Pendell

@pendell

Current Hyperfixation: Wizard of Oz

He/Him

I use outdated technology just for fun, listen to crappy music, and watch a lot of horror movies. Expect posts about These Things. I talk a lot.

Check tags like Star Trek Archive and Media Piracy to find things I share for others.

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Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 6:39 AM

Pendell @pendell

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 5:20 AM

remember how I said DS9's DVD's had awful rainbowing artifacts

good lord Voyager is somehow worse, immediately. Nevermind the twigs, the fucking sand is rainbowy.

#video encoding #star trek

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 6:39 AM

Apparently this chunky motherfucker is to blame for all these issues

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https://twitter.com/worldofcrap/status/1602193738813657088

As I have recently been enlightened, both DS9 and VOY were mastered to the D-2 videotape format, which was a professional, broadcast-grade digital videotape that somehow manages to store a composite color signal... digitally. Rather than component. (For those unaware, this essentially means all the colors are squished into one miserable signal instead of each getting their own data channel)

Combine that with lackluster attempts to convert that back into component for DVD, you get these miserable images. They somehow managed to design a professional, digital video format that retains all the negatives of consumer, analog videotape. Impressive, honestly.

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Millennium @milliesquilly5/15/2023, 5:30 AM

memories of so many crummy anime dvd masters. I am inclined to blame the D-2 video tape format which is apparently a digital video format that somehow stores composite video - I am sure I heard at one point that it tends to look worse than analogue composite video formats so I suspect maybe it's got not quite enough bandwidth to carry the colour signal

that and crummy old comb filters being used to make the component DVD masters

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 6:00 AM

Are you telling me that the master broadcast tapes were composite and not component? That was a thing that could happen? There are real, production grade tape formats that used composite color?

I'm disappointed but also not surprised in the slightest, it was probably cheaper than whatever component option was available.

Millennium @milliesquilly5/15/2023, 6:09 AM

Yep! Back in analogue reel to reel videotape days, these were all composite, with the PAL or NTSC colour baked into the signal. Likely because the original tape formats (like Quad and such) predated colour, but later stuff like Type C is also composite. Betacam (and Digital Betacam) were component but since a lot of existing equipment (including broadcast stuff) all expected composite inputs D2 ended up being a popular tape format since it basically just replaced whatever old composite stuff they were doing. I think it's less the tape being cheaper and more "don't have to replace everything else". And since analogue broadcast is composite it doesn't make any difference, right?

Jackie💿@ArcadianRhythm5/15/2023, 7:09 AM

The quality of the upscaled Voyager and DS9 eps on pluto.tv (and BBC America when they were showing DS9) is surprisingly good. Every once in a while you can tell an episode came off a broadcast tape but, even then, any moiré you might see isn't nearly as bad as the DVDs.

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 5:06 PM

Hmm I'll have to check those out. I wonder how they'd be able to improve the quality without doing their own transfers from the master tapes (unlikely) or using AI (🤮). Though if they actually just put in the effort to properly clean up the footage that would be impressive - I've detailed the steps I've taken to try and improve these discs, but as a relatively inexperienced hobbyist I can only do so much haha.

Jackie💿@ArcadianRhythm5/15/2023, 7:17 PM

The most apparent flaw tends to be CG scenes, where you can occasionally see some combing from improper deinterlacing. It's definitely not a TOS/TNG level remastering effort -- CBS was always loud about how not cost-effective that would be for VOY/DS9. But whatever they did, it's night and day compared to the DVDs and what my local H&I subchannel shows every night.

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 8:12 PM

Yeah, the CG scenes were all done at 29.97fps while the film elements were done at 23.97fps and that's one of the biggest issues with any modern attempt to upscale or clean up the show. It wasn't a problem in the standard def NTSC days, but in the modern era of progressive scan, constant framerate HDTV, it's a nightmare.

I have heard that Paramount has the old hard drives with all the CG elements and animation data and could theoretically dig them out to rerender at 23.97fps, but even that is probably more work than it's worth for them.

Christopher Snowhill @kode545/18/2023, 8:49 AM

The stupid scrolling text on the pilot episode is also done at 59.94i, so there's also that.

Pendell @pendell5/18/2023, 4:03 PM

I checked it it was actually 29.97i, but yeah in my conversions I uploaded to my telegram channel I converted the entire show to 59.94p so both the CGI sections and the film sections run normally. The scrolling text looks normal finally lol

hail the fish @hailthefish5/15/2023, 9:51 AM

now it just needs to be 30% blurrier and it will completely capture the experience of watching voyager reruns at 2 am on the tiny TV in my grandparents' spare bedroom

Pendell @pendell5/15/2023, 5:07 PM

I've actually been seriously considering watching this and DS9 on a CRT since I think it would genuinely look a lot better played back on one.

in reply to @pendell's post:

nicky flowers @nicky5/15/2023, 6:41 AM

TOO BIG

Millennium @milliesquilly5/15/2023, 7:52 AM

I feel like back in SD video days, composite video was simply the norm. D-1 was the predecessor to D-2, and actually WAS component, but since these digital tape formats were pitched as drop-in replacements for analogue tape formats (Type C in particular), studios didn't want to have to rewire everything for component video. Hence nobody bought D-1 and it was D-2 that got popular since they could keep the same studio setups. The quality advantages of component wouldn't be there anyway in terms of output product since it was all ultimately ending up as a composite signal that got RF modulated and broadcast over the airwaves (or over cable I guess), so keeping stuff component was more of a future proofing thing if anything - and they'd already decided to do away with future proofing by editing on videotape instead of film I guess haha

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