Star Trek TV Series To 3-D - CBS possible Conversion

[jefferiestubes8]

Reuters has a report from the Milken Institute Global Conference, and the "The Business Behind the Show: Outlook for the Entertainment Industry" panel which had a number of industry executives participating, including CBS President and Chief Executive Les Moonves. One of the subjects was the future of 3-D TV and converting shows to 3-D. Moonves revealed that CBS has been experimenting, here is an excerpt:

It was only four years ago that CBS began its work to digitally remaster the entire original Star Trek Series in HD, with all three seasons now available on Blu-ray. Now 3-D TV technology is the hot new thing. Although 3-D is dominating in the movie theaters, it is just a tiny fraction of the TV market for now, mostly due to the cost of the equipment and the lack of content.

already 53 comments at Trekmovie on this with some of them mentioning that 3-D TV technology is a fad. There they said it.
http://trekmovie.com/2010/04/29/cbs-...e-is-a-market/
via
CBS chief voices 3D-TV doubt, News Corp upbeat

While we're on the topic of 3-D and Trek TV what about series 6 of Trek TV

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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What about shooting just the 2-hour pilot in 3-D that would get a limited release in digital 3D cinemas?

The rest of the series could be in 2D but if they do a pilot and possibly a season finale in 3-D it could be an event for Trek as well as some extra revenue for $12.-15./ticket.

For all of the people that don't own a 3-D HDTV when the show starts why not

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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It was just last week I wrote:

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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There is the possibility that scripted narrative episodic shows could come to 3-D HDTV channels just as sports 3-D HDTV channels will be growing in the next few years.

Also

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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DirecTV is starting up

That did say CBS.
Since CBS Television owns Star Trek series it is possible to premiere the next Trek TV series in 3-D HD.

Could Trek work on a 3-D channel similar to N3D that would be on DirecTV and also cable networks?

If Star Trek TNG Remastered? were to be done there is the possibility that it would be done for 3-D at the time and also CBS Television could then syndicate it in 2-D HD as well as sell the seasons on Blu-ray first sold in 2-D HD of course...for the standard Paramount/CBS Television Trek home video double er...triple dip.

I've titled this thread as 'possible conversion' and this doesn't need to turn into another Leslie Moonves bashing thread. Not the feature films but let's discuss the possibility of any Trek TV series in 3-D.

[AviTrek]

1) I agree with people who think 3D tv is a fad. It may work for movies, but I just don't see people sitting down on a couch at home and putting on glasses to watch TV. Maybe once parallax technology advances to the point of requiring no glasses. But not until then.
2) The cost of doing a live action show in 3D is still too prohibitive. Especially for a show like Star Trek where we've been arguing about how to trim budgets to work with smaller audiences.
3) The first scripted TV shows to go 3D will be CGI. It's just so much cheaper/easier to produce 3D shows in CGI than with traditional actors/cameras. So I expect to see Lucas jump on the bandwagon with Clones Wars or his post-ROTJ CGI series before I see any Trek TV in 3D.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

3D is not viable yet, for one simple reason: There's no standard. Just a bunch of incompatible systems battling it out. Given this, what's the point of getting into it now?

[StarshipDefiant]

You have to have a special TV for it to work> Blah. I can't see it working anyway, 3D trek they'd probably have to yet again, redo the effects for the series and honestly, as impressive as the effects look, some of the ships could have looked better (IMD I&II has proven a Constitution can look amazing properly done), but the cost...oh, the cost. Seriously, the ratings probably wouldn't be worth anything either, the last updating of TOS aired in many, many markets at like 3AM.

Would be cool, but not worth it.

[jefferiestubes8]

StarshipDefiant wrote:

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I can't see it working anyway, 3D trek they'd probably have to yet again, redo the effects for the series

TOS-R is done in HD.
Think TNG [which would require a lot of visual effects to be redone]:

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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If Star Trek TNG Remastered? were to be done there is the possibility that it would be done for 3-D at the time and also CBS Television could then syndicate it in 2-D HD as well as sell the seasons on Blu-ray

If they were telecining from the original camera negative (just like TOS-R) the quality would be top notch and give them as much as possible to work with to create CGI visual effects from scratch for TNG-R in 3-D.

I wonder what type of 3-D work was done on these TOS episodes? Surely the visual effects CGI work done in 2006 were not created in stereoscopic 3-D by CBS Digital at that time...

[Aike]

Can we be sure that they are actually talking about TOS. "Older episodes of Star Trek" could bascially be any of the shows, couldn´t it?

[jefferiestubes8]

Aike wrote:

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Can we be sure that they are actually talking about TOS. "Older episodes of Star Trek" could bascially be any of the shows, couldn´t it?

Aike the Reuters report from the "The Business Behind the Show: Outlook for the Entertainment Industry" panel did not specify.
As far as business it probably would only be worth doing TNG (instead of DS9, VOY, ENT) since they would probably do a TNG-R down the road for HD anyway...

Aike what is your opinion on TOS and TNG separately?

[Hober Mallow]

On the one hand, I really like what they're doing with 3D now. On the other hand, my dad, who's been a Trek fan since the first episode in 1966, wouldn't be able to come on board because he can't see out of one eye, hence no 3D experience for him. A part of me thinks 3D is only going to be viable once it can be seen with your own eyes and not by wearing special gear like goofy looking glasses. How that would be possible, I don't know.

The other problem with 3D is that the camera is still doing a lot of the work for your eyes, which I've noticed kinda confuses my eyes at times in the theater. For instance, while watching Clash of the Titans, I noticed during scenes where the action is quick and things are darting in front of the camera, the camera is automatically focusing on the image I'm supposed to be looking at. If, however, my eye happens to wander to the wrong image, my eyes, thinking I'm looking at the three dimensional surface, try to focus on that blurry object instead. When the action moves too quickly, my eyes aren't sure where to focus, and I end up with a minor headache.

[Temis the Vorta]

A part of me thinks 3D is only going to be viable once it can be seen with your own eyes and not by wearing special gear like goofy looking glasses.

Holosuite.

3D is a mediocre substitute.

I'd like to see them attempt Series VI in 3-D. It's what I'd rather they do.

If they wanted to do a pre-existing series in 3-D, I'm trying to imagine how they would do that. How do you take something that was shot for 2-D and make it 3-D effectively?

[Starbreaker]

You don't. It's all gimmicky crap when it's converted.

[DonnyBaker]

Id be more than happy if they went back to the original negatives or whatever and just did them up in HD with all new Special effects. But dont use the people who did the TOS-R effects. I think my 3rd grade special-ED class could do better than some of that crap. I swear to god they could...

[Training]

HD hasn't even killed of SD. Why fuss over 3-D? It will be atleast a few years off.

[Aike]

jefferiestubes8 wrote:

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Aike the Reuters report from the "The Business Behind the Show: Outlook for the Entertainment Industry" panel did not specify.
As far as business it probably would only be worth doing TNG (instead of DS9, VOY, ENT) since they would probably do a TNG-R down the road for HD anyway...

Aike what is your opinion on TOS and TNG separately?

I like both shows. They´re two of the greatest shows ever made. But I wouldn´t wanna see them in 3D. I don´t think it would improve them one iota.

[Vanyel]

Hober Mallow wrote:

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On the one hand, I really like what they're doing with 3D now. On the other hand, my dad, who's been a Trek fan since the first episode in 1966, wouldn't be able to come on board because he can't see out of one eye, hence no 3D experience for him. A part of me thinks 3D is only going to be viable once it can be seen with your own eyes and not by wearing special gear like goofy looking glasses. How that would be possible, I don't know.

The other problem with 3D is that the camera is still doing a lot of the work for your eyes, which I've noticed kinda confuses my eyes at times in the theater. For instance, while watching Clash of the Titans, I noticed during scenes where the action is quick and things are darting in front of the camera, the camera is automatically focusing on the image I'm supposed to be looking at. If, however, my eye happens to wander to the wrong image, my eyes, thinking I'm looking at the three dimensional surface, try to focus on that blurry object instead. When the action moves too quickly, my eyes aren't sure where to focus, and I end up with a minor headache.

Clash of the Titans was originally filmed in 2D. It was remastered into 3D. I never saw the new version, because I still think Medusa from the original CotT, just can't be beat. Friends who did see it in 3D didn't like it, they gave complaints similar to yours, while those who saw it in 2D thought better of it.