Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by JJ-R, Sep 5, 2012.

  1. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yeah, the Hathaway shot is pretty bad, although it's a mix of the model not being given some lining on the back to accentuate the details, the poor lighting, and the explosion element. Definitely not up to par with CBS Digital's work.
     
  2. LtChange

    LtChange Captain Captain

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    The problem is that it might look better in motion. Many time I saw bad screen captures just to realize that when in motion is absolutely astonishing ... So let's wait and see
     
  3. NewHorizon

    NewHorizon Captain Captain

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    Unfortunately, the work we have seen from the outsourced company has been below the quality of similar shots by cbs. Establishing shots using the same footage haven't measured up even. They really need to let CBS handle all of the compositing...or at the very least have someone at CBS give everything a consistency pass.
     
  4. Flake

    Flake Commodore Commodore

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    the glimpses of s2 sfx are not looking good thus far imho... gonna be a lot of nitpicking around for s2 !
     
  5. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well the DVDs looked so awful that even this "subpar" work still looks pretty fantastic to me.

    BTW, Trekmovie has a cool new shot from Time's Squared as well.
     
  6. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well, that Trekmovie shot is painfully obvious about the fact the 2 footer was used. I would've rather had the CG Enterprise there.
     
  7. Michael

    Michael Good Bad Influence Moderator

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    Both the shots from "Peak Performance" and "Time Squared" look very cool, especially the latter. I have nothing to complain. :)
     
  8. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah it definitely stands out more, but I've always thought that model looked kind of cool from the front anyway, so I can live with it.
     
  9. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

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    This shot (i.e. the 2-foot miniature) doesn't bother me so much... except for the visible matte line around the ship -- which is a little inexplicable considering this new shot was digitally composited using original elements, not optically composited.

    Still looks leagues better than the crappy NTSC composite.
     
  10. Ghostface1701

    Ghostface1701 Commander Red Shirt

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    Very true, but so would an upscaled transfer, like the example we saw on the Season 1 set. At some point though, we have to say that this isn't up to the standards we now expect from TNG HD. Having said that, I can probably live with everything I've seen so far.

    It's such a relief though that CBS-D is working on Season 3.
     
  11. NewHorizon

    NewHorizon Captain Captain

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    If we can expect this level of quality from this outsourced company...visible matte lines, blurry planets, etc...I think CBS D needs to handle the compositing themselves and just let this company scan the footage for them.

    While some consumers here are quite happy to accept the step down, I'm not. I would like consistency from Season to season.

    If you're listening CBS D, this really dampens my spirits for the project. First the sound issues with Season 1 and now this?
     
  12. FrontierTrek

    FrontierTrek Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Not CBS-D, just CBS. CBS-D would have dearly loved to have been able to do the whole lot, as Craig Weiss (head of the CBS-D team) told me in our interview, "we would have loved to have kept [Season 2] here, but due to the schedule it was just impossible."
     
  13. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Like I said before, I'd rather have had seasons every six months or so with consistent quality. If season two is screwed up, I'll simply start waiting for them to show up on TV or Netflix instead of spending cash on the sets.
     
  14. Scotty

    Scotty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I think that at least part of the problem with these shots can be found with the original effects work. Take the vortex shot from Time's Squared. The vortex itself looks stunning, put apparently the SFX team that made the original shot decided to use the two footer for the flyby shot which 25 years later looks poor in close up in HD. The HD restoration is true to the original shot, maybe to a fault, but it still is a faithfull recomposition of the original work. I think the effects shots in the second season weren't as good to begin with as the first season effects.
     
  15. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

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    I think overall, the VFX were better and more ambitious than in season one... but I suspect the reason Robert Legato used the inferior 2-foot miniature for this particular shot was due to the camera move -- the ship had to appear to turn around 180 degrees and then recede from camera by quite a bit. There probably wasn't enough room on the stage floor at Image G to do that move with the larger 6-foot miniature.*

    And of course that was one of the primary considerations for creating the intermediate-sized 4-foot miniature. They needed something smaller than the cumbersome 6-footer, but with more detail than the 2-footer.

    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galaxy_class_model#Four-foot_model

    *I suppose they could've used a wider lens, but the 6-footer would have looked too distorted up close.
     
  16. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    I don't know if this was brought up before, but I have to say...my number one hope for the new transfers is to finally "fix" all the shots where a destroyed starship would just magically disappear the moment the explosion appeared. I understand why it happened originally, but it would be a minor task to keep them in the shot for a few extra frames until the explosion fully covered the ship. [Fingers crossed]
     
  17. Michael

    Michael Good Bad Influence Moderator

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    Maybe I'm not as attentive as I thought I am, but I don't recall an episode where we actually see the ship disappear before the explosion fully covers it. Not saying you are wrong, it's just that I can't remember something like that. Any examples?
     
  18. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think the season is still awfully far from being "screwed up."

    In fact, if anything, I'd say the slightly imperfect, more stitched-together shots we're seeing for S2 are probably more true to what the show actually looked like back then.

    The CBS-D team may have done some incredible, feature-quality work on S1 (with cleaned up matte lines, improved CG planets, etc), but it's probably pretty far from what the show was actually capable of in the late 80s.

    And maybe it's just me, but I'm not really looking for the effects on these sets to be as perfect and flawless as what we see today's movie screens. I just want it to look like TNG, and I think these shots do.
     
  19. Rarewolf

    Rarewolf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Not deleted scenes and commentaries for every episode though.

    It might be the best version of this season so far, but you can't say there isn't a better range of extras that could have been done, given more time and money.

    Its' a glimpse of perfection, of what could have been.

    An extended episode is brilliant. Imagine 22 extended episodes.
     
  20. Scotty

    Scotty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Would you like an added CGI Jabba The Hutt with that? :rolleyes: