While Beast Wars was released in its entirety on PAL DVD (PAL being its original format, and higher resolution than NTSC), the DVDs suffer from a huge amount of compression (see example below). Two frames before scene change in "The Agenda (Part 1)", which still has some compression noise: One scene before scene change: Note how the frame before the scene change is full of compression artifacts and the details have become "mush". There are of course far more extreme examples of artifacting, but I wanted to show this as an example of something that happens quite often. This also happens with fast motion as well: (Megatron's leg, and the whole scene, is full of red and green artifacts during the very fast motion of the restraints by Ravage in the same episode): Lastly, here is an extreme case of artifacts, where the shockwave hits the station and the combination of the lights flickering rapidly, and the very fast camera movement, creates a plethora of artifacts in various colors that also turn details into a blocky mess: None of these compression artifacts are present in the D1 master tapes (these tapes used uncompressed component video and used enormous bandwidth for its time: 167 Mbit/sec (bit rate). Click the link to learn more on the format) because they're a lossless format, whereas DVD is not a lossless format. Artifacts aside, the overall noise would not be present on a new transfer, details would be clearer, the picture quality would be cleaner, and the colors would be far more vibrant. Not to mention it's not at all to easy to find a copy on the aftermarket as they were all sold in Australia (via Madman Entertainment, based in Australia), and even then you'd need a region free DVD player if you wanted to watch directly to your TV. Yes there are fan-made upscales, however no upscale made from a DVD will ever compare in quality to an original uncompressed video source, even if it the DVDs were upscaled to 12K. In ReBoot's case, the original DVDs were flawed. (Left: restored D1 video from YouTube | Right: DVD release) While the PAL DVDs for Beast Wars are decent, they could be far better. The NTSC release of Beast Wars looks far worse and that's the release most have. See this single frame comparison between Shout (NTSC), and Madman (PAL) DVDs: The NSTC video has rainbowing, less vivid colors, and poorer video quality. The older Rhino DVD release is basically the same quality as the Shout release. You also have interlacing, which isn't part of the progressive PAL format. That's where watching (and commenting!) on this and any other restored episodes that may be uploaded to Mainframe Studios' YouTube channel, will help Beast Wars' chances of being re-released. The more interest shown in a remastered/restored ReBoot episode, the higher the chances of the same being done for Beast Wars (and personally, I hope Mainframe Ent's other show, Shadow Raiders). The above video was recently restored from the master D1 tapes, ReBoot has never looked better (even accounting for YouTube's compression). This is all thanks to the "ReBoot ReWind" crew and their upcoming docu-series on ReBoot premiering September 24th. If you're interested in Mainframe Entertainment beyond Beast Wars, and in ReBoot, this is definitely a MUST WATCH for you. You can watch the docu-series on TELUS Optik TV and YouTube if you're not in Canada. Beyond views for the newly restored ReBoot episode, more views on this documentary will help as well. Perhaps if this docu-series is popular enough, a similar undertaking can be done for Beast Wars' 30th anniversary in 2026. That said, the D1 tapes for ReBoot are still being processed. The process is a long one, and it will take a while to get through all 47 episodes and whatever extras there are. Hopefully no further issues with the D1 decks will arise and things will continue smoothly. A few factors to note: As of writing this, there's yet to be a deal in place for a ReBoot Blu-ray re-release (Shout Factory still owns the distribution rights for Canada and the USA). While far superior to consumer-grade tapes, such as the old VHS format, time still will be and is a factor. Tapes can and will degrade and it's very fortunate that the D1 tapes for ReBoot appear to be relatively well off for being 30 years old at this point. The more time elapses, the more potential for tape degradation and poorer video quality than what would've been retrieved if it was done at an earlier point. Finally for Beast Wars there is of course the Hasbro factor. Unlike ReBoot, anything that was licensed has to go through their respective IP holders to get a re-release first and foremost.
The more views (and comments asking for both ReBoot and Beast Wars on Blu-ray!) the restored ReBoot episode gets, the higher the chances of Shout Factory (and for those outside of the US/Canada, any other distributors) re-releasing ReBoot on Blu-ray and doing the same for Beast Wars if Hasbro gives the "OK". They need to know that there's a serious interest in it and that the previously released DVDs aren't "good enough". They need to know people will buy a restored Blu-ray, that they want quality that NO upscale can get from the DVDs.
I swore I read or heard somewhere that Mainframe or whoever doesn't have the original BW master files anymore, so they don't have the highest quality original source video to make better quality home media releases from.
They likely don't have the original models, textures, and so on (but even if they did, it'd have to be basically redone scene-by-scene manually, and even they could "easily" re-render it, it would take a LOT of money/time to convert the format etc), no, but they do (or should) have the original D1 Master Tapes, which while SD, are as clean/clear as they would've looked on the screens during the rendering process. As long as those D1s aren't degraded, if they're transferred to Blu-ray with enough room to "breathe" (ie. no full seasons per disc), it should look basically as good as when it was first made with no compression to impair the video quality.
Why even reply to a thread if you're not gonna read it? I think that's what he means, though. The original D1s might be lost, given how Mainframe has changed over the years. They've downsized and rebranded and are basically an entirely different company now under Rainmaker.
True, that they have. Though they've changed their name to "Mainframe Studios" late 2020 (going "back to our roots" as they put it). However the D1s for ReBoot were safe and sound. I have to hope the same applies to Beast Wars and the rest of Mainframe Ent's shows. Time will tell of course if the BW D1s aren't lost, but it definitely doesn't hurt for all the Beast Wars fans to chime in on that restored ReBoot video.
I watched the first two eps last night, man its super nostalgic hearing them talk about the show. I sure hope they still have the BW D1s, but I def did my part as a Canuck Transformer Fan to ask them to do a series like this for "Beasties" as well. I hope that Hasbro wouldn't have an issue with them doing something like this especially after how old the series is but also how foundational it was for Mainframe as a company in its early days. I was really hyped a couple years back and followed the 4k AI upscaling for Beast Wars but there were a lot of strange textures and fidelity issues I never really got around to getting used to. If they could do modern transfers I'd put down money for those in a heartbeat.
I'm blown away by how crisp that transfer of Reboot is, and I really hope Beast Wars and Beast Machines can get the same treatment, along with the rest of Mainframe's library. Has anyone confirmed that Mainframe still has all the Transformers stuff in their D1 archives?
