I didn't understand re-releasing those god-awful masters from the early-90's.
DS9 on blu ray?
- Thread starter borgboy
- Start date
I didn't understand re-releasing those god-awful masters from the early-90's.
[.... I still think an HD upgrade with the live-action film rescanned at a minimum is all but guaranteed.
This "all but guaranteed" phrase is still puzzling to me. The arguments you present seem to lead me in the other direction. And in any case FrontierTrek said nothing was guaranteed, and that things look uncertain at best right now.
"All but guaranteed" seems kinda like a faith-based initiative to me. Do you have some blood of the Prophets in your veins? lol....
When I say it's "all but guaranteed" I mean the precise definition of the "all but" idiom: very nearly guaranteed. I don't mean it's 100% guaranteed or even just plain guaranteed. THAT would be a "faith-based" statement with no possible justification. And I mean it primarily from a long term point of view.
Look, I make no exact predictions because I can't know what is in the minds of the CBS executives who are in a position to make that call. Also, consider that those executives who are there today will likely not be there in the future. Studio executives usually have a high turnover rate and don't stick around at any one place very long. The top jobs are almost always temporary. What is considered too expensive or unfeasible today could be totally possible and a "go" tomorrow with different people making the call. As I mentioned earlier, the company's stock is 10 points higher today than a year ago. If you look five years back, it's over 50 points higher. The trend for the company is up, up, up!
I'm sure FrontierTrek is right that the likelihood of DS9-R done by CBS Digital looks grim in the short term if it doesn't get a green light soon because they will have to lay off the additional employees they hired to work on TNG-R Seasons 3, 5, 6 & 7. Then there's a somewhat smaller probability that it could happen a year from now (and be ready just in time for the 50th anniversary) after a well-deserved break and more money flows in from TNG-R... but three years from now, five, ten, 15... each year that passes it becomes, perhaps counterintuitively, more probable once again. Why is that?
Sometime in the near future, all SD broadcasts, streaming and digital downloads will end and content distributors will only accept 720p HD as a minimum standard, maybe even 1080p -- we can only hope. SD will be completely antiquated and verboten. In that future world, the two remaining Star Trek shows will be completely unsalable in their current state. If they aren't going to remaster those shows ever, they might as well throw away all the film because it's just taking up space and costing them money with no financial return. It is in the best corporate interests of CBS to convert their entire Star Trek library to HD. And that is -- wait for it -- all but guaranteed.
With a population of about 63m or 25% of that of the US. Hardly an insignifigant market, esp. as the UK is one of the best markets after the USA for ST.
For all we know though, those same content distributors may want only 16:9 material at that point. Which still makes Trek's entire library antiquated.
Here's an argument for rebuilding DS9. Look at the top of the list of best sellers in blu-ray at Amazon today, out of all of the thousands of blu-ray titles they sell. These are sale prices, of course, but this is for sets that have been available for years:
1. Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection
2. Lone Survivor
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection
4. Star Trek: The Complete Original Series
5. Bond 50
6. Star Trek: Stardate Collection
1. Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection
2. Lone Survivor
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection
4. Star Trek: The Complete Original Series
5. Bond 50
6. Star Trek: Stardate Collection
Problem is that the disc market isn't what it was five-seven years ago.
The only (and crazy) reason I can see for them to be reissued is just for promoting them as "this is the last time you get to purchase TNG as it originally was when it aired", but I doubt that. I'm pretty sure it would look bitchin' on a 1995 CRT monitor.
It was "state of the art" then, but we've come a long way from what was considered such in the 90s. Trying to watch the original version of STAR WARS on DVD based on a 1993 laserdisc master is never enjoyable today.*
*=I just got the "Despecialized Editions", and viewing the first last night was probably the first time I watched the flick without feeling annoyed.
*=I just got the "Despecialized Editions", and viewing the first last night was probably the first time I watched the flick without feeling annoyed.
Entire library? Not Enterprise. Also, nothing is stopping the distributors from cropping the material if that's what they believe their viewers want. Look at what BBC America does to TNG in SD! They crop it to 14:9. I guarantee you that will look better starting with an HD image.
Entire library? Not Enterprise. Also, nothing is stopping the distributors from cropping the material if that's what they believe their viewers want. Look at what BBC America does to TNG in SD! They crop it to 14:9. I guarantee you that will look better starting with an HD image.
I forgot about Enterprise!
No doubt. Aside from BBC America's airings of TNG, the only Trek I often seen aired here in the states from time to time are all the films.
The Original Series currently airs on MeTV, Saturdays at 9PM.
Considering last year the two recovered Doctor Who stories that were B&W and barely SD briefly topped the iTunes charts, don't write off older formats just yet. Digital downloads offer a bigger library than possible before.
Look at what BBC America does to TNG in SD! They crop it to 14:9. I guarantee you that will look better starting with an HD image.
I'm not sure they can. HD doesn't support 4:3, so the pillarboxes are part of the image. If you zoom in on that - yes it would look better -but it wouldn't technically be HD
Not in my area, sadly. Looking at my listings, I notice TNG is going on SyFy. Hadn't seen it in that channel in a long time, I assume they're just SD airings again?
Tuesday's on SyFy are TNG days. They air something like five hours of TNG every Tuesday. Aside from that and the movies, no major TV network in the states is airing any other Trek.
It is in the best corporate interests of CBS to convert their entire Star Trek library to HD. And that is -- wait for it -- all but guaranteed.
Not just that, but this is a property that CBS won't just sit on. CBS is in business to make money, and when you own the television rights to such a large franchise you want to keep it out there. CBS doesn't have many shows that have the staying power of Star Trek, so updating the rest of it would probably be money well spent (either via a full restoration or something else).
It'll all come down to how much money is it going to cost and how long it'll take to get a return on the investment.
I'm sure that someone will look at how much Deep Space Nine and Voyager have earned and how much more they are likely to earn over the next several years with and without an HD facelift.
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