Something there doesn't make sense though. The idea that TNG-R's first 25 episodes alone cost more than $9.6 million, but all 176 episodes of DS9-R will cost only roughly twice that? That can't possibly be right. DS9-R's estimated $20 million cost divided by 176 is roughly $115,000 per episode. Using that as an extreme upper limit for a typical TNG episode, Season One of TNG must have cost a great deal less than $3 million. Hmm, I'm not so sure that follows. Only truly spectacular Blu-ray sales might have led to that, but that was never in the cards. In any case, I suspect we're only going to get the other two shows if CBS can convince Amazon, Hulu, or Netflix to buy new licensing rights to some or all of their respective seasons as was done with TNG-R (its Amazon and HULU deals). CBS makes far more on these licensing deals than they ever could selling Blu-ray sets to a niche group of fans. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode. As another example, earlier this year HULU paid CBS about $120 million for 300+ episodes of CSI, which works out to mid-six figures for each episode. If Seinfeld can command nearly $1 million per episode and CSI nearly half a million, then surely TNG is somewhere around half of that, so $200,000 - $250,000. I would expect DS9 would yet again be half of that, or $100,000 - $125,000. But maybe CBS hasn't yet been able to get the streaming companies on board at that price point. That's just a guess on my part, but it sounds plausible. One thing's for sure, if people suddenly started watching a lot of DS9 or VOY on these services, those companies would be much more likely to fork over the cash to get them in HD, because they know their subscribers prefer HD.
100% agreed. Berman (and this was reported more or less at the time, so been known for some time) was told - in response to his concerns about Voyager's timing - that the execs completely understood his concerns, but if he wasn't prepared to create/produce it, they'd find somebody else. Feeling a genuine need to protect Roddenberry's "vision", Berman signed up for Voyager, and later Enterprise.
That 20 million figure is news to me where did it come from? Seems cheap given the amount of new CGI vfx required.
We don't know how much new CGI vfx will be required, if any. Trekcore reported that some of the former employees who worked on DS9 kept the CGI project files...and the models were overbuilt with HD in mind. It's quite possible that very little would actually need to be recreated from scratch.
Yeah I know that. But even if the scene files exist, all the models and textures still exist in their original form etc, it will still be pricey to re-render all those shots in HD. No point pretending otherwise.
Still cheaper than recreating every scene from scratch though and if the former employee is correct then the models and textures may very well stand up to the HD update with perhaps only some minor tweaking...relatively speaking. You've likely seen this already, but if this is the result of re-rendering and compositing the original elements in HD, then I think it would look great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJs0-hhOZFQ Same scene, but someone synced it with audio from the original episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lymh5p6UbbU
While re-rendering space battles and complete effects shots will take a fair bit of money, it is relatively simple to do. The real expense will be in the composite shots where live action marries with digital/modelwork. That's an order of magnitude harder and more expensive. I can't imagine how much all the Odo effects will cost.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hold out some hope that DS9-HD will happen, it is just looking incredibly unlikely.
If they had bothered to release TNG in a complete set (in the United States) I would have bought it... I have met a few people who said the same... So it bugs me when they try to blame fans for not buying it.
It should bug everyone, they have basically said "buy it on release day at full price, everyone of you now, or we won't be doing any more". If the model was that fragile to be fair, we were lucky to get all of TNG!
So you would have bought it if it had been far cheaper. I doubt you would've bought it if the complete set was set on the base MSRP of the season sets ($909.93) or even the sale prices ($419.93). The decision to do DS9 wasn't going to be made based on TNG sets that were bought at severely reduced prices. CBS is likely making little to no profit on the complete sets.
The whole series is available on Blu-ray for $265.95 with free prime shipping at Amazon.com. Is that cheap enough for you and the few people you've met? http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Generation-Complete-Episodes/dp/B00NQXC2YU
$38 a season (I paid roughly $60 on average). Seems like it's 'put up or shut up time' for some folks.
Probably Amazon asked them to, I suspect they have basically 100% (OK, 90% with Zavvi et al) of the UK box set market these days.
Who cares? It's for sale in the States through Amazon.com, it's a complete set, it's playable in all regions, and it's at a reasonable price. You must have ordered one by now.