ds9 blu ray

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Consumers would complain if they bought a Blu-Ray and there wasn't any actual HD content on it. They expect there to be some HD on it, and rightly so.

And as I said, since releasing the shows on BR would have exactly the same results as playing the standard def DVDs on an HDTV, then what would be the point? Just to save a couple of discs? That would not justify the expense. Having TNG, DS9 and Voyager (as they are now) on BR would not be the latest OR greatest; it would be *exactly the same*.

[Dac]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Consumers would complain if they bought a Blu-Ray and there wasn't any actual HD content on it. They expect there to be some HD on it, and rightly so.

And as I said, since releasing the shows on BR would have exactly the same results as playing the standard def DVDs on an HDTV, then what would be the point? Just to save a couple of discs? That would not justify the expense. Having TNG, DS9 and Voyager (as they are now) on BR would not be the latest OR greatest; it would be *exactly the same*.

I wouldn't complain if they released an entire Season in SD on 1 blu ray, or a single 7 disc boxset for £70 which has EVERY episode of DS9/TNG/VOY on it, thus saving space and cutting costs for the consumer.

Hell, im sure a high end BD-Rom could fit the entire series on 1 disc.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Dac wrote:

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thus saving space and cutting costs for the consumer.

But it wouldn't cut costs for the studio. So they have no incentive to do this.

And besides, customers can save space all by themselves. Do what I did; throw away the existing packaging, and buy those Case Logic sleeves. Doesn't cost that much.

[PhasersOnStun]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Consumers would complain if they bought a Blu-Ray and there wasn't any actual HD content on it.

Some do, some don't. For a movie/series that you may not own, the choice sometimes comes down to this:

For the same money as the DVD you can buy a blu-ray with upscaled content but more special features. Such packages do exist and they do sell so obviously someone is buying them.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There are Blu-Ray sets that have no actual HD content at all? Somehow I'm having a hard time believing that.

In any case, what possible special features could there still be that haven't yet been released? And even if they did exist, would there be room for them, after cramming all of those episodes onto one or two discs?

[Kurros]

I gotta agree with Mr. Laser Beam, Blu-ray equates to HD with consumers. It's all about the quality.

[PhasersOnStun]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ There are Blu-Ray sets that have no actual HD content at all? Somehow I'm having a hard time believing that.

I own one. It's the blu-ray of "Outbreak." It's a great movie. I didn't own it on either DVD or blu-ray. Since it was about $12.99 on either format, I bought the blu-ray.

From the review:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1653/outbreak.html

Warner presents 'Outbreak' on a BD-25 single-layer disc in 1080p/VC-1 video (1.78:1)....not only is this a bare-bones disc, but the source doesn't appear to have been all that cleaned up since the last time the flick hit standard DVD.

This is a decent transfer. Positives are nice black levels, a generally clean print with only a few blemishes and appropriate film grain, and contrast that is nicely balanced. The image overall has a a realistic look, though it's not particularly detailed. There's flat and slightly soft look throughout, and shadow delineation borders on the poor -- darkest scenes are noticeably fuzzy and lacking in any visible fine texture. Colors are fine, with decent saturation though nothing really eye-popping. The encode is solid, with no obvious compression artifacts and only slight edge enhancement. This is a serviceable catalog release from Warner.

OTOH, the sound is a bit better, thanks to lossless high def compression ("TrueHD") vs. the lossy 5.1 compression ("Dolby Digital") on DVDs?

Again, if either a blu-ray or DVD is available for the same money, and the blu-ray has the same picture quality and better sound for the same money, can you think of a solid reason not to buy the blu-ray, if my player is a blu-ray player?

In any case, what possible special features could there still be that haven't yet been released?

I have no idea. But if you would have asked me "what special features could exist for the original series, produced over 40 years ago" I wouldn't have known the answer to that either.

For the blu-rays of the ST I-VI movies, they created new special features—new commentaries, science extras, tributes to actors now deceased. It is certainly possible that if CBS/Paramount wanted to release upscaled blu-rays of the more recent Star Trek series, they could try and "sweeten the pot" by paying for new special features. Certainly, the cost of paying for interviews and commentary would be a tiny fraction of the millions required to fully replace the 480p video elements with new 1080p cgi in order to remaster and enhance these series they way they should be done.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

PhasersOnStun wrote:

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I own one. It's the blu-ray of "Outbreak."

I have that one as well. And it is in HD. Even though the quality might not be that great, it is *still HD*. The very link you posted, says it's 1080p/VC-1 video. 1080p is HD.

[jefferiestubes8]

marcus.t you should really see these other threads in-detail on the topic:
DS9 should get Remastered
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=47503


and also related:
Star Trek TNG Remastered?
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=91561


Star Trek: Enterprise seasons Blu-ray spec. features wishlist
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=92792

[PhasersOnStun]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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I have that one as well. And it is in HD. Even though the quality might not be that great, it is *still HD*. The very link you posted, says it's 1080p/VC-1 video. 1080p is HD.

I stand corrected—I thought that the VC-1 format simply meant compression format; in other words I thought VC-1 simply delivers 1080p to the blu-ray player regardless of what content is "shoe-horned" into the format, not if the root material was HD or not. For example, I don't know if you are familiar with Mac OS X audio (that's my expertise) but Apple has an audio format called CAF (Core Audio Format). It is just a "container"—the audio inside can be high or low bit rate, high or low sample rate, etc. All in "CAF" format.

Never the less, the point stands that if CBS can do this for a single episode in the Star Trek TOS Season 2 blu-ray:

CBS confirmed...the DS9 episode is an ‘upconvert’. According to CBS, they had "no choice." The spokesperson for CBS tells TrekMovie "the f/x shots were edited on video so there are no existing opticals for us to do a true HD transfer. Hence, we had no choice but to just do an upconversion."

http://trekmovie.com/2009/08/25/new-...son-2-blu-ray/

They could do this same thing for more than a single episode. Whether it would be worth their while to produce is something only they can determine. Whether it would be worth it for consumers to purchase is something only they can determine. But it's possible, if unlikely.

[ts1279]

OK, I had to register just to try and help clear some of this up. You guys seem to have a grasp of the problem, but some weird ideas about the technology.

The "container" format for Bluray is .m2ts. It can contain video in 1280*720p or 1920*1080p. This content can be compressed using several different MPEG variants, VC1, MPEG4 H.264 AVC and MPEG2.

Now DVD's used MPEG2 at varying resolutions with the highest being 720*480 widescreen I believe.

Theoretically, if you had a BD player that wasn't too picky about standards you could put a whole season in SD MPEG2 on a Bluray. But I have a feeling quite a few players would freak out when there was a 50gb disc with 480p content.

These old eps were shot in 35mm analog fim, which can be HD digitized pretty easily. The problem is that the final, edited copy of the eps with cuts and scene changes, music score attached and effects in place.

That was all done on extremely high-end professional magnetic tape made specifically for TV editing. Where the original film contains all this information that was extraneous to the original process but we can make use of now, the edited tapes contain ONLY what was intended for broadcast. So it's all 480i analog stereo.

Even the digital effect in VOY and late DS9 was printed to film and brought in to this process.

Digital effects don't fare much better. Lucasfilm had completely lost the Norway, Sabre, and Steamrunner from First Contact when Foundation Imaging asked for them and had to rebuild the Sovereign from scratch at least once. I can't imagine the TV ships fared better. Foundation and Digital Muse had two different digital Defiants with completely different deflectors. Now, imagine going back ten to twenty years later and CBS digital wants the source files... half the companies that worked on the effects don't even exist anymore.

If this happens, it's going to be a huge project that will have to be paid off through not just disc sales, but also sindication through a major outlet. Big money. Syfy under Comcast would barely have this kind of money around in this economy. Only if it's going to be a headline show.

But then... why not just a Star Trek network?

[milo bloom]

Thanks for the post, I've managed to pickup most of that info from various forms, nice to see it put altogether in one place.


But I will say this, we've been watching TNG on DVD a lot here lately at home and there are numerous instances of compression artifacts that I have to believe would be alleviated by the increased breathing room of a Bluray disc. I don't have DS9 or VOY on any DVD, and I would love to have a Bluray compilation set of them for the improved compression and the shelf space factor.

[jefferiestubes8]

ts1279 wrote:

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Theoretically, if you had a BD player that wasn't too picky about standards you could put a whole season in SD MPEG2 on a Bluray.

Yes BD players will also play BD discs with standard definition video files.

Captain Euphoria already suggested this and Mr. Laser Beam answers him and you ts1279.

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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People expect Blu-Ray discs to contain actual high definition content. You *could* release TNG on BR, but in standard def; hell, an entire season could probably fit on one disc. But if you're not going to upgrade the content, why bother?

CBS Home video's marketing department sells two products.
Standard definition versions of the TV series as DVDs and High definition versions of the TV series as Blu-ray discs.

If a consumer were to purchase a Blu-ray disc and the video is not in high definition there would be a lot of confusion. Marketing departments don't want this to happen.