I've re-watched "The Wire" about 3 to 4 times already...the new HD release is already on Amazon Prime Instant Video and I don't think I would've noticed if the news hadn't been posted. On The Wire subreddit, someone posted a few more comparisons:
If you're new to The Wire, I suggest watching the HD versions first, in spite of Simon's compelling arguments to the contrary. The Wire just has so many disorienting things about it to new watchers -- the barrage of police lingo, the high number of black to white characters, the 90s-era technological timeframe -- that the 4:3 ratio's fidelity isn't worth the mental bias you might have that associates 4:3 with "cheap" or "old"...the show can already be difficult for people to get into.
Speaking of the r/TheWire subreddit...a year ago, a sound editor did a Q&A...if you're interested about the minutiae of the show, and curious about the technical details of sound mixing is done...it's one of the best things I've ever read about the show:
I watched The Wire about 3 years ago and I nearly stopped after the first few episodes because it did look 'cheap' or 'old' to me. I'm glad I persisted, it really is brilliant. Definitely watch it in HD if you can.
.. because the artistic intent master race has chosen 4:3 over a big, clear picture. I blew through a bunch of episodes last night, and it was way easier for me to watch in HD and widescreen than 4:3. Guess I'm a knuckle dragger!
There's also an interesting discussion on how these things are converted from SD to HD in that reddit thread you listed first. I found an article that expands on it a little more (though talking about the X-Files and referencing an image made for Star Trek) http://observationdeck.io9.com/x-files-remastered-in-hd-but-...
For all the ink he spends on the "crossing over" concept, I still have no idea what he's referring to. That would have been a great place to embed an illustrative clip.
If I read it right, I think it's the idea of switching the sides of a conversation, keeping one person on the left(or at least facing right) and the other on the right(facing left). If you cross to the other side it's a bit jarring.
In the early days of film, scenes would be staged in a theatrical sort of tableau, with the camera stuck in one spot and characters moving around the frame. This is called a master shot - it includes all the geography of the scene. And while that's still a good way to stage things for many purposes, filmmakers quickly discovered that cutting between different perspectives - eg moving from a wide shot to successively more intimate closeups, that mirror the intensity of the characters' emotions. This is called coverage. Watch any film with the sound turned off and you'll be struck by how many scenes just consist of someone's face looking off the left or right of the frame.
But that means a whole bunch of extra decisions about where to put the camera - which are the director's job to decide. If you mess those up, viewers will get confused about the interior geography of the scene, who's looking at whom etc.; you see me looking like this: (o < o), then I show something else, then you see me looking like this: (o > o) - you naturally assuming I'm looking at a third thing that's off to my left. Why?
In any scene there's a primary character and the object of his/her attention - usually another character, but maybe an object or even an imaginary point in space. The line between the main character's eyes and the object of their gaze is called 'the line of interest'. So when you're placing the camera, you need to pick one side of this line for the master shot and stay on it for all the coverage. It's also called the 180 degree rule, because that line would split an imaginary circle into two halves of 180 degrees each. That way when you cut between different actors, they're always facing in more-or-less the same direction and the viewer intuitively knows where everyone is. There's also a 30-degree rule which says that successive cuts should involve a change of at least 30 degrees (relative to the midpoint of the line of interest) so as to avoid the sensation of a 'jump' - a movement so minimal that the brain is more inclined to scribe it to a missing bit of footage than a real change in perspective. Of course that can be (ab)used for artistic effect.
If there are more than 2 people in a scene then there can be multiple lines of interest, but there is only ever one at once. If you want to move to a different one, you need to establish the new line. You could pan the camera, follow one of the characters as they walk into or out of the frame, pivot by showing three characters and then cutting across a secondary line when the third person talks, and so on.
Camera angle choices are the biggest part of the director's job during production, and probably the most stressful, because a) every new camera angle requires, on average, at least an hour of additional work for the whole crew, and b) they define the style of a film, from amateurish to visionary - and while audiences can be tricked with the magic of editing, the actors and crew can generally read the director's level of skill during shooting and will respond accordingly.
You know, I bent terminology a bit here - strictly speaking, a master shot could involve substantial movement of the camera - a classic example is the incredible opening sequence of Welles' Touch of Evil. It's more true to say that a master shot encompasses all the action and could play on its own...but a lot of the time, the master ends up being a static shot that's staged in depth.
This show is so profoundly good that I could care less about the resolution and aspect ratio. I got so lost in the show that I never would've noticed. The game is the game. Always.
I agree. I've watched a bunch of 4:3 aspect stuff over the holidays on my 40" HD telly (old war movies, The Invaders etc). Once you settle into a film/programme you barely notice those black bars down the sides of the screen.
In fact I remember watching The Wire on the same TV on DVD back around 2007'ish and hadn't noticed it wasn't widescreen/HD.
But that wouldn't satisfy the people Simon is (obliquely) talking about, the "OHMYGAWD WHY DOESN'T IT FILL UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN" knuckle-draggers. The point of the new widescreen transfer is to take away the thing that's keeping those people from watching The Wire.
Ironically, these are the same people who used to scream about widescreen transfers back when 4:3 sets were the norm. The only difference is that the black bars they were complaining about back then were on the top and bottom rather than the sides.
I'm a bit incredulous at the existence of these knuckle-draggers. There's a big difference between boxing out the sides of a 40+" screen to 4:3 and boxing out the top and bottom of a smaller screen to 16:9 (or 2.35:1). You really had to be a dedicated film buff to watch Lawrence of Arabia letterboxed on a 32" TV. I watch 4:3 content on my TV all the time (e.g., I've been watching poorly deinterlaced Star Trek: TNG via Netflix) and I hardly even notice.
"I'm a bit incredulous at the existence of these knuckle-draggers. "
I've met many people who will not watch any film - no matter how good its reputation -- if it's in black and white. The first time I heard someone say "I can't watch this - it's in black and white" I thought it was a joke. That was 22 years ago, and he was a post-grad student. He was utterly serious. Since then I've met others like that.
Many films originally printed in color for theaters had their delicate color internegatives lost or destroyed or decayed. Often only archive mono prints manages to survive, because of better or more stable chemistry.
Ted Turner wasn't all crazy. He had history on his side, for some movies. But then he also got a huge upsurge in viewing, of the films he colorized. I think there's fair argument that more distribution, more viewing, of a art form, is a good thing.
Also, what's dismissed as SD is so often truly awful SD, not clean and heavily compressed.
Like the commented above, I often wish for just a decent SD copy. Really well transferred DVDs are pretty good to watch.
I'm sorry to say, but I think those people would be the majority of viewers. "What no HD? This must be old and rubbish".
I expect the same argument could be used when remastering old stereo movies to surround sound - the people who know what's going on complain, but the general public are "wow it sounds so good".
I dunno -- when DVDs first came out, there were lots of people saying that the decision by most studios to use widescreen transfers on them would doom the format. The logic was that the knuckle-draggers were such a majority that launching a non-4:3 format was hopeless. But that turned out not to be the case, DVD was a huge success. So there's hope that most people can recognize better product when they see it.
I don't see any reason not to release in HD 4:3. Surely the cost would be minimal. And I doubt fans would complain about needing to by another box set.
IMAX is 1.43:1 which is closer to the the original iPhone ratio of 3:2 or 1.5:1. I liked that ratio and thought it would be great for home cinema or a developer station.
> It vexes them in the same way that many with color television sets were long ago bothered by the anachronism of black-and-white films, even carefully conceived black-and-white films.
Is he obliquely saying that the 16:9 version of the wire is going to be like colorized black and white films?
I just watched all five seasons again, and the 4:3 ratio was a bit of a distraction. The quality seems lower as well, almost like I could see the scan lines.
For the video enclosed in the article: warning for spoilers and mild gore.
I noticed this too, I think that the streaming version must have been prepared from a source that was first interlaced for broadcast, then deinterlaced poorly for internet distribution. There are a variety of algorithms for deinterlacing that can eliminate artifacts like that with varying effectiveness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing#Deinterlacing_met...
It's too bad because the 4:3 and fuzzy quality was definitely a distraction, especially in the beginning when the show is slow to get into. I think many people probably drop off early. I'm excited to watch the show through again in HD.
" especially in the beginning when the show is slow to get into"
When I re-watched it, I was surprised how slow the start of the show is. Maybe all the fantastic memories of seasons 3 and 4 made me forget that the first few episodes of the show, while necessary, are a bit of a chore.
As you can see in the second example in the article, there are changes. There's a 4:3 original, followed by the naive widescreen version, followed by a widescreen version that has been edited to try to preserve more of the original intent. Cropping back to 4:3 will no longer get you the original scene.
Read the article, it's good. The problem is that the series was designed to look good and "work" in 4:3 ratio. This means that many of the decisions on how to direct a scene were made with the aspect ratio in mind. An example from the article is the use of mid-sized shots where wide shots would have made the actors too small on screen, and close-ups would have been too cramped.
Moving the material to 16:9 ratio creates situations where the original shot composition or camera movement doesn't make sense anymore. Additionally the new aspect ratio can reveal something that was never meant to be on screen in the first place. The problem is that you need to go through each scene and assess if the cinematography and editing still makes sense from the story's point of view.
I've watched the first couple of HD 16:9 episodes (thanks BATV!), and as far as I could see, they were flawless.
I was afraid it wouldn't work in 16:9, and thought I would prefer it to be kept in 4:3 like the Star Trek TNG HD remasters, but I actually prefer the new 16:9 ratio over the old ones.
[1]: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7385261/buffy-ruined