The Digital Bits - New Video's Dan Kenny on the Farscape Blu-rays

New Video's Dan Kenny on the Farscape Blu-rays

Bill Hunt (The Digital Bits): I know that while Farscape was shot on film, all the post production for the show was done on analog video. So the show would seem to be an unlikely choice for Blu-ray. Yet the last season was broadcast in widescreen. Was that last season actually finished in HD? How did the decision to release the series in HD come about?

Dan Kenny (New Video, distribution partner for A&E Networks Home Entertainment): Actually, none of the Farscape seasons were shot or finished in HD. The only difference between Seasons 1-3 and Season 4 was the fact that the latter was shot in anamorphic 16:9, while the others were shot in 4:3. The technical process by which we arrived at a Blu-ray presentation was identical for all seasons.

The decision to move forward with the Blu-ray was jointly made by The Jim Henson Company and A&E Home Entertainment once it became known that, although there weren't any native high-definition masters of the series, there were in fact higher resolution versions of the masters available in Europe. (Editor's Note: All post-production on the show was finished in analog PAL format at 576i resolution.) These were being broadcast on certain UK HD channels, and our colleagues there vouched for their quality, but we didn't make the official decision to move forward until our technical team had completed a series of extensive tests and convinced us that a Blu-ray release would be a significant step forward from DVD.

With its stunning special effects and its highly detailed animatronics, Farscape is one of the most visually impressive shows in television history and we felt it was important to present it in the highest quality possible, and with this Blu-ray release we feel we have achieved that.

BH: Well, I was certainly surprised when I saw the quality of the sampler BD disc. To be sure, the episodes aren't full, native 1080p quality of the type you'd expect on the BD release of a current series, but I was very surprised at how much improved it was over even the most recent DVD release. There's a noticeable improvement in color, contrast and resolution, and especially the compression. Can you talk about the process of preparing the episodes for HD release? What were the various steps?

DK: Converting the original standard definition masters to high definition and then encoding them for playback on Blu-ray, all while making the content look pristine and sharp, is a pretty tall order. The up conversion process is a lengthy and technically challenging process which essentially involves extrapolating a highly detailed picture from a less detailed one for every frame of each episode and every episode of the series – you're talking hundreds of thousands of frames. Starting with 10-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 YUV files, we resized the picture, masked brightness, color saturation and sharpness adjustments and frame rate conversions, utilized a couple top-notch detail and edge improvement algorithms and converted the SD Rec.601 color space (16-235) to the HD Rec.709 (0-255) color space. The end result a 1080p HD master ready for encoding.

The master was encoded for authoring to Blu-ray through a process which selectively reduces the amount of picture data available in order to save space on the disc. Blocking and 'mosquito' noise are just a couple of the artifacts which can result from careless encoding, but we used a variable bit rate encoder and numerous encoding 'passes' to achieve the clear, sharp picture you see now. We're glad that this effort paid off with such great result.

BH: Did you treat the live action footage and visual effects shots differently in any way?

DK: No. The original effects shots were produced to fit within the episode seamlessly, so their color, contrast and sharpness had already been corrected during the original post process to match the surrounding live action shots. This allowed us to treat them all the same way when we performed the up conversion.

BH: What was different in this process (if anything) with regard to the final season?

DK: The primary difference was that we retained the 4:3 ratio for the first three seasons through 'pillarboxing' while leaving Season 4 full frame 16:9. The overall workflow in preparing it for Blu-ray, however, was the same.

BH: How about the audio? The DVDs offered standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, but I know you've upgraded that to lossless DTS-HD 5.1 for Blu-ray. Can you talk about that part of the remastering process?

DK: While Dolby Digital is a high quality audio encoding codec, it is a lossy format. We went back to the original audio sources and ported it directly over to DTS-HD to create a new lossless track without any reduction in audio data. We didn't really have to remaster the audio since the original sources provided such a faultless foundation to start from. The stellar quality of the audio really originates from the great mix from the original shows. While the lossy track on the DVD was good, the DTS-HD lossless track for this new release is great!

BH: Can you talk about any new special features being created specifically for the Blu-ray release? I assume all of the previous DVD extras will be included too?

DK: One of the most exciting aspects of this project is the brand-new documentary we've produced and included called Memories of Moya: An Epic Journey Explored. This program, which runs about 36 minutes and will only be available on the Blu-ray set features interviews with a wide assortment of key Farscape cast and crew, such as Executive Producers and Creators Brian Henson & Rockne O'Bannon, stars Ben Browder, Claudia Black and Virginia Hey, Executive Producer David Kemper and writer Richard Manning.

Unlike the bonus features from the previous DVD release, which were produced either during or shortly after the show's production, Memories of Moya is the first newly-created piece in quite some time and allows those involved with the show's production to look back on the entire Farscape legacy from a new perspective. The documentary was made by noted producer David Naylor, who has worked on bonus features for such TV series as Rome, Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is presented in full HD.

As for the other special features, everything from the previous DVD set will carry over. The only difference is that, with more room on a BD disc, we have been able to spread the bonus across the existing 20 discs of the series, rather than create two exclusive bonus discs like we did on the DVD release.

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Farscape: The Complete Series (Blu-ray Disc)

Bill Hunt, Editor
billhunt@thedigitalbits.com

[Editor's Note: I've included below some comparative screenshots - provided by New Video - from both the new Blu-rays and old DVD masters. This obviously isn't the optimal way to compare the image quality, but it will give you at least some idea. The only thing I've done to the images is resize them just slightly smaller so that they could be posted here. However, I've resized ALL the images in the exact same manner and have done nothing to color, contrast, sharpness, etc. You should still be able to discern a difference in fine detail and compression between the Blu-ray and DVD shots. In each case, the first image is the DVD, the second is the new Blu-ray.]