Visual Artifacts Found in SpongeBob

Don't the Nicktoons UK airings of the SpongeBob episodes "A Friendly Game/Sentimental Sponge" have dot crawl?
 
spongebranch said:
Don't the Nicktoons UK airings of the SpongeBob episodes "A Friendly Game/Sentimental Sponge" have dot crawl?
Click to expand...
The episode is too new to have the VHS effect


Anyway, here's the season 2 DVD trailer from 2004, some of these episodes look way more colorful than the broadcast versions (Without pale spongebob)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgaIp2sAEvU
 
After searching up alot about how film print and digital works for the past few days, I thought I could explain further.

Here is the trailer to the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies DVD, at the highest quality I could find on YouTube.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5u-HcJjxA&t=7s


In this DVD video trailer for the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies release, every clip of each episode looks clean except for a small clip of Dumped (of course). The thing about Season 1, is that as most of us know, the cels were shot on film, and they were not just shot on 16mm film, they were shot on 35mm film, how do I know this? It's because a page says so, and seems pretty accurate, here is a page about Help Wanted, it says it was shot on 35mm film.
http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_info

Since 35mm film can be scanned to as much as 4K, or maybe even higher, unlike 16mm film, this is great news for Season 1, but the film prints aren't the only thing they need, they need the film negatives, which are presumably a higher resolution and have a higher aspect ratio than film print, according to this page (It gives some nice comparisons).

https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/

If Nick Studios or the lab that developed SpongeBob's film still have the 35mm negatives, and are organized correctly, we are in luck! We won't see dot crawl in any of the Season 1 episodes, and the episodes will be in their highest quality possible. As I've said, the film negatives are much higher resolution than the film print, and a higher aspect ratio, and the natural film grain is present (Film grain is a good thing by the way, it is pretty much what made the texture of film). The 'remasters' of Season 1 on Amazon and iTunes have interlacing issues, the pixels are more vertical, dot crawl is present with some episodes, outlines have a white alias around the characters, and the detail seems to be watered down, my guess is that they just went to the master tapes and upscaled them, and called it a day, instead of going back to the 35mm negatives, or at least the film print, and rescanning them (Preferably the negatives).

This is a screenshot of the 'HD remaster' of Opposite Day from someone's YouTube channel.
Screenshot2018081020.png



As for Seasons 2 and onward, all I can say is that I hope they kept all of their digital episode files somewhere, safely, as those are the most raw, clean looking versions of the episodes possible, period.

Sources: http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14295#page=general_info
http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_info
https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-12-07/.96188
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/why-do-movie-studios-sell-their-animation-production-cells.1025872/
 
LARRY22 said:
After searching up alot about how film print and digital works for the past few days, I thought I could explain further.

Here is the trailer to the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies DVD, at the highest quality I could find on YouTube.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5u-HcJjxA&t=7s

In this video, every clip of each episode looks clean except Dumped (of course). The thing about Season 1, is that as most of us know, the cels were shot on film, and it wasn't shot on 16mm film, it was shot on 35mm film, how do I know this? It's because a page says so, and seems pretty accurate, here is a page about Help Wanted, it says it was shot on 35mm film.
http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_info

Since 35mm film can be scanned to 4K, unlike 16mm film, this is great news for Season 1, but the film print isn't the only thing they need, they need the film negatives, which are presumably higher quality and have a higher aspect ratio than film print, according to this page

https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/

If Nick Studios or the lab that developed SpongeBob's film can find the 35mm negatives, we are in luck! We won't see dot crawl in any episode, and the episodes will be in their highest quality possible. As I said, the negatives are much higher quality than the print, and a higher aspect ratio, and the natural film grain is present (Film grain is a good thing by the way, it is pretty much what made the texture of film). The 'remasters' of Season 1 on Amazon and iTunes have interlacing issues, the pixels are more vertical, dot crawl is present with some episodes, and the detail seems to be watered down, my guess is that they went to the master tapes and upscaled them to HD, instead of going back to the 35mm negatives, or at least the film print (Preferably the negatives).

As for Seasons 2 and onward, all I can say is that I hope they kept all of their digital episode files somewhere, as those are the most raw, clean looking versions of the episodes possible, period.

Sources: http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14295#page=general_info
http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_info
https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-12-07/.96188
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/why-do-movie-studios-sell-their-animation-production-cells.1025872/
Click to expand...
Do international prints of Dumped have the dot crawl?
 
very interesting thread!

i remember watch old Spongebob eps on my old Sanyo TV. look different than DVD version since i have a HDTV and everything now look smooth
 
I found the title cards of Nature Pants and Opposite Day without dot crawl. They were from the SuperSponge assets.

Downlad here:
https://mega.nz/#F!xYNmwTaB!kW4Squ8sgqe96LZAcddGeQ!kA0kgaKb

All these images are really old, they are from 2000 or 2001.

Title cards:
SB2515120NaturePants.jpg

SB2515112OPPOSITEDAY.jpg


Ignoring the noticable JPG artifacts, this looks great.

I think the lab or Nick Studios scanned the 35mm negatives of the title cards at a higher resolution.
 
LARRY22 said:
After searching up alot about how film print and digital works for the past few days, I thought I could explain further.
Here is the trailer to the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies DVD, at the highest quality I could find on YouTube.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5u-HcJjxA&t=7s
In this DVD video trailer for the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies release, every clip of each episode looks clean except for a small clip of Dumped (of course). The thing about Season 1, is that as most of us know, the cels were shot on film, and they were not just shot on 16mm film, they were shot on 35mm film, how do I know this? It's because a page says so, and seems pretty accurate, here is a page about Help Wanted, it says it was shot on 35mm film.http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_info
Since 35mm film can be scanned to as much as 4K, or maybe even higher, unlike 16mm film, this is great news for Season 1, but the film prints aren't the only thing they need, they need the film negatives, which are presumably a higher resolution and have a higher aspect ratio than film print, according to this page (It gives some nice comparisons).https://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/
If Nick Studios or the lab that developed SpongeBob's film still have the 35mm negatives, and are organized correctly, we are in luck! We won't see dot crawl in any of the Season 1 episodes, and the episodes will be in their highest quality possible. As I've said, the film negatives are much higher resolution than the film print, and a higher aspect ratio, and the natural film grain is present (Film grain is a good thing by the way, it is pretty much what made the texture of film). The 'remasters' of Season 1 on Amazon and iTunes have interlacing issues, the pixels are more vertical, dot crawl is present with some episodes, outlines have a white alias around the characters, and the detail seems to be watered down, my guess is that they just went to the master tapes and upscaled them, and called it a day, instead of going back to the 35mm negatives, or at least the film print, and rescanning them (Preferably the negatives).
This is a screenshot of the 'HD remaster' of Opposite Day from someone's YouTube channel.
Screenshot2018081020.png

As for Seasons 2 and onward, all I can say is that I hope they kept all of their digital episode files somewhere, safely, as those are the most raw, clean looking versions of the episodes possible, period.
Sources: http://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14295#page=general_infohttp://www.intanibase.com/shorts.aspx?shortID=14190#page=general_infohttps://www.scanyourentirelife.com/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-interesting-comparison/https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-12-07/.96188https://www.neogaf.com/threads/why-do-movie-studios-sell-their-animation-production-cells.1025872/
Click to expand...
They have already rescanned Season 1, it's on Amazon and iTunes, I don't know if they used the negatives or prints. I think the only reason Nature Pants/Opposite Day are in such bad quality is because they have lost the original film elements for those specific episodes, all the others episodes were found and rescanned. Here's Opposite Day without dot crawl (the aspect ratio is a bit messed up for some reason): https://youtu.be/xL55Rypfoys
Also, here's A Friendly Game with the messed up colour: https://youtu.be/F3a1OnrKTsA
 
Niffy01 said:
They have already rescanned Season 1, it's on Amazon and iTunes, I don't know if they used the negatives or prints. I think the only reason Nature Pants/Opposite Day are in such bad quality is because they have lost the original film elements for those specific episodes, all the others episodes were found and rescanned. Here's Opposite Day without dot crawl (the aspect ratio is a bit messed up for some reason): https://youtu.be/xL55Rypfoys
Also, here's A Friendly Game with the messed up colour: https://youtu.be/F3a1OnrKTsA
Click to expand...
I don't think the original film elements can be lost if the German, French, and Latin American prints of those episodes don't even have any dot crawl at all and look very fresh. I really doubt Nickelodeon would lose the original negative to any episode of such an iconic animated series.
 
spongebranch said:
I don't think the original film elements can be lost if the German, French, and Latin American prints of those episodes don't even have any dot crawl at all and look very fresh. I really doubt Nickelodeon would lose the original negative to any episode of such an iconic animated series.
Click to expand...
The international prints don't have dot crawl because they are still standard definition scans, but they didn't transfer the episodes over composite video, that's why they look clean. I know them losing the prints is unlikely, but why else would two specific episodes not have a HD rescan?
 
Niffy01 said:
The international prints don't have dot crawl because they are still standard definition scans, but they didn't transfer the episodes over composite video, that's why they look clean. I know them losing the prints is unlikely, but why else would two specific episodes not have a HD rescan?
Click to expand...

My theory is that they just upscaled the master tapes.
 
LARRY22 said:
My theory is that they just upscaled the master tapes.
Click to expand...
And why do you think that? Before the remaster, some other Season 1 episodes had dot crawl, like Arrrgh!/Rock Bottom, so wouldn't those episodes be affected too? It's pretty obvious that it is not just a remaster of the original scans. Wouldn't you think they'd do that to other seasons if that was the case?
 
Niffy01 said:
And why do you think that? Before the remaster, some other Season 1 episodes had dot crawl, like Arrrgh!/Rock Bottom, so wouldn't those episodes be affected too? It's pretty obvious that it is not just a remaster of the original scans. Wouldn't you think they'd do that to other seasons if that was the case?
Click to expand...
True, it would make a lot of sense for them to do that, specific episodes having the issue is definitely odd though :P
 
LARRY22 said:
True, it would make a lot of sense for them to do that, specific episodes having the issue is definitely odd though :P
Click to expand...
I really doubt they lost the original masters when the French dub uses the textless elements (textless credits, time cards, title cards) that are at the end of the original master tape.
 
spongebranch said:
I really doubt they lost the original masters when the French dub uses the textless elements (textless credits, time cards, title cards) that are at the end of the original master tape.
Click to expand...
True, they do have different text than the U.S. title cards (most of them).

Hey, where do you think the title cards in this thread are from, I'm curious?
http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:307716?useskin=oasis

I mentioned them before in like page 7 of this thread. They are from the SuperSponge assets files.

Are they the cels of the title cards, prints scanned at higher resolution, film negatives scanned at a higher resolution?
 
LARRY22 said:
True, they do have different text than the U.S. title cards (most of them).

Hey, where do you think the title cards in this thread are from, I'm curious?
http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:307716?useskin=oasis

I mentioned them before in like page 7 of this thread. They are from the SuperSponge assets files.

Are they the cels of the title cards, prints scanned at higher resolution, film negatives scanned at a higher resolution?
Click to expand...
They actually look like the cels/files of the title cards that were stored at Nickelodeon Animation Studios

Off-Topic: It's too bad the French dub of SpongeBob begun to have the same text as the original title cards starting in Season 9b (like they were designed by the original show producers in the USA exclusively for the French dub)
 
LARRY22 said:
I know the German version has dot crawl, because It's on someone's YouTube channel, but for other countries I'm unsure.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B1_jOFDavPU

You have to look closely but the German one does, but I'll check for other copies.
Click to expand...
It could be an older recording though, but I can't believe the original masters with the textless assets could have dot crawl before being sent overseas.

EDIT: I don't really think that's actually dot crawl though. Still not as bad as the USA though. At least it's the closest you'll ever get to getting Dumped without the VHS effect.
 
I've noticed this on a lot of SD airings. And contrary to most posts in this thread, most of my SB DVDs have the same dot crawl. The one I can think of off the top of my head is that it happens throughout the entire Sea Stories DVD. It even does it before the actual stuff even starts.
ALL SCREENSHOTS TAKEN BY ME FROM MY SEA STORIES DVD

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After all these years, I've just come to expect that from most SD animation from the late 90s and early 2000s. lol
 
spongebranch said:
It could be an older recording though, but I can't believe the original masters with the textless assets could have dot crawl before being sent overseas.

EDIT: I don't really think that's actually dot crawl though. Still not as bad as the USA though. At least it's the closest you'll ever get to getting Dumped without the VHS effect.
Click to expand...
This really makes me curious to see if the raw copy or video file of Dumped at Nickelodeon Studios has rainbow artifacts or the VHS effect issue (I doubt it though).
 
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