Farscape Blu-ray Set - VHS masters upscaled to HD?

[premiumcapture]

Some background info:

http://missingepisodes.proboards.com...truction-films
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Farsca...Blu-ray/79765/

This is one of my favorite shows, and was excited when I heard a Blu Ray set would be coming out. Overall, the quality of the set was very impressive, much better than I had seen before.

Here's where the tricky part comes in - as following what the links above describe, the original 35mm prints were lost and the PAL material, supposedly on VHS, was upscaled to HD (1080p with black bars). I have pretty good equipment and honestly can't imagine something this good coming from a tape. For those who have seen/own the set or looking at the photos, is this possible? If not VHS, then what?

[msgohan]

I guess you got this "VHS" idea from that random poster RWels in that random thread?

Professional videotape formats existed both before and after VHS was invented. Farscape would have been produced on one of the professional digital tape formats. There's a VideoHelp thread where this was discussed as well, oddly enough. Try to ignore all the bickering.

[premiumcapture]

When something like this gets upscales, does the upscale take place in hardware or software, and where does the deinterlacing take place? It looks like those formats are sourced from component but then interlaced for broadcast.

[lordsmurf]

The upscaling can be done either way (hardware vs software), but is often via hardware. It really depends on the source, what other kinds of restoration is needed, etc. Rarely is source simply upscaled. Upscaling has byproduct artifacts that must then be compensated for. Upscaling is actually one of the things I hate most (past 720x480/576), so I almost never do it.

As stated, it was not VHS.

To excerpt quote from Videohelp post here:

Quote:

Lots of DVDs have been created from broadcast master tapes -- none of which are VHS. Even S-VHS is too low-grade for broadcast standards of syndicated television shows. You'll often see a reference to "1-inch tape", which is a easy tell that it's not 3/4ths-inch VHS. I'd find it impossible to believe every TV station that ever showed Farscape had misplaced all of their broadcast masters, and were somehow forced to use a VHS collection.

BetacamSP is unlikely. Digital Betacam may even be unlikely. I'd look at D-1 or D-2 tape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-1_%28Sony%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-2_%28video%29

D-1 tapes are huge. I used to have stacks of them in my office.

One of my personal projects right now is upscaling VCD-source/quality material to 352x480 and 720x480. It takes a heck of a lot of filtering to make the source enjoyable and watchable again.

Working on that is largely why I've been absent here lately, as that's the primary example used in several guides. Creating those guides is making the project take at least 10x as long to do, so everybody had better like these!

[premiumcapture]

Is that the project you mentioned in TV Past?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

The upscaling can be done either way (hardware vs software), but is often via hardware. It really depends on the source, what other kinds of restoration is needed, etc. Rarely is source simply upscaled. Upscaling has byproduct artifacts that must then be compensated for. Upscaling is actually one of the things I hate most (past 720x480/576), so I almost never do it.

As stated, it was not VHS.

To excerpt quote from Videohelp post here:
One of my personal projects right now is upscaling VCD-source/quality material to 352x480 and 720x480. It takes a heck of a lot of filtering to make the source enjoyable and watchable again.

Working on that is largely why I've been absent here lately, as that's the primary example used in several guides. Creating those guides is making the project take at least 10x as long to do, so everybody had better like these!

[lordsmurf]

No. This is something else entirely.

It's this project: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...vhs-audio.html -- the Joe Bob Briggs (Prehistoric Women and When Dinosaurs Rules the Earth) project. The sources is very problematic, both audio and video. I had to create new Sound Forge filters for the audio, and write modifications to an Avisynth filter to make this happen. The end product is very, very nice.

And the others is my Thunderbirds 2086 project. Again, the sources is very inferior, but it can be corrected into pretty decent shape.

Neither of these items (JBB segments or the Thunderbirds 2086 anime) will likely ever see an official release. Projects like that are worthy of my hobby time.

[premiumcapture]

Would definitely like to see some before and afters

[msgohan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by premiumcapture

It looks like those formats are sourced from component but then interlaced for broadcast.

Component and interlaced aren't mutually exclusive. DVD, for example, natively carries interlaced digital component video.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by msgohan

Component and interlaced aren't mutually exclusive. DVD, for example, natively carries interlaced digital component video.

Many overlook this.

In fact, I forget it from time to time, as I rarely refer to MPEG/DVD as "component quality", as is the case with HD (HDMI) and s-video (most analogs sources).

Good catch.