Star Trek TNG Remastered?

[Captrek]

Anybody know where DS9 stands in respect to the issues discussed in this thread?

[RAMA]

captrek wrote:

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Anybody know where DS9 stands in respect to the issues discussed in this thread?

You just gave me a headache

[Butters]

captrek wrote:

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Anybody know where DS9 stands in respect to the issues discussed in this thread?

I can't imagine any activity with DS9 until B5 makes an announcement on the matter.

[Falcor5]

captrek wrote:

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Anybody know where DS9 stands in respect to the issues discussed in this thread?

It has the same issues. All the editing, effects etc... were done on Video just like TNG so it would be alot of work to turn DS9 into HD just like TNG. The same goes for Voyager. Enterprise is HD ready already I believe.

[Malcolm Orr]

I have managed to get a great picture with excellent clarity by using the PS3 to upscale. The most challenging parts to upscale are:

poor lighting (such as tunnels or a damaged ship)

red tunics (red in general)

softly lit outside areas (where there is already a blur - 'The Inner Light' is bad)

The PS3 settings are:

Frame Noise Reduction: 3
Block Noise Reduction: 3
Mosquito Noise Reduction: 3
Upscale: Normal
Video Output: RGB (the Y Pb/ etc setting is poor for TNG as itd desaturates the picture badly)
RGB full range: On
Dynamic Range control: On

In some places the picture looks very close to true Hi Def. Usually the more stable the shot (such as Geordi talking in front of the warp core in 'Hero Worship' and talking about the firre where you can even see the wonky steel rods in his VISOR) the better, but even on TOS-R there's motion blur when moving.

A professional level upscale would vastly improve the show visually without the full remastering, though clearly a fully remastered version would be better.

[RobertScorpio]

Butters wrote:

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I can't imagine any activity with DS9 until B5 makes an announcement on the matter.

ummmm....millions more are aksing "what is B5?"

Rob

[Hober Mallow]

I can forgive the TNG folks in 1987 saving money by editing to videotape in order to get the show on the air every week. But by the time Voyager was in its seventh season in the 21st century, someone in the post-production department should have noticed they were a little behind the times. The fact that they could only buy their equipment from the second-hand thrift stores should have been their first clue.

[jefferiestubes8]

Falcor5 wrote:

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It has the same issues. All the editing, effects etc... were done on Video just like TNG so it would be alot of work to turn DS9 into HD just like TNG. The same goes for Voyager. Enterprise is HD ready already I believe.

Agreed.
I predict Enterprise will be released on Blu-ray in HD in late 2010 or 2011 (to fill time before the STXII film is released) No other Trek TV series can be released in Blu-ray unless all the work that has been discussed on this thread and this thread is done to remaster it to HD.

[ManaByte]

captrek wrote:

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Anybody know where DS9 stands in respect to the issues discussed in this thread?

Not going to happen. Ever.

The only reason TNG is being considered is because it was the best selling Trek series on DVD (even more than TOS). DS9 and VOY sold much worse so they can't justify a remastering for those.

As for ENT, it's HD ready (and only four seasons) so they'll probably release BluRays of it next year.

[Falcor5]

Hober Mallow wrote:

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I can forgive the TNG folks in 1987 saving money by editing to videotape in order to get the show on the air every week. But by the time Voyager was in its seventh season in the 21st century, someone in the post-production department should have noticed they were a little behind the times. The fact that they could only buy their equipment from the second-hand thrift stores should have been their first clue.

Ha you make a great point! I wonder if they ever had any discussions on it and for some reason decided not to make it HD? The weird thing is The very next fall just a few months after Voyager ended they started making Enterprise in HD.

[ManaByte]

RobertScorpio wrote:

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ummmm....millions more are aksing "what is B5?"

Rob

Babylon 5. Basically DS9 didn't become a serial until King B saw that Babylon 5 was actually more popular. Then he hatched the Dominion War to complement B5's Shadow War and changed the format of the show to compete.

But B5 fans shouldn't hold their breath for a remastered version of that show. As wikipedia explains:

Mastering problems
The transfer of Babylon 5 from fullscreen to widescreen (originally for the Sci-Fi Channel; later released on DVD) created significant problems with regard to special-effects/CGI footage. Several factors complicated the process.[104]

• Although originally broadcast in the standard television aspect ratio of 4:3, all live-action footage was filmed on Super 35 mm film (with a ratio of 1.65:1). The idea was that, once widescreen televisions (with an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.78:1) became more popular, the episodes could be easily converted into a widescreen format.

• CGI shots were rendered in the 4:3 ratio, but designed so that the top and bottom of each shot could be removed to create a widescreen image without ruining the image composition.

• All of the purely live-action shots were stored as high-definition digital images.

• However, CGI shots, and shots combining live-action with CGI, were stored in the much lower-definition NTSC digital format. (Again, the expectation was that it would be relatively cheap in the future to recreate the CGI in widescreen.)

• Over the years, the original computer-generated models, etc., have been lost, making it necessary to use the old 4:3 CGI shots.

This has resulted in several consistent flaws throughout the Babylon 5 widescreen release. In particular, quality drops significantly whenever a scene cuts from purely live-action to a shot combining live-action and CGI. This is particularly noticeable on the PAL DVDs, since CGI shots had to be converted from NTSC, as well as being blown up to fit a widescreen television. In addition, while the live-action film was originally widescreen, shots were composed for 4:3, resulting in a conspicuous tendency for actors to clump up in the middle of the screen.

JMS himself admits that B5 is dead, and Warner will never fork out the cash to re-do all of the effects in the series due to how many effects it used (the five seasons of the show used more than all seven seasons of any Trek series).

[ManaByte]

Falcor5 wrote:

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Ha you make a great point! I wonder if they ever had any discussions on it and for some reason decided not to make it HD? The weird thing is The very next fall just a few months after Voyager ended they started making Enterprise in HD.

Probably because Voyager was on its way out, its ratings were dropping, and it wasn't worth it to upgrade the cameras for a show that was going off the air.

As for Enterprise, the move to HD was partially an attempt to inject some viewership in the show (which didn't work).

[RobertScorpio]

ManaByte wrote:

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Babylon 5. Basically DS9 didn't become a serial until King B saw that Babylon 5 was actually more popular. Then he hatched the Dominion War to complement B5's Shadow War and changed the format of the show to compete.

But B5 fans shouldn't hold their breath for a remastered version of that show. As wikipedia explains:

JMS himself admits that B5 is dead, and Warner will never fork out the cash to re-do all of the effects in the series due to how many effects it used (the five seasons of the show used more than all seven seasons of any Trek series).

Yes, I know B5 is Babylon 5. My point is, just like Farscape, not too many people outside the genre have even heard of B-5/and or Farscape. Sad, but true...

Rob

[RAMA]

An interesting post on the STNG remastering:

http://www.dvdtown.com/messageboard/topic/8274/3/0

It is quite possible to remaster TNG in HD. As previously stated it was shot on 35mm film. Re-transferring and re-editing from film is not as difficult as it sounds. Even though the series was edited on video tape care was often taken at that time to reference KeyKode (the film equivalent of timecode) either by retaining this information in the extra timecode bits on the video tape or by transfer logs which match the videotape EDL to the film negatives' KeyKode. This makes finding the shots and re-cutting them quite easy. Even if this type of match-back is not possible there are many talented online editors who can eye-match the shots (although this does consume much more time than the match-back).

[ManaByte]

Personally I'd be against them replacing the ILM model in TNG with a CG Enterprise D because ILM's model is just so perfect. But there are some effects in the first two seasons that can be fixed with CG.