TNG DVD Transfers

[jefferiestubes8]

Maxwell Everett wrote:

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For those -- the motion control miniature work done at Image-G -- they have to transfer all the multiple 35mm passes for each shot because they were all filmed separately (silhouette matte pass, beauty pass, window light pass, deflector glow pass, running lights and strobes pass, nacelle glow pass, bussard glow pass) and re-composite them digitally

For TNG, there would be no generation loss on any 35mm transferred footage.

see this post as to why if TNG were given a remastered treatment for Blu-ray why all of the visual effects would probably be done as CGI.

[Warped9]

Hober Mallow wrote:

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There's nothing Paramount can do about it. That's what TNG looks like. The only thing they can do is find all the original film and put all seven years of the series through post-production all over again, reediting every scene, redoing all the visual FX. They can keep the music and sound FX, though. It's still going to take time and cost a pretty penny. Paramount "caring more" isn't going to improve TNG's resolution.

A shame, really. Now that they're reasonably affordable I'm thinking of picking up the first three or four seasons sets.

[Malcolm Orr]

Warped9 wrote:

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A shame, really. Now that they're reasonably affordable I'm thinking of picking up the first three or four seasons sets.

Don't get too disheartened. It seems that for the most part the DVDs upscale well.

The other thing is that TNG's poor raw state and it's relative lack of effects compared to DS9 and VOY mean that it's the one that is more easily rescueable as a remaster than the later ones, even leaving aside it's popularity.

Also there's a few points of note:

1. There are very few different Ent D sweeps used in the entire series - once a CGI set of sweeps are done, that'll be a lot of the work.

2. It's not like there's a huge mound of film strips lying somewhere. I'm sure when they were stored they'd have been stored per episode and to be honest if the Okudas didn't have a fair idea where the different scenes went, then no-one would (they did ask whether the film elements were present which suggests that they were thinking of this process as the likely route they would take)

3. There's no new sign of a series for a while. It's likely that the new films will be a trilogy, and so that's Trek for the next 5 years. The decision to make TNG into a remastered series will be not just based on Blu Ray returns

4. Some people have suggested we might see 10 or so of the best done. Unlikely - if they are going to invest in a team and make the CGI Ent D scenes etc then I think they'll go the whole way. After all they aren't doing these purely for BluRay - they are doing it to keep a future audience. It's be all or nothing...

I think some form of HD TNG will be seen, and I think it's just on the wrong side of commercial upscaling. I think they will bite the bullet and go for it

(Also Best of Both Worlds, the rumoured test piece, is actually atypical for the average episode - it would be far more expensive compared to most. The Inner Light, for example, requires little CGI effects at all.)

[J. Allen]

^ Just to add, after some comparisons, it seems I may have a bad set of discs. I'm going to go exchange them today and see what happens.

J.

[M.Robison]

I have this series set for TNG that I bought back in 2002 I believe,



Seasons 1 through 2 were grainy and bad, but they cleared up by mid season 3 and on.

[J. Allen]

Well, I got a replacement, and as you can see, there's a world of difference:

1st Set of Discs:




2nd Set of Discs:



I am watching this right now and it looks much better.

J.

[Warped9]

M.Robison, I really like your avatar.

[J. Allen]

I received Season 2 of TNG today. I've made my way through the first disc and am into the second. It looks the same as the second set of discs for Season 1, so I'm relieved to see it was just a bad batch. I can't wait to get Season 3!


J.

[Similitude]

J. a comparison of the same shot would probably show us how different they are. Hard to tell with two totally different shots.

Also I don't think I have any kind of zoom on, as everything is centered properly and nothing is missing off the screen. When something is zoomed you usually notice things on the edge being cut out, this doesn't have that. Very odd, but hey it looks good so I'll take it.

[J. Allen]

Similitude wrote:

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J. a comparison of the same shot would probably show us how different they are. Hard to tell with two totally different shots.

Also I don't think I have any kind of zoom on, as everything is centered properly and nothing is missing off the screen. When something is zoomed you usually notice things on the edge being cut out, this doesn't have that. Very odd, but hey it looks good so I'll take it.

Alrighty. I was able to find which episode I had snapped that from (thanks TrekCore!).

Here's the original:



Here's the new discs:



I couldn't get it right at the exact same time, and all I did was resize to 640x480 to conform to board requirements.

J.

[Maxwell Everett]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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see this post as to why if TNG were given a remastered treatment for Blu-ray why all of the visual effects would probably be done as CGI.

I was referring to how they would have to present the original miniature work alongside the new VFX, not how they would redo them in CGI. On the TOS-R Blu-ray set, they have the original miniature shots seamlessly branched in with the CGI. The poster I was responding to wrote that they would probably include the original TNG 1987-1994 VFX on the Blu-ray set... I was explaining what CBS would have to go through to make that happen.

[Maxwell Everett]

By the way, before I forget... the first TNG movie, Star Trek Generations contains an original 1987 35mm VFX shot that was done by ILM in 8-perf VistaVision for the pilot "Encounter at Farpoint." It is the shot that directly preceeds the stellar cartography scene, if I remember correctly. It's a shot that was used a billion times on TNG. We can all see this shot later this year on Blu-ray, of course... but if anyone would like me to upload it, I have it in 720p from an airing of the film on HBO-HD. I also have the "Menage a Troi" 35mm shot that was pulled from the archives and transfered to HD for the final Enterprise episode "These Are the Voyages." It's also in 720p from an airing on HDNET.

Let me know.

[jefferiestubes8]

maxwell thanks for clarifying. i didn't realize.
If TNG-R were to happen and a seamless branching feature were added I think it would only be upconverted visual effects from the master videotape.
CBS Digital would concentrate on the CGI visual effects as that is where the time and money need to go into other than dustbusting.

[Trekker4747]

J. Allen wrote:

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Well, I got a replacement, and as you can see, there's a world of difference:

1st Set of Discs:




2nd Set of Discs:



I am watching this right now and it looks much better.

J.

Screen caps of the same scene would make for better comparison.

Edit:

Shit! - Keep reading next time, Trekker.

The difference is... slight. I can "see it" but I also can't help on thinking some "oddities" in the posting is going on.

Anyway, odd that two different sets would produce different results like that.

At any rate, glad the second set seems to be more to your liking.

Trekker, still swears his sets look pretty damn sharp -well, as sharp as the 1st and 2nd season can look.

[Maxwell Everett]

For those of you who are interested, here's an example of how TNG was filmed in-camera as far back as the third season (at least) when Marvin Rush took over as Director of Photography (I'm pretty sure Jonathan West continued this practice in seasons 6 & 7):

• The Green area represents the 35mm TV transmitted area -- the image we have on the DVDs (this scene is from "Menage a Troi.")
• The Red area represents a Super 35mm 16x9 transmitted area -- the image you saw a glimpse of in the Enterprise episode "These Are The Voyages."
• The Blue area represents the full 35mm camera aperture. This area is of course black because I don't have access to the actual film element.

http://www.panavision.com.au/PDFs/In...on_Formats.pdf

This demonstrates how from season three onward, TNG has the potential to be presented on Blu-ray in 16x9 format (if every episode was filmed this way). Below you can click on the DVD images of this shot and compare them to a 720p HDNET broadcast of the final Enterprise episode. Make sure that when you choose the 1280x720 images you double click the images for full size.



Note that the 720p images still lack the fine detail that would be present on a 1080p Blu-ray... the 1080i MPEG2 broadcast was taken from DirecTV and downsized and re-compressed using variable-rate AVC @ 13.5mbps peak. If some of you would like to view it, I can upload the full-motion clip so you can take a look at the complete shot. It's an MPEG4 transport stream (.ts), so I don't know how many of you can view that. It plays fine in PowerDVD.