Highlander - The Complete Series - Official Blu Ray Trailer

[deleted user]

Watched the high quality DNxHR version now. That's the way to watch it, heh. A lot of the finer differences aren't even visible on the stream.

Anyway, it's a nice trailer, I like it. Didn't even realize a series existed, thought this was for the movies, heh. Should check it out maybe.

Though in some of the comparison shots it looks like the grain was removed. Always pains a grain fetishist like myself a little.

[HippieDalek]

Watched the high quality DNxHR version now. That's the way to watch it, heh. A lot of the finer differences aren't even visible on the stream.

Anyway, it's a nice trailer, I like it. Didn't even realize a series existed, thought this was for the movies, heh. Should check it out maybe.

Though in some of the comparison shots it looks like the grain was removed. Always pains a grain fetishist like myself a little.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! If you're curious about the show now then I guess the trailer worked  

The TV series was fairly popular in the US but didn't make much impact anywhere else. It follows Duncan MacLeod, clansman of Connor, and the fourth and fifth films follow the series continuity. Even today in US fandom I find that the series is more popular than the films. There was also a spin off series called "The Raven", and an animated series! 

If you want to check the series out you can find the whole of season 1 on YouTube legally on a channel called Cinedigm. They used to have all six seasons available but I think they've put them behind a paywall now. The first season is pretty rough as they find their feet, but at the very least I recommend checking out the pilot "The Gathering" to get the premise, and the mid season "Band of Brothers" where the series gets itself together. 

The series is also on Amazon Prime, but it's been cropped from 4:3 to 16:9...so not really recommended. 

Yeah the DNxHR and even the mp4 versions are a better way to watch the trailer. I was so frustrated at how much detail was lost when uploading to YouTube. I did everything I could to try and game the algorithm to get a better encode but no luck. I managed to get the YouTube version to be acceptable quality, but certainly not the best. 

The series was made like most special effects heavy shows at the time; shot on film (16mm), then edited on tape with special effects done entirely with video effects. The Blu Ray has been created from these master tapes.  I can't really get drawn into any detailed discussions about the transfers and restoration etc, but most of the heavy "grain" seen on the DVDs is largely compression artefacts and tape noise. 

I've not been involved in the transfers myself, but I was given the opportunity to give detailed notes on each episode to VEI and Davis-Panzer. I think as they get nearer to release they'll be happier to give more details about the transfers etc.

[deleted user]

It really did! Great mood. My only hesitation is that I'm generally not much into series otherwise I'd be already watching.

Ah interesting. So does that mean the effect shots are upscaled or? I recall some remaster of Star Trek or so that had awful remade effects, and some other series mentioned on this forum elsewhere. But in the trailer you made, the effects didn't look too bad imo. Or are those tapes a higher res than normal SD? But it's ok if you can't talk about it.

Youtube really is a piece of work. I absolutely hate that it basically has become the standard way of sharing videos. No matter how good your camera, your equipment, no matter how good your editing, in the end your image will always look like sh** because Youtube is the way to reach people. No matter how much effort and love you put into your video, it will be ruined in the end. I recall many many years ago, over a decade ago, I was part of a community that made game videos, and people would put real effort into their encodes and upload nice big files. Hell, the videos might have been only SD resolution but the bitrate was twice what Youtube uses for 1080p. And if your encode was bad, you would get downvoted a lot. Those sites wouldn't even have accepted your submission with only a stream, haha. And this was just a bunch of gamers who did stupid game videos for free.

A bit offtopic almost, but I recall back when miniDV was still the state of the art, I remember thinking HD was useless and bad because all I had ever seen of HD was the TV channels they ran on TVs in stores. Of course that was just when digital started replacing analogue too, so that was my first time seeing TV using a modern digital codec. I thought it looked absolutely awful, like pixel soup. I still get that impression these days, especially on some lower bitrate sports channels, even if they are supposedly "4K". This just wasn't a thing back in the days of analogue. It may have been low res, but you never had ugly pixel soup. And since I didn't have a Blu Ray player, it took me years to even realize that HD could look really good haha.

Best thing you can do for Youtube I think is to run a hardcore temporal degrain like MVDegrain3 in AVISynth to really get rid of every last piece of noise, but even then, it's just polishing a t***.

[HippieDalek]

Ah interesting. So does that mean the effect shots are upscaled or? I recall some remaster of Star Trek or so that had awful remade effects, and some other series mentioned on this forum elsewhere. But in the trailer you made, the effects didn't look too bad imo. Or are those tapes a higher res than normal SD? But it's ok if you can't talk about it.

As it says in the trailer the Blu Ray set is based on new transfers from the master tapes; so the whole thing is an upscale. For various reasons this was the only option available. About 10 years ago Davis-Panzer released the first three series on Blu Ray but it was a car crash. They used the DVD masters, upscaled them to 720p and applied all sorts of awful filters...the backlash was legendary. On top of that the people involved weren't entirely clear and honest with the fans. The management has all changed since then so it's an entirely different set of people working on this, and I'm hoping that they will be able to be more open with fans about the whole thing once this is released.

Youtube really is a piece of work. I absolutely hate that it basically has become the standard way of sharing videos. No matter how good your camera, your equipment, no matter how good your editing, in the end your image will always look like sh** because Youtube is the way to reach people. No matter how much effort and love you put into your video, it will be ruined in the end. I recall many many years ago, over a decade ago, I was part of a community that made game videos, and people would put real effort into their encodes and upload nice big files. Hell, the videos might have been only SD resolution but the bitrate was twice what Youtube uses for 1080p. And if your encode was bad, you would get downvoted a lot. Those sites wouldn't even have accepted your submission with only a stream, haha. And this was just a bunch of gamers who did stupid game videos for free.

Yeah, YouTube is awful for quality but it's probably the easiest way to reach people. Davis-Panzer also put it on their Facebook page, and there was talk of putting it on Vimeo too. YouTube seems to have a two tier approach to encoding now; most people get the older AVC1 codec unless they upload a 4K video which gets you a newer VP9 encode. However larger channels with lots of subscribers get blessed with the VP9 encode for all uploads. My YouTube channel is updated infrequently with very eclectic content so it has no chance of qualifying for the improved codec.

A bit offtopic almost, but I recall back when miniDV was still the state of the art, I remember thinking HD was useless and bad because all I had ever seen of HD was the TV channels they ran on TVs in stores. Of course that was just when digital started replacing analogue too, so that was my first time seeing TV using a modern digital codec. I thought it looked absolutely awful, like pixel soup. I still get that impression these days, especially on some lower bitrate sports channels, even if they are supposedly "4K". This just wasn't a thing back in the days of analogue. It may have been low res, but you never had ugly pixel soup. And since I didn't have a Blu Ray player, it took me years to even realize that HD could look really good haha.

I had a similar experience; I disliked HDTV for a long time due to low bitrates and also all the awful frame smoothing settings every TV has turned on by default. As soon as I saw Blu Ray on a properly setup TV I was a convert to digital HD

[deleted user]

Ah I see.

Honestly the VP9 codec isn't good or better or anything imo. Dunno why they even use it. I've seen some of the 4K stuff with the VP9 codec. Looks atrocious if you ask me. Extreme blocking. Been a while since I've done a direct comparison but back when I did, I didn't notice any improvement. Maybe it's a licensing thing?

Yeah the default settings of TVs are another rant to go on... You pay big money for the newest piece of tech and what does it do? Ruin the image for no reason.

[Jim36]

HippieDalek Where can I find the version of the trailer he watched?

[Stamper]

That's really cool. I wish they went back to the negatives and recut everything, STTNG style, but I understand for such a series, it might not be financially viable. So going back to the digital masters and putting them out in 1080p is already awesome, and maybe the success will lead to from the negative remasters season by season later on. I loved this series too, and it was filmed in parts where I worked in Paris back then.

[Jim36]

That's really cool. I wish they went back to the negatives and recut everything, STTNG style, but I understand for such a series, it might not be financially viable. So going back to the digital masters and putting them out in 1080p is already awesome, and maybe the success will lead to from the negative remasters season by season later on. I loved this series too, and it was filmed in parts where I worked in Paris back then.

it’s supposedly more complicated than that you see someone supposedly has the rights to the footage out right and it’s extremely expensive. By the way do you have a link to this higher quality upload?

[HippieDalek]

That's really cool. I wish they went back to the negatives and recut everything, STTNG style, but I understand for such a series, it might not be financially viable. So going back to the digital masters and putting them out in 1080p is already awesome, and maybe the success will lead to from the negative remasters season by season later on. I loved this series too, and it was filmed in parts where I worked in Paris back then.

That would be the dream. Sadly even the STTNG HD remaster wasn't profitable enough for them to do DS9 and Voyager...and these are some of the biggest series of the 90s! A niche show like Highlander doesn't stand a chance in comparison.

[HippieDalek]

HippieDalek Where can I find the version of the trailer he watched?

Please read the forum rules, Jim: https://fanrestore.com/announcement-11.html 

We can't post direct links. Please participate on the forum and PM me a request.