Season FOUR OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

So you're telling me this: if TNG sells really, really well but based on those figures DS9 won't turn a profit because of cost, they'd still do DS9?

I worked in a corporate environment for a really long time and things simply don't work that way. Unless you get a totally half-assed DS9.

 

The Star Trek remastering project is financially totally dependent on Blu-ray sales at this point, with a bit of iTunes (etc.) money in there.

 

Woefully incorrect. Deep Space Nine is far more dependent on TNG Blu sales than you can imagine.

 

It has to be a bit more than just that since they're selling syndication rights to seasons one and two in England.

Since DS9 shouldn't be too far down the road if they keep with the Next Gen release schedule, shouldn't Mike Okuda be able to tell us if it is "on track" as far as sales go (they have to have a magic number if the promise has been made)? In order to make the statement that it is totally dependent on TNG sales, someone should've already crunched the numbers on what DS9 season one will cost to remaster. Right?

I'm not trying to be a dick and I like Mike Okuda, but I'm pretty sure the decision to greenlight DS9-R is made far above his pay-grade. I buy TNG-R because I like TNG, not because it implies some promise to upgrade the other series and, honestly, I think it's wrong to present it that way.

 

You're right in the sense that all the spinoffs are likely going to have HD masters made regardless, because it is in the best interests of CBS to future proof them and sell them back into syndication like you say.

The real question however -- the one that hinges on how well TNG sells, the one we're all interested in learning the answer to -- is how will the remasters of DS9 and VOY be approached. Like TNG, or like The X-Files? If TNG doesn't sell well on Blu, then the CBS executives are likely to look at those two later series and say, "Just upconvert the VFX and port over the existing VAM. Done."

See, I don't care about syndication, digital distribution or streaming. I want high-quality Blu-ray sets for TNG, DS9 and VOY... with high bitrates, lossless audio and every frame meticulously restored using every original element CBS Digital can get their hands on. The only way that's going to happen is if CBS gets a good return on their investment for TNG on Blu. There's no way they will lavish that kind of money and effort on DS9 and VOY if TNG doesn't sell well.

So, by all means, keep doing what you're doing. Keep buying these TNG discs, because that sends a message to CBS that you will reward them when they go the extra mile.

 

Enterprise's effects footage is not upconverted. It's native HD.

 

I was under the impression that most of Enterprise's visual effects were actually rendered at 480p. No?

 

^ No. It was all made natively in HD from the get-go.

 

What were DS9 and VOY's visual effects rendered at? Was it 480p?

 

They were rendered at 480p. Which is why they look all jagged in 1080p.

 

^ No. ENT's effects were not rendered at 480p. It was native HD. I think it was 720p. You may be thinking of the director's cut of TMP, whose new effects were done at 480p (but can be re-rendered).

As for DS9 and Voyager, those shows did it just like TNG did: the effects were done on film, but transferred to videotape for editing, which automatically knocked the resolution down to 480i.

 

http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/03/review-star-trek-enterprise-season-1-blu-ray/

From the review:

 

^ Oh. Okay then.

So is the show HD or not?

 

Live-action is. Anything with special effects or blue-screen can run anywhere from 480p to 1080p.

 

Amen brother (or is it "Yeah brother, yeah...")...

For the consumer, the formula has to be simple: On a product-by-product basis, in your eyes if it's good (examples to me are S1 & S3), support it with your dollars. If it's crap (to me, S2), you're sending the wrong message if you support it in spite of its entirely avoidable flaws. Forget about syndication, etc. as part of this analysis -- just the BDs. For myself, I'm buying TNG-R (sans S2) as long as the quality's good, but not to get DS9-R. If DS9-R's good, I'll buy that. I most likely will not buy VOY-R or ENT-not-R. These are simply my choices.

If you're a fan of X-Files (and I'm personally not; I just never took to it) you need to be out there now and make it clear to Fox that you will not buy an upscaled release. When the clearly subpar TNG-R S2 screencaps were released, it was too late to fix the initial release, but the message to CBS should be the same at all points in the process: I will not support any substandard BD release with my dollars. Place the burden of quality control on them. To CBS's credit, they seem to have learned from the S2 debacle by removing HTV and modifying their production processes. Of course in practice (particularly in Trekdom) consumers for whatever reason buy whatever the studios release regardless of the quality, only too happy to double-dip years (or sometimes months) down the road. Of course the studios know and bank on this.

If I'm CBS, I'm thinking seriously about releasing VOY-R (arguably the less popular series) before DS9-R so I can coax nondiscriminating consumers into buying a show they don't even like on the promise that it will lead to a DS9-R release.

As consumers we have to distinguish between those with a financial interest in current and future Trek-R projects (e.g. the Okudas) and those providing a thoughtful, objective analysis of the situation (e.g. Maxwell Everett). I'm sure the Okudas are swell people too, but by definition they're shills for these projects, providing little if any technical guidance (and if they are they have some serious 'splaining to do for S2) and basically using their past association with the shows to rubber stamp and hype these releases and cash a check. I personally tune it out and let the products speak for themselves. I do enjoy their commentaries (both audio and text) as they have a wealth of Trek knowledge to impart; I'm significantly less impressed with the modified "Okudagrams" that replace original TNG staff names with TNG-R people though.

The product planners at CBS are going to analyze each of these projects on their own merits in terms of whether potential revenues justify the costs of remastering vs. upscaling, new VAM vs. ported VAM. They already did just that with ENT, determining that the existing HD broadcast masters were good enough for a series with arguably limited sales potential (compared with TNG-R anyway) but new VAM might goose sales a bit -- a worthy strategy. Buying TNG-R on BD tells CBS nothing about how, say, VOY-R will sell on BD (if BD is even still relevant by that time). I agree with BillJ that ENT is probably a closer model to follow for a VOY-R release. I love DS9, but the reality is that TNG was a much more popular, iconic series and that has probably played the largest role in its stellar HD treatment. If we want a truly remastered DS9-R, CBS has to know now (through analysis and consumer feedback) that the cost in lost sales resulting from an upscaled release will be greater than the cost to do a proper remaster, perhaps with new, high-quality VAM.

 

^^ Leading on from what you are saying Joe, I have to say I would not spend a penny on a partially upconverted blu ray release for either DS9 or Voyager.

I took my chances with Enterprise, even though I'm not a great fan of the show. However, the constant switching between resolutions is very distracting to the degree that it's unwatchable for me. They need to do a proper remastering or I will stick to the DVDs as they are at least consistant.

 

What did they do with Trials and Tribble-ations on the TOS BD set? Was it a straight upscale job, because that looked awful IMO.....

Even though Firefly on BD included upscaled VFX, I would imagine that DS9 probably had a greater usage of VFX per episode.

If that's the way they ultimately went with DS9 then I'd probably wait and see what the results were before committing to buy. If they go down the route of TNG then I'm all over it on day one.

 

Yeah I believe Trials and Tribble-ations was just upscaled. There are 2 things in DS9's favour over Firefly and Enterprise, it wasn't cancelled and CGI wasn't used heavily until the last couple of seasons.

 

To be honest, when I watched Firefly on BD I was surprised at how little VFX they actually used. It wasn't anywhere near as much as I remembered/expected.

 

I just saw on Trekcore's youtube trailer for Season 4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR5T2mlCts), that a couple weeks ago, trekcore made a comment on their video saying that Season 4 is being done by Modern Videofilm, but Season 6 is being done by CBS-D? I hadn't heard anything about this. So CBS are doing Seasons 5, 6 and 7?

I'll be really happy if so, since CBS are doing such a great job (and Season 6 is my favourite season :P), even if it means the gap between seasons might be a bit longer.