really into this stuff, I would just suggest you look more at Topaz as well. I could be wrong but I am not sure avi synth is as powerful of a tool for certain use cases.
I'm sure Topaz can do a better job than nnedi3, I just don't have $300 USD to spare right now. Although I see they have a free trial version so I'll check it out for sure.
edit: unfortunately I cannot use it as it's Windows 10+ only.

I am on Windows 8, so I can relate. They are dropping a lot of browser support for it even.

I didn't realize Topaz was $300, my brother got it on sale for $160 (still very pricey of course). It would be nice if they offered one-time upscales based on the length of content but maybe it doesn't fit their business model.

2023-03-27 07:33:09

TemporalFlux wrote:

A couple of random articles lately that just seem like a Sliders reality:
Rotary cell phones:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/ … cellphone/
Ugly sweater camouflage:
https://www.the-sun.com/tech/7720902/ca … nition-ai/

you always find the best stories lol.

2023-03-27 07:31:05

@pneumatic that's all great info, especially on the colors.

Just some anecdotal information: my brother once used AVI synth scripts to upscale old compressed DVD images of a documentary he created back in 2006. The image was originally shot in hd on digital but then ripped off of old dvd files he had from the final produced product. He spent a lot of time getting the script correct for the settings, to find optimal settings. This was around 2015 I believe.

It did upscale to look pretty good. BUT, ireactions later used topaz to upscale the documentary for us with Topaz (artemis dehalo algorithm) and it was substantially better. And things looked so gorgeous, he got a license to topaz and did it in the gaia algorithm, which he showed the end result to a tv producer, who could not even tell the footage was shot in 2003 and resuscitated from old dvd files! So since you are really into this stuff, I would just suggest you look more at Topaz as well. I could be wrong but I am not sure avi synth is as powerful of a tool for certain use cases.

2023-03-26 13:22:10

ha, from 2017

http://www.ipol.im/pub/art/2017/192/

http://www.ipol.im/pub/art/2017/192/Fil … POL.tar.gz <-- code
https://ipolcore.ipol.im/demo/clientApp … tml?id=192 <-- demo

I wonder if this would apply at all to content like sliders 1, or if it doesn't have the baseline the algorithm depends on.

Edit: Not too impressed with the demo.

2023-03-26 13:17:54

ireactions wrote:

I'm seeing the same issues even with 540p AI upscales. I don't know what AI algorithm is really right.
AI upscaling from SD to HD is operates best when analyzing the film grain and extrapolating from that to recreate an approximation of the original film image. That's how a fuzzy but grainy SD image can look great in AI-HD. It's is why Season 2 in its blocky graininess looks very good after an AI upscale. This is why the very grainy Seasons 4 - 5, even in hypercompressed Mill Creek discs, looks terrific after an AI upscale.
Season 3 doesn't really look that much better (and no worse); there isn't that much grain in the SD image, but there's enough SD detail for AI to sharpen, so a good image in SD looks good in AI-HD.
With Season 1 after the pilot, there's a lack of detail, some artifacts from the detelecining/deinterlacing, and a lack of film grain. The grain just didn't survive the film-to-analog videotape transfer. Without grain, AI will just inflate the existing lack of detail and artifacts with more pixel contrast and create bizarre and distracting anomalies.
I think I'm going to run through pneumatic's processing advice again, but this time output the file to 1080p with Lanczos scaling just to see how it looks.

In a perfect world, perhaps an aglorithm could add grain back into the image based on lighting and assumed contouring of image. And then you use the added grain to upscale. Of course, perhaps an upscaling algorithm could guess upscaling technique based on assumed light/contour shaping as well. I guess something like that doesn't exist now, because this sort of content (flat without grain) is a smaller use-case for the upscaling marketplace.

2023-03-26 12:23:39

ireactions wrote:

I've had a look at "Fever" in progress of the AI upscale to 720p and... I do not like what I am seeing. The TIVTC + QTGMC transcode had its flaws like how the skin above the actors lips looks white instead of skin coloured. In the SD transcode file, the softness of the image means this flaw blends into the picture and at living room distance, it's a non-issue. But in the 720p upscale, that white line is enhanced and sharpened and you can't unsee it or look away from it.
I think pneumatic just getting a decent image out of these poorly handled DVD files for 102 - 109 was a huge achievement. I think I'll take until tonight to decide if I'm going to continue with this upscale or whether or not I'll just see about Topaz AI sharpening them up as 540p files (and hope that doesn't add more image flaws while offering few gains).

It would be interesting to see whether you think the original topaz upscaled files is inferior to Pneumatic's method with topaz sharpen and no upscale.

Also, while not likely, is it possible that a different topaz upscale algorithm would provide better results on pneumatic's method than was previously used?

2023-03-24 18:25:38

this is cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRpT2Jp8PfI

2023-03-24 17:48:49

pneumatic wrote:

3. Fine details appear sharper and resolve more detail than QTGMC (example) but image is noisier as the noise isn't getting treated by QTGMC's lovely interpolation smoothing.

I do think in spite of that the QTGMC is preferred for the reasons you cite here. It's certainly noticable in comparing the clips you've shared. And the zoom on that image comparer shows a signficant difference (with streaks running across the detelecine)

2023-03-24 15:27:31

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

My memory is terrible. My dad died when I was younger, and I essentially erased all the memories of him when I was younger. Instead of doing that, I basically erased *everything*. Not only is most of my childhood just completely gone, but I have trouble remembering tons of stuff that happened afterward.
No need to feel sorry for me - I had a great childhood regardless. I only say that to illustrate that I have a handful of memories from that time in my life. And one I can remember *very* clearly is sitting in the office of my mom's boss while she worked late certain nights. I had a McDonald's fried chicken sandwich (which I can almost taste), and I was watching TV on one of those old TVs.
I was watching Sliders. I don't remember which episode but it would've been season 1. I was blown away by the concept, and I thought it was so much fun. I can't remember many birthdays, trips, or stuff like that. But burned into my memory is eating a McDonald's chicken sandwich in an office "late" on a weekday, watching Sliders.

that is an incredible story.

2023-03-24 10:09:06

@pneumatic

you mentioned electing to go with the lowest common denominator for consistency reasons rather than handling content on a case by case basis.

i'm wondering, having done some inspection of season 1, what is your sense of the varation between episodes and if you were to group the episodes to tiers (by quality), assuming you have an opinion on this, what would they be?

we've talked on the past here about some of the variation in s1 and have had various theories about it, whether it be in the post production process or just the lighting used when shot.

2023-03-23 20:50:49

ireactions wrote:

I'm not sure why QTGMC results look so much better than Handbrake's decomb. Maybe pneumatic can explain that.

just did some minor googling -- it seems maybe QTGMC is generally considered better than handbrake for deinterlacing (not sure if this diffs with decomb) because of a better algorithm. maybe it is more intensive (and therefore requires more software and perhaps slower process).

@pneumatic -- i see you used the "slower" mode. have you compared vs. what i presume would be a "slowest" mode?

*****

Perhaps offtopic but, I made some adjustments in VLC when opening the file.

Colors more natural, additional sharpening, and I think (unless I am crazy) the banding removal rather high helped. But I am not sure there are bands to remove? In any case, the denoiser made a nice difference in the advanced settings.

2023-03-23 19:01:55

OK, so basically in 2023, Quinn is the professor's age in 1995. Or close to it.

So, John the actor was about 50 years old when he played Arturo in the pilot. Or 49.

Jery O'Connell is now 49. Jesus christ they are the same age.

2023-03-23 16:27:37

pneumatic wrote:

For season 1 I'm probably going to just use QTGMC deinterlacer on the lot. I subjectively like the way it looks and it will keep season 1 looking consistent from episode to episode. If I try to do special processing on a per-episode basis to extract the most out of each episode, I'll end up with some episodes looking sharper than others. If I switch to PAL for those episodes, the colour grading of the PAL version can be noticeably different. I think I'd rather go with the lowest common denominator and keep the whole season looking as consistent as possible, within limits.
Here's a preview (download the file - the version that plays embedded in your web browser is Google's transcode and doesn't represent the quality). I'd recommend viewing it on a TV at normal viewing distance, if possible. I'm interested to see how it compares with Topaz as I'm not familiar with that product. The previews on their website seem to be quite impressive though.

looks pretty good. especially the close up stuff.

this has upscaling to 720 using that open source software?

definitely think you can get gains out of topaz.

2023-03-23 06:58:49

Question. What would Quinn's age be today vs. the age of Arturo in the pilot?

2023-03-21 18:38:10

Bob Gale interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJHclItjbA

2023-03-19 19:42:06

ireactions wrote:

I've been AI upscaling episodes 1.02 - 1.09 of SLIDERS. No increase in resolution, just adding graininess to the 480 image to fill in the blurriness. It looks passably okay on my 55 inch HDTV at living room distance, but it's very grainy and staticy. I think a part of the staticy look: the latest Topaz AI has a minimum grain size setting (1 on a scale of 1 - 15) and no longer lets me reduce the grain to 0.1 - 0.9 on their scale. All the grains are way too big, distracting rom the image instead of giving the impression that the image is composed of the grain. I think, once I finish my XENA cleanup on the first season (removing the blocky digital videotape distortion), I'll take another run at SLIDERS 1.02 - 1.09 with the older version of Topaz and set a finer grain level.

Does the software allow you to use previous models easily, or do you have to rollback or use some hack?

2023-03-18 15:04:23

ireactions wrote:

Every time I log into Dall-E or ChatGPT to get a sense of how to use these tools conscientiously and effectively, I just get error messages.

Same

2023-03-14 20:23:50

Well, this is certainly a way for anyone who wants images accompanying their sliders writing to get such images..

https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1635611742008147968

2023-03-13 18:56:55

Let this inspire us!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixPBhkmBHKw

2023-03-11 07:40:57

You are quite the forensic scientist to figure that out. So that means they did additional processing after ripping the dvd?

2023-03-10 19:31:40

ireactions wrote:

If you want to watch CONTINUUM on Amazon Prime via Canada, you might try using a VPN with a Canadian connection..

not a bad idea, I just assumed they used the location associated with the account's address but perhaps not.

2023-03-10 19:30:28

Lego_Sliders wrote:

Here is a funny music video with Jerry in it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWF0nPG … p;index=25

wow, that was a different time in the world!

2023-03-09 18:35:52

YouTube Rewatches:

Relatable Reviews:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlf8 … Dh8B5Zn9Wq

Various:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeEk … nCIWN59s_R

2023-03-08 17:43:09

There are seven podcasts dedicated to rewatching Sliders, which is quite impressive, with new ones coming out as recently as this year.

Here is a list of the podcasts, ordered by when they first debuted:

Sliderscast

http://sliderscast.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20221126083 … scast.com/ (click "download" on the episode to listen)
https://facebook.com/sliderscast/
https://twitter.com/sliderscast/

Rewatch Podcast

Circling The Vortex

Slidetastrophe

Catch You On the Flipside

https://catchyouontheflipslide.podbean.com/

Three Truths and a Slide Podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t … 1608037907

Infinite Retrocast: Sliders

https://infiniteretrocast.substack.com/

2023-03-08 10:13:15

ireactions wrote:

CONTINUUM is still on Amazon Prime here in Canada.
I have to say, while I enjoyed the first season, I found the second season a little confusing, found the third season impossible to follow and found the fourth season to be... a little confusing.

You are lucky

I guess since it was produced by a Canadian studio, and only make its way to the u.s. through acquisition, perhaps doing a deal was easier, or there is just a greater affinity for it there.

I thought it was a bit ahead of its time.

2023-03-07 16:26:31

Isn't it weird how some tv shows just disappear afterr maybe a brief syndication run?

Continuum is not in the "rotation" so to speak with streaming since it left netflix about 5 years ago or so. And the blu-rays are all quite expensive.

I wonder if this sort of stuff is mostly a product of whether a major studio fully owns it or not. I think a lot of stuff that gets regularly passed around is probably part of package deals for huge libraries.

2023-03-04 11:52:21

pneumatic wrote:

creating a 1.022% (720/704) wider aspect.

is there any chance that the stretching caused the artifacts to "smooth" out more, and thus be less visable/pixalated?

pneumatic wrote:

It seems there are episodes where the field alignment issue is not visible in the end credits text, but IS visible in the live action shots.

besides some of the drabby colors of the episodes in s1 and with some in s2, this has been my contention as well but i didn't know how to express it. it may also be worse during periods of motion. but nonetheless, universal managed to make the material feel so aged and dated with their poor handling of the stuff. and it was less of a problem on the 4:3, tube tvs but does not translate well for modern tvs.

when this was released, however, in 2004, hdtvs were a thing and a lot of people had them.

2023-03-03 19:32:04

pneumatic wrote:

Thanks, it looks like the version I've got is the 2004 release.
Here's a screenshot comparison from the same frame: https://imgsli.com/MTU5NTY2
.

The one on the right looks better to me.

Though the image on the left doesn't start at the left edge side of the frame properly. You will notice a black bar. So the slider doesn't show the exact same content when you slide to compare... it kinda shifts so makes it a little harder to compare.

2023-03-03 10:15:44

Jim_Hall wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
Universal released the Dual Dimension set in 2004 (s1 & s2)
Then they did a re-release in 2008 I believe of Season 1 individually, and season 2, individually.
Actually, was it 2012?
https://slidecage.com/dvd/season-01/
https://slidecage.com/dvd/season-02/
2012 for the individual ones. The best set in my opinion is the Complete series released in 2014. It's the second one on the page: https://slidecage.com/dvd/complete/. Mainly because it's just packaged way better. It has all the extras that came with the others. If you can find one they quite expensive now.

So universal released S1 and S2 in

- 2004 (Dual Dimension)
- 2012 (individual seasons)
- 2014 (complete series)

2023-03-03 10:03:27

Universal released the Dual Dimension set in 2004 (s1 & s2)

Then they did a re-release in 2008 I believe of Season 1 individually, and season 2, individually.

Actually, was it 2012?

https://slidecage.com/dvd/season-01/

https://slidecage.com/dvd/season-02/

2023-03-03 09:32:56

@pneumatic I just sent you a note

2023-03-03 06:33:28

pneumatic wrote:

Jim_Hall wrote:
The Mill Creek edition is garbage as far as video quality.
Yep it's pretty bad. Here's my attempt at cleaning it up so far...
Scene 1 - city square
Scene 2 - forest
Scene 3 - studio
Scene 4 - end credits
To see the actual quality you'll have to download the files and play them with a media player. The version that plays embedded in your web browser is Google/Youtube's transcode of it, not the original file.
Filters used in this order:
DeCross (reduce analogue rainbow dotcrawl artefacts)
Detelecine to 480p
Deflicker filter (reduce field alignment drop shadow lines)
Convert colourimetry to HD Rec.709
4x AI upscale to 2880x1920p
Downscale & sharpen to 1440x1080p
Slight colour saturation increase
I played around with noise reduction but didn't like the result. Might have to play around with the thresholds a bit more.

Just going off the top of my head memory wise the lines around objects look cleaner to me and color less faded. I am pretty sure for some of the janky looking episodes in s1 and s2 a lot of the releases could benefit from such correction. Not all the releases had such distorted screen credits so maube its not the same type of field alignment issue but there seems to be some other quality issues going on that feel similar.

2023-02-26 18:31:22

pneumatic wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
That is great but one thing I noticed is for the letters that were not problematic (e.g. they weren't misaligned) you could argue some of the letters ended up looking worse (less vibrant in color and softer edges) vs. the original (brighter yellow, and sharper edges, though maybe a bit pixelated).
Yeah I noticed that too.
Here it is vs Universal NTSC : https://imgsli.com/MTU4MDU2

it's much better on the new version

2023-02-26 14:56:53

pneumatic wrote:

Got the NN scaler working and the results are great: https://imgsli.com/MTU4MDUx
But it's far too slow, about 0.3fps on a GTX 1070 (about 3 days for a 42min episode)

That is great but one thing I noticed is for the letters that were not problematic (e.g. they weren't misaligned) you could argue some of the letters ended up looking worse (less vibrant in color and softer edges) vs. the original (brighter yellow, and sharper edges, though maybe a bit pixelated).

The problematic letters in the original, however, it completely fixes... which is very impressive.

2023-02-26 06:51:30

pneumatic wrote:

I'm not sure if it's the lesser of 2 evils as it does smudge a lot of resolution out of the image.

Why not then try to add a sharpen thereafter?

2023-02-25 11:49:46

Awesome!!

2023-02-25 11:46:44

Haven't heard a mention of it...

2023-02-25 00:57:05

pneumatic wrote:

Does anyone know where to buy Season 5 on Universal NTSC DVD? I can't find it anywhere, even a used copy. I've already bought the Mill Creek NTSC release but it has the field alignment issue. I've bought the PAL DVDs but could only get seasons 1-4. PMs very welcome!
btw I did some experiments in Photoshop and can reproduce the Muck Creek field alignment issue exactly. Trying to figure out a way to reverse it in Photoshop, then once I know it works in theory it should be translatable to an Avisynth script. But I'm still not sure if the damage is done in a way that is reversible or not. It's kind of like lossy vs lossless compression - one of them can be reversed to get a 1:1 copy of the original, the other cannot. Reversing the field alignment issue may still be lossy. I think if I knew the exact scaling factor and algorithm they used for the digital zoom which put the fields out of alignment, then maybe I could reverse it 1:1.

I sent you a email through the forum software and a private message through the PMs about your original request a few weeks ago...;)

2023-02-17 18:44:36

ireactions wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
I was not a fan of the new BTTF Blu-Ray as well, but I think I heard that it was more reflective of how it may have first appeared in theaters?
The frustrating thing about BACK TO THE FUTURE that you've noted: the previous blu-ray release in 2015 was overseen by producer Bob Gale who amped up the colours significantly to make the film look vibrant and new on HDTV screens. It was done with care and thought, making the film fit for modern day viewing on modern equipment without cheapening the original intentions. The 2020 release may be in 4K and have HDR, but it's completely undone all of Gale's adjustments for HDTV presentation when Gale had found a happy medium between Lucas-style overrevisionism and historical preservation.
I'm currently upscaling SLIDERS episodes 1.03 - 1.09. Just letting it run at home over the weekend while I go on a roadtrip.

The "poppy" colors of the 2015 release are perfect for BTTF, and it's hyper-real, comic-book like sensability.

2023-02-17 16:14:41

pilight wrote:

The only way Sliders get rescanned is if a reboot kindles interest in the old show

if they do a reboot, on the other hand, they may want to pretend the first one never existed lol.

2023-02-17 15:29:24

ireactions wrote:

This is deeply comforting, thank you!
Universal has been screwing up DVD releases since at least 2002 (the mis-framed BACK TO THE FUTURE release) and right through to 2022 (messed up colours on the new BTTF blu-ray). But if the negatives are still in storage, then perhaps we're just a few regime changes and scanning adjustments away from Universal making better use of its back catalog.
I just watched a hypergrainy AI upscale of "Summer of Love" and it looks like we have a choice between Episodes 1.02 - 1.09 looking really grainy (like a the very grainy Season 2 Turbine PAL release) or like a really waxy watercolour. I guess grain is preferable.

I was not a fan of the new BTTF Blu-Ray as well, but I think I heard that it was more reflective of how it may have first appeared in theaters?

The only way way Sliders gets re-scanned is if Universal does a mass catalog project, as you eluded to, or they decide to scan the titles in distribution -- SLIDERS is lucky enough to still have enough audience demand to be considered a "classic" to be on Peacock. However, I fear it will go the way of Netflix and Hulu, where they were once comfortable having Sliders on their service (through 2016, and 2017 respectively, I believe) but eventually as they build high quality, original content, they want nothing to do with it. The problem is, SLIDERS, looks like shit so it's shelf life will never be as long because of how it looks. Unless they fix that, eventually, I think Peacock will consider it too low quality to have on there.

At the same time, Universal could simply do better upconversion and handling of assets and I think it would make for a dramatically more viable product for streaming services over time.

A.I. keeps getting better and better... I am not sure if it will ever be able to deal with the field alignment issues being spoken on here but if there algorithms take that into account (assuming it is a common enough problem with older content for them to factor in), then make AI can give us a fairly decent replacement for a scan in the future.

Just the existing topaz experiments have taken the content a long way in my opinion.

2023-02-16 22:08:24

pneumatic wrote:

Got the 2008 Universal PAL release today and sadly it appears identical to the 2013 Via Vision PAL release - the MPEG2 streams have identical file sizes, and MediaInfo reports the same properties for both. Visually I can see no difference with an A-B comparison in photoshop toggling the second layer on and off.
The Via Vision PAL box set from 2019 is I believe identical to their 2013 release since the product codes printed on the case spine are the same for both, eg. "VVE454" for season 1 & 2.
Universal NTSC version is still a month away from eBay international shipping, so no Sliders for a few weeks
Universal NTSC packaging is bulky and the cardboard looks a bit tatty in seller's photos, so I'll probably store the discs in the Universal PAL cases. That way it's still Universal - consistent with the printing on the discs, just a "better" version of Universal
I might still keep the PAL discs as a reference in case I come across some odd episode that might be cleaner.
Oh and if you hadn't noticed in the screenshots I posted earlier, the PAL version can also be much dimmer in terms of brightness, so that's another reason to dislike it.

did you search universal dual dimension on ebay? Because i see stuff that arrives quickly and is cheap..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/324550543086

https://www.ebay.com/itm/192053266781

https://www.ebay.com/itm/363744351212

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404151367692

a fair amount..

2023-02-16 14:53:55

I hope that costs eventually come down enough for universal to go through their library and just re-scan the damn footage (and automatically insert upscaled versions of cgi shots). But I guess they never will.

2023-02-15 21:56:11

Lego_Sliders wrote:

This back and forth between pnuematic and ireactions is just like the Professor and Quinn talking about string theory.

Lol

I am loving it too!

2023-02-15 11:58:16

I wonder if some of this relates to comments I've made here in the past about some of the season 1 episodes looking a lot worse than others?

2023-02-08 18:46:47

awesome!

2023-02-08 09:05:40

ireactions wrote:

X-FILES got there first, premiering in 1993. SLIDERS didn't make it to air until 1995.

Was the online community significant?

Certainly ours was the first to save a show.

2023-02-07 20:32:41

ireactions wrote:

Well, Earth 211 is a quick read. It's just the synopses of the episodes, not full scripts.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030711182 … efault.asp
I think only an insane person would try to write full scripts for even a mini-season of SLIDERS.

Thank you for linking me.

The Sliders fan community really is a historically great one. As Tracy said maybe the first significant online community for tv.

2023-02-06 17:07:08

ireactions wrote:

It's funny. Earth 211 triggers this hungry, gnawing, painful longing in me, this desire for all of these beautiful synopses to be made into whole scripts. Earth 211 is the true SLIDERS. The SLIDERS we have on our world is a collapsed, broken version of the real SLIDERS.
There are stories in E211 from Transmodiar, Recall317, Nigel Mitchell, Jules Reynolds and others. It all makes me want so badly to find Quinn's timer and slide to this beautiful world where SLIDERS thrived and flourished and FOX polished it like a gem and made it the crowning jewel of their network and Universal stood by Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo for six wonderful seasons of wonder, terror, action, humour, inventiveness, imagination, creativity and SLIDERS truly was that series that never, ever ran out of ideas.
As much as I love what I came up with in SLIDERS REBORN and all the splendid contributions that Transmodiar, Nigel, Slider_Quinn21, Jim Ford of SLIDERSCAST and Informant made to turn the real world version of SLIDERS into a story with a restoration of the original sliders and a closing (but not final) adventure and a happy ending, and as much as I love Tracy Torme's "Slide Effects" story, these fanfics were salves and bandages.
A full-fledged version of Earth 211 is what I would really, really, really want.
I wonder if Steven Moffat (DOCTOR WHO) would ever be inclined to pitch a SLIDERS reboot.

I will have to catch up on my exposure to Earth 211. I have heard of it but I haven't dived in.

2023-02-06 11:58:30

Ha

2023-02-03 05:43:19

Looking good!

2023-02-03 05:42:05

Cool!

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379 Reply by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-03-23 20:50:49

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380 Reply by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-03-23 19:01:55

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382 Reply by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-03-23 06:58:49

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385 Reply by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-03-18 15:04:23

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