Agreed. DVD was meant to look good on CRT TVs which produced images using the sweeping electron beam and phosphorous dot tech, with blurry boundaries between lines. DVD looked great even on really big, higher end CRT TVs. Contemporary HD and UHD television tech is fundamentally different as it has a fixed, high-pixel resolution using discrete, sharply defined pixels. DVD looks sub-par when upscaled to this format, even on a smaller HD TV. The imperfections in the source material are more evident, and scaling algorithms in consumer-level hardware are often mediocre, and always require some funkiness in the math as the source resolution has to be made to fill a a higher resolution that is usually not a multiple of the source resolution. For instance, 1080 / 480 is 2.25, and 2160 (the vertical resolution of 4K UHD on consumer equipment) / 480 is 4.5. And then there's all that complicated rigmarole about interlaced vs. progressive scan. At least that's my basic understanding of this stuff as a layman. Someone else can probably explain all this much better and more accurately. More basic factors are that blu-ray has much better color quality than DVD, and much better audio quality including lossless formats, and high-quality audio is an essential aspect of the home theater experience. Kor
I respect that as a vinyl fan. But as a A/V nerd, I know 4K UHD is the best out there. Granted, I do buy more digital movies these days because, space (my disc collection has shrunk dramatically in the past five years), and typically I can get them cheaper.
"The newly restored film will subsequently arrive on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in September from Paramount Home Entertainment" https://intl.startrek.com/news/star...ion-to-premiere-on-paramount-on-first-contact Does this mean that it will ONLY be available on 4K Blu-ray and not 'normal' HD Blu-ray?
I’ve seen discs that have been mastered terribly and look like complete garbage. I’ve seen other discs that look like you’re watching them on the big screen with grain and all. I respect what you’re saying but with every format there’s good and bad examples.
I’m sure a blu ray version is coming as well. Most 4K sets come with a blu ray disc. I want to know if there’s a steelbook
The movies that tend to look overly sharp/crisp and fake in 4K are contemporary movies with lots of digital effects. Movies shot on film and mastered well look fantastic in 4K. It makes the classic filmic quality really stand out. If there's no grain, then it was done wrong. In the case of ST:TMP-DE, the aim is to make the new effects match the 1979 appearance of the rest of the movie (to my eye the 2001 version only got that right with one specific effects shot, but that's a discussion for another day). So hopefully in 4K those new effects won't have the too-crisp fakeyness that contemporary blockbusters often have. Kor
I really can't wait to see it. It looks tremendous and I'm glad this movie is finally getting the treatment it deserves. That just leaves The Final Frontier on my TOS Movie wishlist. Shatner Directors Cut and improved VFX please!
If any movie needs improved VFXs its Star Trek Insurrection. that blue screen on the collector is so jarring to look at after 25 years.
That's why I said TOS Movie wishlist. For me the TNG movies can all suck an egg. I've no intention of ever watching any of them again in my lifetime.
You mean depriving us of Kirk and his love instructor, people having sex in public parts of the ship and Kirk getting a boner on the bridge when he meets Ilia? Gene really should’ve taken a cold shower every day prior to hitting the typewriter. Seriously, though, I’m so excited to see this. There’s no Paramount + in the uk yet so it’ll be a long wait to September. TMP is my favourite Trek movie and is strangely therapeutic to watch. I like the Director’s Cut but rarely watch it because of the potato picture quality. I remember back when it was released the SFx people said in an interview that they added specks and imperfections to the new digital FX so it would match the film quality. Twenty years later and I’m still astounded they didn’t bother remastering the film stock to good quality when they could. This remaster/edit can’t come fast enough.
Drew "doubleofive" Stewart, who operates the Star Trek (and Star Wars) visual comparison twitter accounts, has put up an album directly comparing every shot from the new trailer to the old DE and the theatrical cut.
I can't wait to see this. My DVD of the directors cut is almost unwatchable in places. I hope they clean up the scene where the klingon cruiser fires the aft torpedo just before being digitised. I can't even make that scene out it's just a big red smudge.
I'm excited about seeing it. One of the things I liked about TMP was the visual effects, along with the score.