Why would ZDFneo show TOS in SD? It's an HD channel, so I would assume that it's showing TOS in HD! I wouldn't be so sure about TELE 5, though ... they are only HD through Pay TV, the free version is SD.
Actually 2009 and 2010, respectively -- according to Memory Alpha. Turns out they dropped TNG about a year before DS9: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Spike
Actually it's like this: ZDFneoHD is not ready to show real native HD yet, although the free HD version of the channel is up for quite some time now (more than 2 years). Yes, they use the TOS-HD-masters, but nevertheless air just upscaled SD signal, and noone there knows or wants to say when they're going to switch to real HD. Tele5 though does real HD through it's HD channel, which is Pay-TV, but at least it shows TNG in real HD and it looks great!
ZDFneo is 720p, which is some kind of HD ... what makes you think they are upscaling from SD instead of downscaling from 1080p?
The 720p signal is actually just the original SD (576i) signal run through an upconverter as they don't have actual HD broadcasting capability yet.
The major studios are still seeing Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and so on as "lower tier" services and therefore steering their big name properties away from them. When they wise up like the music industry has with Spotify (they would rather have some money than pretend they can get back to peak sales by magic) I wouldn't be surprised if Trek re-appears as a Netflix or amazon original. It would be a step-up in spending from their work to date, due to hte SFX, but I'd never say never.
If i run a DVD with my BD-Player in 720p-mode, it has nothing to do with actual HD, even though the display shows 720p! The source is the network itself (just ask them) or any of the countless german digital tv boards. Same goes for ALL the other ZDF subchannels, non of those are capable of HD at the moment. Same goes for ARD subchannels HR-HD and BR-HD as well. That was the reason i waited so long with my TOS-recording, because all the reruns so far had nothing to do with HD. But i hope they do rerun the show again, once they've switched to real HD some day.
"There are currently no plans" means only just that, that the studio has yet to officially announce any decision. There's nothing more to read into it either way.
720p is HD ... it's not FULL HD, but it's no SD either. And 720p looks MUCH better than SD! There are some stations that are broadcasting in 1080i, but the difference between 720p and 1080i stations is almost non existant. Some people even say that 720p TV looks better than 1080i TV. And why would they upconvert SD to HD instead of downconverting Full HD to HD? What would be the point? Are you suggesting that they upconverted the picture during the Football World Cup from SD to HD, even though everything was filmed in Full HD? If so, they did a damn fine job there! And what about in-house productions which were shot in Full HD?
We can hope - Birthright on the TNG S6 Blus is pretty tantalising. God those CGI battles in S5-7 will take some recreating though!
Just about the same amount of time has passed between TOS and TNG (18 years, 3 months, 25 days) and the end of DS9 to today (15 years, 2 months, 5 days) Not too much different. Of course, if you counting the tidbits like TMP, TWoK, TSfS, and TVH then you old foggies really only had to deal with no Trek for 10 years. Just as much time has passed as during the original interregnum as has passed between "Shattered Mirror" and today.
Heh, the entirety of DS9 could be watched today if you wanted, seeing it in HD probably isn't going to add that much to the experience. In the 70s we were at the mercy of the local TV channel - miss a favorite episode and it would be 3 1/2 months before the opportunity to miss it again.
Definitely too long to wait, I've started from the first episode today, a great series, hope to see it on Blu ray at some point as I think it will look a lot better.