Season ONE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[BillJ]

Picked mine up this morning.

So far I'm up to Lonely Among Us and they all look spectacular.

[trekker670]

Another review for season 1: http://io9.com/5928504/star-trek-the...all-over-again

[BillJ]

trekker670 wrote:

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Another review for season 1: http://io9.com/5928504/star-trek-the...all-over-again

No mention of audio issues there either...

[Pindar]

BillJ wrote:

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No mention of audio issues there either...

Yeah, I don't understand how all the reviews have missed it.

[BillJ]

Pindar wrote:

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Yeah, I don't understand how all the reviews have missed it.

Like I said in the other thread, they probably skipped Farpoint because they'd already seen it on the sampler.

[BillJ]

I think Justice is one of the best pieces of 'social' science-fiction Star Trek ever did.

[tomalak301]

Well, I've been watching a little bit of the blu-ray and I have some thoughts (And please forgive me since I'm not as technical as a lot of people here)

-What I've seen so far looks beautiful. CBS did a great job with this project and I was watching the Documentary on how they do it and man that's a pure definition of "labor of love". Looking for all that film that looks like it's as high (At least stacked in boxes) as a 5 story building looks daunting.

-The aspect ratio (Or if I'm getting it wrong, simply the black on the left and right of the screen) is something I thought they would adjust for on TVs. They did it on the DVD release so I was surprised they didn't do it here. Again, I'm not technical, so I'm sure there is a very good reason for that.

-I watched the first part of Stardate Revisited and man I'm already loving all this new stuff on the series that they never put in the DVDs. That documentary might be worth the 65 bucks I paid already because TNG was a great series and to see it grow from the ground up is really fascinating. I know he isn't the most popular guy around here, but hearing Rick Berman's story of how he got involved was very interesting and I wonder, is he retired? Also all the stuff from Probert and Justman and the rest of the Art Department was great too, like how we got the Enterprise D, or the stuff with the engine in the middle of the ship. One other thing, Gene Roddenberry didn't know California Labor Laws? It's one thing to run a family business but man, that story was great too, especially considering what Rod Roddenberry is doing now. Best to start them young I suppose.

-One glaring thing I noticed was are the opening credits supposed to flash like that? I'm not sure if I can simply explain what I mean, but you have the credits, and when we get to the text portion (EG Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher) the screen for a few seconds fades to black. Is this part of the converting to HD? I know on the SD, the stars are always present so I was just wondering what was going on there. Not a big deal, but like everything else on this set I'm just fascinated.

-I love the fact that the episode previews are part of the set now, as one of my favorite aspects of watching TNG growing up was waiting to see what the next episode was. I would always go to my parents, "Wait, we have to see what the next episode is about" before they changed the channel. Also, you can really see the difference between this HD project, and the original standard def. Still, seeing the "Neeexxxxt Time, on Star Trek: The Next Generation" will never get old. Maybe on the DS9 sets they will include the promos there because those promos were awesome as well, whether it was the blue station design overlapping with the promo in Season 2, or the Text promos we got in Season 6 and 7.

Like I said, this whole thing feels like a Labor of Love and considering when Star Trek was remastered and my qualms with that (Changing the visual effects, not appreciating the time it was filmed, pretty much everything that one episode of South Park criticized George Lucas for) this is quite an achievement.

[BillJ]

tomalak301 wrote:

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-The aspect ratio (Or if I'm getting it wrong, simply the black on the left and right of the screen) is something I thought they would adjust for on TVs. They did it on the DVD release so I was surprised they didn't do it here. Again, I'm not technical, so I'm sure there is a very good reason for that.

Either your TV or disc player is stretching the content to fit the screen on DVD. You can stretch the blu-ray, usually through a setting on your TV, but you'll have to do it manually. But if you do this then the menus won't fit the screen properly.

[tomalak301]

BillJ wrote:

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Either your TV or disc player is stretching the content to fit the screen on DVD. You can stretch the blu-ray, usually through a setting on your TV, but you'll have to do it manually. But if you do this then the menus won't fit the screen properly.

So it's best to leave it be then? I'm just wondering because with everyone having big screen TVs these days, I'm just wondering how distracting it is, or if it's not a big deal.

[BillJ]

tomalak301 wrote:

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So it's best to leave it be then? I'm just wondering because with everyone having big screen TVs these days, I'm just wondering how distracting it is, or if it's not a big deal.

I've been too busy being mesmerized by the pretty pictures in the middle of the screen for the black bars to bother me.

Yeah, I'd leave it be. It's the way it was originally intended to be viewed.

[Sagart]

I've actually started with the documentaries which are wonderful. There's so much stuff I haven't seen in years and some I've never seen before. This is a real gift to TNG fans. Roll on seasons 2-7!!

[milo bloom]

tomalak301 wrote:

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So it's best to leave it be then? I'm just wondering because with everyone having big screen TVs these days, I'm just wondering how distracting it is, or if it's not a big deal.

One of the most important things you can do to help yourself look past the black bars is to make sure the brightness and contrast settings are adjusted on your TV. Right out of the box, all TV's have their brightness cranked to the max; this is in case a store were to pull one out to be a floor model, it would need to look good under the harsh fluorescent lighting. But at home, it's just overkill. There are several DVDs out there that have a THX home calibration feature (I know Fight Club and the original Star Wars DVDs have them). Even if you don't have access to those, at least turn your brightness way, way down, even further than looks good. Watch like that for several days, then start creeping it up until it looks better.

What you're trying to achieve is for the black bars to actually look "black", and not glowing grey. If the frame of your TV is also black, this will go a long way towards helping you learn to ignore the black bars.

[Maxwell Everett]

tomalak301 wrote:

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So it's best to leave it be then? I'm just wondering because with everyone having big screen TVs these days, I'm just wondering how distracting it is, or if it's not a big deal.

The 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (the shape of modern TVs) was designed specifically to accommodate all of the most common aspect ratios from 1.33:1 to 2.40:1. 16:9 (1.78:1) is the geometric mean between those ARs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9

[tomalak301]

milo bloom wrote:

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One of the most important things you can do to help yourself look past the black bars is to make sure the brightness and contrast settings are adjusted on your TV. Right out of the box, all TV's have their brightness cranked to the max; this is in case a store were to pull one out to be a floor model, it would need to look good under the harsh fluorescent lighting. But at home, it's just overkill. There are several DVDs out there that have a THX home calibration feature (I know Fight Club and the original Star Wars DVDs have them). Even if you don't have access to those, at least turn your brightness way, way down, even further than looks good. Watch like that for several days, then start creeping it up until it looks better.

What you're trying to achieve is for the black bars to actually look "black", and not glowing grey. If the frame of your TV is also black, this will go a long way towards helping you learn to ignore the black bars.

Thanks for the advice. I'm actually used to the bars but I was just wondering if it was the case for all of your TVs too and I just was doing something wrong. The black bars have been there since DVDs and studios wanting to keep the theatrical aspect ratio, thereby showing the movies in wide-screen.

[Captrek]

Is the July 24 release date a suggestion that we should be watching TNG 7/24 (or 24/7 for European fans)?