Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[davejames]

Agreed. I like the inclusion of the purple nebulas, and the shot still has a bit of that soft magical look to it.

[Trekker4747]

dg1379 wrote:

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I like that scene too! It really lets you know its the start of a new season.

Agreed, it's just grand and epic makes it really feel like it's a new season. Fuck Rick Berman and his "sonic wallpaper" demands later on. TNG had some great, great music in its first 3-4 seasons.

I do wish they had taken this opportunity to fix an "annoying glitch" with what we see out the shuttlebay door, where should see SOME of the exterior of the ship based on the placement of the door on the model. But, meh, whatever. It's still a great overall shot.

[Tosk]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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I do wish they had taken this opportunity to fix an "annoying glitch" with what we see out the shuttlebay door, where should see SOME of the exterior of the ship based on the placement of the door on the model.

As much as it bugs me, I can understand why they didn't want to do it...one: it's not the way it was before. And two: they'd have to correct every open shuttlebay shot in the entire run to be consistent.

[Jaro Stun]

Salinga wrote:

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"Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 "The Child" Opening Shot SD to Remastered Comparison"

TBH this one looks quite good in HD.

[Scotty]

Just finished watching the first disc. Some more thoughts:

• Surprisingly, the audio mix of the opening credits is better in The Child than in any of the episodes following it. In The Child you can hear a distinct left right seperation in the back channels as the Enterprise wooshed past the screen. This is gone in the following episodes. A shame.
• Elementary, Dear Data looks fabulous in HD. This show is of course light on visual effects, but there are some interesting ones. The arch appearing and disappearing looks a tad soft though, however when Moriarty starts playing with the holodeck grid and it starts appearing over London the HD visuals looks superb. The live action stuff is fantastic and the set and costum design really benefit from the HD upgrade. A very impressive remasteirng job here.
• The Outrageous Okona doesn't fare that well when it comes to the visuals. The ship details are fine, but the Enterprise looks very bright. The effects in this episode were unremarkable to begin with, as seen in the SD version, and this kind of carries over to the HD version. As a rule, you could say if the original effect was a disappointment, the HD effect will be as well. By the way, I really loath this episode. No redeeming quality whatsoever.
• Loud As A Whisper is in my opinion one of the most underrated episodes of TNG. I absolutely love this episode. An interesting story, great guest star and some truely outstanding performances. It looks great in HD. The two-footer looks just fine as does the planet. Yes it is soft, but when you really look at it you can see all kinds of detail on the surface of it. I really like it. The matte painting of the planet surface holds up very well as do the shots of Riva's chorus getting vaporized (though they are a tad soft).
• In all the episodes I''ve seen the live action sequences are razor sharp with lots of visible detail and a pleasing layer of grain. A visual effect almost always announces itself because the picture will become much softer and the grain is great reduced. This is one of the most disappointing aspects of the remastering in season 2. A slight disappointment though because I still very much enjoy this HD upgrade.

On to disc 2. I think in the coming hours many more people will be getting or receiving this set and I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

[Kamdan]

It's been confirmed that Phase II test footage will be included in one of the special features. If someone can, please post the screencaps of this footage. I'm itching to see it and it's in HD.

[TheSeeker]

My pre-order shipped from Best Buy a few days ago at a price of $79.99 but on their website it is on sale for $64.99. I called customer support and they changed the price for me right away so if anyone else is in a similar situation I would urge you to give them a call.

[Dream]

Looks like S2 is already selling very well on Amazon.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129 in Movies & TV
#33 in Movies & TV > Blu-ray

Currently says "Usually ships within 9 to 12 days"!

[Scotty]

Just watched a couple of episodes on disc 2. My thoughts:

• The Schizoid Man. Ooh boy.... This episode has some very beautiful shots, but also some very problematic shots that will be talked about at length when more people have had a chance to see this episode. First of all, there is this shot:
  
  
  
  The weird thing about this shot is that as the Enterprise flies of to the right, the saucer is clearly cut off. But as it leaves the screen, the gap closes as if the Enterprise element is panning to the right also. The whole shot is aligned correctly as the ship leaves the screen. Very weird and clearly a mistake on the part of post-production company HTV.
• There are also two equally problematic and ugly shots. One is at the start of chapter 4 as the Enterprise flies past Gravesworld. Gravesworld as a whole is rendered beautifully and looks way better than the SD version. But in this shot Gravesworld can be seen in the background as a close-up and it just looks upconverted to me. On closer inspection I could see it isn’t, but the CGI model is lacking in detail so that it comes across as flat and ugly. The second shot IMO is upconverted and it is a scene later on in the episode where Troi performs a psychotronic stabilitytest on Data/Graves. In a close-up shot on Data’s laptop we see all kinds of images from previous episodes, movies and other random images for which the remastering team probably couldn’t find the original elements (although it does contain scenes that have been remastered for season 1). It looks very soft, with dull and washed out colours and I really think that because of the potential difficulty of remastering all those tiny shots, they instead decided on upconverting the SD shot. It a short scene, but it stands out.
• Unnatural Selection fares way better. I think this episode looked very good and faithful to the original effects. The matte painting of researchstation Darwin looks far brighter than in the original episode and much more detail is visible. My only gripe was with the destruction of the Lantree. The explosion looked jittery to me.

Curious to learn what your thoughts will be.

[Trekker4747]

I will say that shot is horrendous. Forget the "cut off saucer" on the right, what the fuck is going on with the deflector dish? That's just amateurish work that never should have passed muster.

[Flake]

Reason the deflector and indeed the rest of the ship looks weird is because it is the very low detail 2ft model that was absolutely never intended for 1080p resolution !

[davejames]

Flake wrote:

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Reason the deflector and indeed the rest of the ship looks weird is because it is the very low detail 2ft model that was absolutely never intended for 1080p resolution !

Yeah in SD you could often mistake it for the 6-footer if you didn't look too hard (such as in Q Who?). But now, in HD, it's painfully obvious that it's a different model.

The odd thing is, 2 feet is still a pretty decent size for a model (larger than the old ERTL model kit, in fact). It's kind of strange they couldn't get more detail or better lighting into it.

[NewHorizon]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah in SD you could often mistake it for the 6-footer if you didn't look too hard (such as in Q Who?). But now, in HD, it's painfully obvious that it's a different model.

The odd thing is, 2 feet is still a pretty decent size for a model (larger than the old ERTL model kit, in fact). It's kind of strange they couldn't get more detail or better lighting into it.

CBS did a decent job getting the 2 footer looking better.

[Mott the barber]

BillJ wrote:

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So you and CBS can sleep well tonight knowing I have paid for my Star Trek blu-rays...



And season two will be added to the mix tomorrow. Do I need to post pictures tomorrow to prove I didn't download it? Do you and CBS need to see receipts prove I didn't shoplift them?

I'm I too much of a nutty fan to guess that that ep. on in the background is "Coming of Age"? Is that Remmick holding the PADD?

[jimbotron]

Scotty wrote:

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• The Outrageous Okona ... No redeeming quality whatsoever.

Incorrect. It has young Teri Hatcher in it. That, to me, is its only redeeming quality. Same is true for Ashley Judd in The Game.