Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Cap.T]

Jefferies wrote:

---

Enterprise on blu ray? Well, I'll be damned. Did not expect that coming out before the completion of TNG Remastered. Crazy thing is I would probably buy it. One, to show my support for Star Trek on blu ray and two to give the show a second chance after it tanked so badly on its original run (I personally hated the show back then). But how will they do it if the CGI is supposed to be in 720p? Thats too low for blu ray.

It worked for Firefly and I believe Battlestar Galactica. Both shows had there FX rendered at 720P.

Edit:
Correction. The Firefly-Effects were done in 480P and upconverted for the Blu-Ray.
Doug Drexler who worked on the effects for TNG, DS9, Firefly, Serenity and Battlestar posted this about FX created in 720P. Very interesing read:

RE: CGI@720 VS 1080
I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the fact that the CGI on BSG is rendered “only” at 720 and upscaled to 1080 for the final. Everyone should understand that render time was the LEAST important factor in this decision.
The fact is, at 1080, the CG just came out WAY too crisp. When intercut with the live action (or even composited), the CG popped off the screen and didn’t match the look and feel of the rest of the show. I’m sure all of you have had the experience of watching computer generated material on a flat panel or other high quality display and noticed just how razor-sharp it can look. It can often appear unaturally crisp.
This was the case with BSG. In tests, footage rendered at 720 and upscaled later naturally took on a slight softness which made it a much better match with the live action footage. THIS was the most important deciding factor in going with 720 (the break in render time, you could say, was a happy side effect).
The over-sharpness of CG is actually something I’m always fighting even in my own projects. It’s one of the things that “gives it away” if you’re trying to make a render look photoreal.
When I was creating images for the “Ships of the Line” Star Trek calendar series, one of the little tricks I came up with was to manually trace the edges of the ships in Photoshop with the blur tool – it made a night and day difference in the overall perception of the ships looking real. In reality, objects in photographs simply do not have those razor-sharp edges, which is what you get “out of the box” with anything in CG. Rendering at 720 and adding a little bit of grain goes a long way towards combating that effect.
If I were to supervise the visual effects for a movie RIGHT NOW, I would probably do something similar and render at a slightly lower res. Nearly every time I’ve either done or witnessed tests of CG, the results are always the same – you can get away with MUCH lower resolution than you think.
When I was working on Serenity, there was a lot of arguing between the Lightwave and Maya artists about texture resolution. The Maya folks, who had worked on a lot of big movies, swore up and down that, for a movie, your texture maps had to be AT LEAST 4k or else the models would look like crap.
The Lightwave artists, who had mostly come from TV projects, said that was bullshit and lower res maps would hold up just fine.
But something had to be done, because 2 gigs of RAM was the maximum our machines could utilize at the time, and the shots were choking on all those hi-res image maps.
So, we all agreed to do a test. We rendered 4 versions of identical shots in which the models had image maps of 4k, 2k, 1k and 512 pixels. Then we went to a theater and screened them all to see what differences we could visually perceive.
My favorite moment was hearing the Maya guys in the back go “wow, I can’t even see the difference between the 4k and 512 versions!”
Yes, the Lightwave folks walked out of that test screening very smug.
We deciced to use 1k maps for everything, and if an object got REALLY close to camera, we’d up it to 2k.
I think we did render everything at 1080, but I’m sure, even for a movie, you could get away with 720 and upres it. No one would know the difference.
In fact, the upcoming Blu-Ray release of FIREFLY is going to be interesting. All the effects on that show were rendered in standard def only! So it’s going to be a mish-mash of 1080 live action and 480 CGI. Will anyone notice? I bet not.

[BillJ]

They need to be careful putting too much Trek out at one time. We're already getting three seasons of TNG in 2013, adding Enterprise to the list isn't a good idea. As big a fan as I am, I'm only going to spend so many dollars on Trek regardless of how much is released.

[LtChange]

From a tweet 18 hours ago:

Mike Sussman ‏@Mike_Sussman Trippin' down memory lane: just wrapped up an interview for the @StarTrek Enterprise season 1 Blu-Ray set coming next year. #itsabouttime

[TheSeeker]

^Nice!

[Dream]

BillJ wrote:

---

They need to be careful putting too much Trek out at one time. We're already getting three seasons of TNG in 2013, adding Enterprise to the list isn't a good idea. As big a fan as I am, I'm only going to spend so many dollars on Trek regardless of how much is released.

I think CBS want to strike while the iron is hot, considering TNG remastered is selling so well and STXII is coming out next summer. ENT is something they could whip up very quickly in HD unlike DS9 or VOY.

[BillJ]

Dream wrote:

---

I think CBS want to strike while the iron is hot, considering TNG remastered is selling so well and STXII is coming out next summer. ENT is something they could whip up very quickly in HD unlike DS9 or VOY.

I know what their thought process is, the same as Paramount's was back in the mid-90's. But with a film, a video game, three seasons of TNG and one of Enterprise, they could quickly find themselves with a bunch of material sitting on shelves because there is simply too much of it. Then Star Trek Into Darkness will likely see a home video release somewhere between October and December.

I actually predicted that Enterprise would be released in between TNG season sets several months ago.

[Dream]

BillJ wrote:

---

I know what their thought process is, the same as Paramount's was back in the mid-90's. But with a film, a video game, three seasons of TNG and one of Enterprise, they could quickly find themselves with a bunch of material sitting on shelves because there is simply too much of it. Then Star Trek Into Darkness will likely see a home video release somewhere between October and December.

I actually predicted that Enterprise would be released in between TNG season sets several months ago.

Keep in mind that all the Trek shows were released on season dvd sets very close to each other. The entire TNG series was released on dvd over one year. The dvds were also actually priced higher than the current Blu-Ray release. I don't think it will be a big deal.

[trekker670]

I think a better approach would be to wait a year between TNG and DS9, which will likely be needed anyhow to tackle the setup time involved with starting the new series and getting the core components in place. During this year they could release Enterprise on Bluray, once per quarter. Enterprise in HD wouldn't gain as much hype, since it wouldn't really require any remastering and they'd just add some additional bonus features. This would prevent over-saturating the market and would give us fans something to look forward to while still giving the market time to build up demand for a fully remastered DS9.

[Dream]

http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/images/S2Trailer12.jpg

Looking forward to seeing that episode in HD!

[M]

Many thanks for the interview, FrontierTrek! And I really appreciate that you actually asked them my question about the score-only tracks. I can't stress what a wonderful feature this is on the Twilight Zone blu-rays. It really let's you appreciate the work of the composer in a way never before imagined. You'll recognize recurring themes more, and you will understand, what kind of music the composer decides to employ for a particular scene. And why in some scenes he thought silence would be best. The artistic thought process behind the composer's decisions become so much clearer!

And even though I'm glad they would consider this feature for a future release, I don't think there are really enough fans demanding it. I wish they would, though.

On another note, am I the only one who found it a little weird that they didn't tackle the whole season one audio screw-up? I mean, one can certainly understand that it is an issue they don't really want to talk about, but considering what a big hoopla it became with the fans, I find it curious that they wouldn't even mention it. FrontierTrek, did you consciously avoid this question or did they ask you to make no mention of it?

[FrontierTrek]

NCC-1701 wrote:

---

And even though I'm glad they would consider this feature for a future release, I don't think there are really enough fans demanding it. I wish they would, though.

On another note, am I the only one who found it a little weird that they didn't tackle the whole season one audio screw-up? I mean, one can certainly understand that it is an issue they don't really want to talk about, but considering what a big hoopla it became with the fans, I find it curious that they wouldn't even mention it. FrontierTrek, did you consciously avoid this question or did they ask you to make no mention of it?

Glad you enjoyed the interview! I too would LOVE the score only tracks - I've received emails from several fans echoing the desire, so I hope that David, Ryan and the team will consider it for future releases, I agree it would be a WONDERFUL feature on the blus.

Regarding the audio... that was a difficult one. I did have it in my original question list, but my time with Ryan & David was limited as they had a color-correction meeting they needed to get to so I just felt that the other questions I asked were more important to the fans (especially as the audio issue was resolved so quickly by CBS, complete with a heartfelt apology)...

[M]

FrontierTrek wrote:

---

Glad you enjoyed the interview! I too would LOVE the score only tracks - I've received emails from several fans echoing the desire, so I hope that David, Ryan and the team will consider it for future releases, I agree it would be a WONDERFUL feature on the blus.

That's really good to hear! Considering how easy you can achieve this feature and what a huge added value it represents, I think they would really miss something if they didn't include it. It's a shame, though, that we likely won't see this feature until the season three release arrives.

FrontierTrek wrote:

---

Regarding the audio... that was a difficult one. I did have it in my original question list, but my time with Ryan & David was limited as they had a color-correction meeting they needed to get to so I just felt that the other questions I asked were more important to the fans (especially as the audio issue was resolved so quickly by CBS, complete with a heartfelt apology)...

I can understand that. They really resolved the issue very good. So there's really no reason to go on about it, I agree. And to be honest, I don't know if I would have asked them if I were the interviewer.

It's just that I'm very curious, from a technical point of view, how those mistakes could have happened. I mean, they're going on about how well the team works and how refined their process of remastering the video and the audio is, so that one gets naturally curious how this screw-up could have happened in this environment.

A lot of people think (understandably so), that anyone who would have actually checked the faulty discs would have noticed the mistakes. So why didn't they. It's not something I hold against them. It's just something I'm very curious about.

[Falcor5]

Dream wrote:

---

Keep in mind that all the Trek shows were released on season dvd sets very close to each other. The entire TNG series was released on dvd over one year. The dvds were also actually priced higher than the current Blu-Ray release. I don't think it will be a big deal.

Thats true but I dont think they have ever released two different shows to the home market at the same time. I think they always waited until one was completely released on DVD to start marketing and releasing the next one. This will be interesting and I think a first for Trek having two different Trek shows being released to the home market at the same time. The shows are so different it will probably be ok. Hopefully its not to much over saturation.

[Jefferies]

Falcor5 wrote:

---

Thats true but I dont think they have ever released two different shows to the home market at the same time. I think they always waited until one was completely released on DVD to start marketing and releasing the next one. This will be interesting and I think a first for Trek having two different Trek shows being released to the home market at the same time. The shows are so different it will probably be ok. Hopefully its not to much over saturation.

I understand your fear of over saturation but I don't think it's so much of an issue for the home video market. Even if it means that people won't have the cash at the ready to buy both shows at the same time they can still save up and buy the other one later. Once its out its out, doesn't mean everyone has to buy it at once. And you might be surprised how much money Star Trek fans are prepared to part with for their favourite show. Heck Enterprise is no where near my favourite in fact I have considered it the worst of them all ever since it first aired. Yet, I will be buying those box sets as soon as they are released. They will serve as a nice bridge while waiting for the remastering of the other shows to progress.

[LOKAI of CHERON]

SoM wrote:

---

Blu-Ray. The international Blu-Ray spec includes 24p, so they don't change it (annoyingly, it doesn't include *25p* or 50i. The latter's basically UK-only, and I don't think there's a 25p spec at all. This leads to some badly smeared standards-converted Blu-Rays of UK material like Doctor Who to make them 24p so they only need one worldwide version...).

OTOH, a DVD release *would* be sped up.

Doctor Who is currently shot at 1920x1080/25 native. UK DW DVD's are therefore not sped up. I have to say, I think UK HD sets have a clear advantage over their "rest of the world" non-PAL counterparts in as much as they support 24/50/60 fps. AFAIK, most sets sold in say, the US, do not support PAL 50.

Personally, I transfer all my TV material (HD and SD) to a media player, currently using the Dune HD Duo, which auto framerate syncs to 24/50/60. The other advantage of this is the fact I have a Star Trek "jukebox" with instant, touch of a button, access to any episode, any series!