Couch Chat: How the gentle wind, beckons through the trees...

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Couch Chat: How the gentle wind, beckons through the trees...

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Trakt is telling me I watched 866 hours across 1561 episodes this year.

Let's see if I can hit an even 1000 hours next year!

# ¿ Jan 1, 2021 05:04

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# ¿ Jul 27, 2024 00:40

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Roku has confirmed that they are licensing most of Quibi's content to stream for free on their Roku Channel.

https://deadline.com/2021/01/roku-confirms-quibi-deal-global-rights-streaming-shows-1234667170/

Sucks for anyone that actually paid for a sub last year (oh wait, no one did which is why it died.)

# ¿ Jan 8, 2021 18:23

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

muscles like this! posted:

Not really, they spent a lot of the last couple of seasons in the future but after Crisis they rebooted that timeline it so that really didn't go anywhere.

Though, they did spend one full episode of an already truncated final season as a backdoor pilot not really connected to much of anything else since it was in the future. Seems kind of a waste now.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2021 23:25

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The difference for the over 30 crowd is that we didn't have those events injected directly into our veins with 12 different versions of commentary coming at you simultaneously with half of them being conspiracy theories.

You often had to wait a whole 12 hours between news updates! A lot fewer first hand accounts and footage too.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 21:58

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Iron Crowned posted:

And that was what only 7 years ago now?

Widespread smartphones have only been a thing for about 12 years. Really crazy to think about, just a little over a decade of having everything at your fingertips all the time.

Hurricane Katrina is one of the first events that I really followed for the whole day online. 2005 so no smartphones yet, but I was at a computer all day at work.

9/11 was virtually impossible to follow online at the time. The infrastructure damage at the WTC took down a ton of internet routes and no sites were able to keep up with the sudden increase in traffic anyways. I think it took about 10 minutes to load the front page of CNN on broadband.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 22:09

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The level of shock around navigation on your phone that didn't require a monthly subscription charge was mind blowing.

Verizon charged like $5 /month for VZ Navigator (or $1 for 24 hour access.)

I briefly had a Windows Mobile phone Samsung Omnia SCH-i910 before jumping to a Moto Droid. Oh I remember being excited when I got flash working on the Droid so I could watch videos from websites since the app library wasn't too developed at that point. How things have changed.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 23:27

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Considering it's been like 15 months since the last season ended, and the last 15 months have been....not fun, it's not so suprising that it's hard to remember what happened. That was a whole pandemic and insurrection ago.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 23:55

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

It was the top banner thing for me when I logged into netflix on Friday. I feel like we have this conversation every time a new season of a show drops.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 19:34

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

CBS All Access dies on March 4th and becomes Paramount+

https://www.engadget.com/paramount-plus-launch-date-161702061.html

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 18:29

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

If it's missing from the DVD, I would expect it to be missing from these streams as well unless Disney went above and beyond to procure new rights contracts.

This is also why "A Muppets Family Christmas" is heavily truncated.

quote:

A Muppet Family Christmas has never been released in its entirety on either VHS or DVD in North America. Several songs were licensed specially to only air on TV, and thus had to be cut from home video versions.[2]

The original opening title (superimposed over a shot of Emily Bear's house).
The snowman and Fozzie's comedy act while singing the song "Sleigh Ride" when hearing Rowlf inside playing the piano.
The home movie featuring Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo and Scooter as babies singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" with baby Rowlf playing a toy piano.
The Muppets sing "Home for the Holidays", after Miss Piggy's grand belated arrival, then later "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" during the final medley.
A brief shot of Fozzie Bear and Elmo lighting a Christmas tree.
Fozzie tells his mother, Emily Bear, that he is too old to have a stocking hung for him, then changes his mind

What complicates this even further is the fact that both Muppets and Sesame Street characters are in the special, splitting the rights between AT&T and Disney. So, no one is going to try to fix the music rights if they don't have clear ownership to have the program on their service.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 20:05

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Simone Magus posted:

A show that releases 3 episodes a week... but not in sequential order

You jest, but Sam Esmail as said something not too far off that for the BSG reboot/continue/thing.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/collider.com/battlestar-galactica-reboot-details-update-sam-esmail-interview/amp/

quote:

“When I spoke to Peacock about it, and Mike Lesslie who’s an amazing writer – he’s the one who’s showrunning and writing the pilot – the one thing we got excited by is do we release an episode a week, [release all at once]? For me it was like let’s get in there and tell the right story and it will tell us how many episodes. We may dump three episodes in a row because it’s a three-episode-long battle sequence that needs to be dropped in a row even though they’re three signifying chapters, and maybe each chapter is switching a point of view within that battle sequence. There may be a 20-minute episode that’s the backstory of one of the characters that gets dropped right after that.”

...

“So I can’t tell you the number of episodes, but it’s also kind of a little meaningless because I think we’re gonna look at it as sort of like a spider web where we can plot and point and say, ‘Well this isn’t chronologically after Episode 1 or Episode 2, it’s the backstory of someone, but let’s release that so audiences can check that out if they want or they can just jump into the battle sequence’. We’re really gonna experiment with form in that way, and again I think with a property like Battlestar it lends to that.”

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 21, 2021

# ¿ Jan 21, 2021 21:54

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

"The Watch" is definitely odd and I think I'm enjoying it. I know that Rhianna Pratchett stated it shared "no DNA with my father's Watch." But if it's fun it's fun and I'm not going to hold using a name against it if it's a really lose adaptation.

My main issue is presentation. BBC-A's sound mix remains as terrible as ever (along with their feed just in general being bottom barrel dogshit overcompressed DNR'd to hell). The on demand version is a bit better, but their 30fps delivery is jarring for something that appears to be filmed in 1080i50. Sound is at least a bit better OnDemand so I have a better chance of understanding someone without the soundtrack blaring out of the rear speakers like the BBC-A broadcast version.

It's loving 2021 and we shouldn't have to be dealing with such bullshit distribution anymore. I'm tempted to drop $20 on it on Vudu for better quality, but that didn't work out to my advantage for Doctor Who last year which looked just a cruddy with a purchased version. The brits need to get their next gen programming workflows sorted.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2021 20:23

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Also, Matt Berry as a talking sword.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 06:01

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Uh, this wasn't on my bingo card for 2021.

https://www.engadget.com/babylon-5-remastered-hbo-max-digital-download-080058907.html

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 14:40

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Checked out the first few minutes of the first episode (but not "The Gathering" since as it says that wasn't remastered). Live footage is nice and clean, though low budget as everyone knows. You see a nice grain structure in the footage, though I don't think they spent a bunch of effort on color grading and looks like the original film stock is pretty limited in dynamic range.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 26, 2021

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 15:16

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

At this point, I try to focus on people involved in a production that aren't pieces of poo poo because it's not fair to them to discount the whole work due to one person. That's not to say I don't understand if someone can't do that, but that's the peace I've made. This is especially true in this case when the person is dead.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 15:49

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

One other thing I've noticed about the CGI in Babylon 5 after this remaster is that it was clearly rendered at something other than 24fps that the live action footage was filmed at. If I were to guess, I would say it's probably some multiple of 30 with the way it hitches in motion. A small nit to pick to be sure.

What I love is now though that the original film was scanned at 4k and is now archived. The show is preserved. 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the line someone could re-render all of the CGI elements and it would be a simple edit insert. Future AI upscale tech could potentially clean up some of the film stock of the masters. There's possibility now. It's such a massive improvement over the DVDs.

CBS/Viacom needs to take note. Even if all they did for DS9 and (sigh) Voyager (I guess) is scan the live action footage and upscaled the effects shots, that would leave HOPE for the future. If Time Warner thinks they can they can recoup this investment on this cult but niche property, then it has to be worthwhile for CBS/Viacom to do so for Paramount+ which has Star Trek as a tentpole franchise.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 19:15

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

hope and vaseline posted:

It's not even a multiple of 30 because it's stuttery on a 60hz monitor. It stutters in 24p on my tv also.

It's all in a 24fps container now so you wouldn't be able to 'unstutter' it watching on a 60hz display. The jitters are baked into the master at this point. The DVDs would have been 480i60 (i think) with the streaming likely de-interlaced to 480p60. So, you would get 3:2 pulldown jitters on the live action, but that's something we've been conditioned as normal. Stuffing 30fps into 24fps just isn't something that's done easily or well.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jan 26, 2021

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 19:32

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

hope and vaseline posted:

ugh

Sucks, but there's no good workaround without re-rendering. The live action is 24fps as live action is for pretty much everything is that's not a talk show or soap opera. The VFX were likely finished at 480i60 since that's what the video master was since they were inserted after the film was already telecined for broadcast. About the only thing I could think of that they could do is motion interpolation up to 120fps and then divide by 5 and take that result which would likely match the 24fps footage better. That would be a lot more work though and probably introduce its own artifacts.

Only real solution is re-rendering which I'm sure some fan is already furiously working on.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 19:42

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

On a 27" CRT, the Babylon 5 CG was pretty revolutionary for the time on a weekly TV show. I'm sure it allowed them to give us much more space battle stuff at a much larger scale than they could have foreseeably done with models. DS9 wasn't doing things at that scale until later seasons (using the same VFX teams that cut their teeth on Babylon 5).

It's not just the scale of the battles. Think of the designs. Shadow, Vorolon, and Minbari vessels would have been very hard to produce with model work back then without 3d printing. I mean, not everyone had ILM producing their hero model for them and giving them a bank of FX shots to use before the pilot was even done.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 26, 2021

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 19:59

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Keep in mind that the pilot of Babylon 5 was only separated by 9 years from "The Last Star Fighter" which needed a Cray to produce the VFX for the movie. Less than a decade to go from supercomputers for a feature film to doing a weekly TV show with dozens of unique shots.

Then less than 5 years later the effects matured enough to convincingly replace models in Voyager and Deep Space 9.

Now we us CG to make people look like they are smoking when they aren't on police procedurals.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 20:22

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

It pretty much used the same approach as Babylon 5. Aside from a handful of composited shots, all of the space stuff on B5 are strict punchouts that can easily be replaced with newer footage.

Funny enough though, I think the most dated thing about Babylon 5 is the sound. The noise floor is pretty high and you get a lot of background noise. Hollow footsteps, clothes rustling, echoing; it all makes it sound like a stage production.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 21:28

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I actually found it very hard to watch at the time because it seemed way too relevant. It may go down a bit easier now.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2021 03:39

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

HBO Max has hit their 2023 paid subscriber target.

https://www.engadget.com/hbo-max-didnt-expect-to-have-this-many-subscribers-for-another-two-years-182503219.html

# ¿ Jan 27, 2021 20:14

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I watch the trailer "oh cool, a new scifi show" glance down "FUUUUUUCK it's on network tv."

# ¿ Jan 27, 2021 23:05

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I don't think I can stomach sitting through 3.5h of a DCU movie.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 16:36

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

It's time, collectively, to stop being disappointed with Stephen King adaptations and just be happy with the few gems we get.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2021 18:34

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Oddly enough, it seems Syfy put the third episode of "Resident Alien" on demand up early. It's really hitting its groove. The interplay between Alan Tudyk and the kid is really good.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Feb 6, 2021

# ¿ Feb 6, 2021 01:41

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

So many good interior monologue quotes.

"This one's like a pet rabbit you yell at so much its hair starts to fall out"

# ¿ Feb 6, 2021 15:59

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

More like apple just has an open pocketbook.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 16:40

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

We just did an earthworm and a frog in my high school, no mammals.

I did dissect a shark on another occasion.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 16:41

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Whedon hasn't made anything worthwhile for awhile so it's not a huge loss for him to be rightfully forced out of the creative space.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 19:55

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

So, it says the pilot premiers on Youtube, but what's its actual home?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 18:54

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Truth Seekers has been cancelled.

I want to have a reaction to this, but while I don't regret watching the first season, it also made no impression on me either.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 19:57

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Yeah, maybe they aired on the west coast, but they didn't on the east coast.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 01:59

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

New season of Final Space on March 20th on Adult Swim. Get hyped!

https://youtu.be/Z4MGJI2zeRs

Seasons 1&2 on HBO Max on March 1st.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Feb 17, 2021

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 04:12

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Escobarbarian posted:

I thought this show was some goofy sitcom with Fred Armisen as an alien thing, but this is pretty intense! Maybe I should watch it

It is goofy, but hits a very similar "comedy with feels" tone that Futurama did (in a more serialized way.)

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 14:11

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I know some people can't get over Gary being annoying, but he's just so EARNEST that it's disarming. He's a character turned up to 11, but I would take someone like him in my corner any day.

Like, all this universe ending other dimension horrors being dropped in his lap and he will still bend over backwards to be the best friend possible to you. It's the exact opposite of Rick and Morty in that regard. There's not a single nihilist bone in the show. It exudes positivity.

There was some meddling by TBS in the 2nd season to try to tone down the arc and make it a little more episodic in places, but those were some mild dips and there hasn't really been hints that it's been the case for Season 3.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 16:37

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Lower Decks
Final Space
Rick and Morty
Solar Opposites

All good fun and I'm super happy we have all these shows on the air at once. Now HBO Max just needs to give a greenlight for further Venture Brothers seasons.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 16:57

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# ¿ Jul 27, 2024 00:40

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I'll be the dissenting opinion and say that I found the UK Utopia and Amazon Utopia to be pretty interchangeable with nether really being all that superior to each other. I did find fault with some of the character motivations with the UK Utopia as the compressed episode count really didn't give the characters room to breath enough to provide real narrative explanation for some of the interpersonal behavior.

In either case, both have aged poorly. We don't need conspiracy stories around manufactured heath crisis to push a vaccine with nefarious purposes on the populace right now.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Feb 17, 2021

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 18:13

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