Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month...

[MartinRoth]

Nobody seems to have mentioned any of this here, so I'll jump back in from a lengthy absence to again fill my former main purpose in life... Scheduling News!

<ul type="square">[*] Crusade makes an appearance in the Sci-Fi Channel's "Daytime Rotation", with five-hour blocks scheduled for April 11 (Friday), May 1 (Thursday), and May 27 (Tuesday), from 11 AM to 4 PM ET/PT. The April 11 block will feature the "original 5" pre-TNT-interference episodes:

11 AM - Racing the Night
12 PM - The Needs of Earth
1 PM - The Memory of War
2 PM - The Long Road
3 PM - Visitors From Down the Street

No information yet on the episodes scheduled for the two days in May, though they'll obviously have to run some of the 13 episodes more than once if the schedule doesn't change.

[*] Several of the movies get another showing on Sunday, May 4:

11 AM - Thirdspace
1 PM - River of Souls
3 PM - Legend of the Rangers
3 AM - The Gathering (that's Monday morning, actually...)

[*]And, of course, B5 continues in daily reruns, Monday through Friday at 9 AM ET/PT.
[/list]

Quite a lot, really, to go along with the DVD release...

 

[KoshN]

Nobody seems to have mentioned any of this here,

Oops, thought I had, but I guess this was the only place I didn't mention it.

... so I'll jump back in from a lengthy absence to again fill my former main purpose in life... Scheduling News!

<ul type="square">[*] Crusade makes an appearance in the Sci-Fi Channel's "Daytime Rotation", with five-hour blocks scheduled for April 11 (Friday), May 1 (Thursday), and May 27 (Tuesday), from 11 AM to 4 PM ET/PT. The April 11 block will feature the "original 5" pre-TNT-interference episodes:

11 AM - Racing the Night
12 PM - The Needs of Earth
1 PM - The Memory of War
2 PM - The Long Road
3 PM - Visitors From Down the Street

No information yet on the episodes scheduled for the two days in May, though they'll obviously have to run some of the 13 episodes more than once if the schedule doesn't change.
[*] Several of the movies get another showing on Sunday, May 4:

11 AM - Thirdspace
1 PM - River of Souls
3 PM - Legend of the Rangers
3 AM - The Gathering (that's Monday morning, actually...)
[*]And, of course, B5 continues in daily reruns, Monday through Friday at 9 AM ET/PT.
[/list]

Quite a lot, really, to go along with the DVD release...

Actually, the April 11th block will feature only 4 out of the 5 "original 5" pre-TNT-interference episodes.
See:
See this post at SCIFI.COM.

Let's hope they give us enough time between episodes tomorrow to switch tapes/DVDs. They probably won't.

I'll be doing DVD-R, and I'm torn between 5 hours at FR (Flexible Record) speed (which will fill the 1 to 6 hour DVD-R with 5 hours), or if I should chance SP (2 hour mode). I never use EP (6 hour) mode because it's pretty bad.

 

[taichidave]

Don't you already have the whole series on CD-R?

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Actually, the April 11th block will feature only 4 out of the 5 "original 5" pre-TNT-interference episodes.
See:
Subject: Why would you make that assumption?

Eek. Urk. Um... yes. I knew that. Really. Just a senior moment or something...

Let's hope they give us enough time between episodes tomorrow to switch tapes/DVDs. They probably won't.

Yeah, seems rather unlikely. Unless you're willing to skip a set of end credits, given that they're likely to be squeezed so small you can't even read them anyway...

 

[KoshN]

Don't you already have the whole series on CD-R?

I have it on VideoCD (VCD, Pre-recorded, sold by Warner Home Video, Philippines), but compared to DVD (even on the speed of 5 hours per disc), VCD pretty much sucks (grain, low bitrate which rears it's ugly head in CGI flybys, etc.).

This should give me a better quality recording, albiet with lots of popups that I can't cut, to take to show other people. 5 eps on one DVD, as opposed to 1 ep. per VCD. Also, it's a backup to my current sets.


Ideally, I'd record it on XP, 1 hr. mode (10Mbps bitrate), but I could only do that if I had two DVD recorders and could interleave them. At the end of a DVD-R, the recorder indexes the disc, and then there's the eject time delay, and the reload/read time delay, and by that time the next episode will have started. The only way I could use anything other than FR mode (5 hour in this case), is to completely cut the credits, and even then it'd be close. Hmmm, I may try that. Maybe I could add the credits later, before DVD finilization, from one of my SVHS masters. Hmmm.


Hey, I'm a perfectionist. *shrug*

 

[KoshN]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Actually, the April 11th block will feature only 4 out of the 5 "original 5" pre-TNT-interference episodes.
See:
Subject: Why would you make that assumption?

Eek. Urk. Um... yes. I knew that. Really. Just a senior moment or something...

Just wanted to say that the URL name that I included in my post above was just the verbatin title of my SCIFI.COM Bboard post, and was not, in any way, a slam at you. The referenced place was written before you posted, and since I'd already answered the question, I didn't want to retype all that stuff. In hindsight, I probably should have named my URL as "See this post." Sorry if I came off as brusque.

 

[GaribaldisHair]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Completely irrelevant to the subject at hand, but that note on SFC's bulletin board about them building a new system from the ground up has been up there since I first visited it about 2 years ago - without any sign of it ever appearing.

Another indication of SFC's general diligence and efficiency perhaps?

 

[FlipperPA]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Time to get KoshN a TiVo. I'm taping it on TiVo at highest quality... solves the VCR problem... and then ripping the mpeg2 streams to PC and burning to DVD.

Much better quality than VCD because of MPEG2 instead of MPEG. ;-)

Racing the Night just started! Woo-hoo!

-Tim

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Just wanted to say that the URL name that I included in my post above was just the verbatin title of my SCIFI.COM Bboard post, and was not, in any way, a slam at you.

[...]

Sorry if I came off as brusque.

Not a problem. I understood where the title came from.

 

[KoshN]

Ideally, I'd record it on XP, 1 hr. mode (10Mbps bitrate), but I could only do that if I had two DVD recorders and could interleave them. At the end of a DVD-R, the recorder indexes the disc, and then there's the eject time delay, and the reload/read time delay, and by that time the next episode will have started. The only way I could use anything other than FR mode (5 hour in this case), is to completely cut the credits, and even then it'd be close. Hmmm, I may try that. Maybe I could add the credits later, before DVD finilization, from one of my SVHS masters. Hmmm.

Well, that didn't work.

1. Even cutting 100% of the credits, there was not enough time for the DVD-R to be indexed (not finalized, just the automatic indexing that can't be skipped; takes place after you press Stop), the ejection, and the reload/read of the next blank DVD-R. None of this can be skipped.

2. The Pioneer 4X DVD-R's I tried, errored out and the DVD Recorder (Panasonic DMR-E30s), turned itself off after a few seconds of recording. Turned it back on and the display said "RECOVER" (followed by a recovery wait). Then, I pressed record again, and it recorded the rest of the episode. The first few seconds it supposedly recorded are nowhere to be found. So, I have "Racing the Night" from the middle of Gideon's dream to just before the start of the credits.

3. Tried getting "The Needs of Earth" but the indexing/eject/load/read took too long, so I didn't hit record, and chose to go for the last three hours on FR (flexible record), for a quality between SP (2 hr.) and LP (4 hr.). Well, the Pioneer 4X DVD-R crapped out the same way as the first one. So, I had to go through the whole turn it on again, "RECOVER" BS again. When it came back to consciousness, I changed it to LP (4 hr. mode) and hit record. Then, it recorded 1:02PM to 4:00PM, OK.

What a disaster!


On the plus side, I do have pristine XP speed copy of The Sci-Fi Channel's HUGE popup for SCARE TACTICS. I am soooooo tempted to send The Sci-Fi Channel a print of the popup and a print of my hand flipping them the bird. Bonnie, this is for you. F.U.

I won't, but I'd really like to.



The "Sci-Fi" Channel has now passed TNN, (and I didn't think this would be possible) FOX in the obnoxious, distracting popup size wars. How soon do you people think it will be before popups are the full height and width of the TV screen? Damn these people. Damn them straight to hell.

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

The "Sci-Fi" Channel has now passed TNN, (and I didn't think this would be possible) FOX in the obnoxious, distracting popup size wars. How soon do you people think it will be before popups are the full height and width of the TV screen? Damn these people. Damn them straight to hell.

As I've reminded people many times before, we (the audience) are not their customers. We're their product. And that's the way they're going to treat us.

Nothing a TV network ever does will make sense unless you keep that in mind. And if you remember it and understand it, no amount of abuse is likely to surprise you. They've figured out that as annoying as the popups are, very few people turn off the show because of them.

It sucks being cattle, doesn't it? Moo.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Nothing a TV network ever does will make sense unless you keep that in mind. And if you remember it and understand it, no amount of abuse is likely to surprise you. They've figured out that as annoying as the popups are, very few people turn off the show because of them.

It sucks being cattle, doesn't it? Moo.

What may work is if the popup produces fewer sales. Start a watch a DVD instead campaign against a program that is advertised in too many popups. (Pick a program that is going to be unpopular.)

Also boycott a product that is advertised using popups - paying to lose sales is unpopular in most organisations. Make sure that the company knows that it is being boycotted because of the incompetence of its advertising agency. Then tell all the other advertising agencies that this sort of spam backfires.

 

[KoshN]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

The "Sci-Fi" Channel has now passed TNN, (and I didn't think this would be possible) FOX in the obnoxious, distracting popup size wars. How soon do you people think it will be before popups are the full height and width of the TV screen? Damn these people. Damn them straight to hell.

As I've reminded people many times before, we (the audience) are not their customers. We're their product. And that's the way they're going to treat us.

I don't "get" that. In what way are we their product? They produce a product to attract us to a place where they can show us commercials. Companies pay them to air the commercials, hoping that we'll buy the companies' products.

Nothing a TV network ever does will make sense unless you keep that in mind. And if you remember it and understand it, no amount of abuse is likely to surprise you. They've figured out that as annoying as the popups are, very few people turn off the show because of them.

It sucks being cattle, doesn't it? Moo.

I thought it was just a ploy to get us to buy the DVDs instead of being satisfied with our off the air recordings (tape or disc). The size of the popups, and the tendency for the popups to be ads for stuff I hate, superimposed on stuff I like, is driving me away from watching the episodes on TV, and toward buying the episodes "popup-less" on DVD.

 

[KoshN]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

What may work is if the popup produces fewer sales. Start a watch a DVD instead campaign against a program that is advertised in too many popups. (Pick a program that is going to be unpopular.)

Also boycott a product that is advertised using popups - paying to lose sales is unpopular in most organisations. Make sure that the company knows that it is being boycotted because of the incompetence of its advertising agency. Then tell all the other advertising agencies that this sort of spam backfires.

Feature Program: Crusade (4/11/2003 airing)
Popup: an ad. for Scare Tactics.

Feature Program: John Doe
Popup: ad. for Joe Millionaire, Bachelorette, or some crap FOX show like that.

Feature Program: Something I was watching on TNT long ago (can't remember what, maybe Witchblade)
Popup ad.: Some tennis tournament they were showing soon (big animated bright yellow tennis players on bottom of screen)


Usually the popup ads are for other shows on the same network or a sister network, not an actual physical product.

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

What may work is if the popup produces fewer sales. Start a watch a DVD instead campaign against a program that is advertised in too many popups.

If you could actually get enough participation in such a campaign to make a noticable effect, and if it were done in such a way that the effect was visibly tied to the anti-popup campaign, it might have some impact.

Such things are not quite impossible, but are highly improbable and quite rare. Good luck, but I wouldn't count on it...

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

I don't "get" that. In what way are we their product? They produce a product to attract us to a place where they can show us commercials. Companies pay them to air the commercials, hoping that we'll buy the companies' products.

We're their product, because we're what they're selling. Advertisers pay for an audience, and the amount that they pay is based on the size and "quality" (in demographic terms) of that audience.

The programming is simply a tool they use to produce the audience/product, much like manufacturers use machines to produce their products. And they pay for their tools. But the programming is not the product of a TV network any more than a welding machine is the product of, say, GM or Ford, because it's not what they're being paid for.

I thought it was just a ploy to get us to buy the DVDs instead of being satisfied with our off the air recordings (tape or disc).

The networks don't care whether we buy the DVD's or not (except, of course, in those cases where the network also happens to be the producer of the program). SciFi doesn't get a penny from the sale of B5 DVD's. Nor does TNT as a division, though obviously the parent company benefits. Because they don't own the shows; they simply have the rights to show them, using them to draw an audience to sell.

 

[KoshN]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

I don't "get" that. In what way are we their product? They produce a product to attract us to a place where they can show us commercials. Companies pay them to air the commercials, hoping that we'll buy the companies' products.

We're their product, because we're what they're selling. Advertisers pay for an audience, and the amount that they pay is based on the size and "quality" (in demographic terms) of that audience.

The programming is simply a tool they use to produce the audience/product, much like manufacturers use machines to produce their products. And they pay for their tools. But the programming is not the product of a TV network any more than a welding machine is the product of, say, GM or Ford, because it's not what they're being paid for.

OK, I get it.

I thought it was just a ploy to get us to buy the DVDs instead of being satisfied with our off the air recordings (tape or disc).

The networks don't care whether we buy the DVD's or not (except, of course, in those cases where the network also happens to be the producer of the program). SciFi doesn't get a penny from the sale of B5 DVD's. Nor does TNT as a division, though obviously the parent company benefits. Because they don't own the shows; they simply have the rights to show them, using them to draw an audience to sell.

Well, it's possible that the studios, who would make money off DVD sales, might pay networks under the table, to trample all over the shows as much as possible (with popups that cannot be deleted from recordings, and the sheer quantity of conventional commercials which would cause more cuts), to encourage the sales of "commercial free" DVDs.

 

[MartinRoth]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Well, it's possible that the studios, who would make money off DVD sales, might pay networks under the table, to trample all over the shows as much as possible (with popups that cannot be deleted from recordings, and the sheer quantity of conventional commercials which would cause more cuts), to encourage the sales of "commercial free" DVDs.

Um, sure. Whatever.

The beauty of conspiracy theories is that you can always add on another piece without making it seem any more unlikely.

 

[KoshN]

Re: Crusade on SciFi *Tomorrow*, Movies next month

Well, it's possible that the studios, who would make money off DVD sales, might pay networks under the table, to trample all over the shows as much as possible (with popups that cannot be deleted from recordings, and the sheer quantity of conventional commercials which would cause more cuts), to encourage the sales of "commercial free" DVDs.

Um, sure. Whatever.

The beauty of conspiracy theories is that you can always add on another piece without making it seem any more unlikely.

Never underestimate the power of greed.

ps. Just for the hell of it, I measured the Scare Tactics popup, and my initial estimate was wrong. It's not 33% of the screen height, but rather 43% of the screen height. Popup lasted 14 seconds.