I'm so tired of home releases of older media being zoomed in! Why are people allergic to letterboxes? I don't understand how anyone could prefer to miss out on 25% of the show via cropping then just have some black bars on their screen. With modern TVs, the letterboxes would even be true black, so it would just emulate a 4:3 television set. This has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves.
agreed, like I'd even prefer stretched to 16:9 because I do video engineer work and am used to automatic ratio correction (plus if you've got an old Sony Bravia, its easy to rescale back)
like im less allergic to stretching (its how i prefer VHS) because the original information is still there, just stretched but cropping 4:3 instead of pillarboxing? that information is just gone, its not there, not even the color black, just nothing
it just feels uncomfortable to watch tho 16:9 TVs are not exactly made for 4:3 stuff, it's much better to watch on a CRT TV or any other 4:3 TV i feel it could be better fixed if the backgrounds has something with them than just dead space
@@davidholanda1 I don't understand. With modern TVs, those boxes are true black. It's literally like your flatscreen morphed into a 4:3 TV for the duration of the show.
@ it's noticeable tho just like what the guy said in the video, people wouldn't like to watch something that isn't fullfilling the whole screen idk it's weird, i personally prefer just watching in 4:3 TV for 4:3 stuff lol
The Simpsons is still hand drawn they draw it on paper, scan it into the computer, and color it digitally. In seasons 14-20 They used a filter to make it look more like cel animation. Edit: Now its drawn frame by frame on tablets.
It seems I must have misunderstood a interview with Matt groening where he talks about them moving away from cel animation to digital ink. However it’s all drawn in computer as of now. I’ll link a great interview from 2020 which was a great source for me. www.cgw.com/Press-Center/In-Focus/2020/Working-at-Home-with-the-Simpsons
Its crazy to me that these companies think consumers hate letterboxed video. The only people I ever remember bitching about "black bars" are boomers now shitting themselves in their death beds
Sorry, but you are very very wrong about what consumers prefer. Only the vast vast minority of purists even UNDERSTAND what a 4:3 ratio even is, these days. The real truth, one you are intentionally lying to yourself about is that the wide mainstream majority thinks that "black bars on the screen" is a "mistake" or "an error" and they ask "why does it look like that?" all the time. All audiences today EXPECT an image to fill their televisions, and complain when they don't. Mainstream audiences are not as smart or as media literate as you seem to want to give them credit. It isn't just relegated to "boomers". Kids today under 18 years old were raised on 16:9 and frankly do not understand what 4:3 is, and think it's "broken" and "unwatchable." if it looks like a square, and they won't sit through it. Now, you may be one of these purists and I may be one of these purists. I'm 42 years old, and I was raised on tv from the 80's and 90's so I understand the different, but our generation is a dying breed, and mainstream audiences today, have never known 4:3 from our perspective, and they've forgotten it and think it's "outdated, old and bad." Yes, we're just going to have to get used to the reality that people have gotten dumber and more complacent, people don't do their research today and they have forgotten everything from our generation, as well as how to appreciate it. Kids today think that NES and Super NES games are "boring" and "old" and think that "pixel games are old and lame", can't handle hard difficulty without audtosaves and checkpoints, and have grown up just thinking that "old video games' are just something to steal for free off the internet, to play for 2 hours, get frustrated and whine about how bad video games are, likely because they watched the AVGN rant about a game without playing it themselves. Kids today think that classic tv shows and movies are "old and lame", and don't understand special effects, and call matte shots and composite and practical and optical effects in movies "graphics" and "CGI" because they apparently think CGI existed back since the 70's and think everything had it. Hell, there are a lot of kids today that actually think the entire world was in Black and White back in the 1950's, just because tv shows from then, were. This is just the sadder, dumber and more ignorant world we live in.
Anyone that gets upset about black bars on the sides of their TV screen is a proverbial child. We should not be compromising the look and feel of legacy media to appeal to people who cannot or refuse to appreciate it as originally intended.
8:40 I really wish people would stop only using the intro when comparing an animation. Intros are known to have better production quality than the actual shows
not to toot my own horn but a year or so after they added 4:3 option to disney+ I selected it only to find some episodes were still cropped when they should have been in 4:3 I ended up going through every episode from season 1-20 (the first half of 20 is in 4:3) and twitted a list of them at the current showrunner who than fixed it (customer service was no help)
30+ billion. That's how much they make from parks alone. AND YET... they can't be bothered to properly HD remaster one of the most popular animated shows of all times. They've literally zero excuse to not dig up film reels and HD scan them.
It’s not even the worst HD “remaster”. Take a look at how bad Dragon Ball Z has had it for home releases and it’ll make Simpsons early seasons look like a masterpiece in comparison
For those confused about the resolutions quoted in this video, Australian analog television was broadcast in the PAL system, which used 720 vertical lines of resolution, which a capture card would capture as 720x576. As another comment noted, the American NTSC system had 480 vertical lines of resolution.
I feel like I’m crazy when I watch remastered Simpsons because I SWEARRRR the increased sharpness makes it look like you can see the cel animated parts casting a shadow on the painted backgrounds. I hate it.
Need to correct something at 7:12, where you say the show went to fully digital animation about 6 seasons before it actually did. The Simpsons' animation was still hand drawn all the way until it switched to HD early in Season 20. What you're thinking of was that it switched to being digitally inked and colored mid Season 14. There are actually two episodes that used this process experimentally before the show committed to switching (one of which is Season 7's Radioactive Man, try to unsee it). The show was finalized on a computer at this point, but the actual animation was still physically drawn by hand. It's worth noting that if the show was actually fully digital starting in season 14 they could have easily rerendered those seasons in HD like South Park did with its earlier episodes.
That’s really cool to know. I must have misunderstood the interview with Matt Groening where he talks about the transition away from using animation cels. Small difference but one that is important
@@IAMJPL99 The Simpsons first went digital and HD with the Simpsons Movie in 2007 the series would follow the same year! I can't remember what season it was. 🍩📺🎥📼
The Simpsons Ages: my observed breakdown: Stone Age: 1-2 Golden Age: 3-8 Silver Age: 9-14 Bronze Age: 15-30 Silicon Age: 31 - Present Because there seems to be a general consensus on when the quality declines, I would argue the silver age begins in season 9 and ends in 14 when rating began to decline after that season. There is a general trend of viewership loss with season 15 onward: this would suggest that the show is not as pop culturally significant (and potentially not as well received) and previous seasons. Ratings are not equivalent to quality, but for an iconic show like The Simpsons, rating falling would indicate that something went wrong from a quality perspective. With season 31, the show has gained some new life and appears to be entering a new age of quality. If you have dropped off after the Silver Age, you may be pleasantly surprised by the new episodes.
I rather keep watching my DVD quality ones than give Disney money for their upscale. If they were to do a proper film scan like you pointed out and sold it on Blu-ray... Yeah, I might get them.
4:3 in 480i is 640x480, the 720 you included is a DVD compression limitation because DVDs have 720 vertical lines so it can be easily converted into widescreen with an applied DAR or SAR. They could have implemented an illusion of widescreen by extending the frame with a blurry background, after all the reason for the crop is to prevent LED screen burn in complaints from customers anyway, at least professionally. On UA-cam people crop 4:3 into 16:9 because they have no idea what they are doing and are copying other people who don't know what they are doing.
Looks like I learned something new today. I was wondering why the 720 on the dvd rip felt a bit big but i didn’t look further into it. Thanks for letting me know. Cheers
I instantly recognized the DVD resolution, and never questioned it. DVDs were originally designed to cater to screens with no defined pixel ratio, like game consoles of the time, so the format is never guaranteed to have a specific aspect ratio except as set by the content they display.
Some movies were shot on 4:3 while being framed for wider aspect ratios, with the intention that having 16mm prints or television broadcsts show extra content above and below the frame would be better than mindlessly cropping off the edges, and easier than trying to intelligently pan and scan.
It's a misconception that there are two black bars when widescreen tellies are showcasing 4:3 footage. They aren't showing anything there, there are no bars there. Its just area with no information.
Great video. The Simpsons animation cels were shot on 35mm (not 16mm). The remasters for the early seasons were done the 2000s. Yes, they were done from the original 35mm negatives or print elements, but they were only scanned into 1080p HD. No upscaling was used or needed since this was 35mm and not SD videotape sources. There was colour grading, animation fixes and cropping (as you pointed out). They missed out on 4K by a few years, it was around in cinemas, but not widely in the home, which is a shame because a series that important deserves a new 4K scan.
That could certainly be the case, I just couldn't find an official source on it, but I would believe it. I know that the Simpsons were shot on 16mm when they were being aired on the Tracey Ulman show but I couldn't find anything definitive for when they moved to their own show. I also have not seen any official statement about HD rescanning, which you would expect and usually happens when shows get rescanned. And looking at it, it looks like an upscale. Its cleaner and sharper than the compressed DVD SD copy I have for reference but it doesn't offer much new detail, which is what you would expect. Cheers
With all due respect, this is incorrect. The hand painted cels were originally photographed on 35mm film, yes, but then fully mastered and archived on high quality (for the time) broadcast TAPE. It was those conformed tape masters that were digitally transferred to create the old DVD releases. When Fox went back to remaster the show in “HD” for syndication they simply cropped and upscaled the tape-sourced DVD master files with crude digital filters and sharpening tools. This is why they look like absolute poop. A few years later Disney bought Fox and then recycled those same upscales on their streaming service. The uncropped versions were then made in the exact same way after public outcry. Sadly there has never been a true HD scan of the original film elements. It’s unknown how much (if any) of it survives today.
@ You're right they converted film prints to magnetic tape during that era, that was common practice, but I can't find a source for the 35mm claim, it looked more like 16mm when they used the footage for their THX joke in theaters back in the 90s.
@@theurbanyouth They may have have used 16mm at first and then shifted to 35mm after the show exploded in popularity. First few seasons certainly have a noticeably grittier look to them but that’s partly because the animation itself was less refined. I know in one of the episode audio commentaries they actually do mention 35mm specifically but I can’t recall exactly which season it was- I want to say 9? Regardless, the original commenter @TheCranberrySource is very, very incorrect on their assertion that raw film was ever scanned in 1080p
I watch the old Simpsons episodes on fullscreen on my PS4, because the fullscreen option on the PS4 really works perfectly where you can even see some of the background that is covered by the two black edges in the 4:3 version
The problem with the remastered editions is that it's zoomed in and you end up missing the visual gags in some shots. Good example of this is the Duff factory tour with the Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry gag. Shame.
How do you not have millions of subscribers? While it's not my favorite show, and I will never forgive them for what they did to Principal Skinner in season 9, I'm a huge Simpsons fan. Thank you for making this video. You're really articulate, charming, and extremely hot. I wish you all the luck in the future. Plus, I'm basing on your accent that you live somewhere in the world that has Universal Health Care. LOL, in any case, I will definitely be on the lookout for future videos
The reason why the earliest seasons of The Simpsons have not been properly remastered are twofold: 1) the show was edited on video, so there are things (like the credits) that would have to be recreated, and likely some shots were cropped/freeze-framed/etc. during the editing process, and 2) the reels of film for any retakes (a major issue in the earliest seasons) may be lost or were even thrown away after the initial transfer process. For the Seasons 14-20 era, the issue is with the digital ink and paint process. Most shows that used digital ink and paint prior to the HD switchover scanned in the cels at standard definition, meaning that there’s no native HD version of those episodes, and upscaling is the only option.
One thing I wish would be addressed in the earlier seasons is the color. I understand some things are gonna look wonky when switching from analog to digital, but those early episodes need color correction BADLY.
Excellent video, I would've loved to have seen a comparison between the Disney+ remasters and Blu-Ray seasons of the show (13-17, 20). Imo the golden age is Seasons 1-9, the silver age is 10-20 and the rest is pretty much skippable with a few hidden gems scattered throughout.
Something you sometimes see recommended in blu-ray booklets is to never correct the aspect ratio from its original 4:3 setting, because it would damage the intended viewing experience.
You mention prefering cell animation to digital animation, and giving the example of smoother movement, but I wanna mention that cell has nothing to do with that--it's more a matter of animation direction varying depending on the decade for TV animation. There's no reason Marge's hair couldn't animate as well as it used to on digital frames.
There is an element to that, and I think it is a great comparison, and a really obvious one, but there is more to it and I am very sure that the switch to digital animation coincides with the stiffer animation. This is my experience with 2D Autodesk maya (which can be similar to boom toon which they use) but when you rig up a character to animate, movement is very straightforward to animate, but it will be a stiffer movement. Its not impossible to add the more whacky movement but the animation process won't push you to do that type of animation, if that makes sense. My looking at it is that with the switch to digital (with the assumption that some level of rigging is used to animate this) they are less inclined to lean into the more fluid style of animation because it does not suit (or is less intuitive) that type of workflow.
Wow, this is some quality video production. You should be proud of your work. I hope to see you continue making videos. You'll make a career out of it sooner than you think.
They did the same to Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, didn't even colour correct it. And after a certain point they just started just upscaling everything autotmatically through a computer. And it looks objectively bad. Shots that shouldn't be zoomed in are now zoomed in and it takes away from the shot's intention. And all just to force it into widescreen, and in the instances they have opened the shots from the footage instead of zooming and cropping, they've made it so you can see where sets end, camera and sound crew very clearly in frame, they've lightened it up to such a degree that night shots look like daytime and once again the lightness has made it so you can see crew, and equipment, and set endings, that were previously hidden by shadow. My personal view when it comes to Remasters of older media, is either be willing to invest the expenses you know it's going to require and do it properly or just leave it alone. If they absolutely must have it in widescreen then spend the money it's going to require to do it properly. And there's even less excuse to be doing this with animation. I know it isn't a simple process by any means, but it's allot easier to remaster animation than it is live-action content. And while the Simpson's is hit and miss these days (i haven't watched an episode in years) it is still popular enough that there is zero justifiable excuse to not spend money making sure it will fit the widescreen without the need to zoom/crop it. And the worst part is, unless you get the DVD's (which i do) then these shoddy remasters are the ONLY option. Like when Buffy airs on TV now it is ONLY the Remastered version, when you watch Buffy on Disney+ it is ONLY the shoddy remaster. The original version should always be left available as an option, and we should 100000% support every avenue where the original version is still available. (E.g. older DVD releases.) Basically vote with our wallets. If we want the original versions to be preserved, or if we want them to put the effort in to Remaster them properly without the cropping/zooming, then that is the only way we can do it. Because these companies aren't going to listen to people bitching online about it, especially if people just go and watch these crappy Remasters after the fact anyway. because streaming is more convenient than popping in a DVD.
Fantastic video, man! I first encountered the cropping to widescreen issue when I went to watch Roseanne on Netflix (before the new seasons) and it's irked me ever since. I have one nitpick, however. At the start of your video when you show the footage from your VHS tape, you neglected to correct the aspect ratio. It appears that your capture device is using DVD resolution which is 3:2 rather than 4:3. DVD players would read a flag in the video metadata that would tell it to stretch the anamorphic 720x480 video to either 4:3 or 16:9. When capturing things yourself, you'll need to do that manually. Of course, you probably already know all of this and just forgot, but it's worth noting
It drives me nuts that so many old 4:3 shows are "remastered" into 16:9 by cropping the top and bottom of the screen off and zooming the image in. What's even worse is that there are actually people out there who prefer the cropped/zoomed in versions. I hate that we have to cater to these types of people, especially considering just about every single widescreen TV ever produced has a built-in option to manually zoom in a 4:3 image into a 16:9 frame. I'd much prefer to have the option to watch it in the correct aspect ratio, and then giving people who want to ruin the framing the option to do so on their own individual TV instead of forcing everyone to see the much worse zoomed in version. I'm so glad that Disney+ actually added an option to watch The Simpsons in the correct aspect ratio when just about *no one* else would offer such a thing. I've recently been rewatching all of the Dragon Ball series again and it's so jarring to go from the proper 4:3 original Dragon Ball to the horribly cropped and zoomed in 16:9 Dragon Ball Z where everything constantly feels too close and a lot of cool details are just out of frame. Sometimes I'll Switch it back to the Japanese audio during a cool fight just because it actually switches it back to the normal 4:3 aspect ratio if you're watching DBZ on streaming. The image is noticeably blurrier, but you can see *so much more* in the frame.
Even worse back when I still had crt tvs. My mums had a super zoom function that she would constantly have on. That made it even more cropped top bottom and sides and blurry
The only time converting 4:3 to 16:9 is acceptable is when they go through the time, money and effort to add extra content to the sides. If changing the aspect ratio of content cuts out part of that content, I'd just rather watch it in the original aspect ratio with black bars
The Simpsons wasn't the only show to get this treatment Some disney cartoons like Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop got the same treatment and i hate it, same thing happened to Seinfeld on Netflix
During the physical cel animation era, they didn't physically ink onto cels, they would xerox drawings from paper onto acetate sheets, so the inking process was automated.
ua-cam.com/video/9UWu5KmOr0U/v-deo.htmlsi=ZAoF7xwy8E0E8sRA&t=36 They painted on the back. Maybe subject to change but for sure they did use this method
@@IAMJPL99 Yes, they painted on the back of cels, but they didn't ink the other side like you described, that was labor intensive and that was replaced with xeroxing in the 60s.
sorry I must have misunderstood your comment. You're right on your point the xeroxes are made from the original hand drawn sketches and are checked against them. I remember watching a documentary for this which shows this. Not Simpsons per se, but cel animated. So I think I must have misremembered or said it incorrectly here.
I hate when it shows change the aspect ratio of older episodes that were originally in 3:4. Also Disney should make the original aspect ratio the default one their content
I had no idea that you could change the ratio thank you! I always hated how it looked and missing out on key things. One thing I noticed when watching Who Shot Mr Burns, there’s a point where Maggie slips down and gives those mischievous eyes. 🤪
The great thing about growing up in the teen seasons were having access to syndication, DVDs (with commentary), great toys and great video games (not skateboarding).
Omg we're now at a point where they pan and scan 4:3 media to make it widescreen. It used to only be the other way around! I guess it's at least better than using some AI model to fill in the black bars
I can swear I remember the older episodes of the Simpsons looking better back in the 90s. I think some of the broadcast masters got worn out over the years.
back in the 80s and 90s lots of people recorded tv shows around here. mostly just for time shifting, but some people were archiving stuff like crazy. i even knew one guy that recorded 100s of hours of desert storm/shield news coverage
Great video man - I'm in the animation industry and this was a great one to watch :) I could go on about comp vs hand animation - I think it should be a mix of both like adventure time (hand drawn on paper, then digitally coloured)
The 4:3 I find also helps things feel like a historical document... so if theres something really dated/offensive today then it takes away much of the harm.
yknow, if they wanna remaster it, then they should, dig out the frames from their vault, rescan and recomposite all of it. then i shall call it a remaster. if not, they reanimate it.
They should just get creative with older shows shot in that aspect ratio ... Be easy with the Simpsons older episodes. Just fill the black space with their tv with the dials and stuff..
8:40 I know people love to bring up this comparison but the update showcases the rest of the cast than a few from the original. Yeah it looks bad but compared to everything in the intro, ontop of learning a new animation software and still running every single year since the late 80s is impressive. Especially not swapping to flash like other shows did after 20 so seasons.
It's not that the average consumer doesn't care about visual quality. It's that they either don't care or even notice. The masses just want to watch a show they like, and they are not educated enough to identify what about the show they think is wrong. That's how things like content made on film or an antiquated digital format are often cursed to never have a good home release, because the relatively niche revenue pool is often seen as not worth the expenses to properly remaster the material.
It is not the customers fault, though. The companies releasing media like this should care about quality, their pupose should be to provide the media in good quality to their customers, otherwise they are not doing their job and do not deserve any profit. The idea that evey business's job is to find the most efficient way to make profit is absurd, they are supposed to serve their customers not steal from them, we may as well just legalise theft and fraud if serving our own interests justifies exploiting others.
I'm so tired of home releases of older media being zoomed in! Why are people allergic to letterboxes? I don't understand how anyone could prefer to miss out on 25% of the show via cropping then just have some black bars on their screen. With modern TVs, the letterboxes would even be true black, so it would just emulate a 4:3 television set. This has got to be one of my biggest pet peeves.
agreed, like I'd even prefer stretched to 16:9 because I do video engineer work and am used to automatic ratio correction (plus if you've got an old Sony Bravia, its easy to rescale back)
like im less allergic to stretching (its how i prefer VHS) because the original information is still there, just stretched
but cropping 4:3 instead of pillarboxing? that information is just gone, its not there, not even the color black, just nothing
it just feels uncomfortable to watch tho
16:9 TVs are not exactly made for 4:3 stuff, it's much better to watch on a CRT TV or any other 4:3 TV
i feel it could be better fixed if the backgrounds has something with them than just dead space
@@davidholanda1 I don't understand. With modern TVs, those boxes are true black. It's literally like your flatscreen morphed into a 4:3 TV for the duration of the show.
@ it's noticeable tho
just like what the guy said in the video, people wouldn't like to watch something that isn't fullfilling the whole screen
idk it's weird, i personally prefer just watching in 4:3 TV for 4:3 stuff lol
I hate when 4:3 media is cropped, black bars are perfectly fine to me
The Simpsons is still hand drawn they draw it on paper, scan it into the computer, and color it digitally. In seasons 14-20 They used a filter to make it look more like cel animation. Edit: Now its drawn frame by frame on tablets.
that can’t be true you’re lying im googling it
i am sincerely sorry for that comment
It seems I must have misunderstood a interview with Matt groening where he talks about them moving away from cel animation to digital ink.
However it’s all drawn in computer as of now. I’ll link a great interview from 2020 which was a great source for me.
www.cgw.com/Press-Center/In-Focus/2020/Working-at-Home-with-the-Simpsons
@ Thanks for the link. It looks like its frame by frame on tablets instead of rigs.
@@icecreamhero2375
You're the most consistent cartoon fan I've seen commenting, how do you do it? What is your secret?
Its crazy to me that these companies think consumers hate letterboxed video. The only people I ever remember bitching about "black bars" are boomers now shitting themselves in their death beds
Wildest comment I've read in 2025 so far 💀
Well 4:3 aspect ratio is outdated. Everybody switched to HD tvs over a decade ago. Plus, I find black bars to be claustrophobic.
Sorry, but you are very very wrong about what consumers prefer. Only the vast vast minority of purists even UNDERSTAND what a 4:3 ratio even is, these days. The real truth, one you are intentionally lying to yourself about is that the wide mainstream majority thinks that "black bars on the screen" is a "mistake" or "an error" and they ask "why does it look like that?" all the time. All audiences today EXPECT an image to fill their televisions, and complain when they don't. Mainstream audiences are not as smart or as media literate as you seem to want to give them credit. It isn't just relegated to "boomers". Kids today under 18 years old were raised on 16:9 and frankly do not understand what 4:3 is, and think it's "broken" and "unwatchable." if it looks like a square, and they won't sit through it.
Now, you may be one of these purists and I may be one of these purists. I'm 42 years old, and I was raised on tv from the 80's and 90's so I understand the different, but our generation is a dying breed, and mainstream audiences today, have never known 4:3 from our perspective, and they've forgotten it and think it's "outdated, old and bad."
Yes, we're just going to have to get used to the reality that people have gotten dumber and more complacent, people don't do their research today and they have forgotten everything from our generation, as well as how to appreciate it.
Kids today think that NES and Super NES games are "boring" and "old" and think that "pixel games are old and lame", can't handle hard difficulty without audtosaves and checkpoints, and have grown up just thinking that "old video games' are just something to steal for free off the internet, to play for 2 hours, get frustrated and whine about how bad video games are, likely because they watched the AVGN rant about a game without playing it themselves. Kids today think that classic tv shows and movies are "old and lame", and don't understand special effects, and call matte shots and composite and practical and optical effects in movies "graphics" and "CGI" because they apparently think CGI existed back since the 70's and think everything had it. Hell, there are a lot of kids today that actually think the entire world was in Black and White back in the 1950's, just because tv shows from then, were.
This is just the sadder, dumber and more ignorant world we live in.
*Two decades ago @@GhostToasters93
Anyone that gets upset about black bars on the sides of their TV screen is a proverbial child. We should not be compromising the look and feel of legacy media to appeal to people who cannot or refuse to appreciate it as originally intended.
Agree heavily, the amount of people who will happily accept stretched or cropped 4:3 media is embarrassing
8:40 I really wish people would stop only using the intro when comparing an animation.
Intros are known to have better production quality than the actual shows
not to toot my own horn but a year or so after they added 4:3 option to disney+ I selected it only to find some episodes were still cropped when they should have been in 4:3 I ended up going through every episode from season 1-20 (the first half of 20 is in 4:3) and twitted a list of them at the current showrunner who than fixed it (customer service was no help)
30+ billion. That's how much they make from parks alone. AND YET... they can't be bothered to properly HD remaster one of the most popular animated shows of all times. They've literally zero excuse to not dig up film reels and HD scan them.
It’s not even the worst HD “remaster”. Take a look at how bad Dragon Ball Z has had it for home releases and it’ll make Simpsons early seasons look like a masterpiece in comparison
I watched this thinking you were a multi million subscriber channel, keep up the good work man this was very good!!!
For those confused about the resolutions quoted in this video, Australian analog television was broadcast in the PAL system, which used 720 vertical lines of resolution, which a capture card would capture as 720x576. As another comment noted, the American NTSC system had 480 vertical lines of resolution.
I feel like I’m crazy when I watch remastered Simpsons because I SWEARRRR the increased sharpness makes it look like you can see the cel animated parts casting a shadow on the painted backgrounds. I hate it.
Those shadows between cel layers were always there, that's how you can tell its a good episode
There was a kid in my elemetry school that would "Rent" out his Simpsons comics. Bro made good money back then.
Need to correct something at 7:12, where you say the show went to fully digital animation about 6 seasons before it actually did. The Simpsons' animation was still hand drawn all the way until it switched to HD early in Season 20. What you're thinking of was that it switched to being digitally inked and colored mid Season 14. There are actually two episodes that used this process experimentally before the show committed to switching (one of which is Season 7's Radioactive Man, try to unsee it). The show was finalized on a computer at this point, but the actual animation was still physically drawn by hand. It's worth noting that if the show was actually fully digital starting in season 14 they could have easily rerendered those seasons in HD like South Park did with its earlier episodes.
That’s really cool to know. I must have misunderstood the interview with Matt Groening where he talks about the transition away from using animation cels. Small difference but one that is important
@@IAMJPL99 The Simpsons first went digital and HD with the Simpsons Movie in 2007 the series would follow the same year! I can't remember what season it was. 🍩📺🎥📼
The Simpsons Ages: my observed breakdown:
Stone Age: 1-2
Golden Age: 3-8
Silver Age: 9-14
Bronze Age: 15-30
Silicon Age: 31 - Present
Because there seems to be a general consensus on when the quality declines, I would argue the silver age begins in season 9 and ends in 14 when rating began to decline after that season. There is a general trend of viewership loss with season 15 onward: this would suggest that the show is not as pop culturally significant (and potentially not as well received) and previous seasons. Ratings are not equivalent to quality, but for an iconic show like The Simpsons, rating falling would indicate that something went wrong from a quality perspective.
With season 31, the show has gained some new life and appears to be entering a new age of quality. If you have dropped off after the Silver Age, you may be pleasantly surprised by the new episodes.
It's unwatchable after the early 2000s episodes. I tried watching a new episode, it's like they go out of their way trying not to be funny.
This is a really well made first video
I find it really funny that us as a community bullied Disney into adding a toggle for original aspect
Jesus how Australian are you
Australian enough for them to give me a passport
@IAMJPL99 funnily enough every time I go to Australia they don't give my a passport. It must because I live in America or something
I rather keep watching my DVD quality ones than give Disney money for their upscale.
If they were to do a proper film scan like you pointed out and sold it on Blu-ray... Yeah, I might get them.
I was not aware of the 4:3 toggle option! That's gonna make my binge watching so much better!
4:3 in 480i is 640x480, the 720 you included is a DVD compression limitation because DVDs have 720 vertical lines so it can be easily converted into widescreen with an applied DAR or SAR.
They could have implemented an illusion of widescreen by extending the frame with a blurry background, after all the reason for the crop is to prevent LED screen burn in complaints from customers anyway, at least professionally. On UA-cam people crop 4:3 into 16:9 because they have no idea what they are doing and are copying other people who don't know what they are doing.
Looks like I learned something new today. I was wondering why the 720 on the dvd rip felt a bit big but i didn’t look further into it. Thanks for letting me know. Cheers
I instantly recognized the DVD resolution, and never questioned it. DVDs were originally designed to cater to screens with no defined pixel ratio, like game consoles of the time, so the format is never guaranteed to have a specific aspect ratio except as set by the content they display.
Some movies were shot on 4:3 while being framed for wider aspect ratios, with the intention that having 16mm prints or television broadcsts show extra content above and below the frame would be better than mindlessly cropping off the edges, and easier than trying to intelligently pan and scan.
If you were born like 15 years prior you’d have been an ABC 3 host you just got that energy
It's a misconception that there are two black bars when widescreen tellies are showcasing 4:3 footage. They aren't showing anything there, there are no bars there. Its just area with no information.
Great video. The Simpsons animation cels were shot on 35mm (not 16mm). The remasters for the early seasons were done the 2000s. Yes, they were done from the original 35mm negatives or print elements, but they were only scanned into 1080p HD. No upscaling was used or needed since this was 35mm and not SD videotape sources. There was colour grading, animation fixes and cropping (as you pointed out).
They missed out on 4K by a few years, it was around in cinemas, but not widely in the home, which is a shame because a series that important deserves a new 4K scan.
That could certainly be the case, I just couldn't find an official source on it, but I would believe it. I know that the Simpsons were shot on 16mm when they were being aired on the Tracey Ulman show but I couldn't find anything definitive for when they moved to their own show.
I also have not seen any official statement about HD rescanning, which you would expect and usually happens when shows get rescanned. And looking at it, it looks like an upscale. Its cleaner and sharper than the compressed DVD SD copy I have for reference but it doesn't offer much new detail, which is what you would expect. Cheers
I think they may have converted those film prints onto magnetic tape for editing which reduced the resolution.
With all due respect, this is incorrect. The hand painted cels were originally photographed on 35mm film, yes, but then fully mastered and archived on high quality (for the time) broadcast TAPE. It was those conformed tape masters that were digitally transferred to create the old DVD releases. When Fox went back to remaster the show in “HD” for syndication they simply cropped and upscaled the tape-sourced DVD master files with crude digital filters and sharpening tools. This is why they look like absolute poop.
A few years later Disney bought Fox and then recycled those same upscales on their streaming service. The uncropped versions were then made in the exact same way after public outcry.
Sadly there has never been a true HD scan of the original film elements. It’s unknown how much (if any) of it survives today.
@ You're right they converted film prints to magnetic tape during that era, that was common practice, but I can't find a source for the 35mm claim, it looked more like 16mm when they used the footage for their THX joke in theaters back in the 90s.
@@theurbanyouth They may have have used 16mm at first and then shifted to 35mm after the show exploded in popularity. First few seasons certainly have a noticeably grittier look to them but that’s partly because the animation itself was less refined. I know in one of the episode audio commentaries they actually do mention 35mm specifically but I can’t recall exactly which season it was- I want to say 9? Regardless, the original commenter @TheCranberrySource is very, very incorrect on their assertion that raw film was ever scanned in 1080p
great video for a channel this size, you deserve more attention. and i hope you get it. great audio quality too!
I watch the old Simpsons episodes on fullscreen on my PS4, because the fullscreen option on the PS4 really works perfectly where you can even see some of the background that is covered by the two black edges in the 4:3 version
The problem with the remastered editions is that it's zoomed in and you end up missing the visual gags in some shots. Good example of this is the Duff factory tour with the Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry gag. Shame.
How do you not have millions of subscribers? While it's not my favorite show, and I will never forgive them for what they did to Principal Skinner in season 9, I'm a huge Simpsons fan. Thank you for making this video. You're really articulate, charming, and extremely hot. I wish you all the luck in the future. Plus, I'm basing on your accent that you live somewhere in the world that has Universal Health Care. LOL, in any case, I will definitely be on the lookout for future videos
Just a reminder that the first episode of season 3 isn't streaming and is stuck to the dvd
I'm not gonna lie but since you mentioned it, watching The Simpsons on Ten as a kid while chilling out and having dinner was such a peak experience.
This is a really really great video mate! I'm from Melbourne but yes very much share the 6 o'clock on channel 10 nostalgia haha
The reason why the earliest seasons of The Simpsons have not been properly remastered are twofold:
1) the show was edited on video, so there are things (like the credits) that would have to be recreated, and likely some shots were cropped/freeze-framed/etc. during the editing process, and
2) the reels of film for any retakes (a major issue in the earliest seasons) may be lost or were even thrown away after the initial transfer process.
For the Seasons 14-20 era, the issue is with the digital ink and paint process. Most shows that used digital ink and paint prior to the HD switchover scanned in the cels at standard definition, meaning that there’s no native HD version of those episodes, and upscaling is the only option.
One thing I wish would be addressed in the earlier seasons is the color. I understand some things are gonna look wonky when switching from analog to digital, but those early episodes need color correction BADLY.
I can’t believe you only have one video and 320 subs! This video is rly good
Excellent video, I would've loved to have seen a comparison between the Disney+ remasters and Blu-Ray seasons of the show (13-17, 20). Imo the golden age is Seasons 1-9, the silver age is 10-20 and the rest is pretty much skippable with a few hidden gems scattered throughout.
Something you sometimes see recommended in blu-ray booklets is to never correct the aspect ratio from its original 4:3 setting, because it would damage the intended viewing experience.
8:10 digital animation killed the vibe for me
high quality video. you deserve more subscribers
4:32 "Fburns verkaufen der Kraftwerk" Makes literally literally no sense. It is like am writing: I'm the power plant selling it.
You mention prefering cell animation to digital animation, and giving the example of smoother movement, but I wanna mention that cell has nothing to do with that--it's more a matter of animation direction varying depending on the decade for TV animation. There's no reason Marge's hair couldn't animate as well as it used to on digital frames.
There is an element to that, and I think it is a great comparison, and a really obvious one, but there is more to it and I am very sure that the switch to digital animation coincides with the stiffer animation. This is my experience with 2D Autodesk maya (which can be similar to boom toon which they use) but when you rig up a character to animate, movement is very straightforward to animate, but it will be a stiffer movement. Its not impossible to add the more whacky movement but the animation process won't push you to do that type of animation, if that makes sense. My looking at it is that with the switch to digital (with the assumption that some level of rigging is used to animate this) they are less inclined to lean into the more fluid style of animation because it does not suit (or is less intuitive) that type of workflow.
Viacom also did that to SpongeBob, but I think they also stretched it a little and cut a little kett. Still feels extremely zoomed in.
So basically they hired family guy upload You-Tubers
This also happened to THE LITTLE MERMAID THE ANIMATED SERIES which is still cropped for widescreen
Wow, this is some quality video production. You should be proud of your work. I hope to see you continue making videos. You'll make a career out of it sooner than you think.
People having issue with the black bars besides a 4:3 image, don't deserve anything with a screen, period.
They did the same to Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, didn't even colour correct it. And after a certain point they just started just upscaling everything autotmatically through a computer. And it looks objectively bad. Shots that shouldn't be zoomed in are now zoomed in and it takes away from the shot's intention. And all just to force it into widescreen, and in the instances they have opened the shots from the footage instead of zooming and cropping, they've made it so you can see where sets end, camera and sound crew very clearly in frame, they've lightened it up to such a degree that night shots look like daytime and once again the lightness has made it so you can see crew, and equipment, and set endings, that were previously hidden by shadow.
My personal view when it comes to Remasters of older media, is either be willing to invest the expenses you know it's going to require and do it properly or just leave it alone. If they absolutely must have it in widescreen then spend the money it's going to require to do it properly.
And there's even less excuse to be doing this with animation. I know it isn't a simple process by any means, but it's allot easier to remaster animation than it is live-action content. And while the Simpson's is hit and miss these days (i haven't watched an episode in years) it is still popular enough that there is zero justifiable excuse to not spend money making sure it will fit the widescreen without the need to zoom/crop it.
And the worst part is, unless you get the DVD's (which i do) then these shoddy remasters are the ONLY option. Like when Buffy airs on TV now it is ONLY the Remastered version, when you watch Buffy on Disney+ it is ONLY the shoddy remaster. The original version should always be left available as an option, and we should 100000% support every avenue where the original version is still available. (E.g. older DVD releases.) Basically vote with our wallets. If we want the original versions to be preserved, or if we want them to put the effort in to Remaster them properly without the cropping/zooming, then that is the only way we can do it.
Because these companies aren't going to listen to people bitching online about it, especially if people just go and watch these crappy Remasters after the fact anyway. because streaming is more convenient than popping in a DVD.
Fantastic video, man! I first encountered the cropping to widescreen issue when I went to watch Roseanne on Netflix (before the new seasons) and it's irked me ever since.
I have one nitpick, however. At the start of your video when you show the footage from your VHS tape, you neglected to correct the aspect ratio. It appears that your capture device is using DVD resolution which is 3:2 rather than 4:3. DVD players would read a flag in the video metadata that would tell it to stretch the anamorphic 720x480 video to either 4:3 or 16:9. When capturing things yourself, you'll need to do that manually.
Of course, you probably already know all of this and just forgot, but it's worth noting
But the worst thing, no Stark Raving Dad. Unforgivable.
At least they didn't reanimated them like the 1968 Redrawn Looney Tunes and the Popeye ones in 1986
It drives me nuts that so many old 4:3 shows are "remastered" into 16:9 by cropping the top and bottom of the screen off and zooming the image in. What's even worse is that there are actually people out there who prefer the cropped/zoomed in versions. I hate that we have to cater to these types of people, especially considering just about every single widescreen TV ever produced has a built-in option to manually zoom in a 4:3 image into a 16:9 frame. I'd much prefer to have the option to watch it in the correct aspect ratio, and then giving people who want to ruin the framing the option to do so on their own individual TV instead of forcing everyone to see the much worse zoomed in version. I'm so glad that Disney+ actually added an option to watch The Simpsons in the correct aspect ratio when just about *no one* else would offer such a thing. I've recently been rewatching all of the Dragon Ball series again and it's so jarring to go from the proper 4:3 original Dragon Ball to the horribly cropped and zoomed in 16:9 Dragon Ball Z where everything constantly feels too close and a lot of cool details are just out of frame. Sometimes I'll Switch it back to the Japanese audio during a cool fight just because it actually switches it back to the normal 4:3 aspect ratio if you're watching DBZ on streaming. The image is noticeably blurrier, but you can see *so much more* in the frame.
Even worse back when I still had crt tvs. My mums had a super zoom function that she would constantly have on. That made it even more cropped top bottom and sides and blurry
Thanks, i didn't know I had the option to toogle the aspect ratio, time to rewatch the first 6 seasons again.
The only time converting 4:3 to 16:9 is acceptable is when they go through the time, money and effort to add extra content to the sides. If changing the aspect ratio of content cuts out part of that content, I'd just rather watch it in the original aspect ratio with black bars
The Simpsons wasn't the only show to get this treatment
Some disney cartoons like Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop got the same treatment and i hate it, same thing happened to Seinfeld on Netflix
Incredible recommended pull, great first upload 🩷 subbed!
9:28 increased sharpness kills the vibe also :)
It's crazy how long the Simpsons were doing cell animation for, counting digital colouring, like I forgot how old the Simpsons is bro
During the physical cel animation era, they didn't physically ink onto cels, they would xerox drawings from paper onto acetate sheets, so the inking process was automated.
ua-cam.com/video/9UWu5KmOr0U/v-deo.htmlsi=ZAoF7xwy8E0E8sRA&t=36
They painted on the back. Maybe subject to change but for sure they did use this method
@@IAMJPL99 Yes, they painted on the back of cels, but they didn't ink the other side like you described, that was labor intensive and that was replaced with xeroxing in the 60s.
sorry I must have misunderstood your comment. You're right on your point the xeroxes are made from the original hand drawn sketches and are checked against them. I remember watching a documentary for this which shows this. Not Simpsons per se, but cel animated. So I think I must have misremembered or said it incorrectly here.
@@IAMJPL99 There's a Roger Rabbit behind the scenes vid that shows it and a Sailor Moon production vid that shows it.
As if you couldn't get Australian enough, the outrage about the Ween poster gave it away. 😂
I hate when it shows change the aspect ratio of older episodes that were originally in 3:4. Also Disney should make the original aspect ratio the default one their content
Great content! I look forward to more
Mate, this is such a good breakdown. Big love dude. Liked and subbed.
I had no idea that you could change the ratio thank you!
I always hated how it looked and missing out on key things.
One thing I noticed when watching Who Shot Mr Burns, there’s a point where Maggie slips down and gives those mischievous eyes. 🤪
you know you can turn off 16:9 and revert to 4:3 for the simpsons
What, 38 subscribers?! You have what looks like a while studio. Great video
You convinced me, I'm the 39th subscriber now
bruh i watched 4 whole seasons and only found out about this now
We had a tape rewinder because the VCR would trash tapes when rewinding.
One issue might be that it was shot on 16 or 35mm but edited down to Digital video tape. Star Trek TNG had that issue
Well done video, looking forward to more
The great thing about growing up in the teen seasons were having access to syndication, DVDs (with commentary), great toys and great video games (not skateboarding).
Omg we're now at a point where they pan and scan 4:3 media to make it widescreen. It used to only be the other way around! I guess it's at least better than using some AI model to fill in the black bars
I can swear I remember the older episodes of the Simpsons looking better back in the 90s. I think some of the broadcast masters got worn out over the years.
Actually shocked content this good is coming from such a small channel, keep it up and you’ll blow up on yt fast!
I thought that my friend was the only person to record television shows...
back in the 80s and 90s lots of people recorded tv shows around here. mostly just for time shifting, but some people were archiving stuff like crazy. i even knew one guy that recorded 100s of hours of desert storm/shield news coverage
Good video for a first start. Can tell you have background in editing montage editing and color. Let us know when you get socials.
At least it's not Dragon Ball where you have to sell a kidney or be french to legally get a release that's not a total ungodly mistake.
they still havent fixed this?
THIS WAS AN ISSUE ATLEAST 3 YEARS AGO
Disney also made some form of remaster on the classic futurama seasons but thank god they not cropped the frame to fit 16:9 TV
Great video man - I'm in the animation industry and this was a great one to watch :) I could go on about comp vs hand animation - I think it should be a mix of both like adventure time (hand drawn on paper, then digitally coloured)
The 4:3 I find also helps things feel like a historical document... so if theres something really dated/offensive today then it takes away much of the harm.
"WORSE than you Think" why how bad did I think it was?
It doesn’t stop me from watching them
this channel is gonna be huge
first video and already doing 30k views, this is great
yknow, if they wanna remaster it, then they should, dig out the frames from their vault, rescan and recomposite all of it. then i shall call it a remaster. if not, they reanimate it.
Wonderful video keep it up brother
Adore your vhs opening, so amazing!
They should just get creative with older shows shot in that aspect ratio ... Be easy with the Simpsons older episodes. Just fill the black space with their tv with the dials and stuff..
There's a good dozen episodes in the post movie seasons. Barthood, and the future episodes. The one where ned and homer are bounty hunters.
Did you ever put tape a in box b,
And tape b in box d
And tape e in box a....
Definitely not me
And definitely never with DVD'S
8:40 I know people love to bring up this comparison but the update showcases the rest of the cast than a few from the original. Yeah it looks bad but compared to everything in the intro, ontop of learning a new animation software and still running every single year since the late 80s is impressive. Especially not swapping to flash like other shows did after 20 so seasons.
This is really well made for a first video. Subscribed.
16:9 zoom is better for broadcast, 4:3 pillarboxed is better for streaming/home release.
This guy is gonna make a living off of youtube soon
7:01... Well you can't polish a turd
I actually prefer the black bars, they look nice
If your down for horror this intro will scare you more than nothing 😂
It's not that the average consumer doesn't care about visual quality. It's that they either don't care or even notice. The masses just want to watch a show they like, and they are not educated enough to identify what about the show they think is wrong. That's how things like content made on film or an antiquated digital format are often cursed to never have a good home release, because the relatively niche revenue pool is often seen as not worth the expenses to properly remaster the material.
It is not the customers fault, though. The companies releasing media like this should care about quality, their pupose should be to provide the media in good quality to their customers, otherwise they are not doing their job and do not deserve any profit. The idea that evey business's job is to find the most efficient way to make profit is absurd, they are supposed to serve their customers not steal from them, we may as well just legalise theft and fraud if serving our own interests justifies exploiting others.
all I remember is the Simpson's came after neighbours
i guess it could be worse. as in, they could of stretched it like some people do with games. just thinking about it makes me want to hurl.
I wonder why people stretch the screen when playing games? it looks so ugly
What a coincidence, I've also been saying season 16 is the last good one.
i remember watching the simpsons every night on channel ten as a kid then neigbours would start and i would rage i hated neighbours
This is such a cool video! Great watch!