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Remastering Season 1

I have the VHS that were available. (I had most of the Re-TV VHS at one point, but I stopped getting them because they were just too expensive to keep getting as they were released.)

I believe I have most, if not all, of the Laser Disc releases.

I have everything released on DVD x 2 sets

I bought the complete digital versions through Amazon and Vudu or iTunes, I don't recall which. ;)
 
Ok, here's S01E01




Would appreciate some feedback before I post the rest.

  • Its 1.5gb for the episode for a 1080p. Although its a MKV, I chose not to compress it, because with compression comes downgrade in quality, so thought I would leave that to you, each user, if they want to compress themselves or not. (use handbrake or something similar)

    You may notice every now and again that the might be a few bits on someone's face that didn't quite clear up, mainly because the original footage just doesn't have enough detail in it to recover.
    The same may apply to small faces in the distance, where there isn't enough detail in the original to reconstruct the face.
    Please remember that the whole cast is plastered with makeup, some more than others. Example: Lando in some of the scenes they coated him with makeup powder as if they dunked him in it, making him look plastic before I enhanced it. :)
    Removed all the horrible grain that was across the whole footage
    I tried to make it so they weren't too smoothed and plastic looking, so added a little bit of imperfection back in, which was suggested by someone here
    It will never look like a Bluray 4k copy unless they find and recapture all the original film footage from the cameras, so this is the best we can work with.

As always, these are always better viewed on a TV or mobile device. You can watch it on a PC monitor, but just be aware that Monitors are not very forgiving with pixels. Either way its better than what we have so far (I hope)

ep1_1.png
 
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This is absolutely beautiful.


https://imgur.com/a/b3C6mpU
bsepdFe.jpeg


What's the point in having 3 monitors if not to do this sort of thing? Leftmost is the original DVD release. Rightmost is the HBO upgrade and in the middle is your version.

Only thing I do miss is the built in subtitles.
 
Thanks and damn, forgot about the subtitles.

subs for ep1: https://easyupload.io/5txxiz

Download this and put it in the same folder as the MKV file. VLC will detect it and play subs.

If you want to embed it back in download ffmpeg and run this command

ffmpeg -i Babylon.5.S01e01.mkv -i 2_English.srt -c copy Babylon.5.S01e01_v2.mkv


I'll have to inject the subs back in on the other episodes going forward with ffmpeg and come back to this one.
 
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Episode 2 (with subs!!!) Please be aware that from this point, B5 has a low spec camera amongst its collection on set or bad cameraman, as some scenes are really low quality and there is nothing I can do about it. You will notice them as they stand out


Need to find a better way of sharing this as its going to take ages this way :(

ep2_3.png
 
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Looney said:
Those are some stark contrasts. :eek:
Click to expand...


This reminds me of what has been done with the FMV footage from 90's Wing Commander Games. Someone did an excellent job remastering WCIII, and the source vids for that came from a playstation. Which leads me to wonder why the 2021 B5 release - while greatly appreciated - couldn't have been better? Maybe they are saving The Big Guns for a BD release?
 
Yes, I will post a torrent for a whole season after I've uploaded them 1 at a time. The issue with torrents is people download then don't share the files. So this way, people can get the files now.

I wish I had access to a FTP because I could just upload all at once and the site i'm using to upload to limits the uploads per day.
 
Episode 4: This episode has a lot of haze/grain in some scenes. I've done my best to get most of it out, but the occasional frame or area may still have it and cant be cleaned up that well without losing detail

Caveat: Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi) seemed to have always hit the sun bed, so his tan can exaggerate a smooth face in many episodes.


ep4_6.png
 
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Episode 5: Lighting issues (the meal scene) and grain on this episode all over the place. The meal scene, the lighting is a red/orange colour, so consequently the faces are a little off colour as well. Mixed with some out of focus camera work, its the best its going to be.



ep5_1.png
 
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Episode 6: Scenes that have CGI effects over live action (such as the lightning effect in this episode) don't seem to have been composited very well by the B5 editors, hence why those scenes are blurry (even in the original). The rest has come out well


ep6.png
 
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Episode 7: Lots of noise on this HBO episode, consequently with lots bald heads on screen and lots of makeup powder, they look more smoothed than like, but putting the noise back in caused blotches. I might come back to this one at a later date.


ep7.png
 
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Episode 9: The HBO remastered has a massive horrible grain on this episode, so had to really over compensate to get rid of it, so afraid this is the most plastic looking yet, but still a big improvement on the original. I will come back to this one at some stage and see if I can tone it down a little.


ep9_1.png
 
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I've removed the links as I thought the forums were for members, however, the download link is visible by guests which isn't ideal.

Need to rethink this
 
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