X-Files remastered for HD and Blu-Ray

Last I heard there was some talk about just up-rezzing the effects shots from the video masters, though...only downside I've heard so far.

 

The first two were and they were in big boxed sets. They were also expensive.

Before the DVD full season releases, The X-Files had its episodes released in VHS season sets in parts of the world, as well as selected single episodes put together. There was other material released on VHS, such as The X Files - Forensic Evidence Box and the X Files Trivia Game.

The above was from wikipedia and its accurate. The U.S. had the first two (and possibly the third although I did t buy it) seasons released in full boxed sets on videotape. Two episodes per tape.

 

I think they'll price them similar to the Star Trek blus. Word was that when they did the proof of concept that the plans were only to uprez the visual effects.

 

That totally sucks. I don't think it would cost that much to redo the effects. My memory is that there were maybe 10-15 VFX shots in an average episode of the show... not nearly as bad as TNG. Cheap bastids...

 

Fox did the same for their Blu-ray release of Firefly and it didn't turn out that badly. The VFX from those early X-Files' seasons weren't that great to begin with, I don't think they made the show.

 

It's gonna be really weird (but awesome) to see The X-Files looking all film-like. The early seasons especially are so associated in my mind with that look of early-9os video fuzz.

 

Yeah.

On the one hand, I understand that there are so much fewer VFX in X-Files than TNG, so this cost-saving decision will have a much lesser impact on the overall quality of the respective HD XF sets than it would have on TNG.

And yet that logic cuts both ways. If there are so much fewer VFX shots on X-files, it means DOING IT RIGHT would have cost far less than it did for CBS to do TNG. Let's see if they pass along those savings...

 

If I didn't already have all the seasons thru 7 on DVD, I'd step up to Blu-ray. But like music, I'm not double-dipping.

 

I fear the difference here will be that many, perhaps most, of Firefly's VFX were 100% CGI, whereas the X-Files effects tended to be integrated into live action footage. Thus I think the transition between shots might be much more jarring.

I may be full of it, though. Just speaking from memory, here. You're right that the Firefly blu-rays are perfectly acceptable.

 

Please release this soon. A nice box would be awesome

 

As I recall the effects for "Firefly" were uprezzed BUT they were rendered in 720p (as I recall) or possibly 480p which might have been why they looked pretty decent. X-Files, I'm not sure what resolution they did the effects in and it might have been much lower rez.

 

I know The X-Files was shot to 35mm but, was it post-produced to video or film?

 

The new HD transfer has already been aired in Germany, I believe. If you look around, one can see for themselves the vastly improved picture quality. Some of the new framing is more subjective in nature.

 

A little off-topic but......

I was reading through the comments in this reddit discussion, "Netflix is removing The X-Files from instant on 4/1. Sci-fi fans, contact Netflix!", where several members say that after season 4, X-files on Netflix was seen in 16:9 format but for some reason, Netflix suddenly dropped those and streamed 4:3 versions instead (along with missing subtitles for some shows with scenes where certain foreign langauges were used & these strange occurrences mentioned by another member: "........Also the tagline "the truth is out there"was missing from every episode and so was all the on screen text that gave locations and such of where the new scenes took place (like fbi headquarters, Virginia)"). But Amazon Prime supposedly stuck to the widescreen versions.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

Hmmm, I just watched a couple of 1st season eps on Netflix and they were 4:3 but the tagline was still there.

That Reddit discussion is funny, people are mad at Netflix because they seemingly don't understand how it works. I've watched dozens of things disappear from Netfix and reappear within days or weeks. Popular stuff tends to come back, non-popular stuff doesn't, unless the studio wants it pulled.

 

Didn't the show change to 16x9 at some point when it aired, though?

 

I'm in the middle of Season 5 on Netflix.
I haven't seen the subtitles for awhile.
I think only the first couple seasons had them.
As for the tagline. I don't think I've seen that since at least Season 3.

Darryl

 

The show ran from 1993-2002, and the years from 1997 on were kinda weird in American TV because some shows shot in 4x3, some shows shot in 16x9 but only transferred in 4x3 (like That 70s Show and 3rd Rock from the Sun, both of which I worked on), and some shows shot in 16x9 and transferred in 16x9 but mostly a 4x3 "extraction" aired. My bet is that the first 5 or 6 years of X-Files was probably only shot in 4-perf 35mm 4x3, but they switched around 1998 or so. But everything would still have to be rescanned from scratch just to get to HD.

I think a lot of shows feel "less crowded" in 16x9, but there's always the risk of just having a lot of empty "air" on the left and right because they were always protecting for 4x3. Starting about 5-6 years ago, I think everybody gave up and started composing entirely for 16x9, even to the extent of putting characters on the extreme sides of the widescreen frame. But the late 1990s is a rough era, particularly for film shows. Putting those pieces back together for HD is a huge undertaking. I think That 70s Show took more than 2 years to finish (as one example), using a staff of about 4-5 people per day.

 

If they had coincided this release along side a new movie they might have gotten a bump from it, but we have through season 7 and all the movies and I will not rebuy BluRay discs just to have them.

 

Instant buy for me

 

As I think was discussed in some other thread not too long ago, the entire run of the series has been rescanned/transferred/remastered in HD and has been airing in Germany for quite some time now, over a year at least. There were some screencaps in that thread as well, showing a HUGE improvement in image quality (as in, Star Trek: TNG level of improvement). Not sure if the special effects shots were just uprezzed or not.

The original thought was that they would start with the first season on BD at some point in 2013 to tie into the 20th anniversary of the show (a “Season 10” comic book also came out around that time and is still going). For some reason, that didn’t happen but they still continued on remastering all of the episodes for HD, and they’ve apparently being merrily rolling along airing the series in HD in Germany for some reason.

The latest theory is that Chris Carter (whose Amazon series was picked up, then up-picked up) may want a BD release to tie into a possible new “season” (or “limited series”) of the show, and/or another movie.

As for the aspect ratio issue for the show, there are huge debates about that on some other forums. The HD remastering has not confused and aggravated fans even more apparently. Everything is 16x9, but it looks like some shots are more tightly cropped while others show a lot more additional information. It appears they either made wildly varying cropping choices in the HD remastering, or they switched film stocks earlier in the series allowing for less cropping being needed on certain episodes. The screencaps of the new HD restorations I saw were mostly from early (first season) episodes.

 

I can't remember, since I haven't really watched it since the series originally ended & only started re-watching it (random episodes in no particular order) since buying a Roku a few months ago.

Interesting......

 

On DVD, seasons 5-9 are 16x9.

 

This should kick-start a release if nothing else does....

http://www.fox.com/the-x-files/article/the-next-mind-bending-chapter-is-coming ]

Great news

 

Fox will want to push that new show on home video very heavily. If this series is ever to hit home video, it will be timed with the release of the new series on home video.