I would love this to happen, because when I watch the older episodes, I sometimes shake my head on how dated the effects look.
Has TNG Been Remastered?
- Thread starter Kamdan
- Start date
See, I find myself watching the show and find myself impressed with how good the effects are! The S2 episode "Time Squared" when the ship is over the vortex struggling to stay stable is a beautiful shot and to think it was done with very primitive, by today's standards, effects and little to no CGI is impressive to me.
The "hokiest" things to me are minor things that are just a product of the limitations of the time, like when the Enterprise is near a much smaller sized ship but both ships look pretty much the same size (For example, the Stargazer isn't likely to be much larger than a Constitution-class vessel but when the two are near each other both ships look about the same size) or when the limitation of choice when comes to guest ships means that we see the same ship over and over again. Oh, this time it's a different color, or upside down or whatever.
But mostly I think the TNG effects are good, the problem is they're not on a material that can survive an upgrade to HD resolutions and still produce a very good looking product.
The "hokiest" things to me are minor things that are just a product of the limitations of the time, like when the Enterprise is near a much smaller sized ship but both ships look pretty much the same size (For example, the Stargazer isn't likely to be much larger than a Constitution-class vessel but when the two are near each other both ships look about the same size) or when the limitation of choice when comes to guest ships means that we see the same ship over and over again. Oh, this time it's a different color, or upside down or whatever.
But mostly I think the TNG effects are good, the problem is they're not on a material that can survive an upgrade to HD resolutions and still produce a very good looking product.
To the best of my knowledge, no, TNG hasn't been remastered. But recently (as you can see in another thread in this forum) I've been rewatching TNG and I've noticed what seems to be an improvement in visual quality. Mind you I'm watching these on dvd through on upgrading dvd player onto a 32" Samsung LCD television, so I think I'm simply seeing detail, clarity and even hearing new sounds that weren't coming through when I saw these original twenty years ago on a CRT television.
In regard to the existing f/x I find some of them cartoony, but I ascribe that more to poor choice in how some of them were executed. The visible tractor beams and such look ridiculously overdone and very cartoony. Some space scenes and f/x look more like they belong in 2D cel animation. Some of the colour saturation in the f/x is too much and looks like it should be toned down.
That said on the flip side the uniform colours seem to be coming off better. Too often in the past I thought the command uniforms looked rather mauve than red and the science uniforms looked more teal than blue.
In regard to the existing f/x I find some of them cartoony, but I ascribe that more to poor choice in how some of them were executed. The visible tractor beams and such look ridiculously overdone and very cartoony. Some space scenes and f/x look more like they belong in 2D cel animation. Some of the colour saturation in the f/x is too much and looks like it should be toned down.
That said on the flip side the uniform colours seem to be coming off better. Too often in the past I thought the command uniforms looked rather mauve than red and the science uniforms looked more teal than blue.
This is mainly a result of the resolution of video. Some episodes have a really solid selection of shots with good FX, others use some limited angles. I think the combination of redone HD FX as well as a greater variety of shots will not only "spruce up" the episodes it'll be a revelation.
Again it IS the resolution that ruins some of the FX. I noticed the lack of resolution on a 19" TV back in 1987!!! You can see how it would look now. The show is crying out for the Bluray treatment!
RAMA
Last edited:
Better save some money for the next home video format... because that'll probably be when Next Gen makes the jump to hi-def (if ever). Enterprise will be the next series to make the jump to Blu-ray.
I don't know...they've tested and worked on this behind the scenes for years now...the TOS-R was a surprise announcement, STNG could be too.
RAMA
It wasn't short-sighted, it was the only way to put a complex show like that on the air in 1987. Only two shows before STNG were anywhere near as complex technically on TV (Buck Rogers and BSG), and video solved a lot of editing problems.
It HAS been stated that the negatives are stored and in good shape by Paramount.
RAMA
They DO look better shown in HD, but there is only so far they can go. They're hampered by their format.
RAMA
of course. (I work in the broadcast/movie industry)
I've seen some stations with HD equipment to broadcast and the upconversions look very bad though.
looks like WGN spent some big money on the upgrade to the good stuff.
I just recorded an episode last night on the WGN SD feed. Will check it later tonight and see if it looks as good...it might.
I've seen some stations with HD equipment to broadcast and the upconversions look very bad though.
looks like WGN spent some big money on the upgrade to the good stuff.
I just recorded an episode last night on the WGN SD feed. Will check it later tonight and see if it looks as good...it might.
We know that TNG hasn't been remastered since the DVDs were issued. So, I think that leaves 2 possibilities:
1) WGN upgraded their equipment; and/or
2) They were originally using older masters for their broadcasts, and recently began using the newer DVD masters.
Doug
1) WGN upgraded their equipment; and/or
2) They were originally using older masters for their broadcasts, and recently began using the newer DVD masters.
Doug
Oh, there's the upscaling DVDs in blu ray players myth again.
What speaks against tackling it like a real production (minus the whole principle photography and preproduction phase), and air it in HD one episode or two episodes per week, giving them enough time per episode to do full re-editing, remastering, recreating the VFX, covering most of the costs by doing the broadcast.
There's decent reasons why the "HD" broadcasts of TNG look better than their original broadcasts it's because Videotape still has, fairly, high reslution to it, infact in the best of circumstances its resolution can almost reach DVD's resolution. (This is the resolution for the type of videotape used on productions like TNG, not the necessairily the resolution of the videotapes you'd buy at the local store.) But it cannot reach HDTV's resolution which is at least 740 lines of resolution. Videotape, even the quality of videotape used in productions (especially production done in the early 90s) cannot achieve this.
So just because TNG is on an HD station doesn't mean the content itself is in HD. It's just digital which isn't the same thing.
Upscaling is one of the more overused terms in the industry right now.
All upscaling does is ensure that the picture will fit your screen. DVD is somewhere around 420 lines of resolution an HDTV is 1080 so do the math. The picture would barely fill half the space on your TV.
"Upscaling" simply has the the player "guess" the color of the pixel between two known pixels in order to make the picture fit the screen. Upscaling cannot add detail becuase the information for the extra detail (read: resolution) isn't there.
So just because TNG is on an HD station doesn't mean the content itself is in HD. It's just digital which isn't the same thing.
Upscaling is one of the more overused terms in the industry right now.
All upscaling does is ensure that the picture will fit your screen. DVD is somewhere around 420 lines of resolution an HDTV is 1080 so do the math. The picture would barely fill half the space on your TV.
"Upscaling" simply has the the player "guess" the color of the pixel between two known pixels in order to make the picture fit the screen. Upscaling cannot add detail becuase the information for the extra detail (read: resolution) isn't there.
Last edited:
But I've seen in CSI that they can make everything sharper!
Ehhh. I think that's a little bit different. In those cases they're taking analogue video and just "making it sharper." Analogue cameras pick up a lot more detail than are displayed on TVs, this is why we can make film (analogue) look sharper or find details. So what's done in video analysis is no different than what happens between a movie going from videotape to DVD or BD the image is sharpened and details are found/made cleaer.
What they do on CSI, however, is way over the line of what even this does. But usually there's more on a videotape than what is usally seen onthe best TV it just takes a computer to find and bring out that detail but even then there's still limits.
What they do on CSI, however, is way over the line of what even this does. But usually there's more on a videotape than what is usally seen onthe best TV it just takes a computer to find and bring out that detail but even then there's still limits.
And don't forget how Harrison Ford looks around corners in his photos on 'Blade Runner'.
I'd like to check this out but it looks like I don't get WGN in high def in my area.
Similar threads
