RoboCop: PD - What went wrong?

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Recently, I found an old CRT television in storage and played some of PRIME DIRECTIVES on it. Suddenly, I was seeing PRIME DIRECTIVES as I'd originally watched it: on a 20-inch cathode ray tube television. I realized: this CRT image of PRIME DIRECTIVES is very much not the same PRIME DIRECTIVES that I've been watching -- or that anyone has been watching -- for at least 10 to 15 years.

CRT vs LCD Televisions

On original broadcast, I remember having a high opinion of Page Fletcher's performance and the overall production. And now, comparing how PD looks on a standard definition CRT television versus a modern 4K LCD-LED display, I realize how the visual quality of the series is shockingly diminished in going from CRT to LCD, even accounting for how it's standard definition DVD stretched to 4K.

In 2001, when PD was first broadcast, most TVs in most homes were low resolution CRT displays. HDTVs would take until 2013 to reach 3/4 of North American homes.

Watching PD on this aged CRT screen of a bygone era, I find Page Fletcher's performance and movements convey a compelling anger and determined force; the helmetless makeup looks effective, the RoboCop suit looks weathered and storied, the sets seem full of depth and atmosphere.

Watching PD on a 55-inch 4K TV: Page Fletcher performance looks less like drama and more like an actor struggling in his costume and he is distractingly shorter than the other actors, the makeup and effects look under-rendered, the sets look flat and bare... but PD was a 2000-filmed TV mini series, and it was made to be watched on a 2000-era TV, the CRT TV that was in most homes in the 2000s.

CRT Smoothing vs LCD Sharpness

Why did PD's visuals and Page Fletcher's performance seem so strong to me on CRT, but so awkward and dampened on an HD television?

A CRT TV is a 480i display. 480i is a standard definition interlaced format of two fields (even and odd) with a refresh rate of 60 hz, combining two image fields to form frames for a 30 FPS frame rate. The field blending creates motion blur across all in-motion image elements, smoothing movement with a sheen of a sheen of consistent fluidity. This field-blended, 60 hz refresh rate is much lower than high-definition TV sets today which have refresh rates from 120 to 240 hz. These higher LCD refresh rates reduce motion blur where CRT adds it.

PD was letterboxed at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, a 16:9 rectangle 4:3 square. But 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT display, despite being 16:9, looks different from 16:9 video on a 16:9 LCD display. A CRT display has a much shallower depth of field than a modern TV. With CRT, foreground and background are compressed: foreground visual elements all blend into a level of medium focus and medium distance, unlike a modern TV where it's more apparent what's close and what's farther away from the camera. CRT displays also had screen curvature, a slightly convex shape that magnified the center of the screen while making the sides seem smaller.

As a result: under CRT frame blending with motion smoothing & blurring, Page Fletcher's performance is polished by a CRT-induced fluidity that makes his movements in the Robosuit seem coordinated and artful, like a forceful acting choice. The CRT display also compresses the composition of the shots into a tighter and center-magnified image.

On this screen, Fletcher's performance looks bombastic and seems to fill the letterboxed screen, making him look dominant and dramatic. This is also because the screen magnification and compressed foreground/background make Fletcher take up more space in the center of the image.

Distance and Height on CRT vs. LCD

The switch from CRT to LCD-LED displays alters the shot compositions in a way that affect how Page Fletcher's height is perceived. On modern TVs, many shots seem to emphasize how Fletcher is shorter than the other actors despite RoboCop needing to be imposing. These shots are where Fletcher has been positioned farther from the camera than his scene partners. The eye perceives subjects farther from the camera as smaller than subjects closer to the lens.

On a CRT display, distance from the camera is less impactful because shallow depth of field means the foreground elements, like actors, appear to be at equal distance and size, while CRT center magnification makes Fletcher look larger, all of which offset his lack of stature. On an LCD display, the shot composition puts Fletcher's short height and distance from the camera in full depth of field, making RoboCop look small.

How Size and Resolution Affects Production Values

The low resolution and small size of CRT also smooths out the quality of images and also renders them with significantly less dynamic range for light and colour. As a result, the PD sets on CRT have extremely deep blacks, making dark scenes look cloaked in darkness, creating a highly atmospheric and smooth look of the near future. The deep black levels also serve to conceal flaws: sets that look shadowy and atmospheric on CRT unfortunately look undecorated and empty on a more brightly lit LCD, makeup that looks adequate and effective on CRT looks underdetailed and shabby in full LCD range.

CRT televisions also create a dot pattern over the image due to the shadow mask of the display which guides the electron guns to hit the screen phosphor dots. This dot pattern has the effect of filling in texture. Under CRT dots, undetailed makeup like RoboCop's helmetless face seems to have more texture implied due to the dot pattern filling in the gaps, and under-rendered computer graphics look sharper.

2000 Era TV on Modern Screens

I think it's safe to say that PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made for TV in 2000, was made to be seen on the CRT television, produced and edited and made for CRT. When watching PD on a modern TV with at least double the refresh rate of a CRT television: the modern TV omits any CRT motion blur and field-blended frame smoothing and without that, Fletcher's movements go from fluidly forceful to abrupt, jerky, unbalanced and awkward.

The flatscreen without CRT curvature means a lack of central magnification and a wider depth of field. The shot compositions that made look Fletcher look dominant on CRT now make him look diminished and emphasize how the other actors are taller. Sets that looked dense and shadowy on CRT now look bare and flat on modern televisions with a lack of set dressing. The higher dynamic range in lighting and colour of modern TVs has stripped away the shadowy sheen of the sets and shots and made them look underlit or empty or both. The absence of the CRT dot pattern also removes the filled-in texture of makeup and special effects, exposing their lack of detail and definition.

I suspect the reason why I have such fond memories of PD looking great is because I'm remembering what it looked like on a CRT television which is the screen most people would have watched it on original broadcast in 2001.

[Joined]

Recently, I found an old CRT television in storage and played some of PRIME DIRECTIVES on it. Suddenly, I was seeing PRIME DIRECTIVES as I'd originally watched it: on a 20-inch cathode ray tube television. I realized: this CRT image of PRIME DIRECTIVES is very much not the same PRIME DIRECTIVES that I've been watching -- or that anyone has been watching -- for at least 10 to 15 years.

CRT vs LCD Televisions

On original broadcast, I remember having a high opinion of Page Fletcher's performance and the overall production. And now, comparing how PD looks on a standard definition CRT television versus a modern 4K LCD-LED display, I realize how the visual quality of the series is shockingly diminished in going from CRT to LCD, even accounting for how it's standard definition DVD stretched to 4K.

In 2001, when PD was first broadcast, most TVs in most homes were low resolution CRT displays. HDTVs would take until 2013 to reach 3/4 of North American homes.

Watching PD on this aged CRT screen of a bygone era, I find Page Fletcher's performance and movements convey a compelling anger and determined force; the helmetless makeup looks effective, the RoboCop suit looks weathered and storied, the sets seem full of depth and atmosphere.

Watching PD on a 55-inch 4K TV: Page Fletcher performance looks less like drama and more like an actor struggling in his costume and he is distractingly shorter than the other actors, the makeup and effects look under-rendered, the sets look flat and bare... but PD was a 2000-filmed TV mini series, and it was made to be watched on a 2000-era TV, the CRT TV that was in most homes in the 2000s.

CRT Smoothing vs LCD Sharpness

Why did PD's visuals and Page Fletcher's performance seem so strong to me on CRT, but so awkward and dampened on an HD television?

A CRT TV is a 480i display. 480i is a standard definition interlaced format of two fields (even and odd) with a refresh rate of 60 hz, combining two image fields to form frames for a 30 FPS frame rate. The field blending creates motion blur across all in-motion image elements, smoothing movement with a sheen of a sheen of consistent fluidity. This field-blended, 60 hz refresh rate is much lower than high-definition TV sets today which have refresh rates from 120 to 240 hz. These higher LCD refresh rates reduce motion blur where CRT adds it.

PD was letterboxed at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, a 16:9 rectangle 4:3 square. But 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT display, despite being 16:9, looks different from 16:9 video on a 16:9 LCD display. A CRT display has a much shallower depth of field than a modern TV. With CRT, foreground and background are compressed: foreground visual elements all blend into a level of medium focus and medium distance, unlike a modern TV where it's more apparent what's close and what's farther away from the camera. CRT displays also had screen curvature, a slightly convex shape that magnified the center of the screen while making the sides seem smaller.

As a result: under CRT frame blending with motion smoothing & blurring, Page Fletcher's performance is polished by a CRT-induced fluidity that makes his movements in the Robosuit seem coordinated and artful, like a forceful acting choice. The CRT display also compresses the composition of the shots into a tighter and center-magnified image.

On this screen, Fletcher's performance looks bombastic and seems to fill the letterboxed screen, making him look dominant and dramatic. This is also because the screen magnification and compressed foreground/background make Fletcher take up more space in the center of the image.

Distance and Height on CRT vs. LCD

The switch from CRT to LCD-LED displays alters the shot compositions in a way that affect how Page Fletcher's height is perceived. On modern TVs, many shots seem to emphasize how Fletcher is shorter than the other actors despite RoboCop needing to be imposing. These shots are where Fletcher has been positioned farther from the camera than his scene partners. The eye perceives subjects farther from the camera as smaller than subjects closer to the lens.

On a CRT display, distance from the camera is less impactful because shallow depth of field means the foreground elements, like actors, appear to be at equal distance and size, while CRT center magnification makes Fletcher look larger, all of which offset his lack of stature. On an LCD display, the shot composition puts Fletcher's short height and distance from the camera in full depth of field, making RoboCop look small.

How Size and Resolution Affects Production Values

The low resolution and small size of CRT also smooths out the quality of images and also renders them with significantly less dynamic range for light and colour. As a result, the PD sets on CRT have extremely deep blacks, making dark scenes look cloaked in darkness, creating a highly atmospheric and smooth look of the near future. The deep black levels also serve to conceal flaws: sets that look shadowy and atmospheric on CRT unfortunately look undecorated and empty on a more brightly lit LCD, makeup that looks adequate and effective on CRT looks underdetailed and shabby in full LCD range.

CRT televisions also create a dot pattern over the image due to the shadow mask of the display which guides the electron guns to hit the screen phosphor dots. This dot pattern has the effect of filling in texture. Under CRT dots, undetailed makeup like RoboCop's helmetless face seems to have more texture implied due to the dot pattern filling in the gaps, and under-rendered computer graphics look sharper.

2000 Era TV on Modern Screens

I think it's safe to say that PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made for TV in 2000, was made to be seen on the CRT television, produced and edited and made for CRT. When watching PD on a modern TV with at least double the refresh rate of a CRT television: the modern TV omits any CRT motion blur and field-blended frame smoothing and without that, Fletcher's movements go from fluidly forceful to abrupt, jerky, unbalanced and awkward.

The flatscreen without CRT curvature means a lack of central magnification and a wider depth of field. The shot compositions that made look Fletcher look dominant on CRT now make him look diminished and emphasize how the other actors are taller. Sets that looked dense and shadowy on CRT now look bare and flat on modern televisions with a lack of set dressing. The higher dynamic range in lighting and colour of modern TVs has stripped away the shadowy sheen of the sets and shots and made them look underlit or empty or both. The absence of the CRT dot pattern also removes the filled-in texture of makeup and special effects, exposing their lack of detail and definition.

I suspect the reason why I have such fond memories of PD looking great is because I'm remembering what it looked like on a CRT television which is the screen most people would have watched it on original broadcast in 2001.

[Post Count]

Recently, I found an old CRT television in storage and played some of PRIME DIRECTIVES on it. Suddenly, I was seeing PRIME DIRECTIVES as I'd originally watched it: on a 20-inch cathode ray tube television. I realized: this CRT image of PRIME DIRECTIVES is very much not the same PRIME DIRECTIVES that I've been watching -- or that anyone has been watching -- for at least 10 to 15 years.

CRT vs LCD Televisions

On original broadcast, I remember having a high opinion of Page Fletcher's performance and the overall production. And now, comparing how PD looks on a standard definition CRT television versus a modern 4K LCD-LED display, I realize how the visual quality of the series is shockingly diminished in going from CRT to LCD, even accounting for how it's standard definition DVD stretched to 4K.

In 2001, when PD was first broadcast, most TVs in most homes were low resolution CRT displays. HDTVs would take until 2013 to reach 3/4 of North American homes.

Watching PD on this aged CRT screen of a bygone era, I find Page Fletcher's performance and movements convey a compelling anger and determined force; the helmetless makeup looks effective, the RoboCop suit looks weathered and storied, the sets seem full of depth and atmosphere.

Watching PD on a 55-inch 4K TV: Page Fletcher performance looks less like drama and more like an actor struggling in his costume and he is distractingly shorter than the other actors, the makeup and effects look under-rendered, the sets look flat and bare... but PD was a 2000-filmed TV mini series, and it was made to be watched on a 2000-era TV, the CRT TV that was in most homes in the 2000s.

CRT Smoothing vs LCD Sharpness

Why did PD's visuals and Page Fletcher's performance seem so strong to me on CRT, but so awkward and dampened on an HD television?

A CRT TV is a 480i display. 480i is a standard definition interlaced format of two fields (even and odd) with a refresh rate of 60 hz, combining two image fields to form frames for a 30 FPS frame rate. The field blending creates motion blur across all in-motion image elements, smoothing movement with a sheen of a sheen of consistent fluidity. This field-blended, 60 hz refresh rate is much lower than high-definition TV sets today which have refresh rates from 120 to 240 hz. These higher LCD refresh rates reduce motion blur where CRT adds it.

PD was letterboxed at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, a 16:9 rectangle 4:3 square. But 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT display, despite being 16:9, looks different from 16:9 video on a 16:9 LCD display. A CRT display has a much shallower depth of field than a modern TV. With CRT, foreground and background are compressed: foreground visual elements all blend into a level of medium focus and medium distance, unlike a modern TV where it's more apparent what's close and what's farther away from the camera. CRT displays also had screen curvature, a slightly convex shape that magnified the center of the screen while making the sides seem smaller.

As a result: under CRT frame blending with motion smoothing & blurring, Page Fletcher's performance is polished by a CRT-induced fluidity that makes his movements in the Robosuit seem coordinated and artful, like a forceful acting choice. The CRT display also compresses the composition of the shots into a tighter and center-magnified image.

On this screen, Fletcher's performance looks bombastic and seems to fill the letterboxed screen, making him look dominant and dramatic. This is also because the screen magnification and compressed foreground/background make Fletcher take up more space in the center of the image.

Distance and Height on CRT vs. LCD

The switch from CRT to LCD-LED displays alters the shot compositions in a way that affect how Page Fletcher's height is perceived. On modern TVs, many shots seem to emphasize how Fletcher is shorter than the other actors despite RoboCop needing to be imposing. These shots are where Fletcher has been positioned farther from the camera than his scene partners. The eye perceives subjects farther from the camera as smaller than subjects closer to the lens.

On a CRT display, distance from the camera is less impactful because shallow depth of field means the foreground elements, like actors, appear to be at equal distance and size, while CRT center magnification makes Fletcher look larger, all of which offset his lack of stature. On an LCD display, the shot composition puts Fletcher's short height and distance from the camera in full depth of field, making RoboCop look small.

How Size and Resolution Affects Production Values

The low resolution and small size of CRT also smooths out the quality of images and also renders them with significantly less dynamic range for light and colour. As a result, the PD sets on CRT have extremely deep blacks, making dark scenes look cloaked in darkness, creating a highly atmospheric and smooth look of the near future. The deep black levels also serve to conceal flaws: sets that look shadowy and atmospheric on CRT unfortunately look undecorated and empty on a more brightly lit LCD, makeup that looks adequate and effective on CRT looks underdetailed and shabby in full LCD range.

CRT televisions also create a dot pattern over the image due to the shadow mask of the display which guides the electron guns to hit the screen phosphor dots. This dot pattern has the effect of filling in texture. Under CRT dots, undetailed makeup like RoboCop's helmetless face seems to have more texture implied due to the dot pattern filling in the gaps, and under-rendered computer graphics look sharper.

2000 Era TV on Modern Screens

I think it's safe to say that PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made for TV in 2000, was made to be seen on the CRT television, produced and edited and made for CRT. When watching PD on a modern TV with at least double the refresh rate of a CRT television: the modern TV omits any CRT motion blur and field-blended frame smoothing and without that, Fletcher's movements go from fluidly forceful to abrupt, jerky, unbalanced and awkward.

The flatscreen without CRT curvature means a lack of central magnification and a wider depth of field. The shot compositions that made look Fletcher look dominant on CRT now make him look diminished and emphasize how the other actors are taller. Sets that looked dense and shadowy on CRT now look bare and flat on modern televisions with a lack of set dressing. The higher dynamic range in lighting and colour of modern TVs has stripped away the shadowy sheen of the sets and shots and made them look underlit or empty or both. The absence of the CRT dot pattern also removes the filled-in texture of makeup and special effects, exposing their lack of detail and definition.

I suspect the reason why I have such fond memories of PD looking great is because I'm remembering what it looked like on a CRT television which is the screen most people would have watched it on original broadcast in 2001.

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Open Matte Filming

It's very possible and even probable that PRIME DIRECTIVES, beginning production in 1999, was shot open matte and originally meant to be broadcast in 4:3 until 2000 saw widescreen broadcast become very popular, at which point the open matte image was cropped for 16:9. This brings us to another area where PRIME DIRECTIVES has changed since broadcast: it's no longer seen in its original format of letterboxed widescreen with black bars at the top and bottom of the image.

How Letterboxing Affects Shot Composition

When reviewing the series as 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT, the zoom level and framing of PRIME DIRECTIVES strikes me as very appropriate for this low resolution display. Zoom gets close to the actors and their characters to emphasize facial expression. But this framing plays very poorly on modern 16:9 TVs because the closeness is unnecessary for seeing expression in HD, and we have lost the letterboxing black bars.

In 2001, TVs were 4:3, low resolution, and small. On CRT, the human face is generally the most compelling element on TV, as sets, costumes, and effects are obscured by motion blur and dots. The forehead and chin of the human face have the least facial expression: the eyes, cheeks, and mouth are the most critical features, so zooming in on them makes sense for 20-30 inch CRT.

The Impact of Black Bars

PRIME DIRECTIVES was a small 4:3 box containing an even smaller 16:9 image. The zoom was offset by the letterboxing. The presence of black bars at the top and bottom of the image created a visual buffer that provided a sense of distance and perspective on those close zooms.

As a 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen, the forehead and chin cutoffs emphasized both expression and the cinematic look of the widescreen image within CRT box. Framed within the black bars, the cutoffs looked deliberate, expressive, and dramatic.

Removing the Black Bars

When watched today on a modern and fully widescreen TV, the closeups and cutoffs are exactly as you describe: obnoxiously claustrophobic, narratively pointless. The black bar buffer is missing; the camera now seems intrusively close, haphazardly positioned. The closeness and cutoffs no longer serve any purpose. The cutoffs do not work at all in 16:9 on a 16:9 screen.

The removal of the black bars severely alters how the shot compositions are perceived. The black bars provided an onscreen frame that centered and balanced the shots with separation and focus. The cutoffs within the black bars created a sense of theatrical 16:9 cinema on a 4:3 screen.

Without the black bars, the cutoffs and the cinematography now seem arbitrary and bizarre.

LCD Calls for Reframing and Relighting

If there were ever any sort of remastering of PRIME DIRECTIVES, I think it would be worthwhile to go back to the open matte film and see about reframing things for modern televisions, understanding that the black bar buffer is no more.

One might also relight PRIME DIRECTIVES with the understanding that brighter LCD will otherwise show things that were meant to be hidden in dark CRT, and altering the focus so things that weren't in full depth of field on CRT remain in shallow depth on LCD and the original center magnification is restored.

Other Edits

It's also possible that re-editing might also be worthwhile, out of consideration for how CRT demands slower editing so the viewer has more time to take in detail on a low-res screen, but that time is tedious and unneeded on a high-res display -- although I wonder if that is a bridge too far.

After all, I wouldn't want anyone speeding up the pacing of my beloved SLIDERS pilot, even if the slow editing for CRT isn't an asset in an HD era. I also wouldn't want anyone applying motion smoothing to the jerky ED-209 scenes of the 1987 movie. That stop motion was an incredible achievement in 1987.

Demastering?

Another option that would be cheaper: maybe instead of remastering PRIME DIRECTIVES, it should be demastered. Maybe the video files should be re-encoded with a shader, a CRT-style overlay to dim the colour and lighting, to distort the image with CRT screen curvature, to add a dot pattern, to reduce the depth of field of the screen.

Maybe the video file should be a 4:3 video file containing the 16:9 image. This would be the authentic, original PRIME DIRECTIVES that looked fantastic on a 2001 CRT and so very bad on a 2024 LCD. It would be an interesting special feature: the PRIME DIRECTIVES CRT DEMASTERED EDITION, the third blu-ray disk in the package.

That said, I might be the only person who would watch it.


ShaderGlass

I had to send away the CRT television once I was finished testing it with old PRIME DIRECTIVES and SLIDERS DVDs (it was a work item). But I found a free app, ShaderGlass, that lets users add a CRT-style shader to a Windows display. And on my laptop: I set my screen to a pillarboxed 640x480 resolution, played my DVD rip of "Dark Justice", applied the overlay, ShaderGlass dimmed the image of the screen, applied inky black shadows and the dot pattern, curved it into a slight fisheye, and this was once again the show I saw in 2001.

It was good to once again see PRIME DIRECTIVES as I first watched it, and to appreciate why people who watch it today are seeing something so very, very different.

In the end, PRIME DIRECTIVES was released to be seen in a very peculiar video format: letterboxed 16:9 widescreen on 4:3 with black bars framing the image. It was a format from a time of transition when broadcasters were drawn to the cinematic appeal of widescreen, but the majority of viewers didn't have widescreen displays yet. It's a format for TVs that aren't even manufactured anymore except for novelty nostalgia. And the letterboxed 16:9 format has not translated well to full 16:9.

[Joined]

Open Matte Filming

It's very possible and even probable that PRIME DIRECTIVES, beginning production in 1999, was shot open matte and originally meant to be broadcast in 4:3 until 2000 saw widescreen broadcast become very popular, at which point the open matte image was cropped for 16:9. This brings us to another area where PRIME DIRECTIVES has changed since broadcast: it's no longer seen in its original format of letterboxed widescreen with black bars at the top and bottom of the image.

How Letterboxing Affects Shot Composition

When reviewing the series as 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT, the zoom level and framing of PRIME DIRECTIVES strikes me as very appropriate for this low resolution display. Zoom gets close to the actors and their characters to emphasize facial expression. But this framing plays very poorly on modern 16:9 TVs because the closeness is unnecessary for seeing expression in HD, and we have lost the letterboxing black bars.

In 2001, TVs were 4:3, low resolution, and small. On CRT, the human face is generally the most compelling element on TV, as sets, costumes, and effects are obscured by motion blur and dots. The forehead and chin of the human face have the least facial expression: the eyes, cheeks, and mouth are the most critical features, so zooming in on them makes sense for 20-30 inch CRT.

The Impact of Black Bars

PRIME DIRECTIVES was a small 4:3 box containing an even smaller 16:9 image. The zoom was offset by the letterboxing. The presence of black bars at the top and bottom of the image created a visual buffer that provided a sense of distance and perspective on those close zooms.

As a 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen, the forehead and chin cutoffs emphasized both expression and the cinematic look of the widescreen image within CRT box. Framed within the black bars, the cutoffs looked deliberate, expressive, and dramatic.

Removing the Black Bars

When watched today on a modern and fully widescreen TV, the closeups and cutoffs are exactly as you describe: obnoxiously claustrophobic, narratively pointless. The black bar buffer is missing; the camera now seems intrusively close, haphazardly positioned. The closeness and cutoffs no longer serve any purpose. The cutoffs do not work at all in 16:9 on a 16:9 screen.

The removal of the black bars severely alters how the shot compositions are perceived. The black bars provided an onscreen frame that centered and balanced the shots with separation and focus. The cutoffs within the black bars created a sense of theatrical 16:9 cinema on a 4:3 screen.

Without the black bars, the cutoffs and the cinematography now seem arbitrary and bizarre.

LCD Calls for Reframing and Relighting

If there were ever any sort of remastering of PRIME DIRECTIVES, I think it would be worthwhile to go back to the open matte film and see about reframing things for modern televisions, understanding that the black bar buffer is no more.

One might also relight PRIME DIRECTIVES with the understanding that brighter LCD will otherwise show things that were meant to be hidden in dark CRT, and altering the focus so things that weren't in full depth of field on CRT remain in shallow depth on LCD and the original center magnification is restored.

Other Edits

It's also possible that re-editing might also be worthwhile, out of consideration for how CRT demands slower editing so the viewer has more time to take in detail on a low-res screen, but that time is tedious and unneeded on a high-res display -- although I wonder if that is a bridge too far.

After all, I wouldn't want anyone speeding up the pacing of my beloved SLIDERS pilot, even if the slow editing for CRT isn't an asset in an HD era. I also wouldn't want anyone applying motion smoothing to the jerky ED-209 scenes of the 1987 movie. That stop motion was an incredible achievement in 1987.

Demastering?

Another option that would be cheaper: maybe instead of remastering PRIME DIRECTIVES, it should be demastered. Maybe the video files should be re-encoded with a shader, a CRT-style overlay to dim the colour and lighting, to distort the image with CRT screen curvature, to add a dot pattern, to reduce the depth of field of the screen.

Maybe the video file should be a 4:3 video file containing the 16:9 image. This would be the authentic, original PRIME DIRECTIVES that looked fantastic on a 2001 CRT and so very bad on a 2024 LCD. It would be an interesting special feature: the PRIME DIRECTIVES CRT DEMASTERED EDITION, the third blu-ray disk in the package.

That said, I might be the only person who would watch it.


ShaderGlass

I had to send away the CRT television once I was finished testing it with old PRIME DIRECTIVES and SLIDERS DVDs (it was a work item). But I found a free app, ShaderGlass, that lets users add a CRT-style shader to a Windows display. And on my laptop: I set my screen to a pillarboxed 640x480 resolution, played my DVD rip of "Dark Justice", applied the overlay, ShaderGlass dimmed the image of the screen, applied inky black shadows and the dot pattern, curved it into a slight fisheye, and this was once again the show I saw in 2001.

It was good to once again see PRIME DIRECTIVES as I first watched it, and to appreciate why people who watch it today are seeing something so very, very different.

In the end, PRIME DIRECTIVES was released to be seen in a very peculiar video format: letterboxed 16:9 widescreen on 4:3 with black bars framing the image. It was a format from a time of transition when broadcasters were drawn to the cinematic appeal of widescreen, but the majority of viewers didn't have widescreen displays yet. It's a format for TVs that aren't even manufactured anymore except for novelty nostalgia. And the letterboxed 16:9 format has not translated well to full 16:9.

[Post Count]

Open Matte Filming

It's very possible and even probable that PRIME DIRECTIVES, beginning production in 1999, was shot open matte and originally meant to be broadcast in 4:3 until 2000 saw widescreen broadcast become very popular, at which point the open matte image was cropped for 16:9. This brings us to another area where PRIME DIRECTIVES has changed since broadcast: it's no longer seen in its original format of letterboxed widescreen with black bars at the top and bottom of the image.

How Letterboxing Affects Shot Composition

When reviewing the series as 16:9 video on a 4:3 CRT, the zoom level and framing of PRIME DIRECTIVES strikes me as very appropriate for this low resolution display. Zoom gets close to the actors and their characters to emphasize facial expression. But this framing plays very poorly on modern 16:9 TVs because the closeness is unnecessary for seeing expression in HD, and we have lost the letterboxing black bars.

In 2001, TVs were 4:3, low resolution, and small. On CRT, the human face is generally the most compelling element on TV, as sets, costumes, and effects are obscured by motion blur and dots. The forehead and chin of the human face have the least facial expression: the eyes, cheeks, and mouth are the most critical features, so zooming in on them makes sense for 20-30 inch CRT.

The Impact of Black Bars

PRIME DIRECTIVES was a small 4:3 box containing an even smaller 16:9 image. The zoom was offset by the letterboxing. The presence of black bars at the top and bottom of the image created a visual buffer that provided a sense of distance and perspective on those close zooms.

As a 16:9 image on a 4:3 screen, the forehead and chin cutoffs emphasized both expression and the cinematic look of the widescreen image within CRT box. Framed within the black bars, the cutoffs looked deliberate, expressive, and dramatic.

Removing the Black Bars

When watched today on a modern and fully widescreen TV, the closeups and cutoffs are exactly as you describe: obnoxiously claustrophobic, narratively pointless. The black bar buffer is missing; the camera now seems intrusively close, haphazardly positioned. The closeness and cutoffs no longer serve any purpose. The cutoffs do not work at all in 16:9 on a 16:9 screen.

The removal of the black bars severely alters how the shot compositions are perceived. The black bars provided an onscreen frame that centered and balanced the shots with separation and focus. The cutoffs within the black bars created a sense of theatrical 16:9 cinema on a 4:3 screen.

Without the black bars, the cutoffs and the cinematography now seem arbitrary and bizarre.

LCD Calls for Reframing and Relighting

If there were ever any sort of remastering of PRIME DIRECTIVES, I think it would be worthwhile to go back to the open matte film and see about reframing things for modern televisions, understanding that the black bar buffer is no more.

One might also relight PRIME DIRECTIVES with the understanding that brighter LCD will otherwise show things that were meant to be hidden in dark CRT, and altering the focus so things that weren't in full depth of field on CRT remain in shallow depth on LCD and the original center magnification is restored.

Other Edits

It's also possible that re-editing might also be worthwhile, out of consideration for how CRT demands slower editing so the viewer has more time to take in detail on a low-res screen, but that time is tedious and unneeded on a high-res display -- although I wonder if that is a bridge too far.

After all, I wouldn't want anyone speeding up the pacing of my beloved SLIDERS pilot, even if the slow editing for CRT isn't an asset in an HD era. I also wouldn't want anyone applying motion smoothing to the jerky ED-209 scenes of the 1987 movie. That stop motion was an incredible achievement in 1987.

Demastering?

Another option that would be cheaper: maybe instead of remastering PRIME DIRECTIVES, it should be demastered. Maybe the video files should be re-encoded with a shader, a CRT-style overlay to dim the colour and lighting, to distort the image with CRT screen curvature, to add a dot pattern, to reduce the depth of field of the screen.

Maybe the video file should be a 4:3 video file containing the 16:9 image. This would be the authentic, original PRIME DIRECTIVES that looked fantastic on a 2001 CRT and so very bad on a 2024 LCD. It would be an interesting special feature: the PRIME DIRECTIVES CRT DEMASTERED EDITION, the third blu-ray disk in the package.

That said, I might be the only person who would watch it.


ShaderGlass

I had to send away the CRT television once I was finished testing it with old PRIME DIRECTIVES and SLIDERS DVDs (it was a work item). But I found a free app, ShaderGlass, that lets users add a CRT-style shader to a Windows display. And on my laptop: I set my screen to a pillarboxed 640x480 resolution, played my DVD rip of "Dark Justice", applied the overlay, ShaderGlass dimmed the image of the screen, applied inky black shadows and the dot pattern, curved it into a slight fisheye, and this was once again the show I saw in 2001.

It was good to once again see PRIME DIRECTIVES as I first watched it, and to appreciate why people who watch it today are seeing something so very, very different.

In the end, PRIME DIRECTIVES was released to be seen in a very peculiar video format: letterboxed 16:9 widescreen on 4:3 with black bars framing the image. It was a format from a time of transition when broadcasters were drawn to the cinematic appeal of widescreen, but the majority of viewers didn't have widescreen displays yet. It's a format for TVs that aren't even manufactured anymore except for novelty nostalgia. And the letterboxed 16:9 format has not translated well to full 16:9.

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I would be very interested to see you -- you specifically -- do a fan edit with the increased saturation. Personally, I think that the near-monochrome look has a certain icy artistry that speaks to the coldness of OCP and Delta City, and it also encourages darkness and shadow to the effects, costumes, makeup and sets. That makes sense for low budget television where what can't be shown in crisp detail is implied by essential hints of detail and then framed in darkness.

An official restoration for reframing and a light re-edit would be best, but fan edits are advancing all the time. If PRIME DIRECTIVES is to be watched in full 16:9 and won't receive an official remastering, it'd be interesting for fans to attempt generative fill to add some wider perspective to the shots and make up for the absence of the letterboxing-induced black bars.

I remember a funny conversation with one of the creators on PRIME DIRECTIVES where I told him one of my favourite shots was when we see the lake outside Old Detroit after Murphy drove his car off a pier; then we see RoboCop's hand grabbing a railing and Murphy pulling himself out of the lake. It was so powerful and impactful and dramatic, I said.

He said the shot bothered him because the RoboCop suit seemed completely dry. I said wouldn't the water have dripped off as he was climbing up the side of a flat, vertical surface with a railing at the top? He said there should have been a few drops of water on the suit and helmet. "Who would notice that?" I protested.

Today on an LCD display, everyone notices that RoboCop just climbed out of a lake and is completely dry.

I replayed that specific shot on the CRT television, and... the CRT image is not clear enough to show drops of water on RoboCop's suit whether they are present or not. They would blend into the light gray metal of the suit. For this made for 2001 TV project on 2001 TV, it didn't matter.

[Joined]

I would be very interested to see you -- you specifically -- do a fan edit with the increased saturation. Personally, I think that the near-monochrome look has a certain icy artistry that speaks to the coldness of OCP and Delta City, and it also encourages darkness and shadow to the effects, costumes, makeup and sets. That makes sense for low budget television where what can't be shown in crisp detail is implied by essential hints of detail and then framed in darkness.

An official restoration for reframing and a light re-edit would be best, but fan edits are advancing all the time. If PRIME DIRECTIVES is to be watched in full 16:9 and won't receive an official remastering, it'd be interesting for fans to attempt generative fill to add some wider perspective to the shots and make up for the absence of the letterboxing-induced black bars.

I remember a funny conversation with one of the creators on PRIME DIRECTIVES where I told him one of my favourite shots was when we see the lake outside Old Detroit after Murphy drove his car off a pier; then we see RoboCop's hand grabbing a railing and Murphy pulling himself out of the lake. It was so powerful and impactful and dramatic, I said.

He said the shot bothered him because the RoboCop suit seemed completely dry. I said wouldn't the water have dripped off as he was climbing up the side of a flat, vertical surface with a railing at the top? He said there should have been a few drops of water on the suit and helmet. "Who would notice that?" I protested.

Today on an LCD display, everyone notices that RoboCop just climbed out of a lake and is completely dry.

I replayed that specific shot on the CRT television, and... the CRT image is not clear enough to show drops of water on RoboCop's suit whether they are present or not. They would blend into the light gray metal of the suit. For this made for 2001 TV project on 2001 TV, it didn't matter.

[Post Count]

I would be very interested to see you -- you specifically -- do a fan edit with the increased saturation. Personally, I think that the near-monochrome look has a certain icy artistry that speaks to the coldness of OCP and Delta City, and it also encourages darkness and shadow to the effects, costumes, makeup and sets. That makes sense for low budget television where what can't be shown in crisp detail is implied by essential hints of detail and then framed in darkness.

An official restoration for reframing and a light re-edit would be best, but fan edits are advancing all the time. If PRIME DIRECTIVES is to be watched in full 16:9 and won't receive an official remastering, it'd be interesting for fans to attempt generative fill to add some wider perspective to the shots and make up for the absence of the letterboxing-induced black bars.

I remember a funny conversation with one of the creators on PRIME DIRECTIVES where I told him one of my favourite shots was when we see the lake outside Old Detroit after Murphy drove his car off a pier; then we see RoboCop's hand grabbing a railing and Murphy pulling himself out of the lake. It was so powerful and impactful and dramatic, I said.

He said the shot bothered him because the RoboCop suit seemed completely dry. I said wouldn't the water have dripped off as he was climbing up the side of a flat, vertical surface with a railing at the top? He said there should have been a few drops of water on the suit and helmet. "Who would notice that?" I protested.

Today on an LCD display, everyone notices that RoboCop just climbed out of a lake and is completely dry.

I replayed that specific shot on the CRT television, and... the CRT image is not clear enough to show drops of water on RoboCop's suit whether they are present or not. They would blend into the light gray metal of the suit. For this made for 2001 TV project on 2001 TV, it didn't matter.

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[Joined]

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[ireactions]

A lot of older shows have visual problems when shown on a screen that didn't exist or wasn't in common use when that older show was first made. Your descriptions of the makeup on the 60s BATMAN show and THE A-TEAM's stunt doubles and KNIGHT RIDER's stock footage are perfect examples. My favourite example in this vein is the original STAR TREK series: when watching it today on Netflix, the stunt doubles for William Shatner are bizarre because they are shown in medium shots doing all the fights, you can see their faces clearly, and they are obviously not William Shatner. It seem inexplicable to audiences today. It looked weird to me even in the 2000s when watching STAR TREK on CRT.

In the 60s and even in the 70s, TVs had even blurrier CRT displays with extremely washed out colour, and had even smaller sizes. The fuzzy image meant the audiences couldn't really see medium shots clearly enough for the double's face to clear. But the modest improvements in 1990s CRT display made it very clear that it wasn't William Shatner throwing punches and kicks and it looked ridiculous. STAR TREK in some ways benefitted from extremely poor CRT presentation for a few decades.

PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made in 1999 - 2000 and broadcast in 2001, was an unfortunate victim of being released only a few years before home TVs experienced an accelerated shift from full frame CRT to widescreen LCD. By 2004, LCD TVs were outselling CRT televisions and taking CRT's place in living rooms. The more widely LCD screens were adopted, the worse the reviews became for PRIME DIRECTIVES. PD, in 2001, probably only had three years of grace where STAR TREK had at least 20 years.

I'm not sure if this is a point of criticism, although I have no doubt most fans here would say that it was up to the PD team to imagine their work being seen in full LCD widescreen someday, and that the original ROBOCOP in 1987 was made well enough to be enjoyable on a modern screen. I would point out that film is a much higher resolution format than CRT television in 2001 and meant for screens even bigger than the average 50 - 60 inch widescreen TV today.

Fans might note that shows like QUANTUM LEAP, THE PRISONER, BATMAN (1966) and STAR TREK (1966) look great today in their HD releases and just look sharper and clearer; in contrast, PD's framing and lighting issues would not be solved even with a higher resolution and sharper video quality. I would argue that those shows were full frame and stayed in full frame while PRIME DIRECTIVES was edited and released for a very peculiar broadcast standard: letterboxed 16:9 within a square 4:3, a broadcast format with top and bottom black bars.

This letterboxed broadcast format really only lasted from 2000 to maybe 2004 at which point shows were shot for widescreen to be seen in full widescreen. This shift drastically altered TV. Standard definition TV had always been viewed as a cheaper and less vivid version of theatrical films. There had been the sense that standard definition didn't need the resources of film because TV was so blurry and small that high production values were somewhat wasted there because the audience wouldn't be able to see it clearly on their home screens. PRIME DIRECTIVES was one of the last shows to be made in an era where TV only needed to be good enough for CRT.

Some potential and potentially cheap solutions: maybe a hypothetical HD release of PD could use the original open matte version before the top and bottom were cut off to make it widescreen. (I don't know if the cropping was applied before they assembled it, or if that version even exists anywhere.) But a pillerboxed version of PD might work the way those other full frame shows are shown today. This might eliminate the oddities of shot compositions that were expected to be seen empty black bars above and below the image.

In terms of plug and play solutions: the show could have its exposure and gamma levels adjusted throughout to make the dim scenes darker to accommodate for brighter LCD, and to apply lens correction to the entire file to recreate the CRT center magnification. The frame rate of the show could also be adjusted with motion blur added to resemble the 30fps fluidity of the original broadcast rather than the 24fps frame rate today, in order to restore how Page Fletcher's suit movements looked in the 2001 broadcast.

Another solution: two strips acquire black vinyl on cardstock cut to the length of a TV set, and attach them at the top and bottom of your TV to recreate the black bars and the framing, separation and focus they provided. Of course, at this point, we might as well expect Amazon to ship us a CRT television from a junk yard with each PD purchase.

I think drag and drop, plug and play solutions that are fine for fan edits, but a professional product should have scene by scene if not shot by shot adjustments, at which point they should really go back to the open matte image (again, assuming there is one) and reframe it for proper 16:9.

I don't think it will happen any time soon, but I also don't know that it won't ever happen. I believe PRIME DIRECTIVES, and all RoboCop shows made under TV license by licensee studios, are now under the Amazon MGM Studios banner. They may want to someday have all the TV shows fit for an HD streaming library if they want to produce new RoboCop content in the future. If the process to clean up the cartoons and live action shows is not too expensive or time consuming, they might do it someday.

I suppose the creators could have anticipated PRIME DIRECTIVES being viewed in full widescreen at some point, but I personally won't fault them for making a TV project to be seen on the TVs that were on sale at the time they made the show as opposed to TVs that, in 1999, seemed pretty far away from everyone's living rooms.

[Joined]

A lot of older shows have visual problems when shown on a screen that didn't exist or wasn't in common use when that older show was first made. Your descriptions of the makeup on the 60s BATMAN show and THE A-TEAM's stunt doubles and KNIGHT RIDER's stock footage are perfect examples. My favourite example in this vein is the original STAR TREK series: when watching it today on Netflix, the stunt doubles for William Shatner are bizarre because they are shown in medium shots doing all the fights, you can see their faces clearly, and they are obviously not William Shatner. It seem inexplicable to audiences today. It looked weird to me even in the 2000s when watching STAR TREK on CRT.

In the 60s and even in the 70s, TVs had even blurrier CRT displays with extremely washed out colour, and had even smaller sizes. The fuzzy image meant the audiences couldn't really see medium shots clearly enough for the double's face to clear. But the modest improvements in 1990s CRT display made it very clear that it wasn't William Shatner throwing punches and kicks and it looked ridiculous. STAR TREK in some ways benefitted from extremely poor CRT presentation for a few decades.

PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made in 1999 - 2000 and broadcast in 2001, was an unfortunate victim of being released only a few years before home TVs experienced an accelerated shift from full frame CRT to widescreen LCD. By 2004, LCD TVs were outselling CRT televisions and taking CRT's place in living rooms. The more widely LCD screens were adopted, the worse the reviews became for PRIME DIRECTIVES. PD, in 2001, probably only had three years of grace where STAR TREK had at least 20 years.

I'm not sure if this is a point of criticism, although I have no doubt most fans here would say that it was up to the PD team to imagine their work being seen in full LCD widescreen someday, and that the original ROBOCOP in 1987 was made well enough to be enjoyable on a modern screen. I would point out that film is a much higher resolution format than CRT television in 2001 and meant for screens even bigger than the average 50 - 60 inch widescreen TV today.

Fans might note that shows like QUANTUM LEAP, THE PRISONER, BATMAN (1966) and STAR TREK (1966) look great today in their HD releases and just look sharper and clearer; in contrast, PD's framing and lighting issues would not be solved even with a higher resolution and sharper video quality. I would argue that those shows were full frame and stayed in full frame while PRIME DIRECTIVES was edited and released for a very peculiar broadcast standard: letterboxed 16:9 within a square 4:3, a broadcast format with top and bottom black bars.

This letterboxed broadcast format really only lasted from 2000 to maybe 2004 at which point shows were shot for widescreen to be seen in full widescreen. This shift drastically altered TV. Standard definition TV had always been viewed as a cheaper and less vivid version of theatrical films. There had been the sense that standard definition didn't need the resources of film because TV was so blurry and small that high production values were somewhat wasted there because the audience wouldn't be able to see it clearly on their home screens. PRIME DIRECTIVES was one of the last shows to be made in an era where TV only needed to be good enough for CRT.

Some potential and potentially cheap solutions: maybe a hypothetical HD release of PD could use the original open matte version before the top and bottom were cut off to make it widescreen. (I don't know if the cropping was applied before they assembled it, or if that version even exists anywhere.) But a pillerboxed version of PD might work the way those other full frame shows are shown today. This might eliminate the oddities of shot compositions that were expected to be seen empty black bars above and below the image.

In terms of plug and play solutions: the show could have its exposure and gamma levels adjusted throughout to make the dim scenes darker to accommodate for brighter LCD, and to apply lens correction to the entire file to recreate the CRT center magnification. The frame rate of the show could also be adjusted with motion blur added to resemble the 30fps fluidity of the original broadcast rather than the 24fps frame rate today, in order to restore how Page Fletcher's suit movements looked in the 2001 broadcast.

Another solution: two strips acquire black vinyl on cardstock cut to the length of a TV set, and attach them at the top and bottom of your TV to recreate the black bars and the framing, separation and focus they provided. Of course, at this point, we might as well expect Amazon to ship us a CRT television from a junk yard with each PD purchase.

I think drag and drop, plug and play solutions that are fine for fan edits, but a professional product should have scene by scene if not shot by shot adjustments, at which point they should really go back to the open matte image (again, assuming there is one) and reframe it for proper 16:9.

I don't think it will happen any time soon, but I also don't know that it won't ever happen. I believe PRIME DIRECTIVES, and all RoboCop shows made under TV license by licensee studios, are now under the Amazon MGM Studios banner. They may want to someday have all the TV shows fit for an HD streaming library if they want to produce new RoboCop content in the future. If the process to clean up the cartoons and live action shows is not too expensive or time consuming, they might do it someday.

I suppose the creators could have anticipated PRIME DIRECTIVES being viewed in full widescreen at some point, but I personally won't fault them for making a TV project to be seen on the TVs that were on sale at the time they made the show as opposed to TVs that, in 1999, seemed pretty far away from everyone's living rooms.

[Post Count]

A lot of older shows have visual problems when shown on a screen that didn't exist or wasn't in common use when that older show was first made. Your descriptions of the makeup on the 60s BATMAN show and THE A-TEAM's stunt doubles and KNIGHT RIDER's stock footage are perfect examples. My favourite example in this vein is the original STAR TREK series: when watching it today on Netflix, the stunt doubles for William Shatner are bizarre because they are shown in medium shots doing all the fights, you can see their faces clearly, and they are obviously not William Shatner. It seem inexplicable to audiences today. It looked weird to me even in the 2000s when watching STAR TREK on CRT.

In the 60s and even in the 70s, TVs had even blurrier CRT displays with extremely washed out colour, and had even smaller sizes. The fuzzy image meant the audiences couldn't really see medium shots clearly enough for the double's face to clear. But the modest improvements in 1990s CRT display made it very clear that it wasn't William Shatner throwing punches and kicks and it looked ridiculous. STAR TREK in some ways benefitted from extremely poor CRT presentation for a few decades.

PRIME DIRECTIVES, being made in 1999 - 2000 and broadcast in 2001, was an unfortunate victim of being released only a few years before home TVs experienced an accelerated shift from full frame CRT to widescreen LCD. By 2004, LCD TVs were outselling CRT televisions and taking CRT's place in living rooms. The more widely LCD screens were adopted, the worse the reviews became for PRIME DIRECTIVES. PD, in 2001, probably only had three years of grace where STAR TREK had at least 20 years.

I'm not sure if this is a point of criticism, although I have no doubt most fans here would say that it was up to the PD team to imagine their work being seen in full LCD widescreen someday, and that the original ROBOCOP in 1987 was made well enough to be enjoyable on a modern screen. I would point out that film is a much higher resolution format than CRT television in 2001 and meant for screens even bigger than the average 50 - 60 inch widescreen TV today.

Fans might note that shows like QUANTUM LEAP, THE PRISONER, BATMAN (1966) and STAR TREK (1966) look great today in their HD releases and just look sharper and clearer; in contrast, PD's framing and lighting issues would not be solved even with a higher resolution and sharper video quality. I would argue that those shows were full frame and stayed in full frame while PRIME DIRECTIVES was edited and released for a very peculiar broadcast standard: letterboxed 16:9 within a square 4:3, a broadcast format with top and bottom black bars.

This letterboxed broadcast format really only lasted from 2000 to maybe 2004 at which point shows were shot for widescreen to be seen in full widescreen. This shift drastically altered TV. Standard definition TV had always been viewed as a cheaper and less vivid version of theatrical films. There had been the sense that standard definition didn't need the resources of film because TV was so blurry and small that high production values were somewhat wasted there because the audience wouldn't be able to see it clearly on their home screens. PRIME DIRECTIVES was one of the last shows to be made in an era where TV only needed to be good enough for CRT.

Some potential and potentially cheap solutions: maybe a hypothetical HD release of PD could use the original open matte version before the top and bottom were cut off to make it widescreen. (I don't know if the cropping was applied before they assembled it, or if that version even exists anywhere.) But a pillerboxed version of PD might work the way those other full frame shows are shown today. This might eliminate the oddities of shot compositions that were expected to be seen empty black bars above and below the image.

In terms of plug and play solutions: the show could have its exposure and gamma levels adjusted throughout to make the dim scenes darker to accommodate for brighter LCD, and to apply lens correction to the entire file to recreate the CRT center magnification. The frame rate of the show could also be adjusted with motion blur added to resemble the 30fps fluidity of the original broadcast rather than the 24fps frame rate today, in order to restore how Page Fletcher's suit movements looked in the 2001 broadcast.

Another solution: two strips acquire black vinyl on cardstock cut to the length of a TV set, and attach them at the top and bottom of your TV to recreate the black bars and the framing, separation and focus they provided. Of course, at this point, we might as well expect Amazon to ship us a CRT television from a junk yard with each PD purchase.

I think drag and drop, plug and play solutions that are fine for fan edits, but a professional product should have scene by scene if not shot by shot adjustments, at which point they should really go back to the open matte image (again, assuming there is one) and reframe it for proper 16:9.

I don't think it will happen any time soon, but I also don't know that it won't ever happen. I believe PRIME DIRECTIVES, and all RoboCop shows made under TV license by licensee studios, are now under the Amazon MGM Studios banner. They may want to someday have all the TV shows fit for an HD streaming library if they want to produce new RoboCop content in the future. If the process to clean up the cartoons and live action shows is not too expensive or time consuming, they might do it someday.

I suppose the creators could have anticipated PRIME DIRECTIVES being viewed in full widescreen at some point, but I personally won't fault them for making a TV project to be seen on the TVs that were on sale at the time they made the show as opposed to TVs that, in 1999, seemed pretty far away from everyone's living rooms.

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[Joined]

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[ireactions]

I've seen parts of 4K upscale of PRIME DIRECTIVES and I think it looks technically better but artistically worse. PD actually benefits from being downscaled to be blurrier and darker via a CRT-style screen shader. 4K unfortunately emphasizes and deepens all the visual problems of PD going from letterboxed 16:9 to full 16:9 whether it's shot compositions not meant for the format or effects not designed for the resolution.

One amusing exercise: I watched the 4K upscale of the final scenes of "Crash & Burn" where Murphy's helmet is off. The prosthetic on Fletcher's head looks terrible in 4K. I activated the ShaderGlass CRT shader which downscaled the image with CRT dimming and dots, making the upscale look like 480i. Instantly, the helmetless makeup looked blended and TV-adequate.

I've watched some of the 'professional' upscales of THE SERIES. The problem: they have set the upscaling too aggressively to smooth out every jagged edge and all the noise of digital videotape and the grain of the original film stock.

AI upscaling has its uses, but it can be grossly misapplied. The PRIME DIRECTIVES fan upscale looks (technically) good to me because Owen Davies, the editor, has a good process of de-telecining the DVD files to get the full resolution possible. After the HD upscale, he has reapplied film grain.

As someone who has done some AI upscaling work, I find that AI upscaling is best when applied modestly, and when the original 'flaws' of the base file are partially maintained. Bicubic scaling is not always great, creating blockiness, jagged edges and an unpleasant blurriness.

AI upscaling may make things superficially sharper, but it also creates an oversmooth, waxy look to all textures, trading in blockiness for uniform smoothing. The TRUE LIES 4K release has this problem, and also has the uncanny valley effect of objects in motion staying sharp without motion blur, which the human eye finds unnatural. It's important to add a layer of film grain afterwards to offset the smoothing and to avoid oversharpening.

In addition, a lot of 480i material is best upscaled modestly. With current technology, the goal of making a 480i file look like a real 4K image can sometimes be an overreach. It is often better to just aim for making a 480i file presentable on an HD screen. The goal for me is to diminish the distractions (blockiness, jagged edges, blurriness) while accepting that the upscaled file will still obviously be SD -- just scaled more forgivingly.

I feel Owen Davies did a good job of meeting that mark with PRIME DIRECTIVES and the people doing the SERIES upscales completely missed it.

When upscaling episodes of SLIDERS, my wish has not been to make it look like a new film transfer, just to make the scaling unintrusive so I can enjoy the story. I've also done some AI cleanup on digital scans of theatrical prints for the original STAR WARS trilogy. My goal there wasn't even to upscale, but to address the incredibly heavy levels of grain on those films. And my wish wasn't to remove all the grain, but to just make it consistent across the movie instead of seeing it go from lightly grainy to almost like static in different shots. Again, this was to produce something where I would get used to the image and then enjoy the story.

In terms of PRIME DIRECTIVES... while the DVD is indeed a decent quality SD file, it doesn't give us a lot of options for making the intended-for-letterbox framing look more at home on a full widescreen TV. It'd be interesting if generative fill could add the top and bottom back someday for a pillarboxed presentation.

I think there are plug and play solutions to some of PD's issues with modern TVs, and there might be more as technology advances that enable Amazon and MGM to just spend a week or two on a show like PD as opposed to months or years.

[Joined]

I've seen parts of 4K upscale of PRIME DIRECTIVES and I think it looks technically better but artistically worse. PD actually benefits from being downscaled to be blurrier and darker via a CRT-style screen shader. 4K unfortunately emphasizes and deepens all the visual problems of PD going from letterboxed 16:9 to full 16:9 whether it's shot compositions not meant for the format or effects not designed for the resolution.

One amusing exercise: I watched the 4K upscale of the final scenes of "Crash & Burn" where Murphy's helmet is off. The prosthetic on Fletcher's head looks terrible in 4K. I activated the ShaderGlass CRT shader which downscaled the image with CRT dimming and dots, making the upscale look like 480i. Instantly, the helmetless makeup looked blended and TV-adequate.

I've watched some of the 'professional' upscales of THE SERIES. The problem: they have set the upscaling too aggressively to smooth out every jagged edge and all the noise of digital videotape and the grain of the original film stock.

AI upscaling has its uses, but it can be grossly misapplied. The PRIME DIRECTIVES fan upscale looks (technically) good to me because Owen Davies, the editor, has a good process of de-telecining the DVD files to get the full resolution possible. After the HD upscale, he has reapplied film grain.

As someone who has done some AI upscaling work, I find that AI upscaling is best when applied modestly, and when the original 'flaws' of the base file are partially maintained. Bicubic scaling is not always great, creating blockiness, jagged edges and an unpleasant blurriness.

AI upscaling may make things superficially sharper, but it also creates an oversmooth, waxy look to all textures, trading in blockiness for uniform smoothing. The TRUE LIES 4K release has this problem, and also has the uncanny valley effect of objects in motion staying sharp without motion blur, which the human eye finds unnatural. It's important to add a layer of film grain afterwards to offset the smoothing and to avoid oversharpening.

In addition, a lot of 480i material is best upscaled modestly. With current technology, the goal of making a 480i file look like a real 4K image can sometimes be an overreach. It is often better to just aim for making a 480i file presentable on an HD screen. The goal for me is to diminish the distractions (blockiness, jagged edges, blurriness) while accepting that the upscaled file will still obviously be SD -- just scaled more forgivingly.

I feel Owen Davies did a good job of meeting that mark with PRIME DIRECTIVES and the people doing the SERIES upscales completely missed it.

When upscaling episodes of SLIDERS, my wish has not been to make it look like a new film transfer, just to make the scaling unintrusive so I can enjoy the story. I've also done some AI cleanup on digital scans of theatrical prints for the original STAR WARS trilogy. My goal there wasn't even to upscale, but to address the incredibly heavy levels of grain on those films. And my wish wasn't to remove all the grain, but to just make it consistent across the movie instead of seeing it go from lightly grainy to almost like static in different shots. Again, this was to produce something where I would get used to the image and then enjoy the story.

In terms of PRIME DIRECTIVES... while the DVD is indeed a decent quality SD file, it doesn't give us a lot of options for making the intended-for-letterbox framing look more at home on a full widescreen TV. It'd be interesting if generative fill could add the top and bottom back someday for a pillarboxed presentation.

I think there are plug and play solutions to some of PD's issues with modern TVs, and there might be more as technology advances that enable Amazon and MGM to just spend a week or two on a show like PD as opposed to months or years.

[Post Count]

I've seen parts of 4K upscale of PRIME DIRECTIVES and I think it looks technically better but artistically worse. PD actually benefits from being downscaled to be blurrier and darker via a CRT-style screen shader. 4K unfortunately emphasizes and deepens all the visual problems of PD going from letterboxed 16:9 to full 16:9 whether it's shot compositions not meant for the format or effects not designed for the resolution.

One amusing exercise: I watched the 4K upscale of the final scenes of "Crash & Burn" where Murphy's helmet is off. The prosthetic on Fletcher's head looks terrible in 4K. I activated the ShaderGlass CRT shader which downscaled the image with CRT dimming and dots, making the upscale look like 480i. Instantly, the helmetless makeup looked blended and TV-adequate.

I've watched some of the 'professional' upscales of THE SERIES. The problem: they have set the upscaling too aggressively to smooth out every jagged edge and all the noise of digital videotape and the grain of the original film stock.

AI upscaling has its uses, but it can be grossly misapplied. The PRIME DIRECTIVES fan upscale looks (technically) good to me because Owen Davies, the editor, has a good process of de-telecining the DVD files to get the full resolution possible. After the HD upscale, he has reapplied film grain.

As someone who has done some AI upscaling work, I find that AI upscaling is best when applied modestly, and when the original 'flaws' of the base file are partially maintained. Bicubic scaling is not always great, creating blockiness, jagged edges and an unpleasant blurriness.

AI upscaling may make things superficially sharper, but it also creates an oversmooth, waxy look to all textures, trading in blockiness for uniform smoothing. The TRUE LIES 4K release has this problem, and also has the uncanny valley effect of objects in motion staying sharp without motion blur, which the human eye finds unnatural. It's important to add a layer of film grain afterwards to offset the smoothing and to avoid oversharpening.

In addition, a lot of 480i material is best upscaled modestly. With current technology, the goal of making a 480i file look like a real 4K image can sometimes be an overreach. It is often better to just aim for making a 480i file presentable on an HD screen. The goal for me is to diminish the distractions (blockiness, jagged edges, blurriness) while accepting that the upscaled file will still obviously be SD -- just scaled more forgivingly.

I feel Owen Davies did a good job of meeting that mark with PRIME DIRECTIVES and the people doing the SERIES upscales completely missed it.

When upscaling episodes of SLIDERS, my wish has not been to make it look like a new film transfer, just to make the scaling unintrusive so I can enjoy the story. I've also done some AI cleanup on digital scans of theatrical prints for the original STAR WARS trilogy. My goal there wasn't even to upscale, but to address the incredibly heavy levels of grain on those films. And my wish wasn't to remove all the grain, but to just make it consistent across the movie instead of seeing it go from lightly grainy to almost like static in different shots. Again, this was to produce something where I would get used to the image and then enjoy the story.

In terms of PRIME DIRECTIVES... while the DVD is indeed a decent quality SD file, it doesn't give us a lot of options for making the intended-for-letterbox framing look more at home on a full widescreen TV. It'd be interesting if generative fill could add the top and bottom back someday for a pillarboxed presentation.

I think there are plug and play solutions to some of PD's issues with modern TVs, and there might be more as technology advances that enable Amazon and MGM to just spend a week or two on a show like PD as opposed to months or years.