The original Star Trek's history on video

[Shalashaska]

Not sure how the response will be on this as it's a fairly niche topic, but I've been trying to find out how the original Star Trek was produced and transferred to video for broadcasting but haven't found much on the subject.

As I understand it, the show was shot, edited and finished on 35mm which is why it took much less time for TOS to make its way to Blu-ray than TNG (and could, feasibly, eventually make its way to UHD?). I'm interested to find out how TOS was transferred to video and on what format (2" quad?), how it was sent out to broadcasters and whether these original video masters still exist or could be looked at today, whether on Betamax, VHS or some other kind of format? How many new masters were made from the original film elements throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s?

EDIT: Is it possible that it was distributed on 16mm?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

For the original NBC run, and syndicated re-runs up through about 1985 (?), Star Trek was shown by running actual reels of film through a machine that projected the image directly into a built-in video camera. There was no video tape step in the process. That was the technology in those days. The main reason one-hour dramas were strictly episodic in those days, with no long story arcs, was that the re-runs would require film reels to be shipped to stations around the country, and they had to be airable in any order.

Then around 1985 or so, Paramount remastered the series for syndication on video tapes. The 16mm syndy prints had become dirty and tattered by this point, so there was a huge boost in picture quality and stability on these tape broadcasts. The other difference was that, instead of cutting a whole scene here and there to make room for more commercials, the syndy tapes had a huge number of tiny cuts throughout each episode.

 

[Shalashaska]

For the original NBC run, and syndicated re-runs up through about 1985 (?), Star Trek was shown by running actual reels of film through a machine that projected the image directly into a built-in video camera. There was no video tape step in the process. That was the technology in those days. The main reason one-hour dramas were strictly episodic in those days, with no long story arcs, was that the re-runs would require film reels to be shipped to stations around the country, and they had to be airable in any order.

Then around 1985 or so, Paramount remastered the series for syndication on video tapes. The 16mm syndy prints had become dirty and tattered by this point, so there was a huge boost in picture quality and stability on these tape broadcasts. The other difference was that, instead of cutting a whole scene here and there to make room for more commercials, the syndy tapes had a huge number of tiny cuts throughout each episode.

Were there ever any home video releases issued from the original 16mm prints?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Were there ever any home video releases issued from the original 16mm prints?

I know that the professional broadcast tapes Paramount distributed to TV stations in 1985 were struck from the actual 35mm negatives, as were all of the DVD and Bluray editions, which were vastly better for being uncut.

But prior to that, I don't know if the VHS and LaserDisc releases might have been made from 16mm prints.

I do know for a fact that the first VHS edition of "The Cage" in 1986 was assembled by combining color footage from "The Menagerie" with 16mm black and white film from Gene Roddenberry's personal print of the pilot episode. Then in 1987, the missing 35mm color scenes were found in an unmarked can in a Hollywood film processing lab, returned to Paramount, and an all-color edition of "The Cage" was released on VHS in 1988.

 

[Hofner]

This is only a guess on my part but it seemed to me the very first videotape of TOS i watched must have been from 16 mm film back in the mid 80s.
As far as I know, the first releases of TOS on videotape had two episode per tape. The very first one I rented had "Balance of Terror and "Space Seed.

I can tell you it just blew me away to be able to watch uncut Star Trek episodes whenever I wanted.

Anyway, there were just a few of these two episode videotapes and from what I remember, the picture quality was no better than what was being broadcast at that time, this is just before Paramount remastered the show. It wasn't too long before Paramount started releasing those single episode tapes in the numbered boxes. Lucky for me, the video rental place only a block down the street from where I lived was owned by a guy who was a Star Trek fan. So of course, he bought every one of these single ep tapes as soon as they were released.

I remember these single ep tapes had a noticeably better picture quality so my guess is those first two ep tapes were from 16 mm film while the single eps were from 35mm film or negatives.


Robert

 

[ChallengerHK]

Were there ever any home video releases issued from the original 16mm prints?

I've known two people who had episodes on 16mm, but I think both of them had liberated episodes from somewhere rather than buying them.

 

[Methuselah Flint]

I have some rare pre-certs (besides the usual Space Seed/Changeling sort or Mountain video ones). One of which is an Australian release of Miri only. I remember playing it a few years back. Not sure what print they used, but it definitely was a lot more washed out and inferior quality.

 

[Shalashaska]

This is only a guess on my part but it seemed to me the very first videotape of TOS i watched must have been from 16 mm film back in the mid 80s.
As far as I know, the first releases of TOS on videotape had two episode per tape. The very first one I rented had "Balance of Terror and "Space Seed.

I can tell you it just blew me away to be able to watch uncut Star Trek episodes whenever I wanted.

Anyway, there were just a few of these two episode videotapes and from what I remember, the picture quality was no better than what was being broadcast at that time, this is just before Paramount remastered the show. It wasn't too long before Paramount started releasing those single episode tapes in the numbered boxes. Lucky for me, the video rental place only a block down the street from where I lived was owned by a guy who was a Star Trek fan. So of course, he bought every one of these single ep tapes as soon as they were released.

I remember these single ep tapes had a noticeably better picture quality so my guess is those first two ep tapes were from 16 mm film while the single eps were from 35mm film or negatives.


Robert

I think you might be right. I've come across people saying the same in older forum posts.

 

[Shalashaska]

Would NBC have used 35mm prints for the original broadcasts? Maybe even prints struck directly from the negative?

 

[alchemist]

From Inside Star Trek The Real Story by Solow and Justman, 1996, p. 250:

HERB: Happily, Gene and Bob continued driving the shows to their timely completion. Contractually, for each episode, we were to deliver two 35 mm prints (and one earlier 16 mm print for Canada) to New York and one 35 mm print and one 16 mm print to Burbank for separate East-West broadcasts. At times, some of the prints weren’t delivered until the day of the broadcast. The 16 mm print was run as a backup.