Rumor: TNG-HD is a-coming

[Dac]

Whats happening September 28th?

[AviTrek]

24th anniversary of the TNG premiere/start of TNG 25th year.

[Jeyl]

Bonzo the Fifth wrote:

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To be perfectly honest, though, I would even have been happy without any restored FX, if we could have just gotten the live action material digitally restored to the level of TOS-R, that would have been enough for me to shell out for the set

You're forgetting one important detail Bonzo. The live action segments of the show can also contain special effect elements. Everything from phaser fire, explosions, energy beams, holodeck transitions, even computer terminals all had to go through the standard definition video editing process in order to incorporate those effects. The only footage that would be in high definition would be the shots that have no special effects of any kind. Can you imagine how choppy and distracting the show would look if in one shot the scene is in high definition with no visuals, and the next shot is in standard definition simply because a phaser blast shot right passed the characters?

You might as well present every Q episode in standard definition if you're going to have leave his teleporting trick intact, because they usually occur after a long segment of dialogue.

[RAMA]

Dac wrote:

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Whats happening September 28th?

It premiered the week of September 28, 1987 to 27 million viewers[1] with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". With 178 episodes spread over seven seasons, it ran longer than any other Star Trek series, ending with the two-hour finale "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Tr...ext_Generation

[Destructor]

Jeyl wrote:

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You're forgetting one important detail Bonzo. The live action segments of the show can also contain special effect elements. Everything from phaser fire, explosions, energy beams, holodeck transitions, even computer terminals all had to go through the standard definition video editing process in order to incorporate those effects. The only footage that would be in high definition would be the shots that have no special effects of any kind. Can you imagine how choppy and distracting the show would look if in one shot the scene is in high definition with no visuals, and the next shot is in standard definition simply because a phaser blast shot right passed the characters?

You might as well present every Q episode in standard definition if you're going to have leave his teleporting trick intact, because they usually occur after a long segment of dialogue.

Bizarrely enough, I was watching 'Friends' the other day and this very thing occured! They've clearly remastered the original footage for HD/widescreen, but not been able to redo the special effects. So when Pheobe visited Ursula (her twin, played by the same actor via split screen), every time they were both in shot the image quality plummeted severely, partially because of the jump to SD, but also because they ZOOMED IN on the footage in order to make it widescreen! Unbelievably distracting. And this is a show with money to burn, you'd think they'd have been able to recomposite the footage!

[RAMA]

God has it really been 25 years?

RAMA

[Angel4576]

They should announce on the 24th anniverary with the intention of airing from the 25th.

[Flake]

Destructor wrote:

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Bizarrely enough, I was watching 'Friends' the other day and this very thing occured! They've clearly remastered the original footage for HD/widescreen, but not been able to redo the special effects. So when Pheobe visited Ursula (her twin, played by the same actor via split screen), every time they were both in shot the image quality plummeted severely, partially because of the jump to SD, but also because they ZOOMED IN on the footage in order to make it widescreen! Unbelievably distracting. And this is a show with money to burn, you'd think they'd have been able to recomposite the footage!

I have a feeling (of dread) that Paramount will try some form of upscale on TNG and the result will be the biggest pile of crap in the history of HD. I just don't see them spending huge amounts of money on it, I bet its 3x TOS-R.

[JarodRussell]

Flake wrote:

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I have a feeling (of dread) that Paramount will try some form of upscale on TNG and the result will be the biggest pile of crap in the history of HD. I just don't see them spending huge amounts of money on it, I bet its 3x TOS-R.

At least that way everyone will be unhappy with it and we're all united again.

[Angel4576]

The upscaled DS9 episode on the TOS BDs was absolutely awful, worse than the SD version of the episode. Hope they've learn't via that that upscales are off the table.

[Jefferies]

In my opinion that makes little sense. They could not market upscaling as HD content successfully. In fact that would border on fraud. No one would want to buy it or watch it as it would be no improvement over SD. If they want to continue to generate income from the old shows they will have to remaster them all eventually or let them fade into obscurity. And that would be a great mistake as many people, not just Trekkies by the way, still love watching these shows.

[TheSeeker]

JarodRussell wrote:

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I think it would be a lot cheaper for them to restore the stock shots on film (how many are there? A under the saucer flyby, a wide shot from above, a 3/4 shot used for every orbit, a warp pass by played at different speeds, and a couple of others, not that many actually) and add the background stuff, which is mostly planets, nebulas or suns, digitally. If they go TOS-R an do new shots for everything, that would be more expensive, wouldn't it. And the CG model really would never look as good as the original model. The TOS-R Enterprise looks like c-c-c-c-c-crap.

I'd actually love to see remastered footage of the 6-footer, but I also wouldn't be averse to seeing CGI when it is appropriate. For instance, maybe we'll finally get to see just how much bigger the Romulan Warbird is compared to the Enterprise.

[Dac]

I gotta say, I got this sick feeling that this is all going to end up being upscaled footage as opposed to scanned negatives.

Or it could be that pizza playing tricks with my stomach.....

[Harvey]

An up-scaled release on Blu-Ray? That would be a P.R. disaster for CBS. It won't happen.

[TheSeeker]

Dac wrote:

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I gotta say, I got this sick feeling that this is all going to end up being upscaled footage as opposed to scanned negatives.

Or it could be that pizza playing tricks with my stomach.....

I'd go with the latter. I don't think the guys in charge are stupid enough to try and get away with something like that. You'd have to be Stevie Wonder not to notice the difference.