Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Jaro Stun]

Dac wrote:

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http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/160435

I quickly pasted in the original shot (or as close as I could get from TrekCore's SD screencaps. It's a few seconds off) literally upscaled (resized) to match the HD version as closely as possible.

Sure, the original has some VHS fuzz on it, but is it me or is there sharper edges/more "realistic" contrast and overall detail (minus the fuzz of course) than the new HD version?

Most of the other shots can be explained away via preference for matching the original, but why it looks this bad is just incomprehensible to me. :S

I do not know wtf they thought when they made this shot! I'm sorry to say that but the Enterprise from DVD version looks BETTER.

Was this due to them not caring, not having time, saving sh..load of money pr WHAT? This is inexcusable...

As we get more and more screenshots, I really don't understand. For this shot, not even the story of them keeping true to original style (Legato/Curry) holds up. In light of this shot (and quite a lot of others) it looks like a story made up on last minute to calm down the crowd.

Given that they made some good VFX as well it looks to me like either:
- rushed job to meet deadlines
- significant cost savings

It is so disappointing. This project started so well. But as they say - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I'm loosing faith in this project with every new VFX cap and it pains me to even think of that the worst season (S1) may be in the end the best looking of all 7.

The issue is, everybody will buy it anyway, so why not to save some bucks on VFX here and there...right CBS / HTV? Right?

[throwback]

A problem I am picking up on, and that doesn't seem confined to that ship, is that the Season 2 team weren't able to faithfully render the color of the ships. The Repulse has an odd color, and the Enterprise has an odd color.

As for that CGI shot, I feel instinctual that the lettering on the hull is off. There is, I feel, something wrong with the first E and the placement of letters. I am sorry I am not clearer.

[Beatnik]

It seems that there's pretty firm agreement now that the exterior shots by HTV in Season 2 don't match up to the quality that CBS-D put out in Season 1 (and I agree). I think it's in their best interest to address this (somehow) in seasons 4 and 6.

That said, episodes are more than exterior shots; they're - what - 10% of an episode, if that?

Everything else about season 2 seems gravy. All of the interior shots look fantastic, as far as I can tell. Color and resolution looks as good as we can ask for. Let's assume no major audio issues. Plus we get the extended Measure of a Man, gag reel, the cast roundtable, etc, etc.

It sucks that the exterior stuff doesn't match up - it really does. But it's still friggin TNG, a show many of us grew up with, in HD!! The stories, dialogue, characters are all still here, which is why we keep watching it, right??

[Jefferies]

Jaro Stun wrote:

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I do not know wtf they thought when they made this shot! I'm sorry to say that but the Enterprise from DVD version looks BETTER.

Was this due to them not caring, not having time, saving sh..load of money pr WHAT? This is inexcusable...

As we get more and more screenshots, I really don't understand. For this shot, not even the story of them keeping true to original style (Legato/Curry) holds up. In light of this shot (and quite a lot of others) it looks like a story made up on last minute to calm down the crowd.

Given that they made some good VFX as well it looks to me like either:
- rushed job to meet deadlines
- significant cost savings

It is so disappointing. This project started so well. But as they say - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I'm loosing faith in this project with every new VFX cap and it pains me to even think of that the worst season (S1) may be in the end the best looking of all 7.

The issue is, everybody will buy it anyway, so why not to save some bucks on VFX here and there...right CBS / HTV? Right?

I agree, it's starting to look like something dodgy is going on here. At first I was not that phased but with the building evidence the current rationalisations are looking less and less credible. Given your suggestion, how likely would it be in this kind of industry that a company would significantly cut the budget of a product that had worked out really well and was returning a good profit (this is what we have been led to believe about TNG Remastered so far)? Why pour 9 million dollars into Season 1, which seemed like a real gamble, only to slash the budget once you have confirmed that the investment is sound?

[Dac]

I think your jumping the gun a bit there Jaro. Yes, we have seen quite a few shots of a particularly poor quality, but there are quite a few shots which also look just fine, albeit not spectacular. Plus, there are far far more shots we haven't seen from this release than have.

Add to the fact that Season 3 is being made by another entity entirely, the same folks who did Season 1 which you seem to love I don't think its fair to say the entire project is going to be sub par.

Yes, it means waiting/spending a lot of money but we can wait and see what Season 3 will look like. If it does/doesn't look any better then we can call judgement on any timing/money issues that may be at play. Then we can see what HTV/someone else does with Season 4 to see if they've learnt from their mistakes/had more time to work on it.

When we see multiple examples of work by the two companies, then I think we can call judgement on the overall remastering project. As it currently stands, we can only say that season 2 has a significant portion of visual effects shots that are of a sub standard quality in comparison with the first season. Casting a shadow over the whole project is, at this point, unfair.

[Dac]

Jefferies wrote:

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Why pour 9 million dollars into Season 1, which seemed like a real gamble, only to slash the budget once you have confirmed that the investment is sound?

Because work on season 2 was started LONG before Season 1 was released. Hell, it was underway when the Sampler was first on sale back in January. They had no idea the set would sell/do as well as it did.

[Dream]

Jefferies wrote:

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Why pour 9 million dollars into Season 1, which seemed like a real gamble, only to slash the budget once you have confirmed that the investment is sound?

They wanted to hook the TNG fans with season one then go cheap with the later seasons?

If they are treating TNG this poorly and S4 and S6 turns out to be this same way too, I shudder to think what they will do with DS9 and VOY.

[MickJo1701]

throwback wrote:

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A problem I am picking up on, and that doesn't seem confined to that ship, is that the Season 2 team weren't able to faithfully render the color of the ships. The Repulse has an odd color, and the Enterprise has an odd color.

In Season 1, the colour pallet of the Enterprise was really brought into fruition, because of the limitations of SD it was lost. The blues and greens on the hull looked excellent.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x...gus_hd_288.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x...001_hd_304.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x...now_hd_002.jpg

Unfortunately in a lot of the shots so far from Season 2 the hull and interior lighting appears to have been completely desaturated.

http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...ew/review8.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...tgomery_hd.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...repulse_hd.jpg

[Kamdan]

It's been confirmed that Phase II test footage will be included in one of the special features. If someone can, please post the screencaps of this footage. I'm itching to see it and it's in HD.

[NewHorizon]

Dream wrote:

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If they are treating TNG this poorly and S4 and S6 turns out to be this same way too, I shudder to think what they will do with DS9 and VOY.

One of the Mods over on Trekcore informed me that Seasons 4 and 6 are not assigned to anyone yet. CBS-Digitals schedule is flexible to some degree. Perhaps the Trekcore Mods could confirm this. It's possible that HTV will not be involved in future Seasons. I hope to God this is true, I don't want them touching a single FX shot for the rest of this restoration. If they want to work on the live action, fine but stay away from the space shots.

[throwback]

Personally, if I was in charge of a project, I would do extensive research on the companies that were available for this kind of work. There are several preliminary steps, one of which is check their web site. How old is their web site? What is the frequency of updates on this site? The company that did the work for Season 2 hasn't updated their web site in two years - this is not a good sign.

I found this while doing a Google search.

This one actually builds off the previous reason. If search engines think your website is outdated, then wouldn’t you think the visitors to your website feel the same? If I came to your website today, then came back next month and nothing has changed, I would probably think that nothing is really happening with your business. You must not be growing. You must not be innovating. You must not be getting any customers. That leads me to start questioning if your product or service is any good? Is there something wrong with you? Think about it this way, seeing even simple changes like posting news and announcements shows a visitor progress and progress is good at getting a prospect to realize why they need to become a customer.

http://www.mpoweringu.com/the-import...-your-website/

[trekker670]

Why don't they outsource the live action shots, which HTV seems to be doing just fine and probably much quicker using their software system and leave the effects to CBS-D. I wouldn't imagine that it would be to difficult to manage given that's how most movies are made, with VFX being handled by an outside company such as ILM.

[davejames]

trekker670 wrote:

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Why don't they outsource the live action shots, which HTV seems to be doing just fine and probably much quicker using their software system and leave the effects to CBS-D. I wouldn't imagine that it would be to difficult to manage given that's how most movies are made, with VFX being handled by an outside company such as ILM.

Yeah I was wondering that too. Although it's possible integrating the two teams work like that would be too difficult, and it's easier to just have each team do their own season.

[BillJ]

Anyone seeing it priced any better than the $79.99 on Amazon?

[NewHorizon]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah I was wondering that too. Although it's possible integrating the two teams work like that would be too difficult, and it's easier to just have each team do their own season.

It really shouldn't be that difficult since that's how it usually happens. It would have made much more sense in terms of keeping things consistent.