Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Trekker4747]

3D conversion from 2D sources barely looks good in the best of times with the best of techniques and to pull it off you've got to spend a lot of money and a lot of time to do it properly and correctly. Otherwise you're basically making it look like you're playing with Colorforms on the screen.

A lot of money and time is certainly being spent on this project but even with that mistakes and such have already occurred. I doubt they'll spend the massive extra effort to convert an episode into 3D. I'm guessing "Head of 3D" has something to do with computer modeling, which requires making a model in 3D even if it's for a 2D project.

[Captain Fine]

I enjoyed the snippet of the interview we got so far and look forward to the rest

Maybe Technicolor has those 2 seconds of footage in a vault somewhere...or not lol

[Tosk]

MikeS wrote:

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So what was the big surprise?

I noticed a "Niel Wray – head of 3D" listed. Am I going to be seeing the Borg in 3D?!

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in this case 3D simply means that Neil Wray is in charge of the department that deals in "true" CGI (ie: The Crystalline Entity) as opposed to 2D effects like matte paintings, phaser shots and the like.

Edit: Whoops, apologies to Trekker4747, who already said the same thing.

[FrontierTrek]

Sho wrote:

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...Deciding on the right size to slice things into is a balance thing, and to me this was on the too short side.

...

That said, I'm sorry for the pay the bills part; I frankly just blindly assumed you were ad-supported (which I don't see due to Adblock - and yes, TrekToday is an exception in my Adblock rules) because it's the usual reason you see pagination this extreme. I definitely should have checked, so boo me.

I guess I should have framed things a little better instead of getting to the criticism part so quickly, too, so here it is again: I really enjoyed your interview, I'm grateful you talked to CBS Digital for us, I'm looking forward to the upcoming installments, and for that matter, I also think your site rocks pretty hard. I'm really sorry if I dampened your mood over what should be a happy occasion, I really didn't mean to. I was just communicating the - relatively minor - negative aspect I had in my user experience as a suggestion for improvement, in the spirit of one developer to another. It's a habit as much as anything.

- The CBS-D interview is sliced into exactly the same sizes as the Okuda interview from a few months back.

- TrekCore is entirely non-profit and has NO revenue. We remain ad-free and are entirely dependent on donations to pay our bills.

Sho, I know you are normally very appreciative and engaging with our content, but your comments really pissed me off. I understand in this day and age everyone wants information instantly, however you really have to appreciate just how limited my time is to put it out there.

Captain Fine wrote:

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I enjoyed the snippet of the interview we got so far and look forward to the rest

Maybe Technicolor has those 2 seconds of footage in a vault somewhere...or not lol

I thought this was a very exciting revelation from Sarah and Wendy. There was a lot of concern early on that there would be large chunks of upscaled footage each season (especially after the 13 seconds from SoTF), however it now seems that it was an exceptional circumstance which led to the 2 seconds being lost from S1.

Tosk wrote:

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Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in this case 3D simply means that Neil Wray is in charge of the department that deals in "true" CGI (ie: The Crystalline Entity) as opposed to 2D effects like matte paintings, phaser shots and the like.

Edit: Whoops, apologies to Trekker4747, who already said the same thing.

Niel Wray is head of 3D, he gave us the beautiful Crystalline Entity from "Datalore" and is working on other CGI creations where the original CG files have been long lost.

BillJ wrote:

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That and the fact that there was little there we didn't already know...

There is a LOT we know already thanks to the fantastic documentary on Season 1.

However, "little that we didn't already know" is plain wrong! Lots of information is new... questions about film condition, where the film is going after it's been scanned, the fact that CBS went back to the Paramount Archive for the movies footage (that was a big bone of contention early on, with many fans thinking the stuff had to be recreated) and the nice bit of history about the 2 seconds from Season 1.

TheSeeker wrote:

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I don't think the surprise has been revealed yet.

Lots of great information to come, for sure

[sadsquid]

Thanks FrontierTrek! Enjoyed Part 1 of the interview and looking forward to the rest. Can't wait to find out what this special addition to Season 2 blu-ray is going to be

[Dac]

Hey guys, Part 2 is now up: http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/cbsdi...nterview2.html

[TheSeeker]

Thanks for posting that. Some good questions and answers in that part.

[Captain Fine]

Really cool interview!

[M]

Thanks for the interview! Indeed, some very interesting facts in this one. I didn't know a phaser beam consisted of so many elements. Also, that Dan Curry shot his FX work with 30 fps. Why exactly did he do that? I have to admit, though, that I snickered when I read about their process of removing boom mics, tripods and such, when there's still some of that in the remastered episodes.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the other parts of the interview.

Oh, and what exactly is R&D?

[BillJ]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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Oh, and what exactly is R&D?

Research and development.

[M]

BillJ wrote:

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Research and development.

Ah, okay, thanks. I guess it's a common term in the states, eh? Hadn't heard of that abbreviation until this interview.

[TheSeeker]

^Really? It's pretty common in Canada too. What part of the world do you live in?

[BillJ]

TheSeeker wrote:

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^Really? It's pretty common in Canada too. What part of the world do you live in?

Either in or near Germany, I believe.

[Maxwell Everett]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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Also, that Dan Curry shot his FX work with 30 fps. Why exactly did he do that?

To avoid 2:3 pulldown on NTSC video. This is actually a question I submitted to XXXX and he graciously included it (thanks XXXX!).

When film is shot at 24 frames per second it has to be converted to be shown at 30 (29.97) frames per second on broadcast television in the United States and other countries that use 60Hz frequency. You can read more about that process here. Dan Curry decided that in order to make everything simpler for him and his team back in the eighties and nineties that they would just shoot the miniatures at 30fps and no pulldown would be necessary in the video realm.

Now, 25 years later, CBS Digital and Illuminate Hollywood* have to speed up all those shots Dan Curry supervised because if they didn't they'd play 20% slower at 24fps and all the shots would run longer than they're supposed to.

So, as you can see, Rob Legato was actually quite forward thinking in his decision to stick to classic 24fps.

* As is mentioned in the TrekCore article, Dan Curry is actually now working with Illuminate Hollywood on the Season Two VFX.

[M]

BillJ wrote:

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Either in or near Germany, I believe.

I'm writing from Bielefeld, yes. And even though I'm familiar with the concept of research and development, I simply hadn't come across the abbreviation.

Also, Maxwell, thanks for the explanation. Makes a lot of sense.