DS9 on blu ray?

[SoM]

And the first few seasons aren't that much of a change to their work on TNG now anyway.

Asides from any shots of Odo morphing or the wormhole...

Well, the wormhole is *complicated*, but it's really only one external shot that gets reused every time (flipped for the Gamma side, middle part looped if it needs to stay open longer) and one internal/transversal shot that only shows up in two or three episodes and was also reused (both with the ship models shot separately and matted on top). Fairly equivalent to the built-from-scratch Crystalline Entity CGI model that was made for TNG HD.

 

[TheSeeker]

I would say that carefully worded tweet is very promising indeed!

 

[Robert Comsol]

Pick up Star Trek: The Next Generation S6 on Blu-ray 6/24 to get your first look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in HD! cbshe.com/STNG6
5:35pm - 22 Mai 14

Of course they mean "Birthright".

Only "Birthright" or a teaser trailer? "Birthright" is not ST-DS9, it is TNG aboard Deep Space Nine. IMHO, this is a clear indication that DS9 on Blu-ray is coming.

"First look" tells me that there is going to be a second look, too.

If it wasn't, CBS would be in for a PR disaster, making such a suggestion without subsequent delivery.

Bob

 

[trekker670]

Only "Birthright" or a teaser trailer? "Birthright" is not ST-DS9, it is TNG aboard Deep Space Nine. IMHO, this is a clear indication that DS9 on Blu-ray is coming.

I'm almost certain this "first look" is a reference to "Birthright," not a teaser trailer. The past few seasons of TNG haven't even had trailers for the subsequent season, so I doubt that, even if they've secretly green-lit DS9, they're in any position to release a trailer.

"First look" tells me that there is going to be a second look, too.

If it wasn't, CBS would be in for a PR disaster, making such a suggestion without subsequent delivery.

I would hardly consider it a PR disaster if they don't end up giving DS9 the same treatment as TNG. They might have a few disappointed fans, but nothing more.

Simply saying "first look" and then not releasing the DS9 season sets is not misleading. It doesn't imply there will be any other releases, simply that this is the first.

Even the "first look" comment isn't 100% accurate, since they released "Trials and Tribble-ations" with the TOS set (albeit up-converted, rather than remastered)

 

[Robert Comsol]

I would hardly consider it a PR disaster if they don't end up giving DS9 the same treatment as TNG. They might have a few disappointed fans, but nothing more.

I think it's fair to assume that the addressee of that little detail are the devoted DS9 fans. In my experience you don't raise expectations like this unless you are a sadist.

Simply saying "first look" and then not releasing the DS9 season sets is not misleading. It doesn't imply there will be any other releases, simply that this is the first.

Well, "first look at Deep Space Nine footage in HD" would have been innocuous IMHO.

Even the "first look" comment isn't 100% accurate, since they released "Trials and Tribble-ations" with the TOS set (albeit up-converted, rather than remastered)

They released standard definition footage in an HD resolution which didn't yield anything remotely associated with HD. On the contrary I noticed more artifacts than I did with the SD material.

But it should be interesting to see, how they will remaster this particular episode in "true" HD. Hopefully our DS9 characters were also shot on film before they interacted with Kirk and company.

Bob

 

[jimbotron]

DS9 is definitely happening, and likely Voyager too. So don't worry.

CBS wouldn't sit on this huge franchise and only have 60% of the whole thing in HD for very long. In an age where HD remasters of TV shows are touching almost every genre, like X-Files, I Love Lucy, Little House on the Prairie, Seinfeld, Friends, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone, it's gonna happen. Yes, those other shows are much cheaper to remaster, but that won't stop it, because it will ultimately turn a profit.

 

[trekker670]

Right, I've heard it theorized on other sites (TrekCore, for example) that DS9 and VOY will be released in HD, but the concern is whether they're worth the complete remastering that we got for TOS and TNG, or if they'll see something more like ENT where they upscale the existing masters (the difference being DS9/VOY will be more noticeably up-scaled than ENT).

The scenarios I've seen floating around are

1) Complete remastering - going back to the film negatives and reconstructing special effects ala TNG.
2) Use the existing masters and upscale them, ala ENT, which will result in something like "Trials and Tribble-ations" on TOS-R S3, which is noticeably lacking.
3) A combination, where they reconstruct the from the film negatives, but simply upscale effects sequences.

I think we'd all like to see option 1, and my guess is that's what CBS will do given, but in the end it'll all come down the money.

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

I'm still fantasising about an alternating DS9/VOY season by season BD release schedule starting next year - that'd be really sweet. Highly doubtful I know.

 

[VORTEX8472]

DS9 on Blu-ray sounds exciting, I have no doubt VOY will be on Blu-ray within next few years also, just another excuse for CBS to rake in the ca$h $$$$!

Anyhow I really enjoy watching TNG on Blu-ray.

 

[tomswift2002]

Right, I've heard it theorized on other sites (TrekCore, for example) that DS9 and VOY will be released in HD, but the concern is whether they're worth the complete remastering that we got for TOS and TNG, or if they'll see something more like ENT where they upscale the existing masters (the difference being DS9/VOY will be more noticeably up-scaled than ENT).

The scenarios I've seen floating around are

1) Complete remastering - going back to the film negatives and reconstructing special effects ala TNG.
2) Use the existing masters and upscale them, ala ENT, which will result in something like "Trials and Tribble-ations" on TOS-R S3, which is noticeably lacking.
3) A combination, where they reconstruct the from the film negatives, but simply upscale effects sequences.

I think we'd all like to see option 1, and my guess is that's what CBS will do given, but in the end it'll all come down the money.

One problem there is Enterprise was not upscaled from SD masters. Sure the effects were done in 480p, and then upconverted, but that was done back in the early 2000's. Enterprise, right from "Broken Bow" was edited and mastered to 1080p tapes. The reason Enterprise doesn't look as crisp as TNG is due to the different transfer methods employed, not to mention but Season 4 was shot on HD tape. Enterprise has been ready for HD distribution (broadcast, DVHS, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, HD download) since September 2001. It's not like "Smallville" where the first season was mastered in 16:9 SD and no true HD masters exist.

DS9 and Voyager were shot on film and then edited and mastered on D2 tape, which is digital but it's a composite video source. And "Trials And Tribble-Ations" is actually on the Blu-Ray in 480p, but placed in a 16:9 matte. So "Trial and Tribble-ations" is not a good episode to use as a test for upscaled DS9. (I actually found this out by accident as I was playing around with the settings on my PS3, and I set it to output 480p to a TV capable of displaying 1080p, and it was connected via HDMI. The TV played back all the SD bonus features at 480p, such as the features that were included from the 2003 DVD's, and TAT played back at 480p. I played the TOS Tribbles episode, which played back at 1080p (this was while the PS3 settings were still at 480p), and the TAS Tribbles episode also played at 1080p. So the DS9 episode was only put on the Blu-Ray at standard-definition levels, and in a 16:9 matte; when my PS3 was set to 720p, 1080i and 1080p, the TV showed that it was receiving a 720p, 1080i or 1080p signal from the PS3 for the DS9 episode, but for the TOS & TAS episodes the TV kept receiving a 1080p signal at all 3 settings). The only upscaled thing with the DS9 episode was the audio that was in DTS-HD.

 

[Salinga]

TrekCore has caps from the DS9 episode on BluRay, and its not 16:9 and 480p, its 4:3 and 1080i:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=212

 

[jimbotron]

There's no way anything from DS9 or Voyager will be upscaled. ENT got away with it because the effects were digital, albeit 480p. There's a big difference between lo-res digital effects and effects transferred from D2 tape.

The Trials and Tribble-ations upscale in the TOS set was basically an afterthought to make an all-Tribble disc, and not a sign of things to come.

Though sadly, that HAS happened with another show - Farscape. The film stock is supposedly entirely lost (sounds fishy to me), so the Blu-rays are upscales of the PAL masters. It looks OK, but it's a joke to call it HD.

 

[tomswift2002]

TrekCore has caps from the DS9 episode on BluRay, and its not 16:9 and 480p, its 4:3 and 1080i:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=212

No it's 480p (more likely 480i, but HDMI only allows 480p as a minimum)16:9 on the Blu-Ray. I'm playing the disc right now. I've set my PS3's Display settings to 4:3 480p via HDMI. On my 40" Philips that can natively display 1080p in 16:9, it's displaying with black borders on all 4 sides of the image. I checked the episode from the animated series and it was displaying at 1080p 16:9; even the CBS logo the opened the disc was displaying at 1080p 16:9. So on Blu-Ray, to date, DS9 has only been represented (and mis-represented by some) in Standard-Definition Video.

 

[Salinga]

... then you should go to Memory-Alpha and correct their entry stating, the episode is 1080i on the Bluray:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Trials_and_Tribble-ations_(episode)

Also contact these guys, since they clearly lied in the Bluray-Review, stating the episode is in 4:3, 1080i on the Bluray
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Star-Trek-The-Original-Series-Season-2-Blu-ray/6281/#Review

Bring the truth to the peoples!!!! Thank god we have you, letting us know we are all lied to!

 

[tomswift2002]

With the 4:3, the episode is still in it's original 4:3 but it's been placed within a anamorphic 16:9 matte so that it displays properly on 16:9 TV's, instead of being stretched. But the other bonuses that were transferred over from the DS9 DVD are in 480i Full Screen 4:3, so the images are just pillar-boxed, there are no black bars over the top and bottom of the image, and my TV was doing it's own upconversion, just as it would be if I were watching SD cable.

But I did notice that the DS9 episode was encoded in VC-1 with bit rates ranging from about 8.0 Mbps up to 33.0 Mbps, with the average being about 17.0 to 22.0 Mbps. The other DVD bonuses were in VC-1, but in the DVD range of 4.5 to 8.0 Mbps.

(On Blu-Ray.com I can't seem to find a contact form.)

 

[SoM]

Right, I've heard it theorized on other sites (TrekCore, for example) that DS9 and VOY will be released in HD, but the concern is whether they're worth the complete remastering that we got for TOS and TNG, or if they'll see something more like ENT where they upscale the existing masters (the difference being DS9/VOY will be more noticeably up-scaled than ENT).

The scenarios I've seen floating around are

1) Complete remastering - going back to the film negatives and reconstructing special effects ala TNG.
2) Use the existing masters and upscale them, ala ENT, which will result in something like "Trials and Tribble-ations" on TOS-R S3, which is noticeably lacking.
3) A combination, where they reconstruct the from the film negatives, but simply upscale effects sequences.

I think we'd all like to see option 1, and my guess is that's what CBS will do given, but in the end it'll all come down the money.

I think they'll go with option 1 at first. DS9 starts off with exactly the same setup as TNG - all ships models, only very limited CGI in total - so they can just proceed directly onward, which will be quicker and simpler (and thus cheaper!) than pausing to consider.

After that, there's two inflection points that could go either way - first, the sales figures for DS9 S1 and second, the point at which CGI starts to become a major part of the series. If sales come in far enough under target, they'll stop. And the CGI scenes are going to be more expensive to redo properly* - if there's a point at which upscaling comes into the picture, that'll be it.

*Yes, there was that bit a while back about *some* of the assets still surviving. But even if everything the guy saved is usable in HD with a simple rerender, as he claimed, that was the effects house that did more VOY than DS9.

 

[jimbotron]

It looks 1080i to me. This screenshot shows combing (Kira):

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/5x06hd/trialsandtribbleationshd0008.jpg

It was probably a 480i/60 upscale to 1080i/60 (60 interlaced fields showing 30 completed frames per second), which is the native refresh/frame rate of the SD master. I doubt they went through the trouble of converting it to 1080p/24.

 

[FrontierTrek]

Guys - for clarification - the CBS tweet was referring to the first appearance of the STATION in high definition in "Birthright". It was by no means meant to indicate a DS9 Remastering is imminent... it was poorly worded.

The standard line of information that you've seen repeatedly from us is that DS9 is a huge project, very complicated, but CBS are considering all options.

I feel the need to be a bit clearer about this as some fans have started to predict that DS9 could follow hot on the heals of TNG early next year. The reality is that getting such a project off the ground for a seamless transition from TNG is now VERY unlikely. There has been no green light, and with the speed things are moving, it is seeming increasingly likely that CBS Digital will wrap TNG and move on to other things by the time DS9 becomes any sort of a reality.

I hope this settles a bit of the (very natural) speculation.

 

[MacLeod]

We shall see what happens perhaps like TNG they'll wait to the 25th Anniversary of DSN in 2018. Or delay it until 2016 and do it as part of the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek.

 

[BillJ]

Guys - for clarification - the CBS tweet was referring to the first appearance of the STATION in high definition in "Birthright". It was by no means meant to indicate a DS9 Remastering is imminent... it was poorly worded.

The standard line of information that you've seen repeatedly from us is that DS9 is a huge project, very complicated, but CBS are considering all options.

I feel the need to be a bit clearer about this as some fans have started to predict that DS9 could follow hot on the heals of TNG early next year. The reality is that getting such a project off the ground for a seamless transition from TNG is now VERY unlikely. There has been no green light, and with the speed things are moving, it is seeming increasingly likely that CBS Digital will wrap TNG and move on to other things by the time DS9 becomes any sort of a reality.

I hope this settles a bit of the (very natural) speculation.

While I didn't think DS9 was likely based on the sales figures of TNG and Enterprise I've seen reported around the internet, this still bums me out. Makes it seem more likely that if DS9/VOY ever make it to HD, the product will be more similar to The X-Files than TNG.