The Wire on Blu-Ray

roy123

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Does anybody know if & when the wire is coming on to blu-ray or should i just get it on dvd?:thumbsup:
 
Hi Roy,

There's no news of THE WIRE coming to Blu-Ray, and because the show was only filmed in 4:3 / 1.33:1, you may as well simply buy the DVD boxed set instead, which has all 5 seasons in it. :)


Pooch
 
Hi Roy,

There's no news of THE WIRE coming to Blu-Ray, and because the show was only filmed in 4:3 / 1.33:1, you may as well simply buy the DVD boxed set instead, which has all 5 seasons in it. :)


Pooch

Cheers Pooch:thumbsup:
 
Hi Roy,

There's no news of THE WIRE coming to Blu-Ray, and because the show was only filmed in 4:3 / 1.33:1, you may as well simply buy the DVD boxed set instead, which has all 5 seasons in it. :)


Pooch

Erm that's not a reason to not want a high def version. The DVD are indeed very good but a high def version would show improvements. I watched some of season 2 on FX HD last night and there was a definate improvement over the DVD.
 
It's still only SD. The entire run of all the series was only filmed on SD cameras.

What you're seeing on FXHD is upscaled (albeit by a very expensive upscaler) and is not high definition.

You'd get something similar from watching it via a good scaler like a Lumagen Radiance and a good DVD player.
 
It's still only SD. The entire run of all the series was only filmed on SD cameras.

What you're seeing on FXHD is upscaled (albeit by a very expensive upscaler) and is not high definition.

You'd get something similar from watching it via a good scaler like a Lumagen Radiance and a good DVD player.

Well yes I thought that BUT it definately looked better than upscaled, Sky was also reporting it as HD rather than upscaled. I thought the wire was shot using film not video.
 
It's still only SD. The entire run of all the series was only filmed on SD cameras.

What you're seeing on FXHD is upscaled (albeit by a very expensive upscaler) and is not high definition.

You'd get something similar from watching it via a good scaler like a Lumagen Radiance and a good DVD player.

Ok just did a bit of research and you are indeed correct, thanks for the info. It did look the best I've seen it last night I have to say.

Check out the link, very interesting stuff in general. Google truly is your friend!

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/inside-hbos-the-wire
 
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But I still stand by it doesn't matter whether it's 4x3 to define whter it's HD. Check out Star Trek the original series. :)
 
So watching it via DVD better than on BBC?
 
So watching it via DVD better than on BBC?

That depends on whether you have decent reception I thought it was and if I remember correctly it was dolby digital as well.
 
That depends on whether you have decent reception I thought it was and if I remember correctly it was dolby digital as well.

Yep is 5.1 - I use upscaling dvd with the wire, on season 4 at the moment it's a good picture!! just get the dvd boxset was £80 on amazon when i got it.
 
Hi Hillskill,

HBO could get the orignal Neg-Cuts re-scanned in HD anytime it wants to.

Well, in theory, yes it could, but...

1) It would be extremely costly to do so;
2) The show was shot in 4:3 Standard-Def format;
3) If the source that you are wanting to scan from is in Standard Def format, there's not going to be much of an improvement, trying to upgrade it into Hi-Def, I wouldn't have thought. The end result will only be as good as the original source material. You can't improve on something that isn't there. True, a computer/human can insert additional data of what it thinks should be there, but this would take me back to my initial point of it being extremely costly.

Unfortunately, I can't see HBO or David Simon wanting to justify the cost, time and effort in doing this, to a show that won't benefit that greatly from it. :(

Anyway, as has already been pointed out, Simon always intended it to be shot in 4:3 Standard Def to maintain realism, so he probably wouldn't authorise or sanction a modified alternate release in a format that he didn't intend the series to be shown in.


Pooch
 
The Wire was in fact not shot in "4:3 Standard-Def format". It was shot 4-perf Super 35 for the first seasons, and 3-perf Super 35 for the later episodes. In addition it was protected for 16:9 framing from the beginning, so if HBO really wanted to they could release the show in HD widescreen on Blu-ray (and TV.)

It was however produced (meaning edited and mastered) in 4:3 SD, so to make the HD version they would have to re-scan the film and re-edit everything, as Hillskill said. The situation is very similar to that of Life On Mars (where they didn't go back to the original film, but just released the original SD version upscaled on Blu-ray.)

There is a lot of technical information on The Wire in this article.
 
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Can't wait for this. I was put onto this by someone at work - really got into it. In your face police action that you can sink your teeth into... Your love / hate relationship with the main char is great....
 
Series 3 starts next Monday 22nd at 11.20 pm, BBC 2. Get that series link set!! :thumbsup:
 
Looking forward to series 3!

The Wire is one of those things ive always thought about buying blind but never did. Series 1 I really liked. Series 2 is good but goes a bit dull for me in patches and is pretty hard to follow in places which is unusual for a tv series (although not necessarily a bad thing). Hoping Series 3 will be better.

Best cop show no question.

Best tv series? No. That belongs to Band of Brothers, Twin Peaks, 24 or Battlestar Galactica. Just my opinion though! :)
 
For me it was the other way round, I liked series 2 better than 1 so have high hopes for 3! :thumbsup:
 
Just noticed that The Wire is now on the SKY planner for next week. :)
 
:rotfl:your going to be LOVING IT !
 
:rotfl:your going to be LOVING IT !

I know. Can't wait. Think i'll take more time to watch this series as last 2 I watched pretty much one after the other. might save them for weekend with a few beers! :smashin:
 
So what do you think guys? Slow start but I'm sure it'll get there. :smashin:
 
The Wire was in fact not shot in "4:3 Standard-Def format". It was shot 4-perf Super 35 for the first seasons, and 3-perf Super 35 for the later episodes. In addition it was protected for 16:9 framing from the beginning, so if HBO really wanted to they could release the show in HD widescreen on Blu-ray (and TV.)

It was however produced (meaning edited and mastered) in 4:3 SD, so to make the HD version they would have to re-scan the film and re-edit everything, as Hillskill said. The situation is very similar to that of Life On Mars (where they didn't go back to the original film, but just released the original SD version upscaled on Blu-ray.)

There is a lot of technical information on The Wire in this article.

Exactly. Some TV dramas have the film physically cut (neg cut) into the programme edit. They sometimes add handles (say 5secs) to the front and end of each edit but eitherway if HBO had a neg cut for each episode they could very easily re-scan those 70 odd episodes into HD. The sound would need to be re-mastered (currently stereo only AFAIK) into 5.1 which will also bump up the cost. IMHO the costs will prove too much for HBO. The show is undergoing a bit of a renaissance here in the UK but thats simply because most of us never caught it first time round. In the US its always been popular but not to the extent that everyone will rush and buy a new HD release.
 
So what do you think guys? Slow start but I'm sure it'll get there. :smashin:

Its an extremely difficult show to follow but then suddenly you are consumed by its characters and story. At one point I was getting through a season every 2 days. It really is that good.
 

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