CBS Digital needs more time to produce promised quality!

[NewHorizon]

If anyone from the CBS offices is reading this. Please, for the love of all that is sacred, give the CBS digital team some breathing room. The Original Series deserves far better than what it has been given. I'm pleased that you have gone back to fix the obvious error in Mirror Mirror, but this project needs an overhaul from the ground up.

Re-air the previously completed episodes and allow your digital team to put their talents to work. The state the early episodes were in upon release is embarrassing.

I hate to be negative, but put an end to this foolish race. There is no way the team can keep this pace on all the episodes, the whole project is just going to look like a wreck. Give them the time they need to complete their work. I want to see the quality we were promised.

 

[DontFeedPhil]

I agree. It seems very hit and miss. With most shots missing...

 

[Professor Moriarty]

I know a couple of people who work in the visual F/X industry who told me that they were glad they were not working on this project, given the impossible schedule CBS Digital has to meet.

 

[NewHorizon]

Professor Moriarty said:
I know a couple of people who work in the visual F/X industry who told me that they were glad they were not working on this project, given the impossible schedule CBS Digital has to meet.

I believe it. The whole project just seems like one huge contradiction. CBS respects the original series, wants to preserve it and make it palatable to modern audiences, but then they won't invest the time and resources needed to do the job correctly.

 

[USS Mariner]

It's CBmount. You expect quality from the two-headed monster?

 

[NCC621]

Anyone who has ever worked in series television will tell you that there's NEVER enough time or money. I know several people who work in television, and I've never heard anyone do anything but complain about ridiculous schedules and unrealistic budgets. And yet, they always do amazing work, even though they're always cursing the studios. I can't believe that any version of Star Trek is any different.

 

[NewHorizon]

NCC621 said:
Anyone who has ever worked in series television will tell you that there's NEVER enough time or money. I know several people who work in television, and I've never heard anyone do anything but complain about ridiculous schedules and unrealistic budgets. And yet, they always do amazing work, even though they're always cursing the studios. I can't believe that any version of Star Trek is any different.

Major difference in this case however...this particular version of Star Trek was completed back in the sixties, and isn't incredibly effects heavy. There is absolutely no reason to be rushing to get the new effects finished. As I said before....simply rerun the episodes completed up until now and that should allow CBS digital to really sink their teeth into getting a few episodes ahead. Then we'll be able to see the quality they promised us.

I've worked in Series Television, Musical Theater, and I have also worked in the computer gaming industry. If this were a first run weekly series, then yes...I could see the reason for having to meet a strict deadline...but this show has been around for forty years now, it's not going anywhere. What the late start and subsequent mad rush to get them out there on a weekly basis is about, I really don't know.

 

[Borjis]

NewHorizon said:
[There is absolutely no reason to be rushing to get the new effects finished.

There actually IS/WAS a reason but not a good one imo.
They needed to get them done so they could start offering the new syndication packages for the affiliates.

I work in TV & Radio post production and its all very true that impossible deadlines are the norm of the industry.

It would be nice if everyone would just take a chill pill and schedule things not so tight so things could be done without such high stressing deadlines, but its never been that way and it never will be.

 

[NewHorizon]

Borjis said:
It would be nice if everyone would just take a chill pill and schedule things not so tight so things could be done without such high stressing deadlines, but its never been that way and it never will be.

I think in this case they really could though. Aside from the new effects, these episodes have been aired a thousands of times. I doubt the affiliates would be too upset if they were to rerun the completed episodes so they could catch up a bit. As I said, this isn't a brand new weekly program.

 

[skylark]

I would imagine that giving CBS Digital a few extra weeks would be a simple matter of writing a large check to the studio to cover those several weeks of lost revenues from syndication income.

Oh, and this particular version of Star Trek was not completed in the 1960s. It is being produced in 2006. I have no idea why they didn't start sooner, but movie studios are corporations, and there's always complicated reasons why they don't do things the way we think they should.

I will say that despite all this angst, the Remastered episodes are looking pretty good. I just wish they were airing at a decent hour, but fortunately, there's TiVO.

 

[LavianoTS386]

It's simple. The man hours are budgeted.

 

[Ronald Held]

It is too much to expect to get everything correct on a tight schedule. As long as they go back and make everything consistant for the HD DVDs that will have to do.

 

[Therin of Andor]

skylark said:
... a simple matter of writing a large check to the studio

Hehehehehehehehe. Yeah, "simple".

 

[NCC621]

It would be nice if they would go back and redo some of the early effects, but I don't think anyone has promised that they would do so.

 

[Steven Of Nine]

Well, they could always scrap the project entirely...

It's likely that they need these done in a time frame that gets the package aired, and money made from syndication packages, prior to a DVD-HDDVD-BRDVD release that will coincide with their future release schedules, including the release of... STXI.

Wouldn't it be a coincidence if the DVD packages were available right around the hoopla for a movie based on the same show?

 

[shornak]

Yeah, I get the feeling they are just rushing through these and not taking the time to quality check their work. I mean Mike Okuda has been in Star Trek one way or another since STIV , that's over 20 years. He should know better then to stick a flyby shot in a show when the Enterprise is suppose to be orbiting a planet. Maybe they need to slow down and come out with these every other week or something to give themselves more time to invest in this.

 

[Campe]

Nevermind... I'm wrong.

 

[Ronald Held]

Scrap the project. IMO it is too late....

 

[Ghostface1701]

shornak said:
Yeah, I get the feeling they are just rushing through these and not taking the time to quality check their work. I mean Mike Okuda has been in Star Trek one way or another since STIV , that's over 20 years. He should know better then to stick a flyby shot in a show when the Enterprise is suppose to be orbiting a planet. Maybe they need to slow down and come out with these every other week or something to give themselves more time to invest in this.

Apparently, the shot in question was mistakenly put in by another company handling the editing of the episode. CBS Digital have already said they're going to fix this for future screenings.

Have I missed something? Why the sudden furore over one little mistake? I thought the new FX have been pretty good so far.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They're doing pretty well so far. Let them work.