Babylon 5 starts tonight on Watch

Hades · 6 Nov 2013 at 01:36

Is B5 on Netflix or Lovefilm? My GoogleFu is weak

alastair79 · 6 Nov 2013 at 13:28

Hades said:
I doubt we're likely to see another series like it again. Nowadays peopole don't tend to watch series every week over a great span of time. So having story arcs spanning 5 series would be difficult. Nowadays the money in successful TV series is being able to resell them to channels that can replay them in any order at any time.

Well if anyone can do it, its the guy that made Babylon 5. Looks like he is teaming up with the Wachowski's (Matrix, Cloud Atlas) to make a new TV Sci Fi show and it's already been picked up for a full season on Netflix

Source: http://sciencefiction.com/2013/11/05/netflix-brings-wachowkis-babylon-5-creator-straczynski-together-sense8/

Sounds... interesting.

doodah · 27 Jan 2021 at 10:04

Bumpety bump and good news...

‘Babylon 5 Remastered’ now available to buy, or stream on HBO Max

Source.

mid_gen · 27 Jan 2021 at 10:18

Fluke? said:
Erm, Lost?

Lost they just made up as they went along. Unfortunately a lot of series are just made like that these days, one series at a time, so there's never any coherence to the long term arcs.

B5 had the whole lot written in advance....

Penfold101 · 27 Jan 2021 at 10:22

mid_gen said:
Lost they just made up as they went along. Unfortunately a lot of series are just made like that these days, one series at a time, so there's never any coherence to the long term arcs.

B5 had the whole lot written in advance....

Mind you, both had the late Mira Furlan...

leezer3 · 27 Jan 2021 at 15:38

doodah said:
Bumpety bump and good news...

Source.

Why do you have to post this now :mad:

I'm currently in the middle of watching Star Trek: Enterprise, going to have to wait a few days to start this.....

Looks so much better though from a brief scan of the intro to the first episode.
The title letters are so much more defined, and for a really good look at the new detail see the hair on the Centauri watch officer.

alchal · 27 Jan 2021 at 17:14

10 million dollars to re do the CGI as I read it in the article.

I'm sure they would make that back.

ScotchHop · 29 Jan 2021 at 02:14

Wow this ic cool. I remember binge watching Babylon 5 and Andromeda years ago on a site called Stage 6. Great stuff. I may have to re watch it.

pecnarf · 29 Jan 2021 at 03:34

yeah remaster B5 can be bought off itunes, some even say the version on amazon to buy is also remaster, but when i check the amazon uk it appear to be SD version so same as dvd and as well all know the dvd version had issue in quality especially in VFX scene, while they haven't done a full restore and remaster like they did with ST:TNG as it be too expensive to do, what they have done is a vast improvement over the original broadcast and dvd version of the show. vfx scene are a lot sharper and clear compare to the dvd version. check youtube there a video showing the different between dvd and itune version.

pecnarf · 29 Jan 2021 at 16:13

here the youtube video show the differences between dvd and remasters.

alchal · 29 Jan 2021 at 18:51

Looks good need it on Amazon now

aardvark · 29 Jan 2021 at 23:08

i hope a bluray comes out

pecnarf · 30 Jan 2021 at 01:43

well the only problem i got with this remaster is that they didn't do the pilot episode "B5: The Gathering" aka first B5 Movie.

aardvark · 30 Jan 2021 at 11:17

pecnarf said:
well the only problem i got with this remaster is that they didn't do the pilot episode "B5: The Gathering" aka first B5 Movie.

to be fair it is terrible - i tell new watchers to skip it, otherwise they might not continue

CaptainCrash · 30 Jan 2021 at 11:47

Penfold101 said:
the late Mira Furlan

Jesus Christ, I had no idea (that she'd died, that is).

Yet another B5 cast member to die before their time. Bizarre and tragic.

/edit: just saw the tribute thread

Loosecannon · 30 Jan 2021 at 17:09

So is the HBO Max version the same as what is on iTunes, or is that different?

leezer3 · 30 Jan 2021 at 19:52

It's very confusing as to what's floating around the place.
I *think* iTunes first got an upscaled version of the DVD release (kicking around from ~November), which is now being replaced with this.
Some other sources seem to suggest that it's only HBO Max which has the new encodes.

I'm not going to embed these due to silly filesizes (direct screendumps from MadVR):
https://imgur.com/WYP4ouq

https://imgur.com/67jwFeT

https://imgur.com/PF05bsV

The hair details are the best place to look at the differences.

*However:*
In anything with VFX in-shot, the quality definitely takes a dive. (this includes composite, not just exteriors)
These are way sharper than the DVD release, but have no real detail extra.

Hades · 31 Jan 2021 at 01:23

alchal said:
Looks good need it on Amazon now

I thought it was on Amazon too? Certainly the Amazon version has "remastered" on the picture. But I'd love to know if it's this remastered version for sure.

d_brennen · 31 Jan 2021 at 01:31

Fluke? said:
Even though the show is what, 20 years old now (!!!!) I still drift off time to time thinking about the First Ones... Sigma 952(?) Vorlons etc etc and it sends me into a Wikipedia and Youtube frenzy. To this day I crave a vision of the Vorlon homeworld (*googles "vorlon homeworld name"*).. Ah, Vorlon.

E: Didn't realise it was a such an old thread, still worth a watch though

cu3ed · 31 Jan 2021 at 02:01

pecnarf said:
well the only problem i got with this remaster is that they didn't do the pilot episode "B5: The Gathering" aka first B5 Movie.

It was lost in teh earthquake where a lot of the original BS stuff was stored.
Strazynski could see that CGI would be cheap to do in the then future, so he featured all of the green screen stuff and filmed in widescreen, his intention was always to go back and update it all if he could, unfortunately these reels were also lost, so they would have to put a stupid amount to get all the CGI green screen done again. Which as cheap as CGI has got I cant see them investing.