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- <title>JMS on Sci-Fi's widescreen broadcasts</title>
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- <h1>JMS on Sci-Fi's widescreen broadcasts</h1>
-
- <p>
- JMS had the following to say about problems with the widescreen broadcasts
- on the Sci-Fi Channel:
-
- <p>
- <blockquote>
- Today I went to a meeting at Warner Bros. technical support, where we went
- over the problems detected in the SFC widescreen airings.
-
- <p>
- I now have some answers and some information on this.
-
- <p>
- I have to say up front that the WB folks have been nothing but helpful and
- determined to fix the problems. In "Midnight on the Firing Line," wherein a
- teapot is shown instead of a starship when the audio indicates the
- latter...the editor explained that it resulted from a pause/freeze frame
- during assembly, and when he restarted the equipment, it jumped shots.
-
- <p>
- This will be fixed. In "Convictions," wherein a comp shot of several
- monitors doesn't show the surveillance footage, but rather shows just the
- original babcom logo...they had missed this on their list of comp shots, and
- will go back and insert the proper footage now that they know the problem is
- there.
-
- <p>
- (They QC everything, but often with the audio down, so they had no way of
- knowing that they were talking about camera footage, and figured that it was
- okay since there was something -- the babcom logo -- in the monitors rather
- than totally blank screens.) In "Inquisitor," wherein the west end/east end
- audio correction wasn't made...they were going off the original PAL audio
- transfers, which in this case didn't work because we made that audio
- correction *after* broadcast and replaced the audio for that shot afterward.
-
- <p>
- They're going to go back to the revised 24 track audio and insert the proper
- audio. Here's what's going to happen beyond this. 1) WB is going to go
- back to using *only* the original 24 track audio stems for the dubs. 2)
- Seasons 4 and 5 as it turns out are already in proper wide versions, as is
- season 1, so the only ones that need to be addressed are seasons 2 and 3.
- 3) WB is going to run cassettes of the whole series in the new version and
- I'm going to personally go over every damn episode personally looking for
- any potential problem areas (such as comps that may not have been recognized
- as such by the WB editors).
-
- <p>
- It's possible that I may miss something here and there, because 110 hours is
- a LOT of TV to watch...but it'll certainly help. They were *extremely*
- helpful and apologetic at WB, and are determined to do everything they can
- to fix the situation as fast as possible. As for the audio...the audio
- transfers are being done directly off the original clones (either the
- original PAL, digibeta or 24 track stems), and QC'd.
-
- <p>
- So what they suspect *may* be the problem is if the SFC is running the
- digital tracks through a Dolby decoder. If you try to decode Dolby that
- isn't there, on a digital track (which doesn't need Dolby because it's
- digital) it can make the audio crunchy or lead to drop-outs, pops and other
- problems.
-
- <p>
- I've sent word to SFC to have them check that at their end of things. So
- the situation is well in hand.
-
- <p>
- jms (jmsatb5@aol.com)
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>
- Some fans have suggested that if JMS is going to rewatch the entire series
- anyway, there wouldn't be any harm in having a microphone handy to record
- commentary for an eventual DVD release. That may or may not be practical
- (a good in-depth commentary track may require more up-front preparation than
- JMS has time for right now) but it sure <em>sounds</em> like a
- good idea from here.
-
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- <h5>
- Last update:
- December 15, 2000
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