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HBO - "From the Earth to the Moon"

RamjetFDO

By RamjetFDO
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RamjetFDO

RamjetFDO 10577

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OMG!

"From the Earth to the Moon", HBO's *amazing* 1998 series from on the Apollo program (which has never been released in hi-def before, shamefully) has been digitally remastered and is being released on Blu-Ray (Amazon link) on July 16th!!!!!

On July 15, all 12 digitally-remastered episodes will be available to watch on HBO Go, HBO Now and HBO On Demand. Then, on July 20 — the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing — HBO2 will air a marathon of the complete series, starting at 7:45 am (CT).

The original HBO trailer was a bit underwhelming, actually.

 

Edited by RamjetFDO
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89777

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7 minutes ago, RamjetFDO said:

Ugh - right.  I meant had not been released in *hi-def* (Blu-Ray) before.  Good catch, thanks.

I was partly just commenting on why one should be excited for this.  A few months ago, I went to buy a set, and it was nuts.  Thankfully our library had a copy and I watched it there.   Want this in BRD so bad.  

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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Huzzah!!!! I've been waiting for this forever!  

This is what got me to subscribe to HBO when I was just out of college and poor as shit. I've watched it dozens of times and love it.

I always thought it never got its proper credit because it came out just a few years before everyone had HDTVs and whole "TV revolution" thing happened.

And to that point, seems like I read that the reason it was never released in HD was because the special effects were rendered in 4x3 and standard definition so they would have to re-do all of them to actually put this thing out in HD.  (Obviously the non-VFX stuff was shot on film so would be easily able to convert to HD).

BARTSCOTT.GIF

EDIT - just found a link... they actually DID re-render all of the VFX and also re-did the audio mix. THIS IS GOING TO KICK FUCKING ASS.

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2019/06/25/hbo-celebrates-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-moon-landing-with-special-encore-of-emmy-winning-miniseries-from-the-earth-to-the-moon-31513/20190625hbo02/

Edited by oSuJeff97
MOAR SHIT
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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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2 hours ago, C-Man said:

I have the DVD set and my son and I watched the first episode a few months back. Was odd with the out-of-date formatting. This will be great! (Anybody want to buy my DVD set for $125?)

LOL that's funny. I also have the standard def DVD set... I had no idea they were out of print and worth that much, lol.

It's funny that the new Blu Ray set on Amazon is like $22.

Also - FTETTM has one of my all-time favorite opening credit sequences.  Can't wait to see it in glorious HD.

 

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4580

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6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

I was partly just commenting on why one should be excited for this.  A few months ago, I went to buy a set, and it was nuts.  Thankfully our library had a copy and I watched it there.   Want this in BRD so bad.  

Is it not available on demand? 

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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17 hours ago, drewcifer said:

It hasn't been available On Demand or streaming in any capacity in years, as far as I know.

Sepinwall mentioned about a year or so ago that HBO didn't own the rights, and that's why it was not available on any of their platforms.

Yeah I'm not sure about that.  It was an HBO series and Imagine Entertainment was the production company.  They don't have any distribution platforms as far as I know, and HBO and HBO Home Video are listed as the distribution companies on IMBD, so I can't imagine what the issue would be there.

I think the issue is that the series was never fully remastered for HD and so it would have looked pretty bad on modern large HDTVs.

As I noted earlier, the problem is that when they released From the Earth to the Moon in 1998, HD was still in its infancy and so they rendered all of the various VFX shots in standard definition and framed for 4x3 TVs.  (Actually the entire series was originally framed for 4x3...I think it was probably the last HBO series or miniseries to be this way, as Sopranos was always presented in 16x9, even before HD was ubiquitous.)   

Obviously the live action stuff was shot on film and so could easily be converted to 16x9 HD, but in order to get the VFX shots to look right on modern large HDTVs, they would need to re-render all of the numerous VFX shots for 1080p and re-framed for 16x9 -- which is what they did for this release.

Even in the last DVD set issued, in which the whole series was re-framed for 16x9 TVs, there is a very noticeable loss of resolution in the various VFX shots to the point where they look pretty crappy because they were essentially upconverted from 480p and then cropped.  I can't wait to see how the new VFX look.

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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17 hours ago, TheStoicPaisano said:

This hasn’t been streaming anywhere for at least three years, hyped that it’s back and even remastered. Westley and Walter White on the same mission? Yes please.

Don't forget "Joe" from "Wings" as Jim Lovell.  ;)

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drewcifer

drewcifer 33

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51 minutes ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Yeah I'm not sure about that.  It was an HBO series and Imagine Entertainment was the production company.  They don't have any distribution platforms as far as I know, and HBO and HBO Home Video are listed as the distribution companies on IMBD, so I can't imagine what the issue would be there.

Literally just passing on what Alan Sepinwall replied to me on Twitter when I asked him about this series two years ago: "Yeah, HBO doesn't have the rights." I'm going to trust that he knows what he is talking about. 

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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2 hours ago, drewcifer said:

Literally just passing on what Alan Sepinwall replied to me on Twitter when I asked him about this series two years ago: "Yeah, HBO doesn't have the rights." I'm going to trust that he knows what he is talking about. 

Gotcha.

But you know it is possible that Sepinwall was wrong.  Just because he's a prominent television critic online doesn't mean he's 100% right all of the time.

I have a hard time understanding how HBO wouldn't have the rights to air a series that that they produced, originally aired, and own the distribution rights to.  It could be the Sepinwall didn't know the real answer and just assumed they didn't have the rights.

The existing DVDs look like garbage upconverted to HD on a modern HDTV, and the VFX look especially bad... so I tend to think that may be the reason why they haven't been airing it, particularly considering they've been working on remastering the whole thing.

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drewcifer

drewcifer 33

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1 hour ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Gotcha.

But you know it is possible that Sepinwall was wrong.  Just because he's a prominent television critic online doesn't mean he's 100% right all of the time.

I have a hard time understanding how HBO wouldn't have the rights to air a series that that they produced, originally aired, and own the distribution rights to.  It could be the Sepinwall didn't know the real answer and just assumed they didn't have the rights.

The existing DVDs look like garbage upconverted to HD on a modern HDTV, and the VFX look especially bad... so I tend to think that may be the reason why they haven't been airing it, particularly considering they've been working on remastering the whole thing.

Could be, sure. I'm not saying he's infallible. But I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt over speculation. NBD if anyone wants to think otherwise.

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Irwin F Fletcher

Irwin F Fletcher 3550

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LOL that's funny. I also have the standard def DVD set... I had no idea they were out of print and worth that much, lol.
It's funny that the new Blu Ray set on Amazon is like $22.
Also - FTETTM has one of my all-time favorite opening credit sequences.  Can't wait to see it in glorious HD.
 
I always get goosebumps on that soundtrack opening. May have to look into getting HBO back.

One of my favorite series.
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Deej

Deej 76893

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Preordered this. Been a long time since I've seen it. Is this the series that shows them training geologists to go to the moon? If so, my favorite part of the series.  Sending actual scientists up to check things out.

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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13 hours ago, Deej said:

Preordered this. Been a long time since I've seen it. Is this the series that shows them training geologists to go to the moon? If so, my favorite part of the series.  Sending actual scientists up to check things out.

Yes!  My two favorite episodes are the one where they show the geologists training Dave Scott and his crew and then the one about the development of the LM.

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SizzleChest

SizzleChest 8284

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The Rockwell / LM episode was my favorite.  There have been so many depictions over the years about the astronauts, that it was very cool to see the story of the private contract engineers who actually had to design and build this stuff from scratch.  Those guys sacrificed their personal lives, lost marriages, didn’t see their kids, etc. for years.  Dedicating a whole episode to them was great.

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Deej

Deej 76893

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On 6/28/2019 at 9:46 AM, oSuJeff97 said:

Yes!  My two favorite episodes are the one where they show the geologists training Dave Scott and his crew and then the one about the development of the LM.

Ok, so actual scientists training astronauts to do science. My memory was fuzzy. Still cool as hell to watch them doing some real work up there. 

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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22 hours ago, Deej said:

Ok, so actual scientists training astronauts to do science. My memory was fuzzy. Still cool as hell to watch them doing some real work up there. 

No your memory was correct. :)

The episode to which I was referring was the one about training Dave Scott and his crew training for Apollo 15.  Harrison Schmitt, who was a geologist, was the backup LMP for that mission and helped the training process, in terms of the geology.

So he wasn't part of the prime crew for the mission they focused on for that episode, but he would end up going to the moon as LMP on Apollo 17.

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thrillhammer

thrillhammer 684

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1 hour ago, oSuJeff97 said:

They are.  They are airing the whole series on HBO2 on July 20, starting in the morning.  Set your DVR!  :)

thanks for telling me.  my phone app wont let me schedule out that far, but will remember to set it to record when we get closer to 7/20

 

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