[Skiddins]

While Im not sure about drama, studio based comedies are never 'filmed' they are shot on video, whenever you see the behind the scenes programmes you can see the huge camera's with their cables.
I have the Friends DVD's etc and the picture quality is terrible.
On the stuff that is filmed, i.e. Columbo, The 'A' Team, Knightrider etc (what a list of tat that is ;-), the picture quality is much better as you say.

So does that mean that the Star Trek TNG DVD's will be excellent quality, or do they look virtually the same as when originally broadcast in the UK? I'm betting they look the same as they did on TV, fairly crap and as you say 'soft'

Hmm, although having looked at the Start Trek website they mention that they are ditching celluloid for season 4 of Enterprise in favour of high definition digital camera's, though this doesn't properly explain why TNG looked truly nasty while the newer series look slightly better, but they still have that 'video' look.
Perhaps our TV broadcasts are converted from their original NTSC transmission tapes, and having seen these series in the US (not on High Def) they certainly don't look any better there

Originally Posted by Skiddins

So does that mean that the Star Trek TNG DVD's will be excellent quality, or do they look virtually the same as when originally broadcast in the UK? I'm betting they look the same as they did on TV, fairly crap and as you say 'soft'

Sorry, that was a bad example. I'd forgotten that TNG, Voyager and DS9 were shot on 35mm film but edited on NTSC video (because it would have been too expensive to produce the special effects on film), so we will never see a hi-def version, or even a full-res PAL version (it also explains why the original Star series actually looks better than TNG, made 20 years later).

[Skiddins]

Oh well, I quite like the Star Treks as well.

[CKNA]

Originally Posted by Skiddins

While Im not sure about drama, studio based comedies are never 'filmed' they are shot on video, whenever you see the behind the scenes programmes you can see the huge camera's with their cables.
I have the Friends DVD's etc and the picture quality is terrible.
On the stuff that is filmed, i.e. Columbo, The 'A' Team, Knightrider etc (what a list of tat that is ;-), the picture quality is much better as you say.

So does that mean that the Star Trek TNG DVD's will be excellent quality, or do they look virtually the same as when originally broadcast in the UK? I'm betting they look the same as they did on TV, fairly crap and as you say 'soft'

Hmm, although having looked at the Start Trek website they mention that they are ditching celluloid for season 4 of Enterprise in favour of high definition digital camera's, though this doesn't properly explain why TNG looked truly nasty while the newer series look slightly better, but they still have that 'video' look.
Perhaps our TV broadcasts are converted from their original NTSC transmission tapes, and having seen these series in the US (not on High Def) they certainly don't look any better there

You are wrong. No TV show done in US except for reality TV is shot on SD video. Friends was shot on film at 30fps. There are couple shows shot on HD 1080p24 video. Rest is done mostly on 35mm film. Besides all shows are broadcat in HD now. For PAL market they are transferred directly from film. If you are seeing bad quality that means BBC is doing something wrong.

For you info, anything shot in PAL shown in US looks like ****. It is probably due to cheap conversion.

[Skiddins]

For PAL market they are transferred directly from film. If you are seeing bad quality that means BBC is doing something wrong.

As I mentioned above some stuff looks fine, it has aged slightly but looks great.
Modern programmes almost all look crap, why then, when you say that they are transfered from 35mm film, are my Friends DVD's 4:3 and horrible to look at, and these are Warner Bros DVD's, not broadcasters tapes.

I have emailed WB to see if they can shed any light on this, how much are you willing to bet I never get a reply

Skiddins

Actually, Skiddins, it seems you were right after all.

US TV shows and made-for-TV movies were edited on film until the mid-Eighties; since then they have mostly been edited on NTSC videotape, and that tape is used to create the PAL version (the repeated fields are removed and the video is interpolated up to 625 lines).

You're wrong to say that studio based comedies are never filmed: many are, such as Friends, Will & Grace, and Scrubs (Friends was definitely shot at 24fps as it clearly has the 4% speed-up on PAL).

Even when shows are made for HDTV there is no guarantee that we will get a full res PAL version: Without a Trace, produced in 1080i, is shown in 4:3 format on PAL. It doesn't look bad, but I think it may have been upconverted from NTSC rather than downconverted from 1080i. As for your comments about Friends and Sex and the City looking soft, I don't know if they were ever made with HDTV in mind (they've always been shown in 4:3 format here), but even if they were it's possible that the PAL versions were created from a downconverted NTSC master rather than a high-def one.

Originally Posted by Rimmer

(Friends was definitely shot at 24fps as it clearly has the 4% speed-up on PAL).

You are wrong.

Friends was filmed at 30 frames per second (a popular frame rate for studio based sitcoms). The picture quality is poor because it has had to be put through a standards converter to reduce the frame rate from 30fps to 25fps.

Poor quality standards conversion is one of the reasons why so many people in PAL countries believe that NTSC is significantly worse than PAL. When they see poor picture quality on their PAL TV sets, they assume that NTSC is to blame, when the real fault lies with our conflicting TV standards.