Futureproofing (for viewing) the next Trek TV series

[Bry_Sinclair]

Trek TV in HD = Yes please!

Trek TV in 3D = Until 3D means actual three-dimensional holograms in my living room, I think I'll pass.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

high resolution - future standards

While we all know 3-D is a gimmick to get people into the cinema and for the past 2 years to try to sell 3-D HDTVs the next tech specs for broadcast TVs have been recommended but not yet finalized.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is meeting to set a standard on the formats.

UHDTV (Ultra High Definition Television) will be the name for both 4K and 8K transmissions when they eventually arrive, despite the megapixel count of the formats varying so widely.Currently, 4K is the format that many filmmakers are choosing to shoot in. James Cameron and Peter Jackson have both adopted the format and are currently tinkering with frame rates to make their shots look even more realistic.

ITU-R Study Group 6 has now agreed a draft new Recommendation on the technical details for ‘Ultra High Definition Television’ or UHDTV which is now being submitted to Administrations for approval.

Additionally, the ITU has added support for a much higher frame rate, 120 fps.

Ultra High Definition Television: Threshold of a new age

8K UHDTV is currently being tested by NHK & it is being used at the Olympics with 3 cameras in London. It is at Prototype-testing-phase in the development of the technology. Sure it's live sports but imagine the immersive experience at home on a wall-sized screen for dramatic TV series in 2025.

Keep in mind Sony already has a 8k sensor in their F65 - the next-generation CineAlta digital motion picture camera available this year. It can output 8k RAW capture now. 4k is the typical workflow the Sony F65 will be doing for feature films but it is capable of 8k. Give it a few years and maybe Trek will end up shooting in 8k and post production workflow in 4k UHDTV for a TV series!

Regarding the 8k projected tests this week in London of the Olympics:

if you take this view to its logical conclusion, a regular 42-inch HDTV would get pushed into a no man's land somewhere inbetween -- it's not portable, not immersive, and therefore not able to compete in the long-term. And that's why broadcasters' investment in 8K perhaps isn't so wild after all.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/super-hi-vision-eyes-on/#continued

Yes the next Trek TV series may go into production around 2015 but looking down the road what futureproofing can producers do?

So while the next Trek series would most likely be produced in 4k due to the cost of 8K it looks like 8K is where things are headed after 2025. Think wall-sized TVs like in Back to the Future II (1989).

 

[RB_Kandy]

Well, I don't know much about the standards of movie recording and preserving, but an idea to make it future proof is to make the next series animated, or CGI animated. The reason is simple, if it gets cancelled and then revived 20 years later, you don't have to worry about the actors aging. In 10 years, there is no way you could ever bring back Jerry Ryan to do her roll as Seven Of Nine. And while males age more gracefully, beautiful males in TV shows typically are much older to begin with than the beautiful females. Also, if it were animated/CGI than if any actor died, quit, got fired, he/she could be replaced by someone with a very similar voice. We can easily identify different people by their appearance more so than by their voice, specifically because of the part of our brain that has facial recognition.

Any other future proofing I can think of is, write a good show that people actually want to see. Besides, what ever new gimmick comes out in 2050, will be an excuse to remaster something old and package it all over again instead of creating a whole new series. So remastering is a good sales gimmick. "See Kirk as you never seen him before, in 4D! And in neo color, with psycho-phonic sound!"

All attempts to upgrade and remaster something comes down to one principal only: high quality visual, high quality audio.
When you think about it, what technological feature have people always wanted out of their movies? high quality audio and visual. Give me a crisp colorful picture, and clear audio.

The only problem with a CGI series is, the cost would be outrageous, better to do animated.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Re: high resolution - future standards

the International Telecommunication Union has finally approved the proposal.

The announcement makes no mention of the smaller 4K resolution included in the draft recommendation, instead highlighting 7680 x 4320 8K as the thrust of the standard along with a boost to 120fps and a wider color gamut.

NHK's 8K Ultra High Definition TV standard approved by ITU
via NHK (PDF)

Even though the next major successor to current HDTV technology will be the 4K standard, which is currently being used in many digital theaters, an even higher quality standard has just been approved: Ultra High Definition TV.

source

Looks like probably closer to 2015 it will start moving to 4k acquisition for most TV production.

So while the next Trek series would most likely be produced in 4k due to the cost of 8K it looks like 8K is where things are headed after 2025.

 

[Mars]

Suddenly we have a standards war, forcing us to buy new televisions every few years, while my old style televisions are decades old yet they work just fine.

 

[Knight Templar]

Future proofing:

Some ideas

1) As far as stories, do NOT look at current issues for inspiration (like the LA riots for DS9 or street gangs for Voyagers Kazon). Look at great works of literature that has stood the test of time like Shakespeare for inspiration.

2) Avoid technobabble at all costs.

You can just say

"The engines are off line Captain!".

You don't have to say

"The transphasic inducers for the dilithium matrix pulse compression chamber have degraded by 86% Captain!"

 

[jefferiestubes8]

even now in 2012 with the TNG-R project retransfering the 35mm original camera negative to HD they are not planning for 4k.

TrekCore: When the film is played back through and captured digitally, what resolution is it captured at? One of the most popular questions we’ve had is ‘are you future-proofing for 4K resolution’?
Craig Weiss: No, at this point we are working in HD. If, in the future, there is a request to go back to 4K or something – at that time we’ll address it. We have – the most important thing – the time code of how the show was mastered, which has been the bulk of trying to figure this out. So we can go back and remaster the film in 4K. Due to just time and the schedule, there would be no way for us to be able to manage that kind of data for an HD release at this point. And nobody really knows what the specs for 4K are going to be, or for 4K televisions. So we decided we didn’t want to scan with today’s technology and then a year from now the specs might be different so we’d have to re-do it, so we decided to just stay within the specs for this Blu-Ray project.

At this point a 4k pipeline is only for major feature films. While I thought they would scan at 4k and archive that they aren't for cost and part of that cost is the media. there are no 4k tapes. only LTO-5 format data tapes would be removable but look at 11 years ago. The #1 rated TV drama CSI was mastered at 1080/60i.
Current film scanners can do 4k resolution but figure in 15 years film scanners will be doing 8k for restorations of major Hollywood films and the 35mm film scanning technology will be fully matured to 8k and somewhat better dynamic range and quality.
CBS Digital is preserving the 35mm film in case of a future project returning to scan at 4k or higher.

The [35mm film] boxes are pretty well intact. There is no real chemical [damage] or seepage – we’re not seeing much of that. The [35mm film] cans are a little bit crushed, the boxes are falling apart. We’re doing a level of triage to the elements where we’re restoring the packaging so that future generations – when they have to go back to the film – it’s in a better condition than we received it in.

from the Trekcore article.

I think that by the time the next Trek TV series is in production the TNG-R project will be complete and the cost to shoot in 4k will be worth preserving it for the future.

 

[Lord Garth]

Future-proofing:

1. Don't tie the stories so closely to current events that they can't be separated at all. I like TUC but it's the most blatant example of this. The movie was more about 1991 than 2293. Well, really more about 1986; not that it made a difference. Does anyone really want the next series to be about Starfleet fighting over-privelaged Ferengi who exploit 99% of the Quadrant?

2. Fashion. ENT went a little too far toward being contemporary (though not as far as TFF). DS9/VOY civilian wear fared better than TNG's but do make it look futuristic. Some fashion will change, some fashion won't, but it's unrealistic to assume that fashion in the future will look exactly the same as it does today. So, don't be afraid of having styles that look a little ridiculous. There are always going to be styles that look silly.

3. Technical end. Not much to do here. The end result of all these advancments will be VR. No series is designed for this as of yet. I also think that someday, there will be an attempt made to make ST XI 3-D to keep it consistent with all future movies. They might also go back and try to make the series 3-D. Don't be surprised if they release TNG 3-D 10 years after TNG HD.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

3. Technical end. Not much to do here. The end result of all these advancments will be VR. No series is designed for this as of yet. I also think that someday, there will be an attempt made to make ST XI 3-D to keep it consistent with all future movies. They might also go back and try to make the series 3-D. Don't be surprised if they release TNG 3-D 10 years after TNG HD.

Until 3D is like a mini holodeck in your living room I'm not going to bother with it

Good stories should never really date, so long as they aren't a blatant rip-off of current events (like Lord Garth mentioned with TUC, a film that I too like). Make them about the characters and people will watch for the human/Vulcan/Andorian/etc drama of it all.

Special effects and that will always be out of date a year after an episode airs as new techniques and what not are developed and made more affordable, there is no way around that.

 

[mos6507]

1. Don't tie the stories so closely to current events that they can't be separated at all.

History doesn't necessarily repeat, but it rhymes.

Just because the Chernobyl and fall of the USSR theme was the inspiration of Trek VI doesn't mean things like that don't keep happening throughout the span of time. Look at the hubris that led to Fukushima, for instance, or the arab spring parallel to the fall of the USSR. It could be that what you see today with Syria and Iran holding onto outdated dictatorial models and a certain swath of america sympathetic to burning Korans is just another flavor of the end of the soviet union and the old-guard that became to attached to the unending conflict.

A far better example of "dating" Trek would be The Way to Eden, which was a far too literal take on hippie culture.

 

[Relayer1]

They'd be better expending their energy removing as much current design / fashion as possible.

Quality of recording suffers from diminishing returns - videotape was OK, DVD was a great improvement. Bluray is a noticable but smaller improvement. The next step forward will be a smaller improvement still and so on as we inch interminably towards perfection.

I doubt I'll bother with whatever comes after Bluray...

 

[AviTrek]

Why 4K TVs are stupid.

Until we start sitting even closer to TVs or have even larger TVs there is no benefit for anything over 1080p.

 

[Lord Garth]

1. Don't tie the stories so closely to current events that they can't be separated at all.

History doesn't necessarily repeat, but it rhymes.

Who am I to argue with Mark Twain?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I can understand why recording with a Red camera is done now for alot of movies / small projects.

Having everything in uber high quality allows for future re-releases into whatever new common format is necessary.

It's a nice future-proofing tool.

As far as the whole 1080p deal, I honestly can't see the public transitioning to whatever new standard the TV conglomorates are trying to propose this soon.

Things like UHD takes alot of time to get a consensus on between all the tech companies. It takes even longer for adoption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television

Look how long it took for the masses to go to 720/1080p HD TV's.

How many years did SD TV's reign supreme in terms of number of people using that format TV. Pretty much since the beggining of TV.

Only in the mid to late 2000-2010's did HDTV start ruling.

HDTV started getting it's act together around the early 1990's.

The fact that it took that long just to transition off of one standard.

The public is also usually weary of any major format changes.

It's always a long process to get the masses converted onto new standards.

 

[T'Girl]

There's a movie coming out next year. A television series is not required.

Yes, why have four seasons of Star Trek, with a combined fifty to eighty episodes, when we can have a single semi-trek summer movie with lots of action and explosions in the same time period.

Who wants one of those icky TV series?

Wouldn't it be cool, when CGI becomes so sophisticated that they can make new episodes that look like real TV including the actors.

I'm not sure. Would I really be able to get into the nuance of the way some programmer created a CGI character, the way I get into the way Avery Brooks created Benjamin Lafayette Sisko?

 

[jefferiestubes8]

The next step forward will be a smaller improvement still and so on as we inch interminably towards perfection.

I doubt I'll bother with whatever comes after Bluray...

Does black and white standard definition video from old TV shows work still to tell stories? yes. Does it look great on a 60" HDTV or projected to 100" ? No.
TOS still works on DVD on a 13" color TV. The stories still hold you. The transition to high definition as a standard has taken time.
The idea of 4k UHDTVs starts at 60" really. The idea of 8k UHDTVs are wall-sized like in Back to the Future II. With that much resolution it's not just about being able to get close but about how big you can make your screen display without necessarily using a projected light image onto a screen from across a room.

Things like UHD takes alot of time to get a consensus on between all the tech companies. It takes even longer for adoption.

This thread deals with how producers (not the TV buying public now or in 5 years) will plan for shooting the next Trek TV series in a 2-10 years so as to not have major issues in 20-50 years with acceptance and the most milking of their Trek franchise cash cow. Yes 4k probably will take 15 years and never fully catch on. The idea is futureproofing a franchise so a TNG-R project never has to happen with the next TV series being shot.

ENT season 4 is locked into 1080p as the resolution. Down the road this might hurt TPTB from doing a ENT-R to 4k/8k project as only seasons 1-3 were shot on 35mm film. While the series is not the most liked it was at least framed for 16:9 ratio and season 3 looked damn good for a 2003-2004 scifi TV series.

 

[David F. Weisma]

Like the phoenix, Trek may periodically have to die and be reborn from the ashes. Remember the time between TOS and anything else besides maybe an occasional movie.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

You can't "future-proof" art. If you could, every work of art would be able to stand the test of time because we'd know exactly what to do to insure that they do.

And technology doesn't help. If people were so interested in seeing entertainement in 3D and with an unlimited frame rate, they would no longer watch movies and spend their time in the theater instead.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

2

another thing is a CGI likeness of all the principle cast for creating stunt shots with CGI dolls and the actor's likeness. I think each actor would be face scanned during the first season after the pilot for use whenever needed

This article shows how far the technology has come. Even for merchandising and CGI in the show:
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/12/...atos-very-own-lifelike-3-d-model-has-arrived/

 

[MacLeod]

Like the phoenix, Trek may periodically have to die and be reborn from the ashes. Remember the time between TOS and anything else besides maybe an occasional movie.

Sometimes a rest can be good thing. Look at DW which aside from a single TV movie hada 16 year break.