Star Trek TNG Remastered?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Jiraiya, May 9, 2009.

  1. QuasarVM

    QuasarVM Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Man, I can't believe they are entertaining the idea of redoing the TNG effects. Only year one and two really need it...but whateverrrr...I won't be buying them.
     
  2. Joshua Howard

    Joshua Howard Captain Captain

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    ^ If TNG was remastered, I wouldn't rule out buying the set; but in all honesty, I do not find TNG graphics to be lacking.

    Graphics has always been welcome in Star Trek, but it has not defined the franchise. Judging TOS or TNG by the graphics is like judging a book by its illustrations; a rather childish and unimaginative approach.

    In the end, the stories are what really matter. TNG is welcome to stay exactly as it is. :)
     
  3. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

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    ^^ I don't think you understand what this thread is saying? No one desperately WANTS the effects redone. That's simply not the point. The effects HAVE to be redone if HD of TNG is ever to become a reality. You might feel, "meh, who needs HD?" and you're entitled to this opinion but that doesn't mean people who see it differently are "childish".
     
  4. Cheapjack

    Cheapjack Fleet Captain

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    They have. Wikipedia it or try high def digest or tweaktown. There's a thread about it on this forum in 'movies'. Only ST2 was taken from the film. There's stills on the web. They look very sharp-edged, but lack detail, They're very clever fakes.

    My bet is they're doing this with all the other movies they show on the HD channels.

    They think we're stupid.
     
  5. MvRojo

    MvRojo Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I noticed it, but I've let it bother me.
     
  6. Doug Otte

    Doug Otte Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well, somebody here is stupid.

    Cheapjack, you keep trying to post this misinformation in Trekweb. It's just not true. The BDs were made from HD masters. They were just not scanned at the currently-used 4K resolution, and they have the old DVD DNR and EE applied. Understand?

    Doug
     
  7. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly. I personally think TNG's effects look fine. But that's not what's at stake here. Redoing them is compulsory if TNG were to be shown in HD. It is literally unavoidable. It is completely, indisputably, obviously, irrevocably impossible to make TNG in HD if you keep the existing effects. Because of that one dreaded word: videotape.
     
  8. Cheapjack

    Cheapjack Fleet Captain

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    Are you working for Paramount, or something? Try searching the web. There's a review in High Def Digest and there's information on wikipedia. Only ST2 was taken from film. All the rest are using a computer algorithm to fill in the dots. It's an estimation of what's there, not what's really there. It's a con, basically, as an upscaling player could do just the same. And DNR isn't very good, according to tweaktown.
     
  9. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

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    Actually, I'm not sure how correct I was with this assumption. On another board I read that the seperate elements that were used to compose the FX were filmed on 35mm film and merely assembeld into the actual FX on videotape. Now, in theory this could mean that these elements can be reasembled in HD, depending on how cost effective this would be compared to redoing all the FX with CGI. You can read the original source here: http://www.dvdtown.com/messageboard/topic/8274/3/0 (this link was also posted earlier in this thread by jefferiestubes8).
     
  10. Doug Otte

    Doug Otte Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    OK. I went to highdefdigest.com and found the reviews for each of the original 6 movies. I browsed the PQ sections. Nowhere does that reviewer state that the movies were taken from DVD resolution masters. There is some hyperbole where he guesses that VI came from an old DVD master. However, the review for III clearly states: "Paramount has taken an older HD master (perhaps struck for the DVD or broadcast) and applied some digital tweaking to try to clean it up." Note that it's acknowledged that it's an HD master.

    It's been acknowledged all along (including by me, in your "swizz" thread) that old HD masters, which had too much DNR applied, were used. That's not the same as DVD-resolution that's been upconverted. For years, they've been creating transfers of films at 2K, and the masters used (even for DVD) were at 1080 resolution.

    Here's a thread which I found very authoritative:
    http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=1875692&postcount=5222

    I've always agreed w/ you that the BDs don't looks as good as they could. I'm objecting to your continued assertion that they were sourced from DVD-level masters and were upconverted.

    Doug
     
  11. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

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    MOST of the vfx elements were shot on 35mm, but by no means all of them. LOUD AS A WHISPER (which could be thrown away entirely in my opinion) has skeleton models for phaser hits shot directly on video.
     
  12. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

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    This means then that they have a large archive of FX material that they could use instead of redoing everything. Now the question is, how feasible would that be?
     
  13. jefferiestubes8

    jefferiestubes8 Commodore Commodore

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    Jefferies [no relation to screen name...] Even if TPTB were to do a TNG-R they would have to reconform all of the 35mm original camera negative of the live action stuff first.
    If they were to try to pull the 35mm visual FX material (model shots) it would be a lot more work plus they would have to telecine shots and then do new CGI visual effects and then composite it.
    I've said before on this other thread:
    Multiple CGI models have been built of the Enterprise-D already.
    This post discusses them and has pictures. This post has additional info without pictures.
    If a TNG-R were to be done it is just much simpler to do all space exteriors in CGI. For the purists they can watch the original visual effects done with models mostly (in 480i standard def. unconverted to 1080P HD) with some branching feature on the Blu-ray.
     
  14. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

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    This is all good and interesting information you are giving and makes me hopeful that TNG-R will become a reality soon. However, the Eden FX models would most certainly not be used in a remastering by CBS. This is unfortunate, but the same happened in the case of TOS-R, where Eden FX produced a far superior model of the original Enterprise for the ENT episode "In A Mirror, Darkly". Nonetheless, I'm quite prepared to accept CGI of lesser quality if that means we can have TNG in HD and I think thats the opinion of many.
     
  15. jefferiestubes8

    jefferiestubes8 Commodore Commodore

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    Does anyone have screen grabs of this? In 480pixel resolution or 1080pixel?


    Edit:
    I found these
    NCC-1764 USS Defiant
    http://www.durfee.net/startrek/ENT_4.html
    scroll down to "In A Mirror, Darkly" for a screengrab

    and here is a Youtube video length 4:38
    'Escape of TOS Defiant'
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm63K_tkkFc
     
  16. Jefferies

    Jefferies Captain Captain

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    Here are two screencaps I nicked from Trekcore. The first one is from ENT "In A Mirror, Darkly" and the second one is from TOS-R "Where No Man Has Gone Before" which is in HD. As you can see the TOS-R version, eventhough at a much higher resolution, does not look as natural and realistic as the Eden FX Enterprise.

    Eden FX:
    http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x19/inamirrordarkly2_504.jpg

    TOS-R:
    http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd138.jpg
     
  17. Cheapjack

    Cheapjack Fleet Captain

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    ALL the sites I mentioned state, that, apart from ST2, the movies were taken from DVD masters. Maybe they didn't upscale, but they used computer fakery to enhance the picture. You can tell by looking at the ST stills that this is so. There is not as much detail as if they were taken from film.
     
  18. Dane_Whitman

    Dane_Whitman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    If I understand it correctly, the HD transfers were taken from the same masters that were used to make the dvd's. In other words: The source for the blu-ray's is the original 35mm masters. The movies don't look as good as they can because Paramount didn't bother to clean up and remaster them, but they're definitely not upscaled in any way and of considerable higher resolution than the dvd releases.
     
  19. Cheapjack

    Cheapjack Fleet Captain

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    NOWHERE do I read any mention of 'HD' DVD masters. It says they were taken from DVd masters in 1999. HD wasn't around then, and if it was, there was a big battle between HD DVD and blu ray and no-on eknew which one was going to win out. There must be a lot of people working for Paramount here. I will still be buying these DVD's, though, though I hope they will master from film sometime.
     
  20. LitmusDragon

    LitmusDragon Commodore Commodore

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    Well I'll be darned if I can find the link now but it is somewhat commonly known that when Blu-ray was first released studios had tried to use the same masters they used for DVD production to produce their Blu-rays, but that this often resulted in a fuzzy looking indistinct picture because when these HD masters were originally produced a lot of noise reduction was applied, which makes it look good when scaling down to DVD resolution but bad when used as a master for Blu-ray. Studios eventually had to refine their mastering process for Blu-ray so as not to include so much noise reduction (DNR).

    It is a fact that DVDs are often produced using a high resolution master video file as the source and that studios have had these types of files available for years and years. I think this must be whatever you had read was talking about. I doubt anyone implied that the Blu-rays were sourced from a commercial DVD. The master of the DVD is not the same as the DVD, in much the same way that the master of Abbey road is not the audio CD you end up with from the music store.

    If you can find a link implying that the ST Blu-rays were sourced from a commercial DVD as master I would be very interested in seeing it. And no I do not work for Paramount.