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

Not suggesting anything, just if you look at the list they provided they suggested some would come to blu and none have only DVD: http://tvshowsondvd.com/n/22066

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62 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2016-08-15 21:14:00)

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

In Germany, a distributor is releasing a Standard Definition of Sliders on Blu-Ray - so the complete series is packaged on just four discs.

The audio has an English option and it ships to the U.S.  It's also about the same price as the Mill Creek Entertainment DVD release.

https://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … derssli-21

It comes out in September, about a month before Mill Creek's release does.

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

I just can't see watching the show in the "proper order". Sure it's annoying seeing "Summer Of Love" not air after the Pilot but I prefer to have the DVD's in the order that I first saw the episodes in back in the Nineties.
I can barely accept "Invasion" as the season 2 finale (as it was intended) but to me "As Time Goes By" will always be the Season 2 finale.
The glaring problems with the airing order are most evident in the first two seasons.
"Double Cross" should have been Season 3 premiere but I can accept it where it is as Episode 2.

the rest of Season 3 just does not matter.  "Stoker" was aired before "This Slide of Paradise" though "Dinoslide" was intended in that spot and actually makes more logical sense but I'm okay with how this turned out. 

and of course there's the screw up involving that episode where Wade falls into the center of the earth and gets chased by circus freaks.

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

On one level, I think the idea of watching Season 1 in the wrong order for no reason whatsoever is absolutely baffling. On another, I did get a whole novella out of the wrong order, so sure. I wouldn't want SLIDERS to be immortalized this way, though.

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

KerrAvon wrote:

I just can't see watching the show in the "proper order". Sure it's annoying seeing "Summer Of Love" not air after the Pilot but I prefer to have the DVD's in the order that I first saw the episodes in back in the Nineties.
I can barely accept "Invasion" as the season 2 finale (as it was intended) but to me "As Time Goes By" will always be the Season 2 finale.
The glaring problems with the airing order are most evident in the first two seasons.
"Double Cross" should have been Season 3 premiere but I can accept it where it is as Episode 2.

the rest of Season 3 just does not matter.  "Stoker" was aired before "This Slide of Paradise" though "Dinoslide" was intended in that spot and actually makes more logical sense but I'm okay with how this turned out. 

and of course there's the screw up involving that episode where Wade falls into the center of the earth and gets chased by circus freaks.

I always suggest that to new viewer who's never seen the show watch Summer of Love after the 2 hour pilot.  After that, they can watch the episodes in the order they are presented on DVD/Netflix/etc. (it makes it simpler than giving them a crazy order (crazy compared to what it's always presented on DVD/Netflix/etc).

I also agree that As Time Goes By is a great episode as the season 2 ending.

So Stoker should air before Dinoslide? I don't recall hearing this before. What is the reason Stoker should air first? Of the 4 Neil Dickson episodes, I never thought that these 2 episodes mattered in the order of airing, as long as they were the 2 middle episodes.

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

I think it's just the production order that puts "Stoker" earlier. There is no reason "Stoker" needs to be seen before "Dinoslide," but there's also no reason see "Stoker" or "Dinoslide" at all. *shudders*

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

ireactions wrote:

I think it's just the production order that puts "Stoker" earlier. There is no reason "Stoker" needs to be seen before "Dinoslide," but there's also no reason see "Stoker" or "Dinoslide" at all. *shudders*

Oh ok.

I actually like Stoker. Good cast with 2 That 70s Show actors. Some decent alternate history (love the Joplin reference). Yeah it's got some "what the" moments, but it's entertaining. Decent use of Rickman in a small part.

Dinoslide is ok, I think it's important in the continuity of season 3, but is relatively boring in my opinion.

I do watch Stoker regularly during personal random Sliders episode viewings, Dinoslide not so much.

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

To me, "Stoker" is another exercise in mutilating a once-great science fiction series into an unprofessional abomination of hackwork and stupidity -- and I am dreading rewatching it. I have to, you see, to finish my final SLIDERS script. I'm putting it off for as long as humanly possible, but the script pages where I must describe the rock star vampires accurately comes closer and closer and I am terrified at the prospect of having to sit through this miserable insult to the intelligence that masquerades as a professional product.

I'm also going to have to rewatch "Dragonslide," "The Fire Within," "Paradise Lost," "The Last of Eden," "Sole Survivors," "The Breeder" and "This Slide of Paradise" and I honestly don't even know if I'll come out of this alive.

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

Season Three is the worst of Sliders

70 (edited by KerrAvon 2016-08-23 17:06:35)

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

pilight wrote:

Season Three is the worst of Sliders

Back in 1999 I actually thought that Season 4 was where the show "Jumped" but after rewatching the DVD's I actually found an appreciation for Season 4. It was at its best with just the three sliders. the first few Colin episodes were not that bad but by the end of the season it fell flat (with The Chasm and Roads Taken being the nadirs of the season)

That being said, I agree that Season 3 IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This was when the show  jumped the shark  right after "The Guardian" aired.  Sure there are some roses in this bed of thornes , Dead Man Sliding, Seasons Greedings but for the most part this season came down to a lame attempt to turn a cute quirky Sci fi series into The X Files (FOX's proudest ship in the FOX fleet)

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

KerrAvon wrote:
pilight wrote:

Season Three is the worst of Sliders

Back in 1999 I actually thought that Season 4 was where the show "Jumped" but after rewatching the DVD's I actually found an appreciation for Season 4. It was at its best with just the three sliders. the first few Colin episodes were not that bad but by the end of the season it fell flat (with The Chasm and Roads Taken being the nadirs of the season)

That being said, I agree that Season 3 IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This was when the show  jumped the shark  right after "The Guardian" aired.  Sure there are some roses in this bed of thornes , Dead Man Sliding, Seasons Greedings but for the most part this season came down to a lame attempt to turn a cute quirky Sci fi series into The X Files (FOX's proudest ship in the FOX fleet)


Totally agree.

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

These days, I find myself looking at Seasons 3 - 5 as a picture of David Peckinpah's addiction reignited after his teenaged son's death made him relapse after two decades of sobriety.

Season 3 is the cocaine high. Everything's mad and random and crazy and driven by one's basest impulses in any direction -- nightclubs and sex and explosions akin to riding the top of a supersonic train or high-excitement motorcycle chases -- but with an ugly, dehumanizing edge if you look closely where people and relationships don't matter, only the thrill of the drug. People who seem to be a buzzkill get dumped in the trash or blown up.

But then the high isn't enough and the addict wants  drugs that go even deeper into the psyche to feed the need for escape -- the miserable monster movies that were "The Breeder" and "Stoker" and "This Slide of Paradise" are a heroin injection, going into depressants that leave one in a state of euphoric bliss. But in truth, anyone sober looking at the heroin addict would see human body that's little more than a corpse that isn't dead yet.

Then we come to Season 4, where it's now all about combining heroin and cocaine into speedballs, resulting in more euphoria that is, however, socially vacant and emotionally dead; there's no real friendships or relationships through heroin and cocaine. The physicality of the bliss these drugs induce has no emotional love or care or fondness or compassion or heart behind it; the body may feel joyous, but the spirit is deadened and empty, much like Jerry O'Connell's performance.

And then we come to Season 5 -- the drugs aren't for pleasure anymore. The constant anesthetic use has created tolerance and painful withdrawal symptoms in their absence; injecting and inhaling has simply become the joyless routine of "The Great Work" and "Java Jive" and the isolating nature of the drugs has left Peckinpah bleak, adrift and alone, going through the motions without even the extremity that made Season 3 a compelling trainwreck. Season 5 is just filling out the time to get through 18 episodes. Then the show died and David Peckinaph had nowhere left to direct his grief aside from his veins. Shattered and alone, he plunged speedball after speedball into himself until his heart gave out. I have nothing but sympathy for the poor man. Peckinpah and SLIDERS on his watch are symptoms of a terrible disease.

I once pondered where bad TV producers go when they die. Temporal Flux says they go to development hell. Most SLIDERS fans say they burn in actual hell. Informant remarked that regardless of whether Peckinpah is in heaven or hell, what he left behind is many terrible hours of television. Those hours speak to how truly sad, lost and alone he must have been.

Anyway. My final SLIDERS script will be a tribute to David Peckinpah and the ideas he introduced into the show.

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

Mill Creek finally put up an episode listing for each disc on their website: http://www.millcreekent.com/sliders-the … eries.html. Sadly I believe the DVD case will be nothing other than a mockup of the Airwolf set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rel1RA0n4wo

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

The Complete Series DVD has been pushed back till October 11th 2016. http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Slider … ries/22692.

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

If that is the case it will be better than The Shield or King of queens both complete series Mill Creek Releases those where a box that opened into to spindles of 20 dvds with a piece of cardboard holding them in place nothing between the disk, great deals both where in the 30 dollar range for the complete series, but you basically have to repackage them.

Not that Sliders has ever had a good package, outside of season 5, Season 1 and 2 floating dvd's, then my season 3 dvds double sided got scratched up

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

Well, the wonderful folks at Mill Creek decided to give us episodes half the file size of the old season 1 dvd.  It doesnt look half as bad but is a downgrade.

Of course, the price is fantastic.

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

I felt a hankering to watch "The Guardian" today. I have the Universal version of Season 3 on DVD. (I also have the complete series from Mill Creek, the Dual Dimension set of Seasons 1 - 2 and a box of press clippings from the offices of the Sci-Fi Channel.)

I popped the Universal disc for "The Guardian" into the external blu-ray drive for my desktop computer -- but I accidentally scraped and scratched the disc. It is no longer loading properly. Now that the only episode I really care about in the Season 3 set is damaged on its disc, I can now throw out the Season 3 set. It is the season of hell and I'm relieved to be rid of it.

I put the Mill Creek disc with "The Guardian" in my blu-ray drive, ripped the episode with Handbrake, then copied the file to my iPad. I have to say, the Mill Creek release looks really good on my iPad (2017 with a Retina display). Despite the high resolution of the iPad screen, the DVD quality looks good enough on a 9.7 inch screen in a 4:3 ratio.

Anyway. This remains one of SLIDERS' finest hours, marred only by the fact that it was clearly filmed in Pasadena instead of Vancouver when the script calls for the sliders to be wearing their Season 2 outfits and engaging with the gray and chilly physicality of British Columbia and to look like flawed human beings and not magazine models. Wade's lip gloss and Quinn's leather jacket are particularly alarming.

It's strange: when writing my own SLIDERS scripts, I didn't turn to this episode to get Quinn's voice and body language in my head. I prefer to use "As Time Goes By," partially for the aesthetics, but because Quinn is flawed and makes mistakes and screws up whereas "The Guardian" is somewhat insistent on Quinn never taking a wrong turn and never being out of his depth.

That said, every page I've ever written for Quinn is clearly modelled on this episode: Jerry (and John's guidance) present Quinn as someone with wisdom and perspective that seems to be entirely too much to be contained within Jerry O'Connell's form. There's a weighty, thoughtful presence to Quinn in this episode, beautifully balanced between world-weariness and a joyful sense of wonder. Quinn Mallory in "The Guardian" is the perfect science hero, the perfect slider -- probably too much so. This version of Quinn is never truly challenged, never out of his depth, never presented as a character whom we should doubt or question.

I've never watched this DVD on my 55 inch TV with my blu-ray player, but I'm sure it looks horrible.

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

ireactions wrote:

and a box of press clippings from the offices of the Sci-Fi Channel.

You're welcome. wink

ireactions wrote:

Anyway. This remains one of SLIDERS' finest hours, marred only by the fact that it was clearly filmed in Pasadena instead of Vancouver.

Marred? How DARE you. Pasadena is a wonderful city with wonderful people! (At least until 2023, when I move and it all goes to shit.)

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

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

TRANSMODIAR: "Ya know -- I'm not actually far from where they filmed Arturo going bungee jumping."

IB: "Really?"

TRANSMODIAR: "Yeah. And in fact, you'll be pleased to know -- there's actually a little plaque on the bridge that commemorates Arturo as the father of 'Arturo jumping.'"

IB: "Really?!"

TRANSMODIAR: "No!"

IB: "You monster!"

TRANSMODIAR: "Hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahah!"

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

Woke up minutes ago and felt a manic impulse. Work for some reason has AI video upscaling software that I installed on my home workstation. I leapt out of bed, dived for my PC, and started an upscale on the Mill Creek rip of "As Time Goes By." Perhaps by this time tomorrow night, I'll have the greatest hour of television ever made in glorious 720p. Back to bed.

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

ireactions wrote:

TRANSMODIAR: "Ya know -- I'm not actually far from where they filmed Arturo going bungee jumping."

IB: "Really?"

TRANSMODIAR: "Yeah. And in fact, you'll be pleased to know -- there's actually a little plaque on the bridge that commemorates Arturo as the father of 'Arturo jumping.'"

IB: "Really?!"

TRANSMODIAR: "No!"

IB: "You monster!"

TRANSMODIAR: "Hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahah!"

It's funny, you keep posting these things and I have to assume I said them, but you could easily drop in a complete fabrication and I'd just have to shrug and go, "yeah, I guess so!"

I think I've said this before but it bears repeating - you will be on speed dial whenever I write my autobiography. wink

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

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

Well, it's a dramatization. If we're going to nickel and dime it: you told me "The Guardian" was filmed near you -- but the joke about a plaque commemorating  "Arturo-jumping" was a remark you posted on the forum followed by the disclaimer, "Not really," and I thought (internally), "YOU MONSTER!"

**

I don't know why I made a rip of the Mill Creek DVD for upscaling. I also don't know why I used the fastest possible setting on Handbrake which cost some detail for a faster encode. What strange choices in the middle of the night. I should have ripped the Universal DVD set -- which I had to dig out of The Box of Sci-Fi Channel news clippings that the Sci-Fi Channel inexplicably and nonsensically sent to Matt at his request. (Why did they do this? And at their own expense, too! TF snarked that people should ask Sci-Fi for a stapler and maybe they would have gotten one. After I went through it, EP.COM got 16 new articles for the Article Archive out of it.)

Anyway. Upscaling "As Time Goes By." The Mill Creek set was even more compressed than the Universal DVD set, and the image is fuzzy, which gave the AI video enhancement very little to work with over the course of a 11 hour upscaling process. The result was a 720p high definition file that looked... like a decent standard definition version of the episode.

Onscreen text like credits were now smooth and clean instead of smeared. Signs like "Vancouver Ice Cold Storage" at the start of the episode were now crisply legible. In moderately-lit scenes, faces had more skin texture. In brightly lit scenes, everyone's overexposed faces remained overexposed and without detail and there was a faint waxiness to the image where the blocky, pixelated quality was now smoothed out and certainly an improvement.

It looks presentable on my 55 inch HDTV whereas the original DVD from Mill Creek was a mess of jagged edges and squares that vaguely resembled an episode of SLIDERS. If Mill Creek had fit the 88 episodes on 24 discs instead of 15, it'd probably look a bit like this upscale. The results are definitely better than the Universal DVD version of "As Time Goes By."

The Universal DVD set itself is maybe 20 per cent sharper than the Mill Creek discs -- but is badly marred by interlacing lines, likely because the original master tapes are interleaved video, and when Universal converted them into digital formats for DVD, they neglected to deinterlace and decomb their video before mass producing the discs (except for the Pilot episode, for some reason).

They seem to deinterlaced their digital assets before handing their materials to Mill Creek.

Anyway, I'm running an upscale on the Universal version of "As Time Goes By" which should offer the AI more to latch onto, so we'll see if that's a leap forward or just a lateral move. I'll report back tomorrow night.

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

Hmm. Well, the upscale finished on "As Time Goes By," but it didn't work -- because the Universal DVD episodes are riddled with interlacing errors. The upscaling software could not deinterlace the video and upscale it, so there are horizontal lines flashing across the screen every split second. I've gone back to the original DVD and deinterlaced the video in Handbrake. I'm going to let the nine hour upscale process run while I sleep tonight and check it out tomorrow.

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

ireactions wrote:

I should have ripped the Universal DVD set -- which I had to dig out of The Box of Sci-Fi Channel news clippings that the Sci-Fi Channel inexplicably and nonsensically sent to Matt at his request. (Why did they do this? And at their own expense, too! TF snarked that people should ask Sci-Fi for a stapler and maybe they would have gotten one. After I went through it, EP.COM got 16 new articles for the Article Archive out of it.)

Honestly, I think it was just a matter of asking at the right time. I think I contacted the SCIFI offices while they were in the process of moving/downsizing and were more than happy to take their box of crap and get it off their hands. As you said, it was mostly garbage, but it did come with season 4 and 5 press kits (including slides, etc.) and some other stuff that hasn't surfaced on Earth Prime but is scanned. At least you are an independent confirmation that I did get the box and was not talking out of my ass, as was inferred in days gone by.

What software do you have access to? I've thought about doing upscaling too - the DS9 tutorials look pretty cool - but don't have a PC with the right software available.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

85 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-09 17:56:32)

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

I'm using Topaz Video Enhance AI on an i7-7700 laptop with two SSDs, 32GB of RAM, and an Nvidia 1050 Ti. Really just a cheap gaming laptop with 4GB of RAM and a single HDD that I bought used and upgraded. No gamer would be impressed, but it's good enough for me. Let me know if you have any SLIDERS video items you want upscaled to 960x720.

I've had a look at the in-progress results on "As Time Goes By" from the Universal DVD. The upscale looks good enough. It's not going to magically add every pore to Jerry O'Connell's skin. It's actually more subtractive. It doesn't add merits, it removes flaws.

When scaled to a 55-inch TV, the Universal DVD version looked lined, blocky and blurry (although not as blurry as Mill Creek). The upscaled version looks clear, smooth, and the pixel contrast creates a sense of sharpness in terms of outlines. However, it does look like someone's run an ill-advised digital noise reduction filter across the image to overly smooth out texture -- because there wasn't much texture for the AI to enhance.

The Mill Creek version had almost no texture to sharpen. The Universal upscale in terms of texture is 25 per cent better. You can see the strands of Brook Langton's hair more fully defined, but you still don't have a crisp rendering of the scar on Jerry O'Connell's face.

The Mill Creek DVD, after an upscale, looked like an okay DVD release. Six out of ten for DVD. The Universal DVD, after the upscale, will look like a good DVD release. Seven out of ten for DVD. Properly deinterlaced video. Video quality that's inoffensive without being excellent.

The original master tapes, if upscaled, would likely provide a good portion of the missing texture to faces and surfaces and look like an terrific ten out of ten DVD release -- but rank five out of ten if evaluated as a blu-ray.

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

Finished the upscale of "As Time Goes By," first decombing the Universal DVD, then upscaling it to 720p.

It looks like a really, really good DVD. A bit waxy still, but surprisingly more skin texture and detail than I expected -- Jerry O'Connell's scar does render nicely (although you're still not going to see the hairs in his nostrils or the stubble on his chin).

Eight point five out of ten for DVD.  I'm happy watching this on a 55 inch HDTV. This is the DVD release that Mill Creek and Universal should have made.

(Five-point-two-five out of ten for blu-ray.)

87 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:14:54)

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

Here's the second Daelin sequence from "As Time Goes By," lifted from the Universal DVD, deinterlaced, then upscaled to 720p. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kbN9I5 … sp=sharing

Streaming it off Google Drive reduces the video quality: here's a download link for mobile browsers: https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

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

You're doing the Lord's work. The video starts of kind of blocky/artifacty but it smooths out soon enough. It would be very interesting to take the Universal discs and run them through a slow upscale process, maybe color time some of the episodes so they're not so inky. Not that I have time for that. smile

If you get settings fine-tuned, can you share them so others can work on the project?

That's the first Sliders I've watched in years; thanks for making it a scene worth watching.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

89 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:17:35)

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

Some of the blockiness may be due to me using Handbrake to pull out the Daelin-2 segment from the rest of the file. Also, when streaming the video off Google Drive, it looks poor and needs to be downloaded via a desktop browser. Here's the "As Time Goes By" Daelin-2 sequence to download in MP4:
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

A full upscaling job, I suspect, would involve multiple passes, first to expand and sharpen (which I did using the Artemis-LQ setting and a custom resolution to 960x720). Then another pass to deblock, then another pass to recolour -- but really, this is fine. I am satisfied. Put it on an HDTV, sit at the sensible sofa distance and it looks like a lovely DVD.

What we have here is good enough. You're not going to get a 4K image or a blu-ray quality result with an interweaved and overcompressed DVD. Even if you had the original master tapes, you'd just get a bit more detail, but it still wouldn't look like 720p -- it'd just be a nicely upscaled standard definition result.

Let's not let perfection be the enemy of good. Let's not spend the rest of our lives upscaling "As Time Goes By" when I want to watch "Time and Again World" in FakeD HD next! (Oh, those gorgeous shots in the Constitution handoff... )

EDITED TO ADD: Wiped down my Season 3 disc and it's working again! Ripped "The Guardian" in MakeMKV, now deinterlacing it in Handbrake. I'll run the upscale overnight.

90 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:17:16)

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

"The Guardian" looks good with my process: MakeMKV to rip the DVD (as Handbrake can't seem to read the Universal DVD). Then open the file in Handbrake, set the quality output to Production Standard and switch on the video deinterlacing to remove the horizontal lines across the image. Then upscale in Topaz with Artemis-LQ and a custom resolution of 960x720. The resulting file is 2GB. For storage, I'll probably need to shrink the files to 700MB or so (and lose a little video quality)

Here are the boxing scenes. Also, here's the "As Time Goes By" Daelin-2 sequence on GoFile to download the MP4 instead of streaming it off Google Drive:
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

Next in the queue: I'll be upscaling "Time and Again World" tonight (because I want to see the bridge scenes in FakeD). Then I'll do "Into the Mystic" (because I want to see all the beautiful shots of the sliders in the Sorcerer's home) and "The King is Back" (because I want to see Rembrandt's concert in FakeD). Then "Gillian of the Spirits" (for Quinn saying good-bye to his friends) and "Prince of Wails" (because I love Robin Hood) and then "Obsession" and the Pilot.

After that, I'll do "Double Cross" and "The Prince of Slides, "Season's Greedings" and "Murder Most Foul."

I'll move to the Mill Creek set for some Season 4 - 5 episodes: "Virtual Slide," "World Killer" and "The Alternateville Horror," "Slide By Wire" and "Way Out West," "Applied Physics," "New Gods for Old, "A Current Affair" and "The Return of Maggie Beckett."

I think that covers all the episodes I really want to see again on my HDTV, so I'll fill in the rest of Seasons 1 - 2 that I missed before and then have Seasons 1 - 2 and a few select episodes after that in FakeD.

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

ireactions wrote:

"The Guardian" looks good with my process: MakeMKV to rip the DVD (as Handbrake can't seem to read the Universal DVD). Then open the file in Handbrake, set the quality output to Production Standard and switch on the video deinterlacing to remove the horizontal lines across the image. Then upscale in Topaz with Artemis-LQ and a custom resolution of 960x720. The resulting file is 2GB. For storage, I'll probably need to shrink the files to 700MB or so (and lose a little video quality)

Here are the boxing scenes:
https://gofile.io/d/uvGMU5

Also, here's the "As Time Goes By" Daelin-2 sequence on GoFile to download the MP4 instead of streaming it off Google Drive:
https://gofile.io/d/EY14mh

Next in the queue: I'll be upscaling "Time and Again World" tonight (because I want to see the bridge scenes in FakeD). Then I'll do "Into the Mystic" (because I want to see all the beautiful shots of the sliders in the Sorcerer's home) and "The King is Back" (because I want to see Rembrandt's concert in FakeD). Then "Gillian of the Spirits" (for Quinn saying good-bye to his friends) and "Prince of Wails" (because I love Robin Hood) and then "Obsession" and the Pilot.

After that, I'll do "Double Cross" and "The Prince of Slides, "Season's Greedings" and "Murder Most Foul."

I'll move to the Mill Creek set for some Season 4 - 5 episodes: "World Killer" and "The Alternateville Horror." Thursday will be "Slide By Wire" and "Virtual Slide," "Applied Physics," "New Gods for Old, "A Current Affair" and "The Return of Maggie Beckett."

I think that covers all the episodes I really want to see again on my HDTV, so I'll fill in the rest of Seasons 1 - 2 that I missed before and then have Seasons 1 - 2 and a few select episodes after that in FakeD.


Jesus christ.  These look great.  It's not a blu-ray release, but I am not sure we'd get better from Universal.  This is fairly pristine.

92 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:17:01)

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

I wish there were some way for me to share the full results with everyone, but my legal department has advised me not to open that door.

Here is the Constitution handoff and slideout from "Time and Again World" in HD. Note the limitations of AI upscaling: wide shots are fuzzy because there isn't detail to enhance, the bridge against the dark sky is crushed into blackness. But medium shots and closeups of actor's faces -- that's where the AI works its magic best.

https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

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

ireactions wrote:

I wish there were some way for me to share the full results with everyone, but my legal department has advised me not to open that door.

Here is the Constitution handoff and slideout from "Time and Again World" in HD. Note the limitations of AI upscaling: wide shots are fuzzy because there isn't detail to enhance, the bridge against the dark sky is crushed into blackness. But medium shots and closeups of actor's faces -- that's where the AI works its magic best.

https://gofile.io/d/uvGMU5

Spectacular.  This opens up a lot of possibilities for making this show feel "new" again.  Yes, there some fuzzyness on the faces of the wide shots but everything else is a big upgrade.  Way better than we've seen it probably since it first aired.

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

Here's "Into the Mystic"'s scene of Quinn unmasking the Sorcerer and the sliders' homecoming. I ripped it from the fully upscaled episode using Handbrake, the sample re-encoded in their HQ720 preset. https://gofile.io/d/yuKsqB

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

ireactions wrote:

Here's "Into the Mystic"'s scene of Quinn unmasking the Sorcerer and the sliders' homecoming. I ripped it from the fully upscaled episode using Handbrake, the sample re-encoded in their HQ720 preset. https://gofile.io/d/yuKsqB

beautiful.  Sliders 2.0.

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

Well. Let's not go nuts. The stairs on Quinn's house are clearing giving the AI a lot of trouble in the upscale. The Sorcerer scenes suffer badly when there are high levels of light that blow out the character's faces in the highlights.

It is probably fixable and I know Transmodiar will have thoughts, but I'm going to refer back to what Transmodiar said when I told him how terribly my first draft outline of SLIDERS REBORN had turned out -- let's just aim to get matters from terrible to adequate.

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

ireactions wrote:

I wish there were some way for me to share the full results with everyone, but my legal department has advised me not to open that door.

Here is the Constitution handoff and slideout from "Time and Again World" in HD. Note the limitations of AI upscaling: wide shots are fuzzy because there isn't detail to enhance, the bridge against the dark sky is crushed into blackness. But medium shots and closeups of actor's faces -- that's where the AI works its magic best.

https://gofile.io/d/uvGMU5

You can apply as much lipstick to this pig as you want, but it's still a pig at the end of the day. smile

I watched this clip and I still, to this day, have no fucking idea what happens in this episode. The Writer's Draft, for all its faults, at least makes a bit of sense.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

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

I'm curious - have you thought about upscaling to 1080 and then re-compressing down to 720? That might help a bit with some of the fuzziness.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

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

I could try that on a short clip, but currently, “Gillian of the Spirits” is in the middle of the nine hour upconvert to 720p.

I don’t understand anything happening in “Time and Again,” but it’s beautifully filmed.

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

ireactions wrote:

Well. Let's not go nuts. The stairs on Quinn's house are clearing giving the AI a lot of trouble in the upscale. The Sorcerer scenes suffer badly when there are high levels of light that blow out the character's faces in the highlights.

It is probably fixable and I know Transmodiar will have thoughts, but I'm going to refer back to what Transmodiar said when I told him how terribly my first draft outline of SLIDERS REBORN had turned out -- let's just aim to get matters from terrible to adequate.


I think it's a big deal.  First off, what you've done is a big upgrade.  Second of all, topaz, and other algorithms similar are only going to get better.  If that is in year, what, 3, imagine in 4-5 years what it  will be like.  Maybe it won't linearly get better and maybe it's done 80 percent of its gains.  But I know it's definitely gonna get even better.

When you add some other playing with the colors, saturation etc etc, to the mix (as we know the pilot and first season is a bit "faded") I think something pretty damn superb is possible. 

So yea, I think this opens up the Sliders 2.0 era.   The content can become much fresher and modern.

101 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:16:50)

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

I appreciate that, but I still don't know what this really opens given that these are all files sitting on my hard drive and I only dare upload samples.

Here's the ending of "Gillian of the Spirits" in FakeD.
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

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

ireactions wrote:

I appreciate that, but I still don't know what this really opens given that these are all files sitting on my hard drive and I only dare upload samples.

Here's the ending of "Gillian of the Spirits" in FakeD.
https://gofile.io/d/6Ftinm


Yes, but anyone can use Topaz smile    Hopefully it doesn't require 32 gigs of rams though.

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

I upscaled the end of "Time and Again World" to 1080p and downscaled it to 720p and played it side by side with the original 720p ending. There was no difference.

**

Don't forget that the GPU is also a factor in AI upscaling. I don't know how essential 32GB of RAM, but without it, I wouldn't be able to do my day job in Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe Premiere and Illustrator while Handbrake and/or Topaz run minimized in the background. My PC would become unusable.

Also, each disc takes about 30 minutes to rip and then 10 minutes per episode to deinterlace each file in Handbrake followed by 9 - 10 hours to enhance the video in Topaz. I don't think it's feasible to ask every single SLIDERS fan to do this and I don't believe Universal will do it -- they could have just scanned the master tapes properly the first time and decombed the digital assets.

But I'll be happy to give them the files when I'm done, although -- I'm not doing all 88 episodes of SLIDERS. I'll just do Seasons 1, 2, and a select few from 3 - 5. Anyone who wants to watch "Map of the Mind" in FakeD will have to do it themselves!

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

ireactions wrote:

I upscaled the end of "Time and Again World" to 1080p and downscaled it to 720p and played it side by side with the original 720p ending. There was no difference.

**

Don't forget that the GPU is also a factor in AI upscaling. I don't know how essential 32GB of RAM, but without it, I wouldn't be able to do my day job in Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe Premiere and Illustrator while Handbrake and/or Topaz run minimized in the background. My PC would become unusable.

Also, each disc takes about 30 minutes to rip and then 10 minutes per episode to deinterlace each file in Handbrake followed by 9 - 10 hours to enhance the video in Topaz. I don't think it's feasible to ask every single SLIDERS fan to do this and I don't believe Universal will do it -- they could have just scanned the master tapes properly the first time and decombed the digital assets.

But I'll be happy to give them the files when I'm done, although -- I'm not doing all 88 episodes of SLIDERS. I'll just do Seasons 1, 2, and a select few from 3 - 5. Anyone who wants to watch "Map of the Mind" in FakeD will have to do it themselves!

Have you checked out the upscale that's someone is doing on reddit?  I'm curious how you think it compares to yours.  I wasn't sure if you started doing this because  you were inspired by what someone is doing over there or if it's just happenstance.

It would be awhile before Universal does this themselves, because of all those resources.  But the great thing is any very committed fan doesn't have to wait on Universal (which clearly has bastardized the quality of this show) to take matters into their own hands and get a legitimately great looking finished product.

I've done upscales on the dvd stuff in the past using lesser tech, and then ran it  on an xbox that further upscaled it, and then used a tv that processed it and took it even further.   It ended up looking really great but it was just like a test of five minutes of footage and I lost the software and the algorithm settings (a lot of time was spent to pick configurations).

I can only imagine with a topaz upscaled source + a blu-ray player that upscales the content  + a tv with some processing options how good it could look.  It's exciting.  Whenever I have watched the dvds or streaming or comet, the quality makes me feel like I'm watching something from the 70s.  All because of heavy compression, whatever sort of video archiving they've done, and general lack of caring.   This really is a terrific thing for rescuing the footage. 

I'd love for them to rescan the film negatives but there's no way that is happening at this point.  Which irks me because Seaquest got that treatment.  And Babylon 5 just had an upconversion (which looks decent).

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

I’ve had a few chats with NaterTot, but he seemed to be having trouble with any upscaling beyond the Pilot and I haven’t heard from him for over a week. His project made me decide to aim for 720p and not attempt a 4K conversion or even a 1080p. I set my sights on good DVD quality and I think it’s hitting the somewhat low hanging target. I’m currently converting one episode a day and am hoping to be up to two episodes a day by tomorrow and aim to have the entire first two seasons complete by the end of this. NaterTot, however — it’s entirely possible that he’s a healthy, well adjusted human being who isn’t hopelessly fixated on a show from 1995 that faded out of the world like an Unstuck Man.

106 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:16:41)

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

"Prince of Wails" upscaling sample: the sliders provide Prince Harold with the Bill of Rights and Wade is asked to stay on. https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw
I feel I'm neglecting poor Rembrandt, so next is going to be his performance in "The King is Back."

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

ireactions wrote:

I’ve had a few chats with NaterTot, but he seemed to be having trouble with any upscaling beyond the Pilot and I haven’t heard from him for over a week. His project made me decide to aim for 720p and not attempt a 4K conversion or even a 1080p. I set my sights on good DVD quality and I think it’s hitting the somewhat low hanging target. I’m currently converting one episode a day and am hoping to be up to two episodes a day by tomorrow and aim to have the entire first two seasons complete by the end of this. NaterTot, however — it’s entirely possible that he’s a healthy, well adjusted human being who isn’t hopelessly fixated on a show from 1995 that faded out of the world like an Unstuck Man.

It was hard for me to tell looking at his stills vs. your stuff if there was any difference.  Plus, the video in his youtube review -- where he used the footage -- was naturally a bit compressed with youtube's processing, I think.  But it still looked great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=38& … e=youtu.be

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

I believe he's using the same source material, the Universal DVD set. He said that the Pilot looked great after upscaling but everything else looked bad -- undoubtedly because the Pilot does not have the interlacing errors that mar all the other episodes. I only have Seasons 1 - 3 from Universal, but I can confirm that "The Guardian" had the same interlacing error lines across the image that had to be decombed in Handbrake before the upscale in Topaz.

There is going to be a 20 per cent drop in my upscale quality when I switch to Seasons 4 - 5 because I only have Mill Creek for those. However, it'll also be a bit faster because I don't have to deinterlace the DVD rips from Mill Creek. I could buy Season 4 for $20, but I feel like David Peckinpah and Bill Dial's estates should pay me for procuring it. I could buy Season 5 for apparently $150 on DVD, but I would sooner throw that $150 down a drain.

109 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2021-02-14 08:15:00)

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

ireactions wrote:

I believe he's using the same source material, the Universal DVD set. He said that the Pilot looked great after upscaling but everything else looked bad -- undoubtedly because the Pilot does not have the interlacing errors that mar all the other episodes. I only have Seasons 1 - 3 from Universal, but I can confirm that "The Guardian" had the same interlacing error lines across the image that had to be decombed in Handbrake before the upscale in Topaz.

There is going to be a 20 per cent drop in my upscale quality when I switch to Seasons 4 - 5 because I only have Mill Creek for those. However, it'll also be a bit faster because I don't have to deinterlace the DVD rips from Mill Creek. I could buy Season 4 for $20, but I feel like David Peckinpah and Bill Dial's estates should pay me for procuring it. I could buy Season 5 for apparently $150 on DVD, but I would sooner throw that $150 down a drain.


There's a pretty good site out there that does something similar to topez.  But it does just on photos.  Since it takes so long on one photo, i'm surer it's doing more intense processing than topez, but it gives you a glimpse into what the future may be like for video too (if they can speed up their algorithms).  I did this on a sliders frame (which I've now lost) but the results were really good:

https://jpghd.com/

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

Still image adjustment is possibly a way to upscale a standard definition video: by upscaling each frame of the video into a high resolution still, then running a mass filter on all the stills to increase pixel contrast and improve colour, brightness and remove distortions, then reassembling the frames back into a video with the original audio. However, that’s a bit too much for me, this project is something I need to have running while I’m doing other things.

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

ireactions wrote:

Still image adjustment is possibly a way to upscale a standard definition video: by upscaling each frame of the video into a high resolution still, then running a mass filter on all the stills to increase pixel contrast and improve colour, brightness and remove distortions, then reassembling the frames back into a video with the original audio. However, that’s a bit too much for me, this project is something I need to have running while I’m doing other things.

Yea.  Well on the jpghd it takes 3-5 minutes for just one still, so you can imagine what a nightmare that would be for 20-30 hrs of programming.  It is a possible glimpse into the future, though the results are really good.

112 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:16:36)

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

Rembrandt's concert in "The King is Back" in FakeD HD! https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

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

ireactions wrote:

Rembrandt's concert in "The King is Back" in FakeD HD! https://gofile.io/d/PfPmtx


Looks great!

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

"Obsession" in FakeD: The sliders react to Wade's marriage proposal from Derek Bond, and Derek invades Wade's privacy. You can see the skin texture on Sabrina's face. https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

115 (edited by ireactions 2021-02-23 18:16:01)

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

Presenting scenes from the Pilot (or "Into the Vortex," as I like to think of it) in 720p. We have here Quinn meeting Quinn -- and then the ending of the Pilot because I want us all to see the four sliders' silhouettes in high definition followed by that beautiful dinner scene and that perfect toast.

https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

Next: "Fever" at the request of a dear and treasured friend who has done so much for all of us.

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

Once again everything looks so great.  I still remember the first time I saw Blade Runner in 4k.  It was like seeing it in a new way.  You get used to it after a bit, but the difference is never more clear that first time, when you are comparing to your last recollection of what the content looks like.   So seeing these with such clarity, crispness, particuarly with the closer shots, is like seeing it for the first time.  It's just "different."   There are some of the fuzzy issues you mentioned when the person's face is afar -- I hope eventually the AI works in corrections for that.  But these really are great.

And the coloring on the pilot actually didn't bother me as much.  Only in the hallway scene when they first come back and Quinn's mom greets them.   But it all looks generally great.  It's just terrific that fans can take restoration projects into their own hands when studios will stubbornly, even if understandably, not.

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

Yeah, it's a shame the upscale can't handle the wider shots, but it's still pleasingly presentable. The fuzziness is a bit distracting to see when studying the video up close, but I just rewatched some of the Pilot on my HDTV and at sofa-seated distance, it's not really an issue.

RussianCabbie and I have been having a bit of a debate. He finds that Season 1 -- and to a lesser extent, Season 2 -- have a very desaturated, poorly contrasted look as though the film or master tapes were not correctly stored. But -- I think it's deliberate. I remember watching SLIDERS being marathoned five days a week on the local SPACE channel in my city. Season 1 had a very grayed out, low-vibrancy look -- which looks to me today as the choice of cinematographer Peter Woeste deliberately choosing a very natural-looking style of lighting.

Vancouver as San Francisco looks unaltered, unmanipulated and therefore very real, even if that reality is a Soviet controlled America or a world where scientists are revered the way athletes are viewed on our Earth. Season 2, with Robert Hudecek taking over, deepened the shadows and slightly raised the saturation a bit, but it was still recognizably Season 1, just more artful in light composition. Season 3, however, had an oversaturated, plastic toy look to my eyes that I found false and jarring.

I think that Season 1 is deliberately low contrast and low colour. Real life doesn't have colour correction. RussianCabbie disagrees and I've given him the details and settings for him to recolour the Pilot and I'll be curious about his results.

My opinion is that SLIDERS looks like it was made in 1994. I think it will always look like it was made in 1994. I expect that a recoloured version of Seasons 1 - 2 will look like it was made in 1994 with some added colour on top to account for the deeper backlighting of an HDTV.

After "Fever" encodes, I'm going to do "Virtual Slide" and "World Killer." And good news: the Mill Creek DVDs have a very grainy look for all Season 4 - 5 episodes. It looks ghastly onscreen, but the AI will be able to treat the grain as detail to extract and enhance for an upscale even as it deblocks the flaws.

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

Some of those looked really great.  Frankly I didn't think the quality on the Comet TV web feed was that bad, while the Peacock isn't great.  It's really down to the bitrate on a lot of these.  If they had released a BluRay it would be perfect.

Any chance you can upscale "Cry Like a Man?"

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

Grizzlor wrote:

Any chance you can upscale "Cry Like a Man?"

https://gofile.io/d/2xMqIW

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

"Virtual Slide" is still in the process of upscaling. I had a brief look at it and I have to say, the grainy Mill Creek release is upscaling rather nicely, although I felt a jolt of fear and panic when the software paused on the opening titles on a frame of Kari Wuhrer that was taken from "The Breeder."

I wrote the upscaling software designers an email and asked if there were some enhancement algorithm that would replace Kari Wuhrer with Sabrina Lloyd in any and all SLIDERS episodes. They said they'd look into it and get back to me.