RichD

DVDAnswers has the Crusade 4-disc box set artwork, a street date of December 7, MSRP of $59.98. That's all good. Then it mentions that the feature will be shown in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Is this correct? I hope not. Seems a funny thing for Warner to do after getting the series and movie sets done right. Foolscreen = no sale for me.

Jari

Must be some kind of typo. I still wish Warner would have released all B5 sets in 4:3 though... I hate cropping and constantly changing video quality.

Britton

Crusade was originally broadcast in 4:3 as was B5. As a matter of fact, if the WB had release B5 in 4:3, there wouldn't have been those upconversion problems during the CGI sequences and scenes where live action and GCI were combined. When the Sci-Fi Channel got the rights to air Crusade in 2001, they showed it in 4:3 too. Maybe for consistency it would've been nice if Crusade was redone in widescreen, but at least now the CGI stuff should look much better than it did on the B5 DVDs.

Rob T

This is what JMS had to say about the issue on the newsgroup:

>Not widescreen then?

Alas, no.

The reason that WB was able to release B5 wide is that TNT had paid to have
them re-telecine'd to that format. It would take about two hundred grand to go
through and do that with Crusade...and even though they've now grossed about
half a BILLION dollars on the B5 dvd's to date, they don't seem inclined to
want to spend that.

(Needless to say, my last profit statement showed the show still in the red,
which gets increasingly hysterical as time passes.)

jms

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Simon Massey

Actually, Im glad. I am sick of the compromised quality of the DVDs as a result of the widescreen transfer. The shows were broadcast 4:3 and while they may have protected for 16:9 in the future, they haven't done for the effects shots. They should have released the entire B5 as 4:3 or redone the effects in 16:9. I realise they didn't know how successful the DVDs would be, but I am hoping they may go back at some point and do one of these 2 things.

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When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm, there's a golden cloud, and the sweet silver song of a lark,
Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams may be tossed and blown,
Walk on, Walk on, with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone,
YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!

Moe*A

Three little letters, yet so much pleasure: dts
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David_Blackwell

I love studio accounting. Of course, I probably will never understand how their accounting systems work (maybe something to do with getting around some tax laws (or less taxes on gross revenue) and I won't comment on this further).

Yep, somehow the original SFX files got lost for Babylon 5.

ENTERLINE MEDIA (entertainment articles and DVD/Movie/TV show reviews)

Simon Massey

I know, which is why they should release the series in 4:3, since the only other alternative of completely re-doing the effects is not cost-effective

My DVD collectionhttp://www.intervocative.com/dvdcoll....aspx/simassey

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm, there's a golden cloud, and the sweet silver song of a lark,
Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams may be tossed and blown,
Walk on, Walk on, with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone,
YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!

Sam Favate

Sounds like it. Some participants in a project get paid as a percentage of its profits. Creative accounting can be used to make it appear the project didn't make a profit, or made a very small one. Paramount claims Forrest Gump never made any money, to use one notorious example.

Phil L

I'd rather call it theft but that'll do.