I dunno. There's a difference between asking them to watch 2-3 hours of subpar Trek, and watch 44 hours of subpar Trek.
DS9 on blu ray?
- Thread starter borgboy
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At last Burnett finally realises something of relevance. It's taken him a while, bless him, but at least he got there in the end.
I dunno. There's a difference between asking them to watch 2-3 hours of subpar Trek, and watch 44 hours of subpar Trek.
I don't consider all 44 hours of it subpar.
Besides, they survived S3 of TOS, and even bad TNG will at least (usually) feel less dated.
I'd be happy with a cheapo rescan the live acion, upscale the CG approach. Redoing Odo wouldn't be that expensive.
They're going to have to do SOMETHING to ready it for rebroadcast in the future, so they'd be foolish not to bang out a version on Bluray for the limited audience.
It might even sell quite well if it's priced cheaply too. I'd pay £70 for a complete box on Bluray, which is twice what I paid for the complete nuGalactica set. I'll pick up TNG when it gets reduced to that level too.
They're going to have to do SOMETHING to ready it for rebroadcast in the future, so they'd be foolish not to bang out a version on Bluray for the limited audience.
It might even sell quite well if it's priced cheaply too. I'd pay £70 for a complete box on Bluray, which is twice what I paid for the complete nuGalactica set. I'll pick up TNG when it gets reduced to that level too.
Interesting Cap.T. 
These two stood out for me:
"Physical media will no longer be a factor" pretty much confirms something I've been saying in this thread... I honestly think optical discs are now more and more becoming a 'specialist product', and it's unfortunate for the TNG-R project (and even moreso DS9 and VOY) that it had the misfortune to be released over the last three years, when take-up of options other than physical media discs has been growing exponentially.
Sales to the fanbase alone can never be enough to support a project like this, but even among the fanbase (and I think this is another point Burnett has been trying to get at), there's been a shift towards making use of media that aren't optical discs. Simply because it's more cost effective/convenient/shiny and new.
These two stood out for me:"Physical media will no longer be a factor" pretty much confirms something I've been saying in this thread... I honestly think optical discs are now more and more becoming a 'specialist product', and it's unfortunate for the TNG-R project (and even moreso DS9 and VOY) that it had the misfortune to be released over the last three years, when take-up of options other than physical media discs has been growing exponentially.
Sales to the fanbase alone can never be enough to support a project like this, but even among the fanbase (and I think this is another point Burnett has been trying to get at), there's been a shift towards making use of media that aren't optical discs. Simply because it's more cost effective/convenient/shiny and new.
Admiral Bear said:
I can't see anything "shiny and new" in endless, soulless file lists on a harddrive.
I've heard it several times in the last two years and finally opened my eyes now.
It just doesn't make sense anymore to collect DVDs or BDs.
In a few years there won't even be new players of good quality available for these.
I'll have to look for another hobby then as well, as i'm not willing to pay for download content, i just can't enjoy it the same way as having discs on the shelf.
Otherwise i wouldn't have bought the TNG BDs and would have downloaded the HD episodes for free by illegal torrent.
Once they stop doing physical media, the times i payed for TV shows and movies are definetly over. Their decision.
I've heard it several times in the last two years and finally opened my eyes now.
It just doesn't make sense anymore to collect DVDs or BDs.
In a few years there won't even be new players of good quality available for these.
I'll have to look for another hobby then as well, as i'm not willing to pay for download content, i just can't enjoy it the same way as having discs on the shelf.
Otherwise i wouldn't have bought the TNG BDs and would have downloaded the HD episodes for free by illegal torrent.
Once they stop doing physical media, the times i payed for TV shows and movies are definetly over. Their decision.
That right there's whatcha call "a waste."
Not necessarily. If CBS won't spend, let's say a ballpark $30m on making DS9 viewable for the next 50 years, they clearly don't care if the show survives at all in any format. Eventually the original film stock will degrade or be lost, while the DVDs, which are borderline unwatchable now on many larger TVs, will be technologically obsolete. Bit like having your favourite old music album on cassette and trying to find a tape player.
That's not how you access digital content anymore, this isn't 1998.
Why do people keep asuming this show will be broadcasted in the future? I mean, there are plenty of shows from the 80s and 90s that aren't on tv anymore. Just because this is something dear to us, doesn't automatically mean it's dear the rest of the world.
We are, unfortunatly, a minority. And I'm not talking about Niners. I'm talking about hardcore Trekfans that really really care enough. The average viewer, when coming across DS9/VOY on tv in SD and not finding it good enough to view, won't cause a fit and go on a campagne to get remastered. They'll just go 'meh' and zap to the next channel/stream a different show.
Honestly people, it's time to get to terms with it........
We are, unfortunatly, a minority. And I'm not talking about Niners. I'm talking about hardcore Trekfans that really really care enough. The average viewer, when coming across DS9/VOY on tv in SD and not finding it good enough to view, won't cause a fit and go on a campagne to get remastered. They'll just go 'meh' and zap to the next channel/stream a different show.
Honestly people, it's time to get to terms with it........
No offense, but I'd say we're all pretty spoiled as entertainment consumers if we consider upscaled dvd-quality video "borderline unwatchable". One of my all-time favorite TV eps, Early Edition's "Luck of the Irish", isn't available on dvd, to stream, or to download; all there is is a mediocre youtube upload with tolerable colors and detail, but jerky motion.
DS9 will always exist in at least dvd format quality, and that's more than can be expected of a lot of shows. Sucks for the fans, but it's better than nothing.
There is definitely a grain of truth in this.Mage said:
CBS is caught between a rock and a hard place. If they assumed they could sell directly to the fan-base via physical media, then they appear to have completely missed that boat. But unless they think they can make an impact selling on streaming services, then the reality is that very few channels moving forward are likely to want to buy the re-run rights to the last few Star Trek shows. The only way to make them attractive for broadcast is to sink the money into doing a TNG-R style rebuild, but CBS is never going to do that without assurances of a reasonable return of investment....
I think a lot of it depends on how TNG-R is perceived to do in the digital media enviroment. If it does well, then DS9 or VOY may follow. That's something I'm reading between the lines in Burnett's tweets. But in any case, the chances of a full set of blu ray season releases happening is virtually a dead horse at this late stage.
Well, people's tolerances will vary. Personally, I'd say that shows that I have a huge soft spot for I'll usually cut way more slack
I don't have a hard time watching DS9 on DVD, but I can see how people would have difficulty with the level of image quality, especially if they don't have a strong attachment to the source material.
Good point.
I certainly don't expect them to think 'We've got something of great cultural value here, we must preserve it', or 'The fans deserve this for their support'. They could just decide it's not worth it and pull the plug.
It seems to me, however, that Trek for whatever reason, is likely to remain a revenue generator in the future, even if it's only as endless reruns in the middle of the night. The question therefore becomes not 'should it be upgraded ?', it's 'can it be upgraded cheaply enough ?'.
As tech improves, it all gets cheaper to do - the questions are 'if/when will it become cost effective ?' and 'will physical media still exist by that point ?'.
Given how CBS and Paramount have, through both the TV series and film franchise, historically always been able to get away with screwing the fans via double dip, special editions, new extras if you buy the new set blah blah blah, it must've come as a massive shock to CBS that TNG on Blu-ray has tanked.
A massive shock to CBS, however not much of one to everyone else.
Does anyone know what the original DVD season sales were like back in the 00s when they first came out?
There must also be people that simply didn't know about the BD remasters. I know my dad didn't and he's pretty into Trek. I only found out by accident online and whilst I've seen the promos of how the remastering was done and the improvements, etc., I never saw a TV advert for it. If you only advertise a product that is mostly appealing to an older generation online, you're doing it wrong.
DS9 is so highly compressed on DVD, and has so many visible artifacts because of it, that upscaling only exaggerates the problems rather than reduces them. So at the very least new discs should be authored that eliminate the heavy compression.
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A problem was that after a certain point the advertising stopped. For example, the cinema screenings ended, allegedly because CBS wouldn't pony up the cash to pay extra risiduals to the directors. I also remember there being big full page adverts in major genre magazines for Season One, but nothing similar for (say) Season Five. Is it any wonder then that TNG-Rs sales figures were better in the beginning than they were with later seasons? It's not enough to assume people are going to stay with you all the way through with all seven seasons, you have to keep promoting the product, otherwise consumers aren't going to know it's even out there. CBS stopped doing that after about the third season. Or else, they simply moved to getting them via online streaming, severely damaging the BD product.
If they wouldn't spend money advertising the things, then it comes as no surprise that nobody bought them either.
Non-compressed versions of DS9 would be nice, but if sales of physical media are on-the-nose, then in years to come we might count ourselves lucky that we even got TNG out before the market collapsed...
At this point (and not having already stumped up for the DVD's) I'd just be grateful for a version of DS9 (and to a lesser extent Voyager) on Bluray with whatever improvements can be made.
A really good transfer of it 'as is' with no compression issues would do. Hi Def scanning of the filmed elements and tweaked/upscaled effects would be preferable.
If it's not done soon it'll never happen. Discs will be obsolete...
A really good transfer of it 'as is' with no compression issues would do. Hi Def scanning of the filmed elements and tweaked/upscaled effects would be preferable.
If it's not done soon it'll never happen. Discs will be obsolete...
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