Star Trek Voyager Remastered in 4K
- Thread starter The Real Sonic Star Trek
- Start date
This is the only way I see it happening. But it will make more sense to upscale to 1080p than 4K from a 480p source.
What's surprising is the B5 finally got a blu-ray. The original DVDs were horrible.
Honestly I feel the best way forward is to do what Babylon 5 did, a hybrid approach.
I think that you might make exceptions for episodes like "Broken Link" or "What we Leave Behind".
Maybe redo phasers and beams, then recomp screens and windows when needed, definitely give Emissary the treatment.
But overall, the B5 approach would save money on both.
Rescan 35mm film. Step down to 2k, and then for those shots that are coming from an SD source and are VFX, put them into Topaz starlight and see what happens.
Recycle the original 5.1 sound mixes but leave them uncompressed, then just uprezz matte paintings.
I think they could hit quality somewhere between Babylon 5 and TNG, and be a decent remaster.
28 such projects have been done.
TNG, (Seinfeld 4k) and Twin Peaks are the gold standard.
The Shield and The Wire would be the silver standard.
(I'd like to see Voyager and DS9 hit here somewhere between silver and Bronze)
X files, Seaquest DSV and Babylon 5 would be a bronze standard.
Andromeda and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are the tin standard and for different reasons.
One is an upscale, and one was DNR'd so badly, the fandom won't acknowledge it's existence.
TNG, (Seinfeld 4k) and Twin Peaks are the gold standard.
The Shield and The Wire would be the silver standard.
(I'd like to see Voyager and DS9 hit here somewhere between silver and Bronze)
X files, Seaquest DSV and Babylon 5 would be a bronze standard.
Andromeda and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are the tin standard and for different reasons.
One is an upscale, and one was DNR'd so badly, the fandom won't acknowledge it's existence.
I'd say X-Files is pretty good with the exception of fontgate.
You actually see more footage (left and right of the screen) on the blu-rays because of how it was filmed. You actually get real 16:9. That's a plus in my book unlike the disaster of forcing 16:9 for Highlander the series for DVD when it moved between companies for release. The original DVDs are correctly 4:3.
Going the B5 route would be a nice compromise.
My issue with X files comes down to availability of 4:3 in seasons 1-4...I think 4? and Fontgate, Fontgate was a big one, the big error in the intro was the upscaling and the use of Tooms footage that was upscaled, when it was remastered and available in the Tooms Episode XD.
That being said, I guess I could move it into Silver standard.
That being said, I guess I could move it into Silver standard.
I really hope that they will come up with a remastered version.
But to be honest, I'm happy as long as DVDs of TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY are available. If they stop being produced, then I'm in trouble due to the fact that some DVDs seem to have a short lifespan.
The show was shot 16:9 and cropped to 4:3 when it aired.
5-9 were filmed for 16:9
1-4 were filmed 16:9 safe, which is a little different.
The shots were composed for both though, I can't exactly continue the argument because I'm like 80 percent wrong, lmao.
Could you explain the difference between "for 16:9" and "16:9 safe"? vs "filmed IN 16:9"?
As much as I'd like that upscaler to exist, and I'd like to see the technology progress, I'd prefer there be at least one rescan of those film negatives before AI upscaling becomes the mainstream technology.
I did some digging, 4:3 masters of seasons 1-4 from the rescan of X files do exist, but the mastering team said it would be overkill.
Those 4:3 masters are never going to see the light of day, but they do exist.
The bluray is quite grainy, and there is one other tidbit, it took 2 years to scan everything for X files.
So, for DS9 and Voyager it would likely take 4 years to get everything scanned, based on that.
Basically you're comprimising the shot for both.
So, you compose it in the center, 4:3 and 16:9 each are overlapped, and most things are placed in the center.
The full frame could be viewed as 14:9 or 1.66:1.(aspect ratios)
I'd take a look at Babylon 5,
This site is a godsend for that, and has been around for a very, very long time.
I think I have read somewhere that Paramount has junked their film scanners. How much more would it cost to that out-house?
Plus..would Voyager / DS9 need the same extensive recompositioning / re-creation effort of the SFX then TNG? Would maybe fully recreating instead of recompositioning the old elements be cheaper? Maybe AI could be used for recreating the SFX elements in 4K...should be a simpler task then AI-upscaling the whole show.
It's why I'd advocate a hybrid approach.
But for selling the 2k film scanners, who cares?
New scanners are about 80k and can scan at 8k(overkill?)
Black Magic has a model that's smaller.
On top of that, if you're merging Paramount, Skydance, CBS, and Warner.
You likely have a lot of redundant departments with film scanners, Paramount is hardcore about film archival, and Fotokem is across the street from the Paramount lot.
I guess we just have to bide our time then and it will happen eventually, as long as the film remains savely in that salt mine or what ever it is they store it in. But maybe it would make sense to pull a direct old style 1:1 chemical film copy of everything soonish?
It's safety film stock from the 90s, it'll last a while.
But as for the hybrid approach, diffusion upscalers need to get better to fix Babylon 5's FX.
I can show you that those assets survive, but there's a lot of compositing shots that need work, and are never gonna get properly recomposited.
I shit on AI often, but eventually it's going to have to overcome it's limitations, I doubt Babylon 5 is gonna have someone go in and fix all of those problems any time soon.
X files isn't going to get another remaster after 2012.
TOS probably is going to get one more 4k rescan, but I'm betting that's it.
DS9 and Voyager would be fine in a Babylon 5-esque remaster, I think that skeletal rough look gives the show some charm, I could live with that.
never got hooked on Babylon-5 back then....my reaction to the fx was "What? I got computer games that look better" xD But now...just about half a life and some bits later...I consider giving it another try.
I'm only using it as a technical example.
The FX look like a Sony game, but it was innovative in it's time.
Even then, it's like DS9 (For obvious reasons) but a lot cornier.
I just started recently, and I've really been enjoying it! I'm a big DS9 fan, and I can see some of the surface level similarities, but it's definitely different the farther you get.
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