Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Minuet]

MickJo1701 wrote:

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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

I'm not trying to be contrary to anyone for the sake of being contrary, but those three screencaps from season two that you quoted look pretty nice. Actually, the majority of the screencaps from TrekCore's review look really stunning, perhaps not up to the high bar of the first season, but they still look marvelous. I mean, how can one say otherwise?

Between this and TrekCore's review, I am eagerly looking forward to this Blu-ray. I mean, I'm this close to selling my right kidney to finance the purchase of the (eventual) entire set of Blu-rays. I'm not particularly worried. I understand that many of you are disappointed; I would only suggest that you hold off on too much speculation until you see the actual product personally.

I'm not one to tell anyone else how they should enjoy any particular product, especially when it comes to Star Trek, since people can get very particular about the show when it comes to certain technical details. And I'm the same way. I just find it a little funny that anyone can say that the DVDs look in any way better than the Blu-rays. I mean, come on, of course it's going to look better, it's high-definition. Just wait. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.

If TrekCore says that it looks fine, even if it looks slightly less "fine" than the first season, then that's good enough for me. I think we can relax a little, do some yoga, and be excited that we're getting some remastering done at all. I mean, did you see that new Borg matte painting? Lovely.

[Salinga]

This looks upscaled to me!?



Full frame: http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...w/review20.jpg

[edit] lol, I think this avatar sums the HTV treatment of TNG pretty well...

[Dac]

Minuet wrote:

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I'm not trying to be contrary to anyone for the sake of being contrary, but those three screencaps from season two that you quoted look pretty nice.

He's talking about the colour of the windows in each season. In the first, we have blues and yellows reflecting a multitude of rooms and styles. In season 2, they're all white.

And Salinga, WTF.

[davejames]

Yeah, the ship does look more solidly gray in the S2 shots. It's not a big issue for me though, and I can live with it.

In fact the closeups of the ship I really have no problem with. It's just the more distant shots that look a bit more... questionable.

[davejames]

BillJ wrote:

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

Unfortunately not. We're only a week away, and it doesn't seem to be going any lower.

I'm starting to think $59 was just an introductory price to whet our appetites and get us hooked on buying these.


Edit: Actually a quick google search does show it for $71.99 at FamilyVideo (whatever that is), so I guess there's still hope...

[Bad Atom]

I talked to my friend that's a digital compositor and she said what everyone else here seems to agree on. CBS-D went above and beyond to restore/enhance the image, and HTV is doing the bare minimum and not giving it that extra polish. She agreed that it's probably a cost issue, they went cheap and now we have the results. As for HTV redoing the same stock shots that CBS had already done, she said they probably didn't secure the rights to CBS-D's work and have to redo the shots themselves, as insane as that may be.

It'll be interesting to hear the behind-the-scenes stories about the remastering process once it's all said and done, that's for sure...

[trekker670]

davejames wrote:

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Unfortunately not. We're only a week away, and it doesn't seem to be going any lower.

I'm starting to think $59 was just an introductory price to whet our appetites and get us hooked on buying these.


Edit: Actually a quick google search does show it for $71.99 at FamilyVideo (whatever that is), so I guess there's still hope...

Family video is a video rental franchise (one of the few left).

Also, if you order by tonight, they have a $5 promo code (CYBERMON) that you can use as well.

QUICK! Report it to Amazon!

[Maxwell Everett]

Salinga wrote:

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This looks upscaled to me!?



Full frame: http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...w/review20.jpg

To be fair, Wesley isn't the focus of this shot, the Salia effect is, so he's probably just slightly out of focus... and the shot is probably DNR'd in order to prepare it for the effect. Also, the frame shows slightly more image all around than the video telecine from 1989. In addition, the aspect ratio is the same slightly wider 1.35:1 as all the rest of the live-action footage for Season 2.

[Scotty]

Maxwell Everett wrote:

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To be fair, Wesley isn't the focus of this shot, the Salia effect is, so he's probably just slightly out of focus... and the shot is probably DNR'd in order to prepare it for the effect. Also, the frame shows slightly more image all around than the video telecine from 1989. In addition, the aspect ratio is the same slightly wider 1.35:1 as all the rest of the live-action footage for Season 2.

Most of the effects shots seem to be missing grain. While CBS D added grain to SFX, HTV I DNR-ed the live action footage instead. That's a shame. These shots will stand out like a sore thumb.

[jimbotron]

In both the original and remastered versions of this shot, the rear of the warp nacelle appears to be cropped at the bottom.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...4/okona145.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...ew/review8.jpg

I don't see what could be legitimately obscuring the nacelle. At the very least, there should be blue glow, and then the underside of the nacelle. I guess it was an error that HTV never caught.

In the remaster, with the exception of the deflector and engines, the Enterprise's hull almost appears gray-scale with no apparent greens as someone else already pointed out. Compare how washed out the yellow on the saucer is. Because of the lighting, the rough edges of the saucer also seem to show through, making it look more like the model it is. It looks like it's in need of some touch-up paint.

Even at a smaller resolution, the smaller ship closest to the frame appears more realistic. I hope in motion, the models don't appear so flat.

[senten]

Very enjoyable review. Is it just me, or does this look upscaled? Maybe not upscaled from SD, but definitely not as sharp as the show looks.

http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/image...reunion_hd.jpg

[Maxwell Everett]

The hits (and by that I mean misses, unfortunately) keep on coming.

Notice that in the below screencap from "Up the Long Ladder" (recently uploaded by TrekCore to their Facebook page) all the light elements are misaligned to the left (windows, nacelles, bussards, deflector):



Full Res Here:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...69606073_o.jpg

FrontierTrek, hopefully you can tell us if this shot, which is a mirror inverted re-use of the one in "The Schizoid Man" is also affected similarly in that episode.

The problem is, again, that this is an ILM shot (the Enterprise element) that CBS Digital had already correctly composited for Season One. It's now looking like they should have given all of their Enterprise assets to HTV pre-comped to make them impossible to screw up.

Seriously, I'm getting a bit tired of shaking my head at the amateur compositing in some of these shots. I suggested it months ago, but they really need to utilize us as a benevolent resource before they do the final encode and not wait for us to spot these simple and easily correctable errors in the week leading up to release and become unwilling antagonists!

CBS, you're dealing with Star Trek fans, remember? We want this to look and be awesome.

[LOKAI of CHERON]

Well, I've significantly lowered my expectations reference this release - in what's probably a forlorn and futile attempt to limit my disappointment.

[senten]

In fairness the live action stuff looks great from the shots.

The scene at the start of Elementary, Dear Data when Geordi walks onto the holodeck to Sherlock Holmes' room, he's looking closely at everything, amazed, and exclaims "Look at the detail!!".

I think I'll be the same watching it on Bluray.

[NewHorizon]

Minuet wrote:

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I'm not trying to be contrary to anyone for the sake of being contrary, but those three screencaps from season two that you quoted look pretty nice. Actually, the majority of the screencaps from TrekCore's review look really stunning, perhaps not up to the high bar of the first season, but they still look marvelous. I mean, how can one say otherwise?

Not trying to be contrary but yet asking how anyone can say anything contrary to the shots looking marvelous?

It's like this, the majority of the work we've seen from Season 2 has been pretty slapped together looking. The same stock footage used in Season 1 that looked absolutely stunning, suddenly looks only a tad better than it did in SD. Seriously. Season 2 VFX have, for whatever reason, been drained of the amazing color correction of Season 1. The restored footage has been blurred for some mind boggling reason.

How HTV, under the supervision of some of the original production crew, could take many of the same shots and make them look far worse than CBS-Digital did...and in some cases worse than the original compositions(technically speaking here...loss of shadow, contrast, detail, etc), is beyond me.

If Season 1 had looked like Season 2, we would have probably assumed that was the best they could do with the old footage but CBS-Digital showed us just how amazing the footage could really look. HTV did the bare minimum and it really shows.

It will never happen but I hope at the end of this project that CBS-D recalls Season 2 and re-releases it from their own studio.