Is the Blu Ray version of Babylon 5 better than the DVD version of old? Let me help you decide!

amzn.to/4bs7oM8 Amazon Associates link for the series from which I would get a few pennies, thanks! So here I present a look at the old school DVD release of Babylon 5 up against the Blu Ray release of the same. Pointless, you might say, Blu Ray is far better as format. Well, all things being equal, sure. But truth is a three edged blade. Babylon 5 was produced at a unique time, in a unique way, and that had... consequences. So the DVD release has plus points, and so does the Blu Ray, and here I'm going to look at what I think might be of interest to you. This should be spoiler free, but let me know if you think it isn't!

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Thanks for all your comments. They prompted me to go and check something, which was that my DVD set is missing the 4 minutes of rather vital footage from the Season 5 episode The Fall of Centauri Prime from before the intro starting! Apparently it's a problem that affected some of the issues of that box set, but happily I do at least now have it on Blu Ray - I've checked! I also found it was hilariously difficult to get to the season 5 discs on the Blu Ray (someone trying to tell us something?!) and that I was fractionally wrong about extras - if you peer underneath the paper insert of the plastic box, you get - episode listings! Plus mention of The Gathering's inclusion (last disc in the box ironically) and a trailer for The Road Home!

[@garethdavies8004]

It would seem that you have an original release Season 5 DVD boxset that has the missing minutes of that episode. Warner's did fix and re-release the DVD set when the problem was discovered. The Season 5 Boxset that has the discs in separate slim DVD cases in a box sleeve was the original release with this problem, the Book type Boxset that has the discs on a lever spine that opens like a book with a sleeve around it has the disc with the complete episode included.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@@garethdavies8004 That's interesting, I can only imagine that I bought the different sets at different times as money allowed, as my older seasons are the slimline cases you describe while my earlier seasons are the lever spines that you describe. Almost makes me want to get one of the combined DVD boxsets just for a consistent approach...!

[@garethdavies8004]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain When I bought the DVD sets on release to replace my VHS tapes that I bought in the 90's. The First 3 Seasons were released as Book Sets, but season 4 and 5 was released in a set with separate slim DVD cases with Season 5 containing the error of the missing minutes from the Fall of Centauri Prime episode, but when Warner's fixed the error they released the set in the Book Set form making Season 4 the odd one out. Although that's all moot now as I have replaced the DVD Seasons with the Blu-Ray set. Lets just hope that they release the rest of B5 T.V. Movies and Crusade and the lost tales on Blu-Ray.

[@Muck006]

Budget comparison (adjusted for inflation) read it and laugh/weep: - Babylon 5: ~$1,3 million per 45 minute episode - Star Trek TNG: ~$3 million per 45 minute episode - Star Wa(r)s "The Acolyte": ~$22 million per 22-30 minute episode

[@MattLathrum]

Are those all in 2024 dollars?

[@ashquiventures8619]

The live action material for B5 was shot for 16x9 with the 4x3 extraction framing being a priority. All the CGI was rendered at 4x3 "Standard Definition". I believe it was interlaced. They were expecting that when 16x9 displays became sufficiently available to the public that WB would provide funds to redo all the CGI at a higher resolution and at 16x9, instead of the original 4x3 renders. There are various factors to why the CGI material was rendered at 4x3 rather than 16x9 and the main reason was time and cost. When the DVDs were done the 16x9 framing was utilized but as noted by you and others all the CGI material was cropped from the 4x3 masters which results in the clear disparity in visual quality between the pure live action material and any shot that is uses CGI. The B5 HD remastering from what I understand was an absolute labor of love by the team who did it and likely completed it before the recent dark times at WB today. In that they did not have the funds to recreate all the CGI and CGI composites but with their budget they did manage to find and scan the vast majority of the live action 35mm elements. Which is an immense task even with all the possible funding and optimal available materials. The HD 4x3 presentation is a perfectly valid and is an original intended aspect ratio for the show which also makes the best use of the SD CGI material. By opting for the 4x3 framing it really is the best compromise to accommodate the lower quality of all the standard definition materials. If they had gone with 16x9 and replicated the approach used with the widesceen DVDs then the picture quality for all the shots that make use of CGI would appear dramatically inferior. Much of the original CGI working files were lost but a good number of them have been recovered and some fans have made use of them to rerender some shots at greater quality. To why WB did not coordinate with these people, only WB knows. And even if they did, there would still be a lot of material that would have to be redone. On the audio front, from what I understand it is effectively the same as the DVDs. Unfortunately, they did not address some issues even from the DVD mixes and might have introduced an error or two. They should have fixed some audio level disparities which is more evident in Seaon 5, the Credits are extremely loud in comparison to the main programing. There is one episode that has always had poor audio quality and that remains the case with the HD release. As it stands, the current HD presentation of B5 is a miracle that has some shortcomings but accounting for the forest for the trees we are very fortunate to have this release.

[@Geerladenlad]

I think I'll wait and see if a 4k version comes out and then consider the options.

[@shadowtrooper3764]

Its rare for any shows to come to 4k, and the only ones that do are new. I don't think I've ever seen a long running tv show from the 90s get a 4k release, we're lucky to have the blu ray.

[@Geerladenlad]

@@shadowtrooper3764 This Blu-ray set is not worth it. It might be 10 years before a 4k set but I'm willing to wait.

[@dsolosan]

"Standard film is widescreen by its nature." Do you mean 35mm? The traditional old-timey frame size on 35mm is 1.33:1 Which is not widescreen. To get anything wider, filmmakers have had to come up with a couple of jury-rigs, such as cropping the top or bottom of the frame (1.85:1), or using an anamorphic lens to squeeze a wider image into the frame (2.35:1).

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Well I found this short explanation on a site, but apparently they may even have shifted to shooting it differently in later seasons to save money? This degree of knowledge is a touch beyond me I'm afraid: "Like many TV shows of the era, Babylon 5 was shot on 35mm film in 2-perf format (as opposed to the 3-perf theatrical standard), which yielded an aspect ratio pretty close to 16:9 on the camera negative."

[@Snatcher42]

About the on-screen text: it's been re-created on both the DVD & blu-ray, but the blu-ray actually looks a lot closer to the original broadcast. On DVD they changed the font to what they were using in some of the later movies (River of Souls, A Call to Arms). The blu-ray puts it back to the way it should look, just re-rendered in HD. It's actually one of the small touches of the remaster I most appreciate, because they could have easily gone the lazy route of just upscaling the old text.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@Snatcher42 Ah super thank you for that, I hoped someone might have a definitive answer. All these little details would have made for an interesting making of segment if nothing else. Somebody somewhere put effort into this. I wonder if they're credited somewhere...

[@Muck006]

It is a shame they couldnt do "best of both worlds" and use the 4:3 for the "full CGI" and widescreen for the rest. You just have to "add black bars to the sides of the CGI". There is an example that does this: the german version for the "Robin of Sherwood" series had missing scenes that were 4:3, but ads them on the DVD version. They additionally only have the english language version, which doesnt really matter because you should watch it in english anyways.

[@ryanbaker7404]

It was convenient for the broadcast TV of the time, but the entire "shoot it on film, finish it on video" mantra has locked some great TV away in Video Hell (TM), unfortunately. Thank goodness Paramount/CBS Digital were willing to eat the expense to give us TNG in all its glory, going back to the Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) to re-edit every episode, rather than just upscaling the finished video product. Also, sticking with the 4:3 aspect ratio instead of "pushing in" was the right call. Give me the OG. I am afraid because of the added elements of lower res, digital CGI elements, we'll likely never get DS9 and Voyager.

[@greyeyed123]

Give it a few years, and AI will be able to upgrade everything with the flip of a switch.

[@ryanbaker7404]

@@greyeyed123 I’m holding out hope for this actually! Let’s hope we’re not disappointed!

[@JavaJunky]

So, I get that the 4:3 loses the extra side details from the live action shots. But, none of that info was viewable on the original broadcast. I am assuming that the shots were framed for TV sets at the time. Not pan and scan, which is a modified picture. Please confirm...the blu-rays give us the same experience of the original broadcast (with a slightly improved picture quality).

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Well I would hope they wouldn't be worse than the original broadcast! To be perfectly honest I'd be lying if I said to you it's the same experience because I don't have a reference point, but I can't see how it could be anything different unless they somehow used the DVD footage and looked at a non-central area of it?

[@conniebenny]

A great and very useful comparison video. Thanks for your thoughts and observations on the Blu-ray. I love B5 (it is in fact my favourite ever show), however since I already own the DVD sets, and I knew the Blu-ray was disappointingly 4:3, I still haven't bought the new version yet. On balance, I don't think I'll bother (unless the price drops through the floor of course), and instead I'll continue to hope for a full-on re-render of the CGI in 16:9 in the future, followed by a bells and whistles re-release on Blu-ray finally giving us all of the show in the highest quality. With the advent of AI to assist Warners, it can't be that difficult, surely?

[@Niblonian88]

This is some really useful info, thanks. I do love B5 and have been toying with picking up the Blu Ray set for a while but the lack of extras and additional films had always put me off. I'm happy I did wait after this review, it is likely I will snag it one day but am now more than happy to wait until I see it for a really competetive price.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

I am certainly normally one to wait for a deal but it had been stubbornly high for a while. As I mentioned on the video it may be cheaper through Warners, as I was told after the fact, but I went old school and physically picked it up from a physical store! Whilst I'm sure it will come out on clearance eventually, I do wonder to some extent just how big the production run would have been in the first place - scarcity could keep the price up?

[@DoctorHades]

My biggest gripe with this UK BD boxset is the packaging which is beyond awful with possibly the worst stacking of discs of any boxset I currently own (although Space 1999 Season 1 on DVD from Network comes close but has far less discs). It's Warners being el cheapo in my opinion. Just taking the discs out is a chore not to mention having to reorder discs in order to get to the one I want. It is terrible. 0 out of 10 for packaging from me. I'd have happily paid an extra fiver or tenner for individually boxed seasons. As for the image, it's as good as we are ever going to get and I'd rather have the original 4:3 aspect ratio maintained rather than having the dated CGI zoomed in and looking even worse. I mean I have enjoyed Space 1999 and UFO on BD in 4:3 so it doesn't bother me at all. Besides I watch TV and movies in a dark room and on an OLED TV that black bars are invisible so are quickly forgotten.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Don't think I can disagree with any of that! Thanks for dropping by!

[@quadparty]

I watched maybe three or four episodes of B5 when it was on, but for some reason a couple of shorts came through recently, and for some reason I decided to watch this, and it was very useful 🙂

[@rtex2020]

Thank you for doing this analysis... I'm still not convinced that I want to get the Blu Ray version.

[@lysith3aPS5]

Losing the side elements from the wider perspective for the 4:3 presentation is unfortunate but very much the lesser of the evils IMO. If it were purely CGI that required 4:3 then I'd have no real issue with a changing ratio between live-action and CGI, but it's the composite shots that are the issue, and there are loads and loads of those. They would still need to be 4:3 too, and together with the pure CGI, the constant changing between 4:3 and 16:9 would be far too jarring. As it is, yes we lose the additional detail from the live-action scenes, but what we do get is a night and day improvement over the DVD presentation, both in terms of detail and colour-grading. The live-action elements were re-scanned to 4K resolution and it really shows. CGI/composite's are upscaled 480i, but it's pretty good upscaling, and together with the lack of crop/zoom again it's a big difference. The lack of extras, and the abysmal packaging is what really lets the set down. I had to re-house my blu ray discs into the old DVD packaging as the jumbo box for the blu rays is absolutely hideous. Fortunately it's fewer discs so I used the extra slots in the DVD sets to retain the actual DVDs with extras on them, hence managed to save the commentaries/bloopers etc. Now, I still have everything in the "complete universe" DVD box. The Gathering, is in the blu ray set, but it's an unaltered version of the special edition. It looks very poor compared to all the other episodes, and tbh, I kept my DVD-copy of the "unspecial" edition, which is both a better edit, and a better presentation than what we get as the extra on the blu ray. Still, if it's a choice between the DVDs and the blu rays, then for me it's no choice at all. Packaging, extras, are superfluous compared to the main draw, the actual episodes. And even with the 4:3 presentation (which it was originally anyway), it's still vastly superior to the DVD-presentation.

[@christianames2161]

I see the dvd sets often at places that sell secondhand dvds, usually going for around $10-15. It's hard to argue with the cost when you're getting all those great commentaries, and the widescreen looks really nice. The loss of cg detail is definitely felt whenever I've watched the dvds on a larger screen. I watched the hd versions on tubi for the first time and I'm glad it was the 4:3 version; I think it comes off as a bit more polished from a newcomer's perspective.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

It's a funny thing because when I did my watch through for Babblecom I was watching it on a 20 odd inch monitor, so I didn't really find the CGI an issue as such but now I realise how much was missing!

[@tallerghostwalt]

The biggest problem with a mixed aspect ratio release would have been those composited shots. I remember that quite a few shots were cropped poorly on dvd with parts of the faces cut off, etc. And as far as I know the original tapes for those scenes are no longer available, so it wouldn‘t be possible to recreate the composition with new effects. Personally I rather have the HD 4:3 than the 16:9 DVDs. The missing extras are a real shame, though. Regarding the scenes that are missing ftom the HBO streaming version, could you give us an update if they corrected that for the new release, when you find out?

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Ah sorry if I wasn't clear, the missing element I mentioned was on my DVD release - apparently there was an error on some and an intro scene got dropped. Didn't happen for everyone. You think there was something missing from the HD stream?

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

And on the composite shots, yes, the problem is if they don't have the just the actors version with no background - well, I suspect you could still do it with digital tech what it is now. It's just an investment the studio probably wouldn't want to commit to...

[@tallerghostwalt]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain The first scene in The Hour of the Wolf in season 4 and, I think, the closing scene in Babylon Squared are missing, likely simply due to an error with the transfer. I bought the episodes on Amazon, but as far as I know this was the case on all the streaming services. Now I just read up on this and apparently it was fixed on HBO Max at some point, but my version is still somewhat incomplete.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@@tallerghostwalt I just checked the Blu Ray for The Hour of the Wolf and it seems the same as the DVD, so perhaps they caught that for the Blu Ray release (assuming my DVD is correct). I might now hunt down the season 5 episode that's wonky on my DVDs and compare. I was laughing actually because one thing I didn't mention here is that my season 4 and 5 DVD box sets switch over to loads of slimline DVD cases and just have the leaflet floating round inside them, so I bet loads of them got lost. It's possible I got those seasons after the initial releases, they're a little larger so they rather break up the continuity of the set visually on a shelf... I think I prefer the fold out versions that I originally had for the earlier seasons. Maybe that's another video!

[@tallerghostwalt]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain Thank you for checking that! If I remember correctly they switched the DVD packaging here in Germany between seasons. I actually preferred the slim cases as the discs could be taken out more easily. Still, it’s always frustrating when the packaging is not consistent within a show.

[@MutantProductions]

thanks for the detailed comparison. shame the love and care given to the DVD release didn't really extend to the latest version... almost feels like a cashgrab...

[@dlarge6502]

Cash grab? Seriously it's hard enough to keep this kind of thing alive. They know that us physical media weirdos will pay for discs with no artwork. Almost all Blu-ray discs have no artwork, sad but true so why would this set be different? All I care about are the discs are numbered correctly.

[@MutantProductions]

@@dlarge6502 minimum effort to get maximum return... sounds to me it's the very definition - whether other titles do the same or not. :/

[@Muck006]

Having more people at the sides is more important than the full CGI IMO, because it ads more life to the station / scenes.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

That's a really interesting observation. I always thought they did incredibly well with making it a "living" station and you're right, the widescreen does show off the extras various.

[@garyrichards6079]

They Missed out the Movies aswell !! So unlike the Complete DVD boxset that had all the Movies and Crusade Series , This set only has the Pilot Movie only :(

[@Muck006]

The pilot movie isnt actually that great, because there are some "mistakes and changes" in it that need to be retconned: - the whole "slowing down" after getting out of the gate is bad design - how can a SUBSTANCE/POISON affect a being of energy ... and why whould Kosh have a hand and present it to have "Sinclair" shake it? That's why I dont really like it too much (even though the Takashima plot was a neat idea that sadly couldnt be realised).

[@ooklathemok]

Thank for this. I remember they did a "remaster" which was released online in 2021 ? which i think was all A.I. so i was hoping that this would be a proper remaster AND re-render the effects but it still doesnt sound like that.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

No I missed the online releases, I didn't have the right services, but I believe this is probably that release?

[@ooklathemok]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain hi there. I've had a look at the online "remaster" and i use the term loosely because it was all AI..and I've checked it against this Blu-ray release and as far i can see its a swizz. Coupled with your excellent side by side dvd comparison I'm more convinced now that all theyve done is take this poor man's remaster off the web and stuck it on Blu-ray and packaged in a shitty box whereas I was sure , but incredulous nonetheless, that the whole point of the Blu-rays were to do a proper remaster of the video and re-render the effects.Im not convinced because the effects look the same and the video is just as soft looking as on the web.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@ooklathemok Well I rather assumed this would be the case, but I suppose having it on Blu Ray does avoid additional subscription charges chasing it round providers. Do we know it was an AI job as such? The treatment of the text and other comments here suggest it may have been AI assisted but not wholly automatic?

[@ooklathemok]

​@@ExcelsiorsDomainThank you for replying and you'll forgive my turn of phrase but I'm rather pissed off over this whole situation mainly because I'm finding it difficult to get information. This is why your video is invaluable because I was under the impression that with Star Trek the Next Generation for example they remastered the video properly without any AI taking the original film and then reproduced a lot of the effects. Because Babylon 5 effects were CG rather than models I was under the impression that the whole point of this Blu-ray release, even though it's woeful in terms of extra features, was that they would remaster the video properly from the original print and if they wanted to use AI as well for some of the fine work that was okay but really it was supposed to be a proper remaster and on top of that they were going to re-render the special effects from scratch. Now that's what I read but comparing the 2 it doesn't seem any different from the AI remaster that was available online a couple of years ago. Now it could very well be the case that they have extracted as much quality as they're able to but my caveat is that the Next Generation looks a lot sharper and I'm not only referring to the special effects. Maybe some time have a look at the small print on the back of the box because it has to be there somewhere and it wouldn't surprise me if they actually says that this is not a proper remaster but instead has been put through some kind of AI filtering process

[@OneAngryDeacon]

Can't tell you how glad I am you were wearing clothes when you filmed the TV

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

I learned that lesson from that episode of ST TNG where a member of the crew appears in an ornament chewing gum on Romulus!

[@Dularr]

My understanding is when they filmed Banylon 5, they didn't have a high definition monitor to inspect the video output. So while the broadcast video looked fine, the higher definition video was a disaster. It apparently took a long while before the technology was available to fix the series.

[@dlarge6502]

As HD didn't exist in the 90's I'd expect that to make it difficult if not redundant to have a HD monitor to hand. I mean why render for video standards that were not even on the radar when it's clear they didn't even render for wide-screen which certainly was on the radar?

[@Dularr]

@@dlarge6502 1990s is when cable companies were investing in digital TV. So many shows were preparing for a digital signal.

[@Dularr]

@@dlarge6502 read the mastering problems for Babylon 5. Very colorful tale.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@@dlarge6502 Keep in mind as well that for the really CGI heavy episodes they often barely completed the rendering in time as they ran week to week. They didn't have anywhere near the lead time they would have needed (nor indeed the processing power) to render up to a higher degree. Future proofing unfortunately wasn't in the budget...

[@Guardian0v4Eva]

Great video, not many in-depth reviews of this Blu ray release. They definitely put more effort into DVD back in the day.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

It's a curious thing, there's no doubt about it. Maybe they'll do a deluxe Blu Ray collection or some such down the line if the sales aren't too bad! We can certainly be grateful for the DVD release. I've also got the CNN DVD, I'm not sure I've sat and watch all of it but that's a fascinating glimpse into how they made use of the "studio" space...

[@Guardian0v4Eva]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain I still need the CNN DVD, very pricey now.

[@philatkin2261]

Hmm looks like keeping dvd

[@philatkin2261]

Wots the cnn ?

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@@philatkin2261 It was a sort of behind the scenes DVD documentary, the people who did the encyclopaedia did it? I'll have to fish it out...

[@deswynne8172]

I have the DVD box sets, surprisingly, I think it's series 3, the booklet is in French.

[@weust2672]

Just my 2 cents and how I do things. - I don't give a crap about nice labels on the discs. They get out of the case and into the player. And In my case I rip/remux them and are stored on my fileserver. The case is rarely pulled from the shelf anymore. - It would have been nice to have CGI in 4:3 and the live action in 16:9. As you've shown in the side by side, the 16:9 shows more on the sides. - The CGI not being re-rendered is something that, to my knowledge, is rarely done? It's also the reason Star Trek Voyager isn't out on Blu-ray because they couldn't upscale properly because of the use of CGI. At least, that's how I understood it at the time. And if for both shows the original files are lost, you can't just render them again but in a higher resolution. - The missing extra's/commentary is a thing, for some. Personally I don't watch them, really. Especially since I rip/remux everything. I did buy a standalone player again recently, first time in 10 years I think since I used one, so I did watch some extra's on movies I've played so far. - Menu with animations. I'd rather not have them so browsing them is quicker. Anyway, that's it for me.

[@Jkaninteangemittnamn]

i guess the blue rays dont even have all the laungue subtitles and in some case B5 in french or german sometime in catalan ( never did understand why they didnt do spanish)

[@weust2672]

@@Jkaninteangemittnamn I only use English subtitles, and I am Dutch :)

[@ImagineMySurprise510]

It's curious that the image in the Zocolo has the Zocolo sign illuminated in the DVD image but not in the Bluray image. I have no idea why.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

I noticed that too. I think it's a colour saturation issue, someone ramped up the Blu Ray primary colours I think so it ends up looking merged with the surrounding area as it's all blue tinted. It's little things like that where it falls down a touch, presumably they felt the colour balance was off or some such?

[@dsolosan]

Does the sign blink in the show? It doesn't look like he used the exact same frame.

[@joseph.irvin.photography]

The 4K scans are sharp and detailed far & above what the DVDs can show, the only problem is that evidently no one went back to the DVDs to look at the color grade or be faithful to that! So there are strings of episodes (like nearly the entirety of season 2 disc 3) which look just awful and this is the nearly unforgivable gaff that keeps me from recommending the blu-ray set wholeheartedly. My recommendation is to buy it, but don't throw away your DVDs because they still have their worth, with the special features, but also to show WB how poor some of the blu-ray episodes look in their colors. I'm surprised that I've found no one who has griped about this yet besides me. The blu-ray and DVD both have their upsides and downsides. If the producers had paid to have the CG rendered in widescreen or paid extra to preserve the computer files then things could have been different but for all the foresight that the creators had they were constrained by the money men. 4:3 on blu-ray is the only practical compromise and anyone who whines about it might as well whine about STTNG not being widescreen. The composite shots are the weakest element but those were all done 4:3 as well, there are articles and interviews about all these issues going back years. And back when the DVD box sets were originally sold we were paying $100 per season, so having all 5 seasons for less than that is a deal no matter which way you look at it. Yeah the packaging is a joke but whatever, it's the show's presentation itself that matters.

[@alanrickett2537]

I picked up the VHS set for 3 pounds Yes all 5 seasons they didn't want any videos in the shop any longer

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

I wonder if anyone's come up with a sensible way to re-use old VHS cases. I picked up a shedload of old sci-fi VHS tapes the other day (see other videos!) and can confirm no-one wants them!

[@Zen-Dragon71]

So i have yet to upgrade my B5 Does the BluRay set contain the Movies?

[@edf5424]

No, it only has the pilot, The Gathering. If they were to release the movies on Blu-ray, I would have expected an announcement by now.

[@michaeljw3602]

Thanks for making my mind up , i was thinking of getting the blurays, i wont do it now, i love the dvds for the extras, the commentsries especially

[@movieflicktube]

What has been overlooked here is that only the 4:3 masters were created on film . These were filmed & made back in the day alongside the video recordings . Thus the 4:3 masters were scanned in HD for the blu ray release .This is also why the 4:3 masters were used for the LASERDISC releases on home video which to this day are superior to the DVD release

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

So where in your view would the DVD have gotten its extra side footage from? I think we've established that film isn't necessarily 4:3 by they would have adopted that ratio for broadcast purposes.

[@RavenShinyThings]

None of the movies or crusade were included i think that is sad

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Now you've said that I wonder what scale the Crusade CGI was done at...

[@edale2]

Now what I remember is Babylon 5 airing in widescreen, as one of the first series to do so. I think they started airing in widescreen with season 3. So why don't we have a 4:3 seasons 1 and 2, and widescreen seasons 3-5?

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Well this might be a daft observation, but is it possible that you got an early widescreen TV at that time and the picture just got auto-stretched to fill it? I think some early ones probably would have done that unless you told them not to. Unless someone else can give an idea on that I'm not aware of them having switched to widescreen for live transmission, but then I'm only speaking from a UK standpoint?

[@edale2]

@@ExcelsiorsDomain they literally advertised it as "filmed in widescreen", and had a little intro bit about it before the start of every episode (just a little screen that said "TNT presents Babylon 5 filmed in widescreen"). I had a 4:3 TV at the time, and it showed up on screen with letterboxes.

[@javeedsultan8484]

Have the video tapes, the dvd and now the blue ray Unfortunately, in my opinion the Blue Ray sucks Having been there at the beginning it's the casting and story arc that hooked me Have all the videos as they came out, DVD was an improvement and nicely presented I too recently purchased a blu-ray version In my opinion the blu-ray version is purely a money making endeavour The packaging sucks, returned mine 3 time due to loose scratch disc No info on the disc or information leaflet identifying which episodes are on each disc No extra features, I mean nothing, no interviews, no make of, no bloopers apart from the episodes nothing extra I never regret anything I buy, untill know The should have put a bit of time and effort into 5he blu-ray release

[@gallendugall8913]

I bought the BluRay as the play copy, so my DVD copy can stay better preserved in a case along with a packet of oxygen absorber.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

A mild irony given the aspect ratio on everything else, I just looked at the Gathering before putting the Blu Rays away and as I imagined it's the TNT Special Edition, but it isn't cropped! Which makes we wonder if its CGI was done in widescreen by exception because it was made as a proof of concept, or if they adopted the DVD approach to life and just used a chunk of the CGI instead. Answers on a virtual postcard...

[@garytilford6503]

The Gathering has been cropped and zoomed in for 16:9 and it looks absolutely terrible on the blu ray. Even the original DVDs were in the correct 4:3 ratio. Because the blu ray version is zoomed in it has lost a ton of detail making it look blurry or out of focus. My dvd looks far better with the full 4:3 screen and much sharper detail. It's a pity they didn't give us the original unchanged 4:3 version for the blu ray.

[@mikecrawford1247]

Luckily all extras except the commentaries are on the final disc of the dvd sets so when I got the blu ray set I took all the last disc of the sets and put them all in the season 1 case, also unfortunately some of the older dvd copies where printed at that 1 factory of WB disc that is responsible fire most of the dvd disc rot people are finding today

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Ah you mean you physically moved some DVDs over? Funnily enough I was just looking at the first disc of season 4 and there's an introduction to the season on there by JMS so whilst you're probably right for the most part there could be exceptions to the final disc rule...

[@blacko3539]

Careful with the DVD version. In my season 4 set I had some repeated discs so have a few episodes missing :(

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

Gosh. Less than ideal. Happily when I worked through my very lightly played DVDs the only glitch was that I missed the opening few minutes of the Fall of Centauri Prime

[@dhplayground]

Same, I had 4 duplicates DVD's that were mis-printed across seasons and I bought it when it original came out. I lost all my DVD's while moving, around 17 years ago, so this Blu Ray box set was perfect for me since all I had left to watch B5 were very low resolutions mp4

[@johnnycarrotheid]

Same here. Think the season 4 from that big boxset was a particular mess up. Think I found others through the box, but tbh I ended up binning it long ago. Useless as everything wasn't there/mistaken named discs etc

[@johnnycarrotheid]

In the UK, ,the big dvd boxset ic movies and crusade, the massive boxset. It has misprint discs and duplicate episodes I think on season 4. Duplicates mean others are missing. Ruins the boxset

[@greyeyed123]

"I will throw up at points in this video", lol. You made be do a spit take!

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

@@greyeyed123 Apologies, poor choice of words!

[@kirishima638]

In a few more years, the AI upscaling built into TVs and smart devices will remaster old shows in real time.

[@Muck006]

Just use the AI to make the remastering for the Blu-Ray easier/cheaper. AI on its own will not work properly and needs guidance.

[@dsolosan]

"The DVD reminds us that analogue film isn't 4:3." Tell that to the thousands of movies produced before the 1960s. The aspect ratio of 35mm film is entirely dependent on how the filmmakers choose to use it.

[@joseph.irvin.photography]

Yet he's still right. Films from the 1950s and earlier shot with 4-perf 35mm whereas a lot of more modern productions shot 3-perf which is wider by virtue of not being as tall. B5 was shot 3-perf 2.85:1 and then cropped 1.33:1 for broadcast.

[@dsolosan]

@@joseph.irvin.photography You've just confirmed my point that he was wrong. He said that "analogue film isn't 4:3." Filmmakers create a variety of aspect ratios using 35mm film, with 4:3 being a standard for decades. He also quoted someone that B5 was "shot 2-perf, instead of the standard 3-perf," which is also wrong. Shot 3-perf instead of 4-perf is probably what he meant. Little details.

[@thorgrimb2416]

I am watching season 5 on the Bluray at present. I love B5 it is my favourite sci fi series followed by Sapce Above and Beyond. But the Bluray has been a real disappointment for me I was hoping for a really good quality upscaling as well to justify the price but on my old 55 inch sony 4k tv it looks so grainy as if they had some college student working on the Bluray and not real proffessionals. I have seen many old B&W movies done to a really nice high std all it needed was the same passion that the millions of fans have for this series to be put into the Bluray edition. Now yes I still am enjoying watching the series for god knows how many run throughs now but I am really disappointed that they did not take the time to make this series really special.

[@ExcelsiorsDomain]

I remember many, many years ago just running video captures through some despeckling filters and the like and I really need to sit and watch this properly to get an overall impression of the quality of it as against something that's had more money thrown at it rather than just some default settings applied. For my channel, this video has had a large number of views in a short space of time and now that the Babylon 5 embargo seems to have been lifted at WB we can but hope the Blu Ray sales might prompt them to take a harder look at remastering the series given what might be possible these days with a little budget...

[@Muck006]

What's so hard about "re-rendering/upscaling"? It shouldnt be expensive because all you need is one person and a set of computers doing the rendering. The person just has to do the quality control and maybe change the settings for some scenes ... and swap out the old widescreen CGI for the full "4:3 with added black bars to the sides" one. It isnt that hard and should not be too expensive, basically the only real COST for creating the Blu-Ray (apart from production cost).

[@EvieDoesYouTube]

AI outpainting could render a widescreen version