The "PLEASE remaster DS9 thread"

[LtChange]

A quote from trekcore, about the remastered TNG series and future remastered projects:

If CBS are to take the plunge through the wormhole and green-light a Deep Space Nine remastering into HD, Craig Weiss urges fans to start lighting up the message boards to show our interest - that's when CBS "starts to really listen"

Source: http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/cbsdigital_interview5.html

So, everybody say: "Aye" for remastered DS9 like TNG-R.

 

[LtChange]

And after that Voyager and Enterprise (although I don't think Enterprise needs remastering, it was done in HD ... so they could release that anytime)

 

[MacLeod]

Don't get me wrong I want DSN in HD, but there is a small part of me that says leave it to last. So they can work out all the bugs of the process on other shows first.

 

[LtChange]

Don't get me wrong I want DSN in HD, but there is a small part of me that says leave it to last. So they can work out all the bugs of the process on other shows first.

Got it, but let's say after TNG they will go for Voyager (more heavy on the mix of CGI with classic effects than DSN and more so than TNG), and they do get it right, but sales won't be high enough, they might think DSN is not a good investment and they won't do it ... I really think they should do this in chronological order, and release DSN along TNG Season 6 already ...

 

[SonOfMogh]

Signed, this MUST happen!!!

 

[bullethead]

There's no way they'll go to VOY before DS9. VOY stops using motion capture model effects fairly early in the show, so it'll be far more difficult to replace four seasons of CGI than doing a remaster of DS9.

 

[PsychoPere]

The Digital Bits:

In other news today, we highly recommend that you Trekkers check out this radio story from KPCC's Off Ramp program - it's a feature on CBS' Star Trek: The Next Generation Blu-ray remastering effort. And you'll definitely want to stick with it right to the end, because for the first time in public (to our knowledge) there's the suggestion made that - provided demand is there and the TNG Blu-rays all sell well - CBS may continue their BD remastering/upgrade effort on to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine! Cool news indeed. This jives with what we've been hearing from our own industry sources. Keep your fingers crossed.

 

[Dream]

There's no way they'll go to VOY before DS9. VOY stops using motion capture model effects fairly early in the show, so it'll be far more difficult to replace four seasons of CGI than doing a remaster of DS9.

When did DS9 stop using models and move completely to CGI ships? I see the huge fleet space battles in DS9 in later seasons being expensive as hell to recreate with CGI. It isn't just the many many ships onscreen at the same time, the very complex moments, but it all needs to be HD quality. This will be the biggest issue for a DS9 remaster release.

TNG was lucky sticking with model ships for the entire series. CBS only needs to replace all the CGI phaser shots and fix a mistake every once in a while.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There's no way they'll go to VOY before DS9. VOY stops using motion capture model effects fairly early in the show, so it'll be far more difficult to replace four seasons of CGI than doing a remaster of DS9.

Wouldn't it be actually easier to remaster Voyager, for precisely that reason? Meaning, you wouldn't have to mess around with recompositing model shots or anything like what they're doing with TNG-R, just do all new animations.

Notice how I said easier, not cheaper.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

But I only finished buying it all a couple years ago!

Well not DS9, I've had that for a long time. I can see what this is about though, I will be upgrading my Trek until I'm dead.

 

[NCC-1701-B]

I've not even found DS9 and VOY past season 4 each for a reasonable price! I'm only collecting the hard case versions though.

But definitely would love to see DS9 in bluray!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I sold a couple hard case VOY's and bought the whole series. I never liked the coffins.

 

[bullethead]

There's no way they'll go to VOY before DS9. VOY stops using motion capture model effects fairly early in the show, so it'll be far more difficult to replace four seasons of CGI than doing a remaster of DS9.

When did DS9 stop using models and move completely to CGI ships? I see the huge fleet space battles in DS9 in later seasons being expensive as hell to recreate with CGI. It isn't just the many many ships onscreen at the same time, the very complex moments, but it all needs to be HD quality. This will be the biggest issue for a DS9 remaster release.

They used CG throughout the show, but only started using it heavily for space VFX in season 6. They used plenty of stock footage in the last two seasons, so it's not like they went full CG at some point.

There's no way they'll go to VOY before DS9. VOY stops using motion capture model effects fairly early in the show, so it'll be far more difficult to replace four seasons of CGI than doing a remaster of DS9.

Wouldn't it be actually easier to remaster Voyager, for precisely that reason? Meaning, you wouldn't have to mess around with recompositing model shots or anything like what they're doing with TNG-R, just do all new animations.

Nope, see the quote above yours. You have to remake all the CGI to stand up in HD, then have to copy the exact moves made by the VFX crew over a decade ago. TNG-R has an advantage because all the major effects components are on film and they just have to put them back together to rebuild the VFX.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Sign me up!

 

[Dream]

They used CG throughout the show, but only started using it heavily for space VFX in season 6. They used plenty of stock footage in the last two seasons, so it's not like they went full CG at some point.

You telling me the huge space battles in The Way of the Warrior and in Call to Arms were done with all models instead of CGI?

 

[R. Star]

What suckers we consumers are they can just "remaster" anything every ten years or so and people keep on buying.

 

[inflatabledalek]

They used CG throughout the show, but only started using it heavily for space VFX in season 6. They used plenty of stock footage in the last two seasons, so it's not like they went full CG at some point.

You telling me the huge space battles in The Way of the Warrior and in Call to Arms were done with all models instead of CGI?

I think Call to Arms may have been mostly CGI (and is after all, only one episode before season 6 so I'd say it gets covered by the original quote) but Way of the Warrior was indeed mostly model work. There's a lot of Trek Christmas tree decorations in there filling in for the background ships.

 

[LtChange]

Wouldn't it be actually easier to remaster Voyager, for precisely that reason? Meaning, you wouldn't have to mess around with recompositing model shots or anything like what they're doing with TNG-R, just do all new animations.

Notice how I said easier, not cheaper.

I must say it is cheaper too. Compared to the CGI effects of the 90's the same shot would be cheaper to be made now. Let's not forget that they did redo 3 seasons of TOS with CGI recently. And there is another thing: Who knows, maybe the effects shots of the later DS9 and VOY seasons are intact, and maybe, just maybe, they could be reused with a higher quality and resolution texture. That would bring down the prices once again. Usually newer versions of a software are backward compatible, so there might be a chance that the archived effects can be redone with a newer version of the same software. But honestly, I don't know if there is a newer software to whatever CGI software they used then.

Back to being cheaper: I just marvel at some of the fan stuff out there with modern CGI techniques. YouTube has a lot of videos made by fans, and some of them are truly spectacular. (ok, some of them are terrible)

You telling me the huge space battles in The Way of the Warrior and in Call to Arms were done with all models instead of CGI?

Yeap. Just pop in your DS9 disc and pay close attention. It is clearly model based battle. As a contrast, "What you leave behind" did reuse some of the earlier effects in the episode, so you can see contrast between CGI and model elements in that episode as well, but when CGI is used I say it is pretty apparent.

 

[bullethead]

Wouldn't it be actually easier to remaster Voyager, for precisely that reason? Meaning, you wouldn't have to mess around with recompositing model shots or anything like what they're doing with TNG-R, just do all new animations.

Notice how I said easier, not cheaper.

I must say it is cheaper too. Compared to the CGI effects of the 90's the same shot would be cheaper to be made now. Let's not forget that they did redo 3 seasons of TOS with CGI recently. And there is another thing: Who knows, maybe the effects shots of the later DS9 and VOY seasons are intact, and maybe, just maybe, they could be reused with a higher quality and resolution texture. That would bring down the prices once again. Usually newer versions of a software are backward compatible, so there might be a chance that the archived effects can be redone with a newer version of the same software. But honestly, I don't know if there is a newer software to whatever CGI software they used then.

Back to being cheaper: I just marvel at some of the fan stuff out there with modern CGI techniques. YouTube has a lot of videos made by fans, and some of them are truly spectacular. (ok, some of them are terrible)

IIRC, what I've heard from VFX people is that CGI hasn't made effects cheaper, but you can do a bit more than they used to be able to for the same amount of money. But the biggest problem is that according to Doug Drexler on his blog, the studios have no freaking clue what to do with the files you need for the CGI models, so at best you might have the models available, but they'd be so low rez that you'd have to make new ones from scratch anyway, but absolutely none of the animation move programming.

 

[LtChange]

Well they are paid to make it happen, so if it is a little bit more complicated means that they have a stable job for a few more month . It would have been good for them if the animation programing is available, but honestly, with modern CGI I wouldn't mind some more dynamic effects anyhow. As it wast stated before, we love DS9 for the story not for the effects, so if in a release we would have some original effects up-converted (Firefly had up-converted effects and were OK) and we could get a set of new HD effects like in the TOS blu-ray discs I wouldn't mind at all, as long as this would be used correctly and not abused. There were some generic shots re-used several time and could be updated/changed through new CGI effects.