The OFFICIAL STNG Next Level Bluray watch and review thread

[jefferiestubes8]

ModusOperandi wrote:

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being frugal is no fun. Maybe when S1 comes out I'll get a 46"~50".

I understand in these economic times most of use have tightened the purse strings. For Trek fans the ability to see TNG in HD this year is really a gift and the cost of the Blu-ray in August for $85.-95. is gonna hurt. Start saving now.

ModusOperandi wrote:

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the reality is that on widescreen TV's, when you sit far away, you want as much picture as possible. Maybe it's cause I only have a 40".

ModusOperandi unless you have a 46" HDTV you are not going to get the full benefit of 1080p resolution if you sit far away in a larger room.

46" inch TV = For 1080p (1920×1080) resolution, you must sit: 6 feet or closer for full benefit

http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter
go ahead and see the link. You can type in the inches of your screen to see how close you must sit. For a 40" HDTV it is 5 ft maximum distance.

Elsewhere it has been said even larger screen size:
http://hdguru.com/lechner-distance-t...ng-an-hdtv/21/

[ModusOperandi]

ModusOperandi unless you have a 46" HDTV you are not going to get the full benefit of 1080p resolution if you sit far away in a larger room.

My living room setup last night was about 6~8 feet, depending on the seat. But there is a different sort of benefit inherent to watching a video image that fills more of my field of vision: it makes the experience more immersive. And since my field of vision (2 human eyes) is closer to 16:9 aspect ratio than 4:3, I prefer to maximize the size of the video in that field of vision.

[davejames]

Yeah widescreen seems so natural now that it's almost hard to believe we put up with that awful and utterly uncinematic 4:3 format for so long.

[Destructor]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah widescreen seems so natural now that it's almost hard to believe we put up with that awful and utterly uncinematic 4:3 format for so long.

It is really bizarre, when watching 4:3 programs (Trek, mainly), how much they manage to fit in, given that they have almost half the real estate to work with! You wonder how they do it half the time.

[Harvey]

I like widescreen photography, but 4:3 is hardly "uncinematic." A plethora of films produced between 1932 and 1952 (when every studio picture was photgraphed in 1.375:1 -- nearly 4:3) would certainly disagree with that assessment.

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, wasn't there some over-rated movie that came out in the 1930s that was in 4x3? Casa Blanket or something like that?

Then there was another one... Something about a member of a community and his walking stick.

[Mark 2000]

Here's something I noticed during yesterday's viewing. Anyone else think the torture beam Zorn was in was upscaled from the original effect? It was fuzzy and not terribly well defined and too close to the original. I didn't mind it at all, but it didn't look like a new effect.

[DostoyevskyClone]

I just came across this "The Inner Light" Accuracy Comparison today and thought it was really interesting (especially the opening shot):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkrjelDCpw

I'll just take this opportunity to throw in my two cents about the font issue: I'm a little surprised that they couldn't match it up a little better. These are all such small issues, but they're inevitably going to be the ones we focus on because they are the only changes being made. It's funny because I think the brighter color of the text looks better, but the font seems a little larger than the original; if anything, I think they should have made it a little smaller. I'm also one of those who thinks the quotation marks could have looked better/closer to the original.

Yeah...big issues we're tackling here, huh?

[Hober Mallow]

DostoyevskyClone wrote:

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I just came across this "The Inner Light" Accuracy Comparison today and thought it was really interesting (especially the opening shot):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkrjelDCpw

So some scenes are just a bit cropped, while in other scenes -- perhaps the majority of scenes -- we're getting even more in the shot. I can live with that. I'd still like an explanation for "SofT," though.

[Bisz]

I saw the BD this weekend and enjoyed it quite a bit. I wasn't really looking forward to any of the episodes on the disk but ended up enjoying all of them quite a bit.

The re-mastering looks truly great and I will certainly be forking over money for the season sets, as I hope will a lot of other people so that we can get the same treatment for DS9.

As a last quick note, I didn't even notice the 18 seconds of non-HD footage in SotF so they did a good job with that up-conversion.

[davejames]

Yeah I can't say I ever that crazy about those episodes before either, but seeing them in HD gave me a whole new appreciation.

I can only imagine how much better the episodes I REALLY like will be.

[Start Wreck]

Bisz wrote:

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As a last quick note, I didn't even notice the 18 seconds of non-HD footage in SotF so they did a good job with that up-conversion.

I found it very noticeable as soon as it came on, but thankfully it was very brief and not overly distracting. It made me appreciate the HD footage even more.

I think they've done a really good job with this. The picture is superbly clear and detailed. It must be a monumental undertaking putting these episodes back together again, particularly the pilot, which is twice as long and features pretty much every type of effect the whole series will come to use: warp shots, close-up models, alien spaceships, phasers, holodeck, planet surface, transporters, viewscreen, practical explosions, bluescreen comps. The tiny bit of CGI (matte?) was not noticable at all (I already knew it was there), nor were the minor reframed shots apparent. It looked exactly as I remembered it, just much (much, MUCH!) clearer and better defined. Fantastic work.

As for the episode itself, I still quite like it, it's easily one of the better episodes in an otherwise iffy first season. It's got a little of everything in it and it's very pacey. I must agree with the observation about that sickbay scene being weirdly-placed. It does seem like it was inserted there out of necessity after the fact. You'll notice when Riker radios in that he's ready to beam over, Picard doesn't even acknowledge, he just leaves the room like he would have anyway, giving away that the voice-over was added to the scene and it probably wasn't in the script. The magic of film-making; I love stuff like that.

Sins of the Father was fine. I didn't actually notice the weird cropping issue when watching it, but nonetheless I hope it's something that's fixed for the boxsets. The clarity was equally excellent here, and all the Klingon make-up holds up well under HD scrutiny. The matte painting cityscape looks very good, but when they go in for the close-ups of the council chamber it does start to look like a painting. It's passable, but only just.
I liked the storyline but it's not one of my favourites.

The Inner Light is an interesting episode and something a bit different. I figure they chose it because it's easier to convert with fewer effects shots and maybe they wanted to test the outdoor photography. Well, it looks really good; the brightly lit outdoors scenes (was it actually filmed outdoors?) show up lots of rich textures in clothes and skin. You can really pick out the details. The aging make-up does show its age (ha!) but all things considered it's a very good effort. One thing we did notice was when Picard looks out over the city from the mountain that a straw hat mysteriously appears in his left hand; in the previous and following shots, it isn't there. Whoops! And the typo in the credits ("telelay") is very apparent and should have been picked up on. More effort required for the final releases, I think.

That said, on the basis of picture and audio clarity, I couldn't ask for any better and I'm looking forward to the full seasons in due course.

[tomswift2002]

Sins and Light seem to have been picked because they won an Emmy and a Hugo respectively. Light was even nominated for an Emmy.

[davejames]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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Sins and Light seem to have been picked because they won an Emmy and a Hugo respectively. Light was even nominated for an Emmy.

Possibly, but I suspect after the huge workload of Farpoint, they simply wanted a couple episodes that would be a bit lighter in effects.

And those two don't really have much effects-wise except for a handful of establishing shots.

[Maxwell Everett]

Start Wreck wrote:

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Well, [The Inner Light] looks really good; the brightly lit outdoors scenes (was it actually filmed outdoors?)

...

One thing we did notice was when Picard looks out over the city from the mountain that a straw hat mysteriously appears in his left hand; in the previous and following shots, it isn't there. Whoops!

Only those two shots (the one of him climbing up the hill and the matte foreground plate) were actually filmed outdoors, in the Bronson Caves area below the Hollywood sign. The rest of the Kataan scenes were filmed on Stage 16, most likely with 6000 K HMI lights.