Blu ray
- Thread starter starbuck
- Start date
Yes.
I don't watch these series very often, but when I do view them on a contemporary HD TV, they look absolutely horrendous.
Unfortunately, blu ray releases don't seem feasible, because Paramount probably would not get much return on such an investment. It would require a lot of work to get all of VOY and DS9 cleaned up and remastered in high-definition. And, all these years later, the spin-offs don't have much popular appeal outside of the existing fanbase.
Kor
I don't watch these series very often, but when I do view them on a contemporary HD TV, they look absolutely horrendous.
Unfortunately, blu ray releases don't seem feasible, because Paramount probably would not get much return on such an investment. It would require a lot of work to get all of VOY and DS9 cleaned up and remastered in high-definition. And, all these years later, the spin-offs don't have much popular appeal outside of the existing fanbase.
Kor
Paramount saw very little return on the TNG remastering project, despite it being the second most popular series in sales and veiwing figures.
DS9 and Voyager would cost nearly double the amount to remaster for a guaranteed lower return, which would represent a substantial loss for the company.
They are not going to spend what would likely be $30-40 million in remastering and physical media production only to see barely a third of that in sales. No studio would.
Even upscaling the existing masters of the series and physically producing the blurays would cost too much. So a partial upscale and Netflix release is the best that the fans can hope for.
As with time, yes remastering may cost less, and streaming media rather than physical will mean no production cost, but the demand will be much lower.
TOS, TNG and Enterprise are the only series that will see 1080 rendering, and I would not hold your breath for any 4K releases.
DS9 and Voyager would cost nearly double the amount to remaster for a guaranteed lower return, which would represent a substantial loss for the company.
They are not going to spend what would likely be $30-40 million in remastering and physical media production only to see barely a third of that in sales. No studio would.
Even upscaling the existing masters of the series and physically producing the blurays would cost too much. So a partial upscale and Netflix release is the best that the fans can hope for.
As with time, yes remastering may cost less, and streaming media rather than physical will mean no production cost, but the demand will be much lower.
TOS, TNG and Enterprise are the only series that will see 1080 rendering, and I would not hold your breath for any 4K releases.
Why?
There's already a very well established thread on this -
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=231961&page=139
I think there's something in the Voyager threads too.
It boils down to :
1. TNG didn't make its costs back. Lack of sales were due to :
Lack of interest.
The sets were way overpriced.
Physical media is on the way out.
2. DS9 and Voyager Blurays are unlikely because :
They are even less popular - the potential sales are even less.
Their effect shots weren't done on film - they can't be scanned and recomposited. The CG would have to be completely redone in HD and a lot of the digital models have been lost. Also, even the filmed live action shots with Odo CGI morphing would require redoing.
It would be even more expensive than TNG.
3. There is a small chance (denied by many) that a very basic HD version may be produced for sale to TV stations wishing to use them as reruns. This would be a pro standard upscale of the uncompressed low generation original copues. There may be a little digital tweaking, sharpening and colour adjustment.
If so, there is a chance they will press some up for domestic sales, but the consensus that this is unlikely and would be rather poor quality anyway.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=231961&page=139
I think there's something in the Voyager threads too.
It boils down to :
1. TNG didn't make its costs back. Lack of sales were due to :
Lack of interest.
The sets were way overpriced.
Physical media is on the way out.
2. DS9 and Voyager Blurays are unlikely because :
They are even less popular - the potential sales are even less.
Their effect shots weren't done on film - they can't be scanned and recomposited. The CG would have to be completely redone in HD and a lot of the digital models have been lost. Also, even the filmed live action shots with Odo CGI morphing would require redoing.
It would be even more expensive than TNG.
3. There is a small chance (denied by many) that a very basic HD version may be produced for sale to TV stations wishing to use them as reruns. This would be a pro standard upscale of the uncompressed low generation original copues. There may be a little digital tweaking, sharpening and colour adjustment.
If so, there is a chance they will press some up for domestic sales, but the consensus that this is unlikely and would be rather poor quality anyway.
Not that it really makes much difference, VOY likely would be the more expensive of the two as early DSN used models it wasn't until the later seasons that it became CGI heavy.
Eventually TNG wll earn a profit through a combination of BR sales and TV/streaming rights. But should they go ahead with DSN/VOY remaster they would have to be willing to wait say a decade before they turned a profit.
What Paramount should do is build a print-on-demand option for this. The hardcore fans would get something for their shelves, and the studio would lose no money.
Considering the extensive work that has to be done, I don't see "print on demand" being a practical option. Most of the time that is done its for TV shows/movies that can be released on DVD/Blu-ray with no work done, just direct transfers. Extensively re-working the episodes and just making it available to the limited audience of on-demand leaves no opportunity to make back the money they spent.
X-Files gets a Bluray release this december. The whole series was rescanned for 1080p and re-cut. The special effect portions were mostly not recreated but just upscaled. They did all seasons and sell the complete series now on Bluray for about 150 EUR.
So that seems to be an option: Rescan VOY and DS9 and only cut the parts without special effects in HD together, upscale everything else. It could even result in a much quicker and cheaper release of the whole DS9 and VOY series than TNG.
So the X-Files treatment could be the example for DS9 and VOY in HD / on Bluray.
So that seems to be an option: Rescan VOY and DS9 and only cut the parts without special effects in HD together, upscale everything else. It could even result in a much quicker and cheaper release of the whole DS9 and VOY series than TNG.
So the X-Files treatment could be the example for DS9 and VOY in HD / on Bluray.
That would still require a remastering and a physical release of the discs. Paramount/CBS have likely run through all these ideas and still maintain that most options wouldn't show any profit.
Seriously, if the second most popular series they have could not really manage much money back despite a cheaper remaster and good word of mouth, the other two don't stand a chance.
Get used to your DVD's, because unless a billionaire donates a lot of money, office space and computing time to CBS out of the goodness of their heart, it's not happening.
Seriously, if the second most popular series they have could not really manage much money back despite a cheaper remaster and good word of mouth, the other two don't stand a chance.
Get used to your DVD's, because unless a billionaire donates a lot of money, office space and computing time to CBS out of the goodness of their heart, it's not happening.
It should be noted that this is being done for the X-Files mostly as a promotional aid for the revival of the series airing this winter. We'd have to have something similar going on for Trek for CBS to consider it. And despite what a dozen or so people in the Trek XI forum want, the Prime Universe isn't being revived anytime soon, if ever. And I don't think the release of beyond is going to help matters, given the release of STID didn't help the TNG Blu-rays.
This is the same thing I've been trying to get across to a lot of people on and off the Internet, and at forum posts on websites like this one, yet people don't get it at all.
I imagine the only Trek 4K releases we will see, will be the Abrams films.
Chemahkuu speaks the truth.
As much as *we* may appreciate the spin-offs, and as much as *we* may have seen DS9 go through a huge change of fortunes in terms of its prestige with the online community (versus its reputation at the time of broadcast), the reality remains that neither show will ever sell as much as it would cost to do a TNG-R style remaster on the assets. Indeed, TNG-R itself failed to reach it's projected sales targets and make a decent return on investment, so if The Next Generation can't do it, then I don't doubt that there's very little expectation that DS9 and VOY could pull a rabbit out of a hat.
The harsh truth is that, although there are some fans who say things like ''They owe it to the fans for our loyalty to put everything out on Blu Ray disc!!!!!'', that's complete bulltwinkle. CBS owes us nothing. Paramount owes us nothing. Star Trek is a financial property first and a piece of art second, and if the former can't fund the latter, then CBS won't risk it in the first place.
A company called Diskotek is experimenting with SD Blu-rays, and they've been a thing in Europe for quite a while. They're looking at 50 episodes of Samurai Pizza Cats on one Blu-ray.
I think TV shows on DVD getting Blu-ray re-releases might be possible when the DVD market fades and if Blu-ray remains strong enough, if only using the same SD source to get more episodes onto a disc for the sake of economy. I also wish that my DVDs had Blu-ray's robust scratch resistant coating.
You could easily get a season of Trek onto one dual and one single layer Blu-ray at SD resolution, plus extras, maybe onto a single dual layer with better compression. Pressing one or two Blu-rays will still be cheaper than pressing seven DVDs.
I think TV shows on DVD getting Blu-ray re-releases might be possible when the DVD market fades and if Blu-ray remains strong enough, if only using the same SD source to get more episodes onto a disc for the sake of economy. I also wish that my DVDs had Blu-ray's robust scratch resistant coating.
You could easily get a season of Trek onto one dual and one single layer Blu-ray at SD resolution, plus extras, maybe onto a single dual layer with better compression. Pressing one or two Blu-rays will still be cheaper than pressing seven DVDs.
There's always a chance someone like Shout Factory will continue putting out discs for a niche market, but I'd think Blurays market penetration would count against it. Most households have a DVD player, but not many have Bluray.
There's millions of people out there quite happy playing SD discs on their HDTVs unable to tell the difference...
There's millions of people out there quite happy playing SD discs on their HDTVs unable to tell the difference...
I think there are more Blu-ray players out there than you give credit for. There have been 87 miilion PS3's sold.
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