DS9 should get Remastered

[Hober Mallow]

tomalak301 wrote:

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Anyone see that South Park episode where the kids complain about remakes and remastered stuff to the point where at the end it became really ridiculous, (I think the episode was called Free Hat) and it was a jab at both George Lucas and Spielberg. That's pretty much how I feel about this whole remastering thing, even with the original. With HD, people have become spoiled like crazy hoping that things get "remastered" and "redone." You do that and how much of the show will be retained. Keep the shows like they were, in the era they were in. It's almost like people's attitudes these days is "well, technology was crap back then so I blame everyone who worked on the show for it" and it's asinine.

Tomalak, you wanna explain what "remastering" has to do with "redoing" or "remaking" anything?

[tomalak301]

Hober Mallow wrote:

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Tomalak, you wanna explain what "remastering" has to do with "redoing" or "remaking" anything?

You might have done this, but can you tell me what the difference is between the two? You remaster something by going back to the original tape and updating it. How is that, in a sense, not redoing it. Also, I don't think I made the connection in the original post but only stating it as an example. As for remaking, I hope it doesn't happen, but you get all "remaster" happy and what next. Look at Lucas for example. He's gone all out of update Star Wars so many times that it's almost very different from what actually came out in 1979. Same can be said about The Motion Picture as well. What happens when technology gets better than what it is now. Then they can go through the whole process of remastering again for that crowd. So much for preserving the original product.

[Hober Mallow]

tomalak301 wrote:

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You might have done this, but can you tell me what the difference is between the two? You remaster something by going back to the original tape and updating it.

Okay, stop right there.

No. That's not what remastering is.

Look at Lucas for example. He's gone all out of update Star Wars so many times that it's almost very different from what actually came out in 1979.

Yep. And it's crap. It also has nothing to do with remastering anything.

You and I, and probably everyone in this thread is on the same page as you. No one wants to change anything. Well, most people don't. I'm the biggest purist you'll ever meet.

Look at TOS Remastered. They went back to the original film. The original film is much, much clearer, vibrant, stunning more detailed than what you saw on TV before. What you saw on TV was the best TV could do. But the original film, the actual physical episode, was much much clearer.

What the TOS-R guys did was take the original film and make a new, high-definition transfer. They didn't change the show when they remastered it, they preserved the detail that was already there. That's what remastering is.

Yes, they added new FX for the TV broadcasts, but A)The changes weren't major, and B)Purists like you and me can still watch the remastered episodes with the original 1960s special FX on blu-ray. Nothing at all changed. We just get to see what the show really always looked like but we never knew it. The rich detail you get from TOS in high-definition was already there on the film.

Thanks to the TOS-R folks, the original TOS film has been preserved. It's like the example I used about watching a color movie on a black and white TV. Just because you see it in black and white doesn't mean that's what the movie actually looks like. There's more detail there than your black and white TV can pick up. I want TV shows remastered in HD so that we can finally see the detail that's there.

Film ages. Once it's gone, it's gone. Shouldn't we preserve it?

Now in the case of TNG, DS9, and Voyager, here's the problem: No completed episodes exist on film. The principle photography was done on film, but the episodes were edited on videotape, and special FX were completed on video. So, unfortunately, in order to preserve the film, they'll have to re-edit every episode and add new FX. There's just no way around it. With TOS, all the completed episodes existed on film, so all they had to do was do a new transfer of each episode. They didn't need to add any new FX; that was just window-dressing. With DS9 and the other spinoffs except for Enterprise, they have no choice but to redo the FX. It sucks, but it's either that or let the original film deteriorate. Which would be nuts.

The idea for remastering the episodes is to preserve the original. As long as you've been a fan of DS9 or TNG, you've never in your life seen what the original film actually looks like.

[TheGodBen]

destro wrote:

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Then maybe HD isn't all it's cracked up to be. If it can't even handle/adapt to showing older shows the way they were originally made I call that a flawed technology that shouldn't have been released until it could cope with it. The problem isn't with the original shows, it is with the new tech.

Clearly you don't understand the technology. HD screens can only display a true HD output if they have a HD input, but the DS9 DVDs do not contain a HD input, DVDs only contain SD images. All HDTVs and some DVD players have the ability to upscale SD images to HD but it is never as good as a true HD input because it doesn't have the finer details. This is not a problem with HD technology (HD has been in use on PC monitors for decades) the problem is that DS9 was produced for SDTVs because nobody realised that HDTVs were going to take off in the future. It was incredibly short-sighted on the part of the show.

As for redoing some of the effects shots, I have absolutely no problem with that. I remember rewatching The Maquis when I bought the DVDs and the dissonance between the tense live-action shots and the simplistic special effects was very noticeable, the effects just didn't live up to the importance of that moment. And one thing which always annoys me is the explosions during the model shots; they couldn't afford to blow up the models because of how expensive they were so when a ship blew up they took the model out of the shot and replaced it was a random explosion. The Way of the Warrior was incredible when it first aired and I loved every second of it, but those explosions niggle at me every time that I watch it. Sometimes parts of the ships disappear between frames, if they fixed those explosions I would be very happy.

The later battles when they switched to CGI were good because they could mangle the CGI models, there's some great destruction shots in Sacrifice of Angels and Tears of the Prophets. But those shots would also have to be redone because they probably were not rendered in HD. Not that DS9 will ever be remastered for HD, the show just isn't popular enough.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

destro wrote:

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Then maybe HD isn't all it's cracked up to be. If it can't even handle/adapt to showing older shows the way they were originally made I call that a flawed technology that shouldn't have been released until it could cope with it. The problem isn't with the original shows, it is with the new tech.

It's not HD's job to adapt to older stuff. Quite the reverse, actually.

Would you rag on CD players because they can't play gramophone records?

[M]

Babaganoosh wrote:

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Would you rag on CD players because they can't play gramophone records?

Actually yes, I would. Of course it won't be able to play a gramophone record. But what's the use of a CD player if it can't play back a musical piece that was originally recorded for replay on the gramophone? That doesn't make any damn sense. Every new technology should logially be downwardly compatible with older media forms.

In the same vein, why do I need the new HD technology, if it cannot display a show that wasn't meant for high definition viewing?

And frankly, I'm surprised so many people are dissatisfied with the effects of Deep Space Nine. Maybe it's just me, but I never really watched the show for the effects. Never was there one instance where a supposedly bad effect brought me out of the story. (I would also argue that this would be the story's fault.)

[Brikar99]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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Actually yes, I would. Of course it won't be able to play a gramophone record. But what's the use of a CD player if it can't play back a musical piece that was originally recorded for replay on the gramophone? That doesn't make any damn sense. Every new technology should logially be downwardly compatible with older media forms.

You're serious?? That is retarded.

[M]

Brikar99 wrote:

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You're serious?? That is retarded.

How so? I do own CDs that contain music that was recorded long before the CD technology was invented. So why is that retarded?

[TheGodBen]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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Actually yes, I would. Of course it won't be able to play a gramophone record. But what's the use of a CD player if it can't play back a musical piece that was originally recorded for replay on the gramophone? That doesn't make any damn sense. Every new technology should logially be downwardly compatible with older media forms.

In the same vein, why do I need the new HD technology, if it cannot display a show that wasn't meant for high definition viewing?

HD is backwards compatible, Blu-ray players can play normal DVDs and all HDTVs can upscale an SD image to display on a HDTV. And while an upscaled image is better than what you will see on an SDTV it is not as good as true HD.

For those who don't understand, here's a picture:


This is a very basic representation of the pixels on a TV or monitor, a HD screen has more pixels than an SD screen of the same size. As you can see, a HD screen gives a clearer representation of shapes but it requires more more data to store the image because (in this representation) it needs to store the data for four times the amount of pixels. A DVD does not have all this data, it only has the data of the SD image because that is all that DVDs were designed to carry, but a Blu-ray disc of another type of HD format does contain all of this data.

A DVD will work on a HD player, but it can't display in HD because the DVD does not contain the data to play in HD.

[Marie1]

Brikar99 wrote:

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You're serious?? That is retarded.

No, it isn't. If you get a new TV, do want to have to throw away every video you ever owned and buy all new? Don't you want your video of VHS, DVD, HD to all at least show up?

You can transfer your cassettes to CD for instance, and remove the hiss. It'd be pretty annoying if you had to replace all your older forms of music. You might do it anyway to get some of the stuff made in better quality, though.

[M]

GodBen, actually I already knew all of that. I was just playing devil's advocate earlier, since some people act like Deep Space Nine has to be remastered in order to be able to watch it using a Blu-ray player and a HD screen. And that is just not true. It's already possible to enjoy a Deep Space Nine DVD in your Blu-ray player. It just won't be a crystal clear HD image. Also, the Blu-ray technology should be able to store the series in SD. That will enable viewers to buy the series in the new format. I mean, of course it wouldn't hurt anyone to remaster the original show for HD (and even update the effects in order to make it all seemless). It's just a piece of entertainment, nothing more. But I just don't see the necessity for it. And after all, the question this thread is posing is 'Should DS9 be remastered?' Well, I don't think it should. So, bite me.

[TheGodBen]

Well I only have an up-scaling DVD player with my HDTV, I don't have a blu-ray player because I don't feel I need one, personally. But as far as I'm concerned there's no problem with remastering DS9, why should there be? I already have the whole show on DVD as it originally aired (except for the R2 cuts in To The Death) so it doesn't effect me if somebody wants to buy a HD version of the show with recreated effects. The stories will be the same, the characters will be the same, and if the special effects really don't matter to enjoy the show then why should it matter if they're updated to full HD?

[happydave]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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Every new technology should logially be downwardly compatible with older media forms.

Actually it shouldn't. This is how we end up with stagnating development as well as an entire messy situation. Being a software developer, I've seen first hand trying to develop new projects with an existing system in place and to actually merge the old system into the new while making the new one as good as it can be is impossible. It's how we get left with terrible operating systems which 'need' backwards compatability.

In the end we get poor technology whose limitation was only left in due to an older system. Imagine if CDs were all the same size and as fragile as records. Which means we'd have DVDs which were the same, and the audio quality could never increase due to physical limitations of the gramophone.

The logical step is to infact scrap the entire system each time you're going to overhaul it. It makes more financial sense on the part of the company, and you're free to make the best piece of technology you can AND you don't have the limitations of the existing software.

To put in 3-4 generations of old technology in one system generally leads to more bugs and faults and a much harder to use piece of technology.

Plus this isn't really relevant in this case either. HD items DO play DVDs, but due to the DVD not holding enough information, they can appear fuzzy or pixelated on larger screens since most of the pixels don't actually exist and it has to guess what information is there.

[Marie1]

I don't think he meant that the quality etc. of things should never get better, that we shouldn't have gone from VHS to DVD. He just means that everything you have shouldn't be obsolete just because something new comes out.

Or, maybe DS9 doesn't look as good as ENT HD does, but that doesn't mean it has to be remastered to the point of being totally different either. If I record an episode of DS9 onto a DVD, I can watch it okay on my computer or TV screen. Its not as good as some other things, but it is watchable.

Star Wars- taking out old Vader guy, and swapping in Canadian dude, Hayden whatever is what I think he doesn't want to happen. And if that's what's going to happen to DS9, well then maybe we should leave DS9 more or less alone, as long as it's not unwatchable in HQs.

[Alignment X]

GodBen wrote:

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Well I only have an up-scaling DVD player with my HDTV, I don't have a blu-ray player because I don't feel I need one, personally.

I have to say, as someone who got their first BD player recently, if you own a large enough screen TV and don't mind paying the premium for buying a film on Blu-ray Disc rather than DVD, it is worth it. There's a much bigger increase in picture quality between DVD and Blu-ray than there was when we replaced our VHS with DVD players. Honest.