Why would they have any influence with current CBS administration? The work they did ended more than 15 years ago.
I can see Moore and Echevarria commenting since they were indirectly involved with the TNG-R sets. Behr though, I don't even know if he's still in the industry or not.
If you're referring to the 2.35:1 widescreen footage that was intended to be panned and scanned to 1.33:1 -- when Troi enters the bridge and crosses in front of the viewscreen -- that's not SD, it's HD. These shots where this technique was used will always look a bit less sharp than the rest due to the use of anamorphic lenses and the added artificial motion blur to try and make it look like a real camera move. You can read more here: http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/04/tngs-visual-effects-you-asked-for-widescreen/
I wish that CBS could somehow take a "kickstarter-esque" approach to DS9. You pre-sell the Blu-rays to people for x dollars, and get people to sign up. If the amount you raise covers the cost of doing it, you go ahead with it. If it doesn't you scrap it. Boom. Done deal. No more crying, there'd be definitive proof that it is not cost-effective.
People in general are just now starting to trust crowdfunding; it'll be a good decade or more before the corporations are anywhere close to even considering the idea, most likely.
I'd just like to point out that there are two DS9 novels and a DS9 eBook out this year. Good sales for DS9 merchandise would be an indicator for CBS.
That is indeed the scene I was referring to. I am familiar with the technique, I just didn't realize the loss of quality when going to HD would be so extreme.
I've been reading the relaunch (on Unity right now) and those books have been great. Yeah there were a few slip ups (Mission Gamma: This Grey Spirit is one) but for the most part, I'm glad the books continued the series.
The problem is, they expect to make money just from Blu Ray sales, the future streaming revenues are just gravy, nobody invests in a business hoping they will eventually make money at some point, I suspect even John Carter will break even EVENTUALLY. With TNG, a much more popular show that was cheaper to remaster, if posted figures are to be believed, they are still millions in the red at this point. So whatever way you tried to justify the cost, you can't, unless everyone on kickstarter wants to pay $150 per season to cover the costs!
Given the disappointing sales for the TNG Blu rays the only way a DS9 or Voyager upgrade will take place is if a third party like Netflix were willing to fund or significantly invest in it. There's a lot of blame to go around as to why TNG wasn't the success they had hoped. I put a lot of it down to timing, I think if they had done the TNG upgrade a few years earlier, it might have sold better given that the market now has shifted towards digital media.
Just looking at Blu-ray profits maybe. However, selling the HD licensing rights to HULU for only the first two seasons of TNG-R a couple years ago would have put CBS in the black. As an example, HULU just made a deal with Sony to stream Seinfeld for $700,000-$900,000 an episode. That's roughly $138 million! Figure (at least) $100,000-$200,000 an episode of TNG-R (x 48) and CBS almost certainly made their investment back, not even taking Blu-ray sales into account. They never would have attempted the project in the first place if they hadn't pre-sold it.
Interesting point. All the figures posted however indicate the remaster of season one alone cost more than 9.6 million, our "inside" posters have rubbished the idea they did the whole show for 8-12 million. The reality is, unfortunately as I would love to see DS9 remastered like TNG and would buy each set on release date just like I did with TNG, if it had paid for itself before it started, then we would be getting the other two shows on Blu! As it is, all information suggests that shirts were lost, that there is no chance of the remaster paying off in the near future and that we will not get DS9 HD. Shows like Friends and Seinfeld have an order of magnitude more popularity than Trek, while we might be more rabid fans, we can't pay that gap.
And it wasn't just hindsight, either. Rick Berman was on the record at the time as having advised the Paramount executives about this (I believe the exact quote was something like how he told them they "should be wary of going to the well one time too many" with Star Trek, in case it hurt the overall franchise). It must have been some cold comfort to have seen his predictions become reality by the time Enterprise rolled around, but it wasn't his job to stop Star Trek from being made. As a studio employee, he was under orders to put them into production by people higher up the chain. He registered his concerns at the time, but ultimately he was ignored. It was 100% Paramount's call. This is one of those areas where I definitely think Berman has been unfairly maligned over the years.