Star Trek: Enterprise seasons Blu-ray spec. features wishlist

[jefferiestubes8]

Paramount released Enterprise seasons on DVD when all the effects were rendered in standard definition.
The effects will need rerendering in HD for Blu-ray.

What else can they do to get fans to purchase this series on Blu-ray?

The Digital Bits reviews of the DVD seasons shows these special features:
Star Trek: Enterprise
The Complete First Season - 2001-02
7 behind-the-scenes featurettes (all 4x3 video)
1 audio commentary track
3 text trivia commentaries

If I had any nits to pick with the bonus material on the Season One DVDs, it's that I really want more audio commentaries.

The Complete Second Season - 2002-03
2 audio commentary tracks
2 text trivia commentaries
5 behind-the-scenes featurettes (all 4x3 video)



The Complete Third Season - 2003-04
1 audio commentary track
1 text trivia commentary
4 behind-the-scenes featurettes (all 4x3 video)


The Complete Fourth Season - 2004-05
-3 audio commentary tracks
-3 text trivia commentaries
- 6 behind-the-scenes featurettes (all 4x3 video), an outtakes video, a gallery of production photographs

extras on this final Enterprise set, well... they're a bit of a letdown.

Too bad all of the behind-the-scenes featurettes were shot on 4x3 video and not widescreen. Highly doubtful Paramount has access to widescreen behind-the-scenes footage from 2001-2005 unless they license footage from a visit to the set from BBC or some United Kingdom show (which always shot widescreen standard-definition since late mid-1990s.) It's possible Paramount shot some widescreen behind-the-scenes in in season 4.

Hopefully we'll see more audio and text commentary tracks and maybe a look back if it is released on Blu-ray in 2011 a 10-year anniversary gathering of the lead actors on the show for a new round of HD interviews or maybe a roundtable with Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Chris Pine, Scott Bakula, Kate Mulgrew as Federation starship captains.

[commodore64]

Nice wish list.

I just hope they don't continue to use the crummy packaging that makes the discs difficult to store, impossible to find the right one and add waste to the environment.

[ChristopherPike]

Since Enterprise was released last (except for TAS), it caught the tail end of a learning curve, with some of the best DVD features. No hilarious out-takes on earlier sets, maybe an actor permission issue or just that with comparitively less humour, the cut material was thrown in to lighten the mood.

My obvious wish is for new scripted material to be shot... but I know that'll never happen. Get the right budget and do a new episode, a condensed look at unseen history (2156-61 & beyond), a faux-documentary involving the whole cast, reunited back together and in character. Sprinkle in new CG shots with their narration, covering all the landmarks we never got to see - the Romulan War and all those ideas writers like Manny Coto & Mike Sussman had to scrap when Paramount cancelled this show.

I'd quite like the syndication trailers from 2005/6, when TPTB put together a 26 episode package to sell other networks - composing of Broken Bow, Regeneration, all of Season 4 and Carbon Creek.

[Reanok]

I f they do come out with newer Enterprise dvd sets. I wish they wouldn't used thos e plastic pushdown tabs to get the dvds out there's a chance they'll break off and you won't get your dvd out. or you'll break a dvd in 2 trying to get them out. I really don't care for the packing of the dvds either.I almost broke the last dvd in my season 3 set of Enterprise trying get it out after the push downtab broke. it was a real pain try ing to get the dvd out without breaking it.

[Cyrus]

OK, you mentioned ENT needs to be re-rendered in HD. But it has been broadcast in HD since its second season and has been shown in HD on HDNet the last few years. What I saw on HDNet doesn't seem to be uprezzed. at least not the episodes from the last 2 seasons (which I saw on a bigger and better TV set).

[jefferiestubes8]

Cyrus wrote:

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OK, you mentioned ENT needs to be re-rendered in HD. But it has been broadcast in HD since its second season and has been shown in HD on HDNet the last few years. What I saw on HDNet doesn't seem to be uprezzed. at least not the episodes from the last 2 seasons (which I saw on a bigger and better TV set).

It will be a business decision CBS Home Video will make whether they will pay for visual effects to be rerendered and edited in to a new HD master before the Blu-ray seasons are released. They may feel not enough people will purchase it on Blu-ray to warrant the additional costs.

It is far cheaper for them to do audio commentaries as new special features.

[ChristopherPike]

Doesn't need to be remastered. It's been ready to go since Day One. You can thank Rick Berman for that, according to the audio commentary from Broken Bow. On the disc, there's a moment when he and Brannon Braga talk for a second about where TV was heading in 2001. Comparing it to the gradual switch from B&W to Color in the early 60's.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244365/technical

It was filmed in 1080p/24 in 2004/5. So those D1 Digital Video masters already exist, they simply downgraded the quality for a second generation D2 master - standard DVD and Digital broadcast. Prior to that, the program was mastered from the film stock to a HD format anyway, in much the same way movies are transferred to a master for Blu Ray manufacture today.

There's nothing stopping CBS releasing this show, except for not having anything good to say about it perhaps... in whatever new bonus features, they would have to create as an incentive to buy again.

[Cyrus]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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It will be a business decision CBS Home Video will make whether they will pay for visual effects to be rerendered and edited in to a new HD master before the Blu-ray seasons are released. They may feel not enough people will purchase it on Blu-ray to warrant the additional costs.

While you may be right, I am still dubious of your claim. Can you post something more recent than the March 2002 article you posted in TNG forum? Since that date UPN started broadcasting ENT in HD and the entire series has been sold to the HDNet channel. If the visual effects of any first season episode was done at lower resolution then it may have been upgraded already, and I haven't seen anything to indicate that the latter seasons were done at lower resolution.

[jefferiestubes8]

Cyrus wrote:

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Can you post something more recent than the March 2002 article you posted

This is the only other article I can find.
Eden FX Lands TV and Feature Film Visual Effects Work on "Enterprise" and Star Trek: Nemesis
Oct 10, 2002
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/ne...nds/index.html

We know that Eden FX' artist Gabriel Köerner built a CG Enterprise-D in 2004.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?...5&postcount=21
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?...7&postcount=39

[Darren2001]

I'm not so sure the Enterprise featurettes were shot in 4:3.
They were presented to us on DVD in that format but they were in fact shown in letterbox 4:3.
For whatever strange reason they decided to do that I don't know.
The interview segments were almost definitely shot in 16:9, HD most probably.

[jefferiestubes8]

Darren2001 wrote:

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I'm not so sure the Enterprise featurettes were shot in 4:3.
They were presented to us on DVD in that format but they were in fact shown in letterbox 4:3.
For whatever strange reason they decided to do that I don't know.
The interview segments were almost definitely shot in 16:9, HD most probably.

I've only seem some of Enterprise on DVD. The Digital Bits review didn't mention if it was letterboxed or not.

The

6 behind-the-scenes featurettes (all 4x3, DD 2.0),

Star Trek: Enterprise
The Complete Fourth Season
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/review...erprises4.html

Perhaps someone can let us know who owns all 4 seasons if it is letterboxed featurettes ? Or point to a review that states full frame or letterboxed for the featurettes for sure.

[cal888]

I've just finished watching the entire run of Enterprise on HDNET. All of the episodes are in full-HD, no up-conversion.

You can tell the difference between S1-3 (35 mm) and S4 (shot on digital video). But the entire show was post-produced with HD resolutions in mind.

[jefferiestubes8]

Darren2001 wrote:

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I'm not so sure the Enterprise featurettes were shot in 4:3.
They were presented to us on DVD in that format but they were in fact shown in letterbox 4:3.

I just watched Disc 7 of the Star Trek: Enterprise The Complete Third Season - 2003-04 DVD. It had the special features including: The Xindi Saga Begins (13 mins), Enterprise Moments: Season Three (13 mins), Enterprise Profile: Connor Trinneer (17 mins) and A Day in the Life of a Director: Roxann Dawson (17 mins).

They were all shot widescreen. I could not tell if the look was Digital Betacam or HDCAM/XDCAM HD [but it did have a digital videotape source look (Not analog BetacamSP widescreen). If they were indeed shot on HDCAM/XDCAM HD then they along with the special features for the other 3 seasons may have been shot and edited in HD and could be presented in HD for the Blu-ray release.

If you haven't seen it A Day in the Life of a Director: Roxann Dawson really was a cool behind-the-scenes 17 minute feature just like if you were on a Trek film set. If Paramount had cameras on the set of Star Trek XI with this level of quality on a daily basis then I'm really looking forward to the Star Trek XI Blu-ray!

I am going to move up my Enterprise season disc's 7 up to the top of my Netflix Queue to see the rest of Enterprise's behind-the-scenes featurettes.

[Shazam!]

If EVERY episode had commentary I'd pick up EVERY season that a Star Trek series has ever produced.

[jefferiestubes8]

Shazam! wrote:

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If EVERY episode had commentary I'd pick up EVERY season that a Star Trek series has ever produced.

This is actually one of the simplest special features to make and low cost if you ask the people to do it and not pay them.
You are talking about using the Narration booth and hiring a dialogue editor to edit it and master it.
I'm glad more and more TV shows are adding commentaries. "Mad Men" has commentaries on every episode. Multiple commentaries in some cases! Actor commentaries are usually not great but if that's what it takes to fill up every episode getting a commentary...
How about letting a different department do a commentary? Art Dept.?, Wardrobe Dept.? Sound Dept.? Music Composer & Sound FX? Writers?