Isn't Netflix the more popular streaming site? I know it's the one I use most often. I'm not sure of the actual statistics.
I started my streaming experience on Netflix, which is actually how I first watched the entirety of DS9. I fell in love with the series, and with no blus available I purchased the series on DVD (I guess I'm also one of those "nobody, ever" people). These days, I'm more of an Amazon guy. I find the quality is better for me. There also seem to be (or at least at the time that I "switched" to amazon) more shows available in HD. Plus, I get free 2-day shipping on everything I purchase through amazon - which is pretty much anything I can think of. There are other benefits I haven't explored yet as well. Amazon > Netflix in my book. You should at least check it out and compare for yourself since there's a free trial period available. In case this is helpful, I've also had better luck with my streaming speed through Roku than through my Sony bluray player. Haven't tried Apple TV.
Why should I continue to pay Amazon for streaming an episode at a time when I know I'm going to be watching DS9 over and over for years? And what if Amazon raises their prices or discontinues their contract with CBS/future Trek rights owner?
That's one of the things about streaming services, they all try and get exclusives which they think will attract subscribers. So you could find yourself having to subscribe to multiple providers to get the older shows you want to watch. In the case of DVD/BR if they are available you can just buy them. Of course there is a higher initial outlay than a subscribition over a period of months. As well as other shows available over a subscribition service which you might want to watch. There is room for both physical and streaming.
I leave a lot of TV shows viewing to on air or subscription based streaming. When I have the option of watching however many shows I like on a $7.99 per month deal, I don't feel the need to buy the physical sets. I leave that to the shows I genuinely love enough to want to have all those bonus features. At least, that's how I look at it.
Sooner or later, CBS will be forced into doing a fresh master for no other reason than if they do not, then the show will be lost to them, because the original source masters will degrade past recovery. It almost happened to Star Wars, for example. It happens to 100s of films every year because there is so little concern put into recovering them. I find it hard to believe that CBS would just let an entire Trek series essentially "rot away". http://www.loc.gov/programs/nationa...nt-state-of-american-film-preservation-study/ And before someone brings up existing digital media, consider that even they have "shelf lives", either in the storage media or in the encoding. http://www.dpconline.org/events/previous-events/306-digital-longevity
TNG film elements sat in a salt mine for twenty-five years and looked as good as the day they buried it. Paramount may actually know how to take care of their assets.
^They can slow it, but not stop it. Ironically, Enterprise may be the show most at risk of being lost, because it was shot digitally to begin with. Remember, we can't get a HD version of TMP Director's cut because the model files are lost and the existing digital extension shots were only rendered 720 and can't be upscaled.
The difference was that the negatives for popular films like Star Wars was being worn out due to its use to make copies over and over throughout the years (while at the same time the film stock used had its flaws). This is why many of the most popular films like the early Bond films, Jaws, ect had to be restored at a certain point because throughout all the years of using them as the basis for copies, they collected dirt, got worn, scratched, ect. DS9 is likely in a better condition than the negatives for those films ever were at any capacity because the only time they served a purpose was to capture the image on set and then make video copies out of them. After that, they were shipped and stored somewhere never to be used again. This is why the TNG negatives were in incredible condition because they never had to go through the kind of wear and tear films and older TV shows did. TOS on the other hand had the negative already cut, so those were the basis for copies as much as TNG's master videos were. At some point though they will have to restore DS9 not because of the possibility of film stock deteriorating (that comes much later), but because the master tapes will at some point become unusable.
IIRC, Enterprise (the fourth season) was actually shot and mastered on high definition digital tape, much like the two Star Wars prequels were. They'll definitely have to preserve the master tapes though, but the situation is different from TMP because a high definition master already exists, whereas TMP never had one at any point.
As long as the master tapes exist, they will always be able to copy them. I can't imagine they haven't taken care of them over the years. But then, there are probably numerous physical copies of the masters as well. Then there are probably digital copies stored in various locations in case one site fails. I agree with Squiggy, they can pump out 480i copies of DS9 and Voyager for as long as people/distributors want to buy them.
Were the VFX for DS9 stored as separate elements; or once they were comped onto the tape master the originals were lost/destroyed? Some of the things such as odo's morphing and stock ship footage and wormhole effects could be done fairly easily - create the 3d models, and render out a library of stock shots and try to match them up to existing footage best you can.
Citing Star Wars is a bad example here. Star Wars, and a number of films from the 70's have required special attention from film historians because of the specific film stock used creating negatives of films from the era. Star Wars used Eastman Color Negative II 100T 5247 which was a common negative from the 70's. By the late 80's/early 90's film preservationists discovered elements from these films were degrading unnaturally fast. For example, the original negatives from TOS were in far better shape than the original Star Wars, as were a number of Hollywood films from films as far back as the 30's... the reason... the Eastman Color Negative II stock. A number of 70's era films have required careful restoration. This certainly would not be the case with DS9 which used a similar film stock to TNG.
Hopefully like TNG a lot was stored. It gets a lot more complicated with the CG - some still survives, some doesn't. It wasn't kept by the studio but some of the artists have come out and got some of it. One of them did a very pretty HD render of a Nebula class based on files he still has.
In a counter example, I recall one FX artist talking about the files he knows are on a certain HD that he has that are 100% worthless to anyone because they were made for a proprietary software format a particular studio once used that is now gone. Digital is even more vulnerable than film media to obsolescence. The point is that sooner or later CBS will have to upgrade the master to maintain the viability of the property for distribution.
Why? not enough people want it. Trek fans just aren't enough reason to spend that many millions of dollars. All they need is the master tape and they can update it to whatever format they need and keep reproducing it on demand.