Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Salinga]

If I would be CBS, and I would really want to get a high quality product out, I would just pretty much postbone the release and let them finish the compositing. Its just plain wrong what they did there with S2. If they dont fix it now, they will never fix it (or lets just say: We have to wait for the 4k scans in 10 years. ;-)

[Harvey]

NewHorizon wrote:

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The movies could benefit from recompositing too, especially The Motion Picture. Imagine that scene where the Big E orbits earth as the sun rises without matte lines. Gorgeous.

"Imagine" is the key word here. CBS is investing in TNG because they want to be able to continue selling it to television, which requires it to be in HD. Paramount (which owns the features) has no interest in re-compositing the effects in the movies; they are already being sold to television in HD.

It would be nice, but it's not going to happen.

[davejames]

TheSeeker wrote:

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Not to steel FrontierTrek's thunder, but here are some more screencaps from S2.

I don't care what people say. I think those shots look really damn good.

Yeah the ship is lit a bit different than in S1, but it still looks about a GAZILLION times better than the DVD version. And that's good enough for me.

[NewHorizon]

davejames wrote:

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I don't care what people say. I think those shots look really damn good.

Yeah the ship is lit a bit different than in S1, but it still looks about a GAZILLION times better than the DVD version. And that's good enough for me.

Considering they edited the show on video tape, anything is going to look better than the old DVD's. That's not really saying much for the work presented here.

Had Season 1 been this quality and we never knew it was possible for the original footage to look so outstanding, I would agree with you but Season 1 looked light years better than this.

It's more than just the ship looking a 'little' different. In the shots they're showing, the layers don't even appear to blend with each other half the time. Starfields look uprezzed, planets are blurry and pixelated looking. Lighting is flat. It's a mess. The new composits don't even look as good as the old standard def ones, in technical terms.

CBS expects us to pay for that? NO way. I'll buy Seasons 3,5,and 7 but I'm not spending one single dime on anything HTV-Illuminate touches, unless their quality suddenly takes a massive increase on seasons 4 and 6.

[Tosk]

Oh well, I'll be buying. I'm not blind to what people are complaining about, but it all still looks great to me. For my money, "better than the DVDs" (especially when it's this much better) is more than enough reason to purchase.

[trekker670]

In the comments of the article people are pointing out some pretty bad mistakes in compositing:

These 3 shots use the EXACT same starfield, despite being different perspectives:
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...ntfires_hd.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...hocube1_hd.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...tfires2_hd.jpg


The enterprise was "squashed" in this shot:
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...sdrema4_hd.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...tgomery_hd.jpg


I'm going to keep my preorder, but I too am pretty disappointed in the composition of this set...

[BillJ]

Tosk wrote:

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Oh well, I'll be buying. I'm not blind to what people are complaining about, but it all still looks great to me. For my money, "better than the DVDs" (especially when it's this much better) is more than enough reason to purchase.

I just think its disappointing compared to the season one work. Feels like they're trying to crank it out as fast as possible just to rake in money without regards to consistency of the work.

CBS needs to slow down, Trekkies will be there, money in hand, whenever they release these. That's probably part of the problem.

[NewHorizon]

[QUOTE=BillJ;7257769]

Tosk wrote:

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CBS needs to slow down, Trekkies will be there, money in hand, whenever they release these. That's probably part of the problem.

CBS didn't do the work on Season 2, it was HTV-Illuminate and from what was said during the CBS interviews on Trekcore, CBS-Digital and HTV-Illuminate worked completely separate from each other, nobody from CBS worked with them to assure the quality matched Season 1. Unacceptable.

[BillJ]

NewHorizon wrote:

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CBS didn't do the work on Season 2, it was HTV-Illuminate and from what was said during the CBS interviews on Trekcore, CBS-Digital and HTV-Illuminate worked completely separate from each other, nobody from CBS worked with them to assure the quality matched Season 1. Unacceptable.

What I'm saying is that CBS is rushing them out the door. Necessitating more than one company working on the remastering.

[Tosk]

trekker670 wrote:

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The enterprise was "squashed" in this shot:
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...sdrema4_hd.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...tgomery_hd.jpg

Hmm. They both look okay to me. They also match the dimensions in the old SD versions of each shot.

BillJ wrote:

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I just think its disappointing compared to the season one work.

That's fair. I'm not trying to convince anyone else to buy the season, I just know I will.

[BillJ]

Tosk wrote:

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That's fair. I'm not trying to convince anyone else to buy the season, I just know I will.

I plan on buying it. Sometimes things don't look the same in motion as they do in still photos. But if it ends up being a much poorer product than season one, it'll shake my faith in the project and make me much more apprehensive when deciding whether or not to buy future seasons.

[davejames]

NewHorizon wrote:

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CBS didn't do the work on Season 2, it was HTV-Illuminate and from what was said during the CBS interviews on Trekcore, CBS-Digital and HTV-Illuminate worked completely separate from each other, nobody from CBS worked with them to assure the quality matched Season 1. Unacceptable.

Pretty sure the Okudas were said to be overseeing both teams. And, again, they've got one of the senior FX guys who actually worked on the show.

Just as with any two FX teams, there's going to be a slight difference in quality. But to suggest that the work here is just miles apart from the quality of S1 is just silly. I know we Trek fans are as nitpicky as they come, but let's get some perspective here.

[mswood]

Ok two key points and they are kind of connected.

First episode to episode the effects work of TNG looked dramatically different. This was due to the different style used by Rob Legato and Dan Curry.

I could always tells who had been in charge of that episode by the first new ship shot.

So the fact that there isn't a standard look between all episodes doesn't surprise me because that never was the artist work done between the two different effects producers.

Legato's work was always crispier, with a much richer color spectrum, including blacks.

Curry always had flatter color ranges, almost no solid blacks (a lot of gray) and was much softer focused.

You can check out numerous episodes to see the huge difference this made.

This work, really ,really looks like it was produced by Dan Curry. I mean its just screams it to me.

So my question is how much influence did Dan have on this f/x team. He was the consulting for this other company, and I originally joked about how I feared the material would look different.

Now I am really curious if this is the f/x companies work, or if its due to Curry being the person who is telling them what the shots should look like.

If anyone gets the chance to ask about it, I would really like to know as I really think this is Curry's influence. It just looks style wise way to similar to his work, for it to be a coincidence.

[mswood]

davejames wrote:

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Pretty sure the Okudas were said to be overseeing both teams. And, again, they've got one of the senior FX guys who actually worked on the show.

Just as with any two FX teams, there's going to be a slight difference in quality. But to suggest that the work here is just miles apart from the quality of S1 is just silly. I know we Trek fans are as nitpicky as they come, but let's get some perspective here.

I think that is the problem (or if you like the difference).

With TNG you could easily notice the change episode to episode between the alternating team of LEgato and Curry. But with Curry being the consultant for the full season, you aren't seeing a change from one episode to another, but a full seasons change.

And to me when they aired it was a glaring change in style (and in my opinion because I like the richer/sharper style of Legato), and quality.

The only real issue that bothers me here is that that softer, flatter lightening style is now going to be on episodes that Legato had done. It will seem fine for the episodes that Curry had originally overseen.

[Salinga]

mswood wrote:

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The only real issue that bothers me here is that that softer, flatter lightening style is now going to be on episodes that Legato had done. It will seem fine for the episodes that Curry had originally overseen.

So, what you are saying is: Curry uses his chance now to override Legato's decisions?