'Friends' in HD Syndication - Page 2

IIRC the widescreen versions seen in Europe were cropped.

I have the first two seasons of The Shield on the UK DVDs. If I have a chance, I'll do a compare and see if they're cropped or not. Wouldn't surprise me though...

From what I just read, the Shield production situation was similar to the Wire: on the season 3 commentary Shawn Ryan said they shot on Super 16mm (5:3) intending for a 4:3 extraction (which was how it was broadcast) but Sony decided to crop to 16:9 for some DVD releases. In the US they released 4:3 versions and later rereleased 16:9 versions. I guess just about anything can happen.

Film has higher native resolution than HD. They took the film and used an HD telecine to create the HD video. No upconversion was involved.

Very excited for this. I don't know if I'll buy the bds when they make them, but it does mean it'll be around syndicated like this in the near future here. . Of course the bds wil have all the bonus footage too... So I might still get them.

definitely not on TBS.

Searched TNT for Friends but it doesn't air on TNT in Chicago I guess.

It doesn't air on TNT in the US. That's TNT Serie, the German version.

Not sure why TBS isn't airing it in HD yet. But Nick at Nite will be picking up Friends later this year. Maybe that's when the switch will happen.

Ohhhhhhhh. got it.

That would be nice.

I've seen the German TNT versions, they look pretty great comparatively to the DVD's.

The first few seasons which look pretty rough on the Region 1 DVD's, are night and day almost.

Hard to watch the broadcast versions now though after having seen the much better extended versions of each episode.

I noticed some goofs going back through the series on DVD where cameras were in the 4:3 protected area on some of the pans, I wonder how bad these shots are in the 16:9 versions.

Is this HD, or widescreen HD? Also, Australia used to have 576p50 they called HD. Ahh, whatever it is, I want Friends in HD. BTW, I've heard that Friends was shot at 30fps, was it really?

Scrubs was shot on Super16 in widescreen, and seasons 8 and 9 were mastered and shown in HD. I hope that they remaster the first 7 seasons in HD as well.

I don't care what BBC thinks about 16mm, the remastered HD (or "amost HD") variant looks so much better than original 4:3 SD stuff, that I will buy Friends and Scrubs on BD any day.

I read a Q & A with David Simon around the time when The Wire was wrapping up, where he stated this. I think the question asked had more to do with why the show wasn't broadcast in HD rather than an eventual Blu-ray release. His answer was basically the show will never be in HD only 4:3 standard definition.

I have no problem with his reasoning for the aspect ratio the show has, it's confusing he wouldn't want the show to be presented in the higher resolution though.

Right. If they care about AR, they can release a pillarboxed "higher res" version. Like Snow White.

grabbed the first season (don't ask me how) and it's amazing. I believe the first 3 are the only ones available to "acquire" currently. It's like they filmed it yesterday. You can definitely tell that they framed it for 4:3 though, it's very obvious when most of the time everything is centered and there isn't much going on out of the 4:3 space. Sometimes there is a beam or wall on the edges that you can tell they meant to frame out.

Hi, sorry to bump, but I thought I would clarify how this works as some people are confused.

Friends was filmed on Super 35, which has an aspect ratio of 15:9. Because widescreen television sets have an aspect ratio of 16:9, this means that unfortunately a little bit of cropping on the top and bottom of the screen is needed to fill the 16:9 frame. If you go back to the DVD/HD comparison shots on the first page of this thread, you will see what I mean. It is cropped, but only a little bit, and nothing major - not at all like a 4:3 crop to 16:9.

I have no idea how the graphics are done though - because they look exactly like the 90s graphics - it doesn't look at all like 2011 CGI graphics. Look at the Friends logo on season 2 - it doesn't look like a crystal clear SVG logo, which strangely is better. And they are all faithfully re-done. Even odd things like the names not being aligned properly on the pilot is done - however they've used the wrong font on most of the season 1 episodes, by using the font used in the titles after season 6 (when Courteney Cox became Courteney Cox Arquette and a smaller font was needed) which is a little disappointing, considering they've recreated everything else perfectly, such as the other odd thing on season 2 where the Friends logo on the NY skyline flashes off a millisecond before the scene changes to the fountain.

Hope that clears things up.

I hope the episodes airing on nick at night starting Monday are the HD versions. I have set htpc to record them and will be sure to let everyone know as soon as the first one airs on monday.

TBS's contract also begins anew this week, so hopefully it will have the HD versions as well. But the international viewers have only spotted the first three seasons in HD, which might explain why local syndication doesn't begin in HD until 2013: it's still a work in progress.

yup, I've only noticed the first 3 seasons. But they look amazing. Hopefully they are released on BD uncut.

I noticed that on the first page there are screen shots of Rachael and that weird hairless cat that she had in that episode in HD. I bring this up because that episode is from season 5. I hope this means that the whole series is done by now and we will be seeing it tonight.

Potential positive sign: the videos on NickatNite.com are in 16:9. See here: http://www.nickatnite.com/videos/cli...-way-clip.html.

And in really good quality even if it is online video.

I took a cap off of their website and matched the same frame to the DVD, the image area is opened in all four directions.

Looks very good indeed.

Its in HD!!!

After watching the episode I noticed that there was a lot of jokes that I was too young to get way back when. Also seeing this show in HD it gives me hope for things like star trek the next gen to one day make the leap through the transition process.

Yep. In Hd on Nick@Nite Hd.

While we don't know specifics on what the remaster will entail, Levar Burton tweeted yesterday that he was at CBS Television City checking out the work on TNG:R, so that's just more unofficial confirmation that it's happening.

Well that made my day thanks.

And so I can post about friends as well I never realized that Monica had a stainless steal oven before it became in style.

I was channel flipping and Friends is on, and it seems like they are playing the film transfer that they show in Australia. Anyway its on now, anyone care to confirm??

yes and with hideous giant pop ups

wow i started a topic about this and didnt realize it was already confirmed here. good on you nickelodeon. now send your copies to TBS please.

confirmed in the "friends in Australia" thread. it *is* in HD.

Im okay with the pop ups, the quality is fantastic. it's like the show is brand new.

It looks pretty soft at times (watching on FiOS, so I'm assuming that's the source material), but it is night-and-day better than the SD versions, so I'm not going to complain.

Hopefully TBS kicks off with them tomorrow as well.