new wide screen HD presentation of "The Wire" (?)

I think that's the full "summation" at the end of a very long, very articulate story (that he apparently has revised).

Simon's words were a pleasure to read - I highly recommend that anyone who likes his work follow this link that variety briefly quoted.

http://davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/

 

I'm glad the original version that Simon blogged yesterday remains as it was, and was not censored ! The one I have saved has a link now, at the top, which takes you to the revised blog, with videos.

 

Never saw the show originally and was looking forward to a rebroadcast. On TW Cable, HBO Signature is not HD as are all their other sub channels. They are all letterboxed in the center of the screen. Never understood why.

 

I'm pretty sure I won't have that problem with DirecTV... but mostly going to watch via HBOgo - because its more convenient.

Hopefully you have a way to access HBOgo - and they don't try to match what TW sends you.

 

FWIW, I love them all, even the somewhat maligned season 5, but season 2 is my favourite season of 'The Wire'. I have to say I never found the transition from the first season at all jarring.

Having said that, that is entirely subjective. Being a middle aged white guy who drinks too much and grew up in a northern shipbuilding/docks town, I identify more with this season than the others. Objectively, I agree that season 4 is the best - and might just be about the best season of any TV show ever.

 

I think the season I thought was the best was Season 5...

I liked the way it found yet another angle to look at "the problem" (through the eyes of a large newspaper - which itself has its own
systemic issues).

I said "the problem" in quotes because as time evolved I think it became clear that "the problem" was more than just "illegal drugs".

"The Problem" as I see is that everyone, in all walks of life, is forced to compete, to stay alive or to get ahead.

It doesn't matter if you're a beat cop, trying to become a sgt... or a sgt. trying to become a detective... or a low level district attorney
who wants to be a high level prosecuter, or a low level drug dealer who wants a better turf, or a high level drug dealer who wants to
expand his empire, or a dock worker fighting to keep his livelihood, or an ambitious member of city council who wants to be mayor,
or a teacher who wants to decide what is best for "his" students (versus the school board), or a reporter who is willing to fabricate
facts to make himself look better... I kept seeing the same thing over and over and over again in The Wire - and that is what led me
to conclude that it was something incredibly different - compared to other things I have seen on television or in film.

And I don't have an easy solution that I can suggest. It's a massive problem and it can only be fixed by many many small solutions.

I saw a real interesting piece on HBO's "Real Sports" recently... the "60 minutes" style news show hosted by Bryant Gumbel that has done some interesting stories - all with a sports theme to them (i.e., brain damage and football)... it talked about a pee wee football program
in the Watts section of Los Angeles that is run by police officers. Reminded me a lot of The Wire. The football thing became a
bridge between two groups who historically mistrusted each other (the police and the community).

 

posted over at Blu-Ray.com

HBO® Unveils New High-Definition Re-Mastering of

Award-Winning Hit Series The Wire®

In the six years that have passed since the conclusion of the HBO series The Wire, the critically acclaimed drama has turned into a worldwide phenomenon that has been hailed as “one of the best and most original series on television in decades” by the New York Times. Now, new and old fans of the series can watch the show like never before thanks to a brand new High-Definition upgrade of all 60 episodes, which will debut in December on HBO Signature® and HBO GO®. The Wire: The Complete Series will be available to own on Digital HD Monday, January 5, 2015 and on Blu-rayTM in Summer 2015.

The entire series has been beautifully re-mastered in 16x9 Full-Frame HD from more than 8,000 reels of original 35mm camera negative, allowing for a tighter fit on widescreen TVs and computer/tablet screens. The original negatives were scanned, edited, dust-busted and color-corrected with great care and attention taken to stay true to the look and feel of the original Standard-Definition 4x3 version.

The Wire: The Complete Series in HD will be available for the first time as a full series purchase at iTunes, Google Play, X-Box Video and Vudu on January 5. Individual episodes and seasons will be available through all of HBO’s Digital HD retailers.

To celebrate the HD launch, HBO Signature will air the entire series consecutively, one season per day starting with season 1 on Friday, December 26 at noon. The marathon will wrap with season 5 on Tuesday, December 30.

This will be the first time The Wire has aired on a linear HBO channel since Season 5 wrapped in 2008, as well as the first time that all five seasons of the entire series have aired consecutively on the network.


All 60 episodes will also be available in HD on HBO GO starting December 26

 

Yeah, that's what a lot of the posts before this cut and paste are about. This has been being discussed all week.

 

Must be regional. I have Time Warner cable and get HBO Signature in HD.

One season per day? Gonna have to clear some DVR space to make sure I can record all of that. I wish they would air it over a longer period. One episode a day, like they have done recently when airing the full Sopranos series, would be nice. Might not be easy to realy digest everything in such a short period.

 

Big Lebowski was a spherical 1.85 film, which most likely means it was shot flat and composed for 1.85 widescreen. All they had to do for the 4x3 version is just tilt down, watch the headroom, and open up more area at the bottom of the frame. Sometimes, titles are recomposed for the 4x3 frame, but more often, they just compose the 1.85 titles in such a way that most of them will fit 4x3 without any problem.

I'm not convinced releasing a film in multiple aspect ratios is a good idea, especially nowadays. I understand why it was done 10-12 years ago, but not today.

 

At the time, it was nice because my "family room" (above the garage) had a widescreen TV - and my living room had a 4:3 television.

Now all of my televisions are wide-screen.

Actually the 4:3 tv is still in my house - but only thing hooked to it is an old game system - no cable or satellite feed (or OTA digital tuner).

 

Looks like they're at least doing the 16:9 conversion in the best possible way, unlike the Buffy HD remasters... >_>

 

Buffy was shot in 16mm negative the first season and 35mm for the rest of the series, so "in theory" they could go back and rescan all the negatives and put the show together in HD. But the Fox people are cheap-azz bastids and I suspect they won't spend the money. This show had some pretty heavy visual effects, too, and all those would have to be redone from scratch.

There are a lot of late-1990s TV shows that have fallen into the "standard def abyss" that may never be seen in HD, simply because nobody is willing to pay to redo them.

 

Fox already are remastering it and, yes, they are being "cheap-azz bastids". Issues include a lot of poor cropping (one scene from the first series has lost about 70% of the original image) and horrible brightness decisions (making a scene that involves vampires and is meant to be in the shadows look like daytime). They've also gone with 16:9 for the whole show, which works fine on some episodes strangely (where most scenes are opened up) but others are almost entirely cropped with no extra width. They have redone some CGI too.

It's just shoddy overall.

 

To quote Firesign Theater: Inferior people should not be employed!

 

So now that these widescreen HD versions of the episodes have been airing, I'm expecting to see some screenshot comparisons to prove what an awful job HBO has done. I never saw the show before, so I'm not wed to the 4:3 look for "The Wire". I've watched the first three episodes and am enjoying it very much so far.

 

I just spot-checked episode one on HBO Go yesterday, and it looks really good, in my opinion. We plan on rewatching the whole series again in a few weeks, and will utilize the new HD versions on Go to do so.

 

Someone posted some screenshots on the Blu-ray.com forum for a peek at the new 16x9 compositions for the first episode.

 

David Simon, the shows creator, showed some video comparisons which are linked in an earlier post.

 

I've been rewatching this over the last month or so. I was on the third episode of season three watching from disc and switched to the HD remastered version. It looks nice and more current than the old release but after 10 minutes or so I really didn't notice it that much anymore. 4:3 SD, 16x9 HD...its the story that counts. The good part is this might attract some new viewers.

 

I'm really enjoying the remastered widescreen episodes on HBO go.

Watched the complete series once before - always wanted to watch it again - but this was a nice incentive to push me towards
watching them all again.

Being familiar with the characters this time is adding to my enjoyment.

I noticed that Omar cursed in his first moment on the screen. I was told that was one of the odd things about him.
He never curses. I guess the "s word" doesn't count. I'm curious if that will be the ONLY curse word from him
from that point forward.

I really couldn't follow the scene at the apartment when Bunk and McNulty find the forensic evidence. Just mostly sat
back and watched them - and enjoyed

Not sure what the tape measure and the photos did - except help them. I'd love to see a walk through of their process
for those of us who aren't homicide detectives

 

If I remember correctly, they used those measurements (and photos) to determine where (location, angle) the gunshots came from.

 

I think some of the detective work was also linked to the discussion that happened in the pit not too much earlier in the same episode - where D explains to the young pawns - somewhat cryptically - what happened.

I think the girl was at the window - but her body was found by the fridge. They somehow knew that was inconsistent with her wounds and started poking around immediately for a more plausible sequence of events

I'm thinking she stumbled backwards after the killing - not that she was moved.

But the sloppy policework previously was no one found the bullet or the casing.

The fact that they found BOTH - was amazing.

The fact that we didn't get a flashback to help us understand - was also pretty cool.

 

It's definitely related to this discussion, though I won't say why because it's a spoiler. But I was responding to your confusion at the fact that the detectives were using measuring tape and things of that nature. As you mention, it was also probably to determine where the victim was located at the time of the shooting. But yes, on a larger scale this all goes back to the conversation D had with the young pawns.

 

Exactly. Story and character trumps everything. But I think the show is better in HD and in 16x9 and will reach a far bigger audience in both.