SOT: X-Files Revisted

Kimberly wrote on 9/14/2013, 8:00 AM
Hello All:

I've been working my way through the X-Files on Netflix. Three things jump out at my now that I have the shiny, new 46" Samsung:

1. Some footage is stunningly clear. To my eye as good as any "modern" series I've watched.

2. Some footage is grainy and pixelated. Some footage looks like they were filming through a dirty lens.

3. The good and bad footage is evenly mixed in any given scene.

Maybe the production budget allowed for just one really good camera and a bunch of not-so-good cameras? How common is that? I remember hearing Mike Rowe once say that when they needed to destroy a camera on Dirty Jobs they used Handycams and the like.

Still love the series after all these years.

Regards,

Kimberly

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/14/2013, 8:44 AM
Well, if it's not an intentional effect, I would expect that this is not the case on the original footage.

Video that you watch on Netflix is pretty highly compressed and, depending on what time of day you're watching and how heavy the traffic is, it may even be of reduced quality.

Some scenes compress more easily than others. If a scene is pretty stable, without a lot of motion, it will look pretty good no matter what level of compression is used. On the other hand, scenes that include a lot of movement and action or include tricky, dark lighting, not so much.
ChipGallo wrote on 9/20/2013, 9:44 AM
I am up to Season 3 on Amazon Prime using the Roku and watching on an HDMI monitor. There are indeed some very noisy shots. It seems like the light level has the most impact and in dimly lit shots or where they reduced the brightness in post, the noise is much worse. Other brighter shots look fine and in closeups the detail is good too,. Generally the detail falls apart in the dark shots and they look murky as well.

Would be interesting to compare against a BD or even DVD version. Also, I understand that Season 4 went to a wide screen format and this may compress differently.

Kimberly wrote on 9/20/2013, 9:50 AM
[I]There are indeed some very noisy shots. It seems like the light level has the most impact and in dimly lit shots or where they reduced the brightness in post, the noise is much worse. Other brighter shots look fine and in closeups the detail is good too,. Generally the detail falls apart in the dark shots and they look murky as well.[/I]

Exactly! That's what made me wonder if they had a super low budget (at least in the early years) and didn't have the best cameras or lighting for all of their shots. I'm up to Season 5 and no switch to widescreen that I can detect. I have my TV set to magically detect that stuff and it's still full screen.

Love that series. Especially love the CSM. He is the greatest character : )
ChipGallo wrote on 9/20/2013, 10:13 AM
The sound track also has pitch variations, like maybe it was sourced from lower quality dupes. I have a Laserdisc of the pilot and first episode, so maybe I'll see if these issues are present on that.

[Apparently there will be a HD release of the series. This article also confirms that the show switched to 16:9 from Season 5 onward. http://thedigitalbits.com/columns/the-rumor-mill/is-fox-bringing-x-files-to-blu-in-2013

ddm wrote on 9/20/2013, 12:31 PM
>>>and didn't have the best cameras or lighting

Since the series was shot on 35mm (presumably), doubt that the issue was an inferior camera. In the preHD days, many productions just worried about "good enough" for what they delivered in, which was SD. How quality suffers under a budget crunch is usually the time the DP gets as the day gets longer, by the end of the last day of shooting I've been amazed what one settles for, to appease the clock. Grainy? Yes, we pushed that 2 stops and went with minimal lighting, etc. And since everything still looked ok in SD it never became an issue. Nowadays, you can't be quite as sloppy.
robwood wrote on 9/20/2013, 12:52 PM
The X-Files (1993–2002) Technical Specifications: www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/technical

(all 35mm except one episode; X-Cops)
Hulk wrote on 9/20/2013, 5:39 PM
I have noticed quite a bit of variability regarding picture quality in many television serials. I have a feeling it's more the fact that they have limited budget and time and sometimes they don't get the lighting worked out and just go with it. Sometimes you'll see scenes with strong backlighting, obviously not for artistic reasons but simply because they had to get the scene done.

One example of excellent SD for a TV series is Farscape. All of the Star Trek's were pretty bad with the exception of the first and last in my opinion.

Mark