Відео

Unfortunately this figure does look a bit off, but I can see how the source material made it a challenge. The other figures on the back do look better. 👍

Those Art Asylum models were not bad. But the stands were awful. Sometimes they were loose, so posing the model was difficult and it would tilt over. But the biggest problem is that they are flimsy and there is a good chance that the stand will break at the top.

I don’t know, I preferred Gobots. I liked the consistent size with Gobots. Maybe because Transformers has a jingle.

These are lovely mate. I need to watch the movie again soon. Keaton is such a good Batman. 👍

I still have some of my ST: Innerspace sets and the Strike Force version of the Enterprise D

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

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.

The Mole is possibly popular because it's cool, and it's on the end titles, so every episode. Bandai also created the chrome finished Electronic Thunderbird 1 that came out in the late 80s. Tomy Takara later did the Thunderbirds Are Go animated series diecast metal toys, that were released in English speaking markets by Vivid Imaginations. There were many more released in Japan, including the 1965 vehicles, so that's 2 more Moles. What you are calling 'Carlton' toys are Vivid Imaginations toys. Carlton were the owners of Thunderbirds at the time of the mini figures and Supersize Sound Tech which were made by Vivid Imaginations. The Supersize Mole and Firefly were both available carded, and were not exclusive to the big TB2. There was a small silver Mole with the JR21 TB2 in some markets, otherwise you got a red jeep. Your final Mole needs the helicopter blades removing, before you add the drill, and the tracks...

I'd forgotten about these. Me and my baby brother (who like me is now in his 40's) got a box of these as a hand me down from my cousin.

Your figure is Gordon from the Thunderbird 4 that comes with the Supersize Thunderbird 2.

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.

Great stuff, you really got some very nice pieces there, I'm not a toy fair person but appreciate seeing your experience of it.

love Flash Gordon gun!

Interesting video and some good points regarding toy fairs. Btw awesome pickups especially the Transformer picture book and Gerry Anderson blueprint manual 👊🔥👍

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

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

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?

Awesome video mate 👍

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

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.

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.

Nice

AI outpainting could render a widescreen version

can’t really see anything poor video nothing is close up all from a distance

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

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

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

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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

There is a second weight in the compartment at the back of Zoidzilla's head. This allows the head to drop back so the mouth can open. So, when switched on, he will walk forward, his arms move. His head moves from side to side and the mouth will open. Also his eyes will flash red when the back part is switched on. Amazing piece of engineering for an 80s toy.

29:27 I used to have alot of Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys sets including the Primate Avenger but I sold them cheap. They are now on my to buy list. Btw awesome video mate 🔥👍

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...

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

"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.

"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).

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.

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

Jetfire was only named ‘Skyfire’ in the original G1 cartoon (plus some Takara Tomy Jetfire toys). All other forms of TF media, comics, cartoons, films, toys are known as Jetfire!

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

£30 was a good price for that SHADO 2 . I love UFO stuff and just got the product enterprise SHADO 2 , but made sure it was the "clean" version as someone who did the weathering on the other versions needs to go to specsavers

Art Asylum did some cracking stuff. You should have a look for their series of 3 assimilated borg figures. It tooks me ages to hunt down the full set unopened at a good price. The boxes look like the pods that the borg rested in.

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.

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

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.