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DEATH VALLEY DAYS on Encore Westerns Channel (1 Viewer)

Professor Echo

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The rumors about this series bring remastered were true as Encore Westerns begins airing the series for what looks like twice on weekday afternoons and once on Saturday mornings starting on January 2. According to the Dish Network on screen guide they are beginning with Season 9, Episode 3. It's a shame they apparently aren't starting with the very first episode, but we will just have to see how many they run. I'm sure someone has more knowledge about this than I do and can chime in, but I couldn't find a thread for it. In other news for Encore Westerns, their traditional New Year's vintage western series marathon on January 1 will be WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, a show I believe they've aired before. I'm surprised they didn't do a marathon of DEATH VALLEY DAYS instead, but WANTED has more street cred, I guess.
 

jimmyjet

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i wonder if that is where the remastering actually started - with season 9 ?

the wiki shows it ran for 18 seasons and a half-hour show.

i guess i was thinking that it ran longer than a half hour ?
 

Professor Echo

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I hope so too, Brad, even though building a full series collection on DVD-R Is a daunting proposition given how many episodes there are. Still though, can't imagine a nicer addition to my library than a 18 year run of a vintage western series that I've never seen.
 

smithbrad

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Fortunately, for me at least, I have a good TB of free disk space since some series that I captured earlier are no longer needed, since they have now come out on disk (e.g., B/W Gunsmoke and others). So I won't be burning these, at least not for quite some time, just storing for future use until I know what I want to do with them.
 

Neil Brock

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From what I understand, Encore may have only bought the color episodes, which I'm not sure how much of the run that entails. At least that's all they will be initially running.
 

Professor Echo

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So then the IMDB would be wrong about the initial episode scheduled to run on Encore Westerns as being in black and white? Not the first time the IMDB has been wrong, but since the channel has never shown aversion to airing programs in black and white that would place the blame for a color only abbreviated run on the rights holders who restored the series.
 

smithbrad

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Anybody watch? I quickly checked the DVR and the first episode was B/W. However, there was a problem in that they were window boxed (black bars on all four sides) for no apparent reason. Standard aspect content should just have bars on the sides, not shrunk all around. I had to zoom just to get it the correct size (top to bottom filled, bars on sides). I noticed that the movie Stagecoach was playing the same way. Now Cheyenne that played before one of the DVD's broadcast was just fine. Not worth watching that way for me.
 

Ron Lee Green

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smithbrad said:
However, there was a problem in that they were window boxed (black bars on all four sides) for no apparent reason. Standard aspect content should just have bars on the sides, not shrunk all around. I had to zoom just to get it the correct size (top to bottom filled, bars on sides). I noticed that the movie Stagecoach was playing the same way.
Cozi shows their programs like that, too. Why?? I have to change the aspect on my TV to zoom.
 

smithbrad

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And with it zoomed it comes across quite soft. I guess what is most frustrating is that i know the quality would actually be pretty good if they would just output it properly.
 

Professor Echo

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smithbrad said:
Anybody watch? I quickly checked the DVR and the first episode was B/W. However, there was a problem in that they were window boxed (black bars on all four sides) for no apparent reason. Standard aspect content should just have bars on the sides, not shrunk all around. I had to zoom just to get it the correct size (top to bottom filled, bars on sides). I noticed that the movie Stagecoach was playing the same way. Now Cheyenne that played before one of the DVD's broadcast was just fine. Not worth watching that way for me.
So far, one black and white episode and two color ones, all inexplicably window boxed. I cannot fathom what their intentions are for any of this. I will sample the shows at least, but can't foresee building any kind of coherent collection given the presentation thus far.
 

smithbrad

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Glen,

I going to explain what i think is going on. In a way I think it is similar to what we had to deal with regarding non-anamorphic DVDs for a period of time.

First off, DVD's are stored 4:3. For 4:3 content this meant a one to one correspondence to how it would be output and displayed to a 4:3 TV. For widescreen content it could go one of two ways, non-anamorphic where the image was stored in the correct aspect ratio within the 4:3 window requiring artifical bars along the top and bottom, or anamorphic where the image was squeezed in from the sides to fit the 4:3 window while maintaining the correct aspect ratio where upon playback the image was stretched for a wide screen TV (no bars in the image). Non-anamorphic was considered potentially better when the market was still geared to 4:3 TV's becasue there was no stretching, but caused havoc to widescreen TV's where we now ended up with window boxed widescreen content (bars on all sides). Anamorphic content was best for widescreen TV's while still working on older 4:3 TV's because the DVD player would insert bars top and bottom to ensure the correct aspect ratio. The only issue with 4:3 and 16:9 content on widescreen TV's was the need for adjusting the TV format to suit the content.

Now jumping to blu-ray and HD broadcasting, the image is stored 16:9. For widescreen so we typically have the one to one correspondence again, but for 4:3 content we get embedded bars on the sides. One of the advantages is there is no switching of format on the TV, we just leave it to the standard widescreem setting at all times.

So what does this have to do with Death Valley Days? Well I believe the new approach to remastering is to prepare the content for the future when everything will be broadcast in HD or unconverted to HD in a widescreen format. The though being if going to all this effort and expense to remaster why worry about dealing with a format that will be going away. That means 4:3 content is structured to display within a 16:9 window with embedded bars on the sides. However, the probelm is that stations that want to use this content are still broadcasting in standard definition 4:3. So what I believe is happening is that you have 4:3 content with bars on the sides in a 16:9 window that is being forced back into a 4:3 broadcast window. Since the content is formatted 16:9, artifical bars are being added to the top and bottom of the output in an effort to re-correct aspect ratio. The end result is a completely window-boxed image that has to be zoomed to get rid of the extra bars that in turn softens the image removing some of the benefits of the remastering effort that started it all.

Once Encore Western goes HD this will no longer be an issue because they will upconvert this type of content for broadcast, and all will look as expected, but until then, this is what we may be forced to live with regarding any newly remastered 4:3 content. These are my thoughts at least, they may or may not be accurate There may be flaws in my logic, but it the only explanation i could come up with.
 

Richard V

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smithbrad said:
Once Encore Western goes HD this will no longer be an issue because they will upconvert this type of content for broadcast, and all will look as expected, but until then, this is what we may be forced to live with regarding any newly remastered 4:3 content. These are my thoughts at least, they may or may not be accurate There may be flaws in my logic, but it the only explanation i could come up with.
Is Encore Westerns going HD? Or are you just making a supposition?
 

Professor Echo

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I think your explanation is spot on, Brad. I was coming to a similar conclusion, but couldn't quite formulate it as well as you did. In theory it makes perfect sense for the producer and network, especially given the future of broadcasting, but in practice it's sorely lacking for as yet unconverted stations. Coming on the Westerns Channel, which has been frustratingly, staunchly anti-letterbox from its inception, makes it even more bewildering. But your ideas must be the right ones and actually explain why I've seen a couple of letterboxed movies on the channel in the past few months after years of pan and scan. Are they gearing up for HD? It seems so.
 

smithbrad

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Richard V said:
Is Encore Westerns going HD? Or are you just making a supposition?
Based on my hypothesis i did some searches, and came to find out that the original Encore channel for me is already in HD, and that there was discussion on Encore's part of bringing all their stations to HD a while back. Now it didn't happen yet but one has to believe it is inevitable. I mean all stations will have to make the move to HD eventually. Some of the channels that made the move earlier showed a mix of true HD and just upconverted SD content, so that shouldn't stop anything. My guess for Encore is that the expense was too high at the time, or they didn't have enough content yet to take advantage of it. We know CBS has prepped much of their content for HD broadcast, including the well known westerns. One would think WB has done the same.

I have no knowledge of a time table. i would think if it was close in anyway they would have discussed it prominently, so i would have to guess we are still at least a few years out. But at some point, a station as prominent as Encore will have to make the move tp stay in business.
 

Professor Echo

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I just turned on my TV and checked every single standard definition Encore channel and at this moment every single movie being broadcast, except for the one on the Westerns Channel, is window boxed. It's a safe bet they are going HD sooner rather than later.
 

smithbrad

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Professor Echo said:
I think your explanation is spot on, Brad. I was coming to a similar conclusion, but couldn't quite formulate it as well as you did. In theory it makes perfect sense for the producer and network, especially given the future of broadcasting, but in practice it's sorely lacking for as yet unconverted stations. Coming on the Westerns Channel, which has been frustratingly, staunchly anti-letterbox from its inception, makes it even more bewildering. But your ideas must be the right ones and actually explain why I've seen a couple of letterboxed movies on the channel in the past few months after years of pan and scan. Are they gearing up for HD? It seems so.
It was expected when I ended up with a few blu-rays of older 4:3 TV shows that they had to be formatted in 16:9 with embedded bars on sides due to the spec itself. But season 2 of the Rifleman was the first DVD of 4:3 content that i saw formatted for a widescreen window. It caught me by surprise that I needed to watch it on a widescreen setup in widescreen mode to get the right presentation of the aspect ratio. That and Death Valleys Days got me to thinking it may be the new direction for handling 4:3 content, at least if one wants to maintain a step towards the future. Hopefully, we won't have to suffer with window-boxing and zooming for very long.
 

smithbrad

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Professor Echo said:
I just turned on my TV and checked every single standard definition Encore channel and at this moment every single movie being broadcast, except for the one on the Westerns Channel, is window boxed. It's a safe bet they are going HD sooner rather than later.
I'm not setup to capture HD content, but at this point I own more than enough to keep me occupied, so I'd like it sooner than later.
 

Professor Echo

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smithbrad said:
I'm not setup to capture HD content, but at this point I own more than enough to keep me occupied, so I'd like it sooner than later.
I've been able to record widescreen movies from TCM HD and make my own anamorphic copies, but I still use TCM standard for the 4x3 movies as it seems to frame them better. I tried to record the latter from an HD signal and it caused the top of the frame to be a little lopped off. Either way, you're still talking about a 480i recording because that's all my DVD recorder is capable of, but most of the recordings are watchable, just soft on a bigger screen.
 

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