Star Trek Voyager Remastered in 4K

[Lord Garth]

"Over time it'll pay for itself." Will it? That's where I get unclear on the cost risk vs reward for a streaming service. Will creating higher quality versions of older shows generate enough subscriber revenue to justify the expense?

AI up-scaling is getting better and cheaper which is I assume why Paramount shuttered the division that redid TOS and TNG on Blu-Ray making it unavailable for the VOY doc. That said I'd say DS9 and VOY getting an official upscale treatment is inevitable.

I'm assuming that most people who watch DS9 and VOY now have watched it more than once, probably a lot more than once, and will continue to watch it from time-to-time. The initial news about the upscale will bring more eyeballs than normal but, after that, every time someone watches on that service, it's a view. Period. They add up. That's why I said "over time".

And the threshold for what's considered success would be lower if all it is would be a simple upscale, and nowhere near as expensive as what was done for TNG.

They've already done upscales of I Love Lucy. I don't know how much demand there is for a '50s show these days, but they did it anyway.

Check it out here. They did a cheap upscale for Blu-Ray from an earlier home video format (probably DVD) even though the 35mm negatives for Lucy were available.

 

[Akiraprise]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but you hit on another streaming question I have; views. How do views generate profit for a streamer? Say I watch the enhanced "Caretaker" 50 times. I own all of the series I want on disc so I might resubscribe for a month to view the series in HD but beyond that I'd cancel my subscription if there was no new Trek product to watch on P+. I paid $15 for my month. I'm not of much value to P+. I have to believe a lot of other people would probably do the same.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but you hit on another streaming question I have; views. How do views generate profit for a streamer? Say I watch the enhanced "Caretaker" 50 times. I own all of the series I want on disc so I might resubscribe for a month to view the series in HD but beyond that I'd cancel my subscription if there was no new Trek product to watch on P+. I paid $15 for my month. I'm not of much value to P+. I have to believe a lot of other people would probably do the same.

That's my question as well. I wonder if views help on a per watch basis, or from a subscriber basis? Maybe a mix of both. I'm sure my ignorance on this business model is showing which is why I would love to see a breakdown on the financials, not that we'll ever get it.

But it begs the question in my mind, and if someone is watching Caretaker multiple times does that impact revenue?

Now, I'll grant my view on Paramount Plus is different; I don't subscribe for Trek. That's a bonus for me but my family subscribes for other shows unrelated to Star Trek.

 

[CoveTom]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but you hit on another streaming question I have; views. How do views generate profit for a streamer? Say I watch the enhanced "Caretaker" 50 times. I own all of the series I want on disc so I might resubscribe for a month to view the series in HD but beyond that I'd cancel my subscription if there was no new Trek product to watch on P+. I paid $15 for my month. I'm not of much value to P+. I have to believe a lot of other people would probably do the same.

The one area where I can think views help streaming services is their tiers that have advertising. I would imagine that what they can charge for advertising, and how interested advertisers are at all, would be heavily influenced by views. If I watch "Caretaker" 50 times, but am paying for the ad-free tier, it generates no more revenue for Paramount than if I watched it 1 time. But if I'm on the ad-supported tier and watch it 50 times, I would think that makes them more ad revenue.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but you hit on another streaming question I have; views. How do views generate profit for a streamer? Say I watch the enhanced "Caretaker" 50 times. I own all of the series I want on disc so I might resubscribe for a month to view the series in HD but beyond that I'd cancel my subscription if there was no new Trek product to watch on P+. I paid $15 for my month. I'm not of much value to P+. I have to believe a lot of other people would probably do the same.

I'm done with New Trek. Once Disco ended, that was it for me. I un-subscribed less than a month after it ended. Then I re-subscribed for S31, which turned out to be shit, but I kept the subscription anyway. I'll watch Old Trek on there (when I don't opt for DVD) and I'll watch some other shows on there.

I don't pretend to fully understand the economics of streaming, but Paramount+ always shows an ad at the beginning of whatever I watch on there, even Old Trek. So, I'm going to assume they generate some kind of revenue off of my watching that ad.

EDITED TO ADD: I also had to upgrade my subscription once I re-subscribed because otherwise Paramount+ had regular commerical breaks throughout, which would mess up whenever I'd watch watch YouTube Reactors' uncut reactions on Patreon... so if Paramount+ wasn't getting more revenue off my watching more ads, they got it off my upgrading my subscription to avoid said ads.

Plus, I just hate the fucking commercials! If I never have to see an ad from Arby's again, it'll be too soon.

 

[Dukhat]

Who cares about Blu-Rays? I'm talking about streaming. This isn't 2012.

Uh, you do know that people still buy physical media, right? And since people already can stream DS9 and VOY in SD, then CBS shelling out money for HD treatment will not change whatever streaming revenue they already get, right?

 

[Firebird]

Uh, you do know that people still buy physical media, right? And since people already can stream DS9 and VOY in SD, then CBS shelling out money for HD treatment will not change whatever streaming revenue they already get, right?

This. Physical media sales are at least a metric the studio can directly calculate and measure. Who knows if there even is a break-even point for streaming?

We may not still be in the 2006-2009 era where home video was a $6 billion/year business (according to Warner Bros' archivist George Feltenstein), but it's still a very strong market. WHV, Criterion, Imprint, StudioCanal, Kino Lorber show no signs of slowing down any time soon.

 

[Lord Garth]

Uh, you do know that people still buy physical media, right? And since people already can stream DS9 and VOY in SD, then CBS shelling out money for HD treatment will not change whatever streaming revenue they already get, right?

I buy physical media myself. I still buy Blu-Rays sometimes, but streaming is the primary way I watch things now -- and the primary way I rent things -- not Blu-Ray.

I'll say this too: I think the TNG Blu-Rays would've sold better if they hadn't been so expensive at the time. I would've bought the entire series on Blu-Ray from 2012-2014 for sure, if it had been cheaper. I'm not the only one. By making them so expensive, they shot themselves in the foot. They were under the erroneous assumption of, "We can jack up the price as high as we want! Trekkies will buy it anyway!" I did eventually buy TNG on Blu-Ray, but not until about a decade later, when I bought the entire series for as much as it would've cost to buy each individual season when it was first released on Blu-Ray. Whereas on Paramount+, I've watched TNG-R all along, just like I would watch DS9-R or VOY-R.

Had DS9 and VOY been re-mastered, I wouldn't have waited until 2024 to start my re-watches of them. It would've been more like 2020, during the Quarantine.

 

[Firebird]

I'll say this too: I think the TNG Blu-Rays would've sold better if they hadn't been so expensive at the time. I would've bought the entire series on Blu-Ray for 2012-2014 for sure, if it had been cheaper. I'm not the only one. By making them so expensive, they shot themselves in the foot. I did eventually buy TNG on Blu-Ray, but not until about a decade later. Whereas on Paramount+, I watch TNG-R, just like I would watch DS9-R or VOY-R.

The price of the sets is a direct result of the budget CBS needed to recoup from their investment into the process of rescanning and recompositing TNG for high definition. That was not a small chunk of money. To drive the price any lower would've made the project financially unsustainable for the studio.

That's not shooting themselves in the foot, it's a business decision.

 

[Lord Garth]

The price of the sets is a direct result of the budget CBS needed to recoup from their investment into the process of rescanning and recompositing TNG for high definition. That was not a small chunk of money. To drive the price any lower would've made the project financially unsustainable for the studio.

That's not shooting themselves in the foot, it's a business decision.

Easy to say in hindsight. Easy to say when you're well-off. I maintain there are people who would've wanted to buy it but couldn't justify the expense. I was one of them. If three times as many people would've bought it at half the price -- just as an example -- then by that math, Paramount would've made 1.5 times as much money as they did.

What an amazing coincidence that the TNG-R Blu-Rays in 2012 just happened to cost about as much as the TNG DVDs did in 2002. And the TNG DVDs in the '00s were ridiculously expensive compared to season sets of non-Trek series at the time as well.

 

[Dukhat]

Easy to say in hindsight. Easy to say when you're well-off. I maintain there are people who would've wanted to buy it but couldn't justify the expense. I was one of them. If three times as many people would've bought it at half the price -- just as an example -- then by that math, Paramount would've made 1.5 times as much money as they did.

What an amazing coincidence that the TNG-R Blu-Rays in 2012 just happened to cost about as much as the TNG DVDs did in 2002. And the TNG DVDs in the '00s were ridiculously expensive compared to season sets of non-Trek series at the time as well.

Which is why I said in my original post on the subject that DS9 and VOY will most likely never be remastered because there’s zero incentive for CBS to do so, unless they knew without a doubt that enough people would buy those really expensive Blu-rays to justify their costs.

 

[Lord Garth]

Which is why I said in my original post on the subject that DS9 and VOY will most likely never be remastered because there’s zero incentive for CBS to do so, unless they knew without a doubt that enough people would buy those really expensive Blu-rays to justify their costs.

Which takes us around in a circle. So, I'll shake hands with you -- and Firebird -- and leave it at that. It was a good debate.

@Akiraprise, it should be interesting to see how things go when I get up to "Tuvix" in my Re-Watch Thread!

 

[Firebird]

Easy to say in hindsight. Easy to say when you're well-off. I maintain there are people who would've wanted to buy it but couldn't justify the expense. I was one of them. If three times as many people would've bought it at half the price -- just as an example -- then by that math, Paramount would've made 1.5 times as much money as they did.

What an amazing coincidence that the TNG-R Blu-Rays in 2012 just happened to cost about as much as the TNG DVDs did in 2002. And the TNG DVDs in the '00s were ridiculously expensive compared to season sets of non-Trek series at the time as well.

Trying to assume three times the amount of consumers would magically appear at price point X is a foolserrand, and is assuming a lot. Accountants and home video execs that are much savvier than I at economics would've easily figured out that math ain't mathing.


Now, let's take a look at the relative cost, assuming an MSRP of $60, shall we?

$60 in 2002 is equivalent to $76.57 in 2012, and then $107.21 in 2025.

By that math, Paramount has been charging relatively less in comparison to inflation. They've been making things easier on the consumer by keeping a consistent price point.

 

[James Cole]

It's been quoted that restoring DS9 and VGR in HD would cost around $40 million each... the low end estimate of what a ten episode season of SNW would cost.

Redoing the effects would be more expensive than TNG's were, but at the same time software exists that makes editing the episodes together a lot easier. The salt mine in Kansas that hosts the raw footage now has scanning bays on site, so they wouldn't have to ship everything out to LA.

Now, from Paramount+'s POV... it made sense for them to fund the 4K restoration of TMP, even though it soon appeared on other streaming services. So there is precedent for them going back to the "old stuff".

DS9 and VGR would be a selling point for people to sign up for P+. You'd have approx 340-350 eps of new-ish Trek content for, again, the cost of 10 SNW eps. In theory all it would take would be for 1/35th of the viewership to make it work.

At some point Paramount might want to license Star Trek eps out to other platforms. Having HD masters will allow for a higher price point... or clear a bar if a service just doesn't consider the SD video masters from the 1990s to be viable to stream / air.

Would 2026 Blu-ray sales pay for an entire remaster? Likely no. But Star Trek has always sold well on physical media. The fact that STLD and PRODIGY were released in full on BD, and not even in manufacture on demand form, is pretty fucking amazing. So DS9 and VGR could at least pay for part of it.

The issue with the restoration has always been the long term investment nature of it. Something that should pay for itself in the long run, but won't turn around in one financial quarter.

It still makes sense on paper. At some point TPTB should recognize it as low hanging fruit when they run into a content desert.

 

[fireproof78]

Few enjoy short term loss for long term gains. And Paramount isn't really in the position to wait for a maybe that people might buy it.

 

[James Cole]

Two other things to consider...

How many fans have put off rewatching DS9 and VGR because of the SD picture quality issue, knowing that "eventually" a remaster would happen? Part of being a fan has always been playing the game of chicken with Paramount, from their constant home video re-issues and price drops. Again, Not Every Fan(TM), because several here have Main Character Syndrome and can't handle generalities, but there's likely "enough" that there would be a surge in interest, much like when the TOS remastered episodes were aired in syndication in the mid-2000s.

Also... just how long it would take to rewatch all of DS9 and VGR. A major selling point Peacock made when they launched their service was offering extended cuts of THE OFFICE episodes... slowly dripped out. P+ doesn't need to drop all 170+ episodes of either show all at once. They could space out the seasons as the remastering was ongoing. That just might be the hook to keep people subbed for an entire year or two. Just hold off on putting the respective series out on Blu-ray until the remastering was complete and the initial revenue that could be gleaned from streaming had been siphoned up.

 

[fireproof78]

How many fans have put off rewatching DS9 and VGR because of the SD picture quality issue, knowing that "eventually" a remaster would happen?

I'd love to know that number. I think it's quite low.

 

[DonIago]

I just rewatched "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" on DVD on my 4K player with an HD (but not 4K) 50" TV and while I wouldn't say it looked spectacular, it was perfectly watchable and almost certainly better than it ever looked in broadcast.

I wonder how many of the people who think '90s-era Trek looks awful in SD are also watching under suboptimal conditions.

 

[Dukhat]

I’m currently watching VOY with my stepson who’s never seen it. Yeah, I notice the shitty picture, but he doesn’t care. If we were watching it in HD, it wouldn’t have made a difference. So why should CBS pony out a ton of cash if people will still stream the show in SD anyway?

 

[fireproof78]

I’m currently watching VOY with my stepson who’s never seen it. Yeah, I notice the shitty picture, but he doesn’t care. If we were watching it in HD, it wouldn’t have made a difference. So why should CBS pony out a ton of cash if people will still stream the show in SD anyway?

Indeed.

Even if people are passing on the show how many are going to actually spend money on it?

I think even less. Would be curious to see statistics.