The OFFICIAL STNG-R general discussion thread!

[StewMc]

Law & Order is another TV show that now appears on TV in HD and a "true" 16:9 ratio, right back as far as the first season as far as I can tell, which is pretty surprising as it started in what, 1990? Looks great in the couple of episodes I've seen, not sure if it suffers from the same issues as the Friends screencaps above though. I'm assuming that both Friends and L&O were both edited on film though?

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I also prefer to watch movies and TV shows in their OAR (original aspect ratio).

Yeah, me too. I hate when they screw up the picture to stretch it out. It looks like crap.

btw, who's the hottie in your avatar?

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Friends wasn't protected for widescreen or intended for widescreen viewing at all. Look at these shots of a recent HD broadcast.

Spoiler: View Image

Sorry about the poor quality, but you get the idea. I for one still respect and support the decision to keep TNG in 4:3 as it was intended to be seen.

I'm not that familiar with the show itself... are those from late in the show's run, or early? I know the show ran for 10 years, so those images may represent a modern 1.78:1 extraction that was forced on episodes made back in a time when they were using a 1.33:1 ground glass. It's likely that episodes made after widescreen HDTVs became widely available in the US (after about 1998) were actually properly protected for 1.78:1.

EDIT: Just answered my own question. That's actor Tate Donovan and he was on Friends in 1998. So that might be right on the cusp of the show fully embracing 1.78:1. I would imagine episodes filmed in the 2000s would be properly protected.

 

[trekker670]

Does anyone know if anyone (TrekMovie, TrekCore, TrekToday, etc.) will be covering the TNG-HD event at Comic-Con later today? There's been lots of news about the talk, but I don't recall if anyone has said if they're planning a live-blog, or even if they'll have anyone on had to report about the event.

Is anyone here going to be there?

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Does anyone know if anyone (TrekMovie, TrekCore, TrekToday, etc.) will be covering the TNG-HD event at Comic-Con later today? There's been lots of news about the talk, but I don't recall if anyone has said if they're planning a live-blog, or even if they'll have anyone on had to report about the event.

Is anyone here going to be there?

https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23STTNGComicCon

New pics:







Direct Links:

http://static.ow.ly/photos/original/LcWc.jpg
http://static.ow.ly/photos/original/LcV9.jpg
http://static.ow.ly/photos/original/LcUd.jpg
http://static.ow.ly/photos/original/LcVO.jpg

 

[trekker670]

Sweet, thanks for the updates. Hopefully someone will have a write-up soon.

 

[ScottDS]

Camera test:

From the panel itself (this is from Twitter; I wasn't there):

 

[MacLeod]

Whilst a case could be made for TNG being filmed in 4:3, the same is not so for DSN or VOY. Both where being filmed around the time the shift from 4:3 to 16:9 TV's where being made. I think my first WS TV that I had was in the mid 90's.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Whilst a case could be made for TNG being filmed in 4:3, the same is not so for DSN or VOY. Both where being filmed around the time the shift from 4:3 to 16:9 TV's where being made. I think my first WS TV that I had was in the mid 90's.

In fact, they made the switch to protecting for 16:9 (1.78:1) around 1997:

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=2597&view=findpost&p=19075

 

[RAMA]

Even Friends was protected for widescreen. I tend to consider what they did on TNG a bit of a sloppy job.

FAIL!

Even though the technology was known of as being in development, I doubt any of us really thought it would be adopted so quickly, and NO ONE, but NO ONE made shows for widescreen or HD in 1987!!

 

[Tosk]

Anyway, TNG, DS9, and VOY were all framed for 4x3

It's a done deal, in the can...arguing about whether it was a good decision or not is pointless.

 

[trekker670]

^ Agreed.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Here's a screenshot comparison of the new image from "Conspiracy". Notice that in addition to the Enterprise element, the stars are also original, while the Earth and Moon are new CGI. Also, you'll notice that the original ILM VistaVision* Enterprise element as used here cannot fill the entire 1.78:1 frame -- in fact, it's only about 1.67:1, or 1812 pixels wide.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135305

*VistaVision has an aspect ratio of 1.47:1 on the original camera negative and a maximum printer aperture ratio of approx. 1.68:1. See here: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/vvspecs.htm

 

[Ghostface1701]

Wait, what did I miss? Why are those shots in 16:9?

 

[Squiggy]

That looks like a totally new moon and Earth fx too.

Did I miss someone mentioning that they couldn't simply rescan (or whatever) those planet effect due to the low resolution?

 

[mswood]

I've seen X-Files reruns on BBC America.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I know the show still airs some on cable, I meant how well are those ratings. If don't think it tracks high enough to make a top twenty on BBC America (unless I am remembering wrong), TNG often scores top five of that list for BBC america, and it plays in other places as well.

Of course it also might be doing (X-Files) great on streaming sites that are know just starting to bring in some serious revenue.

That we, the public rarely get to see details on.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Wait, what did I miss? Why are those shots in 16:9?

They're probably compositing the VFX shots as wide as they can using the sources they have available to them, for streaming/broadcast markets that want 16:9. This happened with TOS-R too.

Sometimes there isn't enough image of the original miniatures to fill the screen though. See my post above yours.

EDIT:

Here are the DVD/Blu-ray comparisons with the other two images:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135312
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135313

 

[Dick_Valentine]

Wait, what did I miss? Why are those shots in 16:9?

They're probably compositing the VFX shots as wide as they can using the the sources they have available to them, for streaming/broadcast markets that want 16:9. This happened with TOS-R too.

Sometimes there isn't enough image of the original miniatures to fill the screen though. See my post above yours.

EDIT:

Here are the DVD/Blu-ray comparisons with the other two images:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135312
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135313

It might be a minor quibble but I hope they remember to shot that little charging "pulse" that runs over the phaser strips before it fires.

Talking about mistakes that need to be corrected, it seemed that throughout Trek history they would forget to show consistency with the charge pulse week on week.
One week you'd see it fine (Q-Who, etc) then another they'd forget all about it (The ep in series 3 with the minefield, forget its title)

This continued all the way until about series 6 of Voy when they just dropped it completely, for whatever reason.

I know its such a minor thing to worry about but its exactly the kind of thing that used to frustrate me as a kid watching these shows.
"If the phasers are supposed to charge up before firing, how come they do it sometimes and not others, etc?"

Almost certainly alone on this one, but its something that, once you notice, you can't "un-notice" sadly.

Hopefully the remastering will fix this most pointless of concerns for me!

 

[NewHorizon]

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/135305

WOW! That shot is absolutely gorgeous now!

 

[Ghostface1701]

Well, if they're creating 16:9 VFX for the show, I wanna see the opening titles like that!