DS9’s Ratings in 2020

[tomswift2002]

I saw a similar thread over in the TNG forum, so I looked up DS9.

https://tv.parrotanalytics.com/US/star-trek-deep-space-nine-syndication

Audience Demand: 8.2x higher than other shows

last 30 days the demand was down -1.1%


Percentile tank: 95.3

In Canada it is

https://tv.parrotanalytics.com/CA/star-trek-deep-space-nine-syndication

Audience Demand: 4.4x
Last 30 days demand is up 21.8%
Percentile rank: 94.6

 

[arch101]

It's time has come. Clearly a show for the streaming age...

 

[tomswift2002]

CBS should Remaster it in HD! Clearly it’s got the ratings to warrant a Remaster. Even Voyager. This is like if Disney had left all their shows from the 1950’s that had been shot in color (but in the 50’s and 60’s aired & syndicated in black and white) in black and white.

 

[kkt]

I am not sure. It distresses me as a fan of the original series how many changes they made during remastering. I just wanted higher resolution. I didn't want them re-composing shots or changing what objects were in view. I guess having more different planets-of-the-week instead of just flipping them around and changing the color filters is a plus.

DS9 is not like the 60s show with a broken shoestring budget and primitive special effects technology. It doesn't need remastering that much, in my opinion.

 

[tomswift2002]

I am not sure. It distresses me as a fan of the original series how many changes they made during remastering. I just wanted higher resolution. I didn't want them re-composing shots or changing what objects were in view. I guess having more different planets-of-the-week instead of just flipping them around and changing the color filters is a plus.

DS9 is not like the 60s show with a broken shoestring budget and primitive special effects technology. It doesn't need remastering that much, in my opinion.

Have you seen the TNG-Remaster?

The problem with TOS from a special effects standpoint is that the original 60’s effects have been lost in terms of the individual layers. All that exists is what’s in the final episode master, which CBS did Remaster (since they are on 35mm film, which for the ship/planet shows, were actually shot on 16mm, composited on 16mm (for cost savings) and then enlarged to 35mm for the final master), and when you watch the Blu-Rays you can see them, but they are very washed out, and because of the number of analog generations and even with the later episodes where they were copying the same effects, to the point where there is no definition in the Enterprise, and it’s white, versus the gray in the earlier episodes and you can’t even see like the red lines along the bottom hull. Plus, from the original compositing, there are numerous shots that are dirty and have hairs and scratches that were introduced on the optical printer. Really, the original TOS SFX shots are in a similar state right now to the 2008 16mm print of “Metropolis”, grainy and full of dirt. Really, for HD, CBS could not offer it into HD Syndication for the amount of money that they wanted, without completely restoring the FX. There were even a few live-action scenes (like the opening bridge shot during Kirk’s trial in “Court Martial” after Cogley says that Finney is not dead, and you have the horizontal flip to black and then to the bridge, what was used for the HD master came from a 16mm syndication print, as the network master had a crease in the film that you can see on the 2000 & 2004 DVD’s and VHS/Betamax’s, and they couldn’t find the camera negative to reprint it, so in the Remaster that scene looks little lighter and bluer versus the surrounding scenes) that had to be taken from syndication masters or the best sources available, however that wouldn’t have been a major killer (also, the masters were actually prepared in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio, whereas for syndication, the episodes had been transferred in 1.33:1, so in order to make the widescreen masters, they were looking for the 1.37:1 masters to use the most real estate in the crop).

So in order to deliver a High-Quality video, CGI was the most cost effective way to do it, unless they wanted to spend the money to reshoot with models, and imagine the cost that would be for 80 episodes!

Now then the major difference for The Next Generation, was that they had about 95% of the SFX layers, so they could scan all the 1980’s/90’s model shot layers, and recomposite them in HD on computer, therefore giving a higher quality versus the old analog (Type C video)/digital (D2 composite digital video) composite masters. Other FX like phaser fire or the Crystalline Entity and the comet/library from “Masks” was originally done on video and computers of the day, while there were ship shots that the could only find 1 or 2 layers, so they recreated these shots in CGI.

DS9 & Voyager are like TNG, especially for earlier episodes. The SFX layers exist, and can be recomposited in HD (plus various CGI artists still have copies of the CGI files from the later seasons, as was seen in the DS9 documentary “What We Left Behind”, also the CGI model of Voyager from the TV series has been used in the “Ships of the Line” calendars). So when CBS does remaster DS9 & Voyager, they won’t need to do a TOS CGI overhaul. They’ll just rescan the seperate model layers (like the DS9 station model was shot on film for the whole series, except for the very last shot of “What We Leave Behind” where the camera pulls out from Jake and Kira looking out the upper promenade window, that required a CGI DS9) and composite them in HD and then add CG where needed.

So DS9 & Voyager in HD will look like DS9 & Voyager in SD, just in HD, or they might go to 4K.

 

[kkt]

It's not just that it's CGI, it's that the CGI is out of proportion. Look at the hangar deck, at

https://forgottentrek.com/creating-the-original-enterprises-shuttlebay/

The shuttlecraft is okay, but in the CGI the shuttlecraft looks about 2/3 as long as the hangar deck is wide, while in the original the shuttlecraft is about half as long as the hangar deck is wide. The second shuttlecraft, which wasn't there in the original, looks about half as tall as the hangar deck, while in the original the shuttlecraft is about 1/3 as tall as the door. Partly the angle has changed so we aren't no longer seeing the ceiling of the hangar deck in the CGI - and why was it necessary to change the shot? it makes the hangar deck look cramped instead of spacious - like a piloting challenge to get the shuttlecraft in the hangar deck if conditions are any less than ideal!

And why did they feel the need to add a second shuttlecraft to the shot? If you were doing evolutions with a shuttlecraft, wouldn't you want the deck as clear as possible?

Whether they were using scanned film or CGI, I would have appreciated making few changes to scenes or point of view. Their job is to come out with an HD version, not to second guess the director and producer of the original.

 

[tomalak301]

I'm sorry I'm not contributing to the ratings during my DS9 rewatch. I chose to watch them on DVD and save my Data (Even though I have unlimited). It is time to remaster though.

 

[JoseNoodles]

I've heard the reason why we don't have DS9 and VOY remastered is because TOS and TNG Remastered didn't sell very well. They were overpriced (like the DVD releases) and people waited until the price dropped to buy them, which happened soon after release.

 

[tomswift2002]

It's not just that it's CGI, it's that the CGI is out of proportion. Look at the hangar deck, at

https://forgottentrek.com/creating-the-original-enterprises-shuttlebay/

The shuttlecraft is okay, but in the CGI the shuttlecraft looks about 2/3 as long as the hangar deck is wide, while in the original the shuttlecraft is about half as long as the hangar deck is wide. The second shuttlecraft, which wasn't there in the original, looks about half as tall as the hangar deck, while in the original the shuttlecraft is about 1/3 as tall as the door. Partly the angle has changed so we aren't no longer seeing the ceiling of the hangar deck in the CGI - and why was it necessary to change the shot? it makes the hangar deck look cramped instead of spacious - like a piloting challenge to get the shuttlecraft in the hangar deck if conditions are any less than ideal!

And why did they feel the need to add a second shuttlecraft to the shot? If you were doing evolutions with a shuttlecraft, wouldn't you want the deck as clear as possible?

Whether they were using scanned film or CGI, I would have appreciated making few changes to scenes or point of view. Their job is to come out with an HD version, not to second guess the director and producer of the original.

I’d disagree. With the CGI you have to remember that it was done in 16x9, whereas the DVD’s and Blu-Rays have it cropped to 4x3. So they probably framed it more for 16x9, but we are seeing a crop, unless you are watching the mixed ratio version or the widescreen broadcast version. It would be like if you watched a Trek movie on VHS in 4x3, it’s going to look different than the widescreen DVD. And that link only has 4x3 captures. On DVD & Blu-Ray we are seeing a changed angle.

I've heard the reason why we don't have DS9 and VOY remastered is because TOS and TNG Remastered didn't sell very well. They were overpriced (like the DVD releases) and people waited until the price dropped to buy them, which happened soon after release.

With TOS-R it was released into SD Syndication before it was on HD-DVD/DVD. The HD-DVD didn’t hit until November 2007, while the “Balance of Terror” was on TV the weekend of September 16, 2006. A few season 1 episodes like “Alternative Factor, Archons, Armageddon” debuted on TV in December 2007, a month after the HD-DVD release, while “Enemy Within” , “Operation”, “Mudd’s Women” & “Court Martial” were released to TV between January and May 2008. The DVD’s of Seasons 2 & 3 were released in 2008, and the Blu-Ray’s didn’t get released until 2009-2010. Also TOS didn’t need a full re-edit, as the original 35mm masters allowed for the episodes to be scanned at 1080p (and The Animated Series was also Remastered in 1080p High Definition in 2006 from its Film masters for its 480p DVD release, but the Tribbles HD version saw release in 2009 on the TOS S2 Blu-Ray, but the rest wouldn’t get released until 2016).

TNG-R, CBS decided to go right to Blu-Ray in 2012, and they only released information upto Season 4, and then there was no further information on sales. And Robert Meyer’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt as he was a 3rd party contractor for CBS. He was not a full time CBS employee and he most likely received information that only the VP’s had told the lower ranking people to tell him, which could’ve been misleading (Hollywood Accounting—-report losses, even when something makes a profit). However, since 2014 TNG-R has all but replaced the SD versions (only the DVD’s still have the 80’s and 90’s masters in 2020, and maybe a specialty TV station, like AMI here in Canada that airs programs with descriptive audio for those hard of hearing.). However, by this point CBS would’ve recouped their investment in TNG-R. On iTunes here in Canada they are charging $99.99 for all the episodes in both HD and SD by themselves (yes the SD is the same price!).

So right now we have no idea why CBS is waiting (or course with the pandemic that might’ve pushed plans back), and the claims that the Remasters were not successful are foolish.

 

[JoseNoodles]

I’d disagree. With the CGI you have to remember that it was done in 16x9, whereas the DVD’s and Blu-Rays have it cropped to 4x3. So they probably framed it more for 16x9, but we are seeing a crop, unless you are watching the mixed ratio version or the widescreen broadcast version. It would be like if you watched a Trek movie on VHS in 4x3, it’s going to look different than the widescreen DVD. And that link only has 4x3 captures. On DVD & Blu-Ray we are seeing a changed angle.



With TOS-R it was released into SD Syndication before it was on HD-DVD/DVD. The HD-DVD didn’t hit until November 2007, while the “Balance of Terror” was on TV the weekend of September 16, 2006. A few season 1 episodes like “Alternative Factor, Archons, Armageddon” debuted on TV in December 2007, a month after the HD-DVD release, while “Enemy Within” , “Operation”, “Mudd’s Women” & “Court Martial” were released to TV between January and May 2008. The DVD’s of Seasons 2 & 3 were released in 2008, and the Blu-Ray’s didn’t get released until 2009-2010. Also TOS didn’t need a full re-edit, as the original 35mm masters allowed for the episodes to be scanned at 1080p (and The Animated Series was also Remastered in 1080p High Definition in 2006 from its Film masters for its 480p DVD release, but the Tribbles HD version saw release in 2009 on the TOS S2 Blu-Ray, but the rest wouldn’t get released until 2016).

TNG-R, CBS decided to go right to Blu-Ray in 2012, and they only released information upto Season 4, and then there was no further information on sales. And Robert Meyer’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt as he was a 3rd party contractor for CBS. He was not a full time CBS employee and he most likely received information that only the VP’s had told the lower ranking people to tell him, which could’ve been misleading (Hollywood Accounting—-report losses, even when something makes a profit). However, since 2014 TNG-R has all but replaced the SD versions (only the DVD’s still have the 80’s and 90’s masters in 2020, and maybe a specialty TV station, like AMI here in Canada that airs programs with descriptive audio for those hard of hearing.). However, by this point CBS would’ve recouped their investment in TNG-R. On iTunes here in Canada they are charging $99.99 for all the episodes in both HD and SD by themselves (yes the SD is the same price!).

So right now we have no idea why CBS is waiting (or course with the pandemic that might’ve pushed plans back), and the claims that the Remasters were not successful are foolish.

Its not "foolish" as you say. I'm sure TOS and TNG Remastered turned a profit, but nowadays, many companies (especially in the entertainment and video game industry) have a tendency to have unrealistic expectations about how much money their products will make and are quick to declare them failures if they don't make "all the money, right the fuck now". If the remasters sold well, but not to the level the board rooms wanted, they're still considered failures. Doesn't matter if they are well received by critics or the general populous. Doesn't matter that they made and continue to make money in syndication and streaming. They probably didn't meet someone's unfair expectations for sales at the exact moments they started to be sold. And these were the more well known Treks, The Original Series and The Next Generation. So that probably put a damper on remastering DS9 and VOY. Why invest in remasters when you have to wait to make the money, and spend money on the remastering process at that? And now, you have new series being being corn-fed to the fanboys and the fan-girls, through a paid subscription service. Even less of an incentive to remaster. Coronavirus has nothing to do with it, they had a six years since the release of TNG Season 7 remastered to get the ball rolling. Don't get mad at me, get mad at the Corporate Culture whose avarice would even make Quark say, "Oh, shit!"

 

[tomswift2002]

Its not "foolish" as you say. I'm sure TOS and TNG Remastered turned a profit, but nowadays, many companies (especially in the entertainment and video game industry) have a tendency to have unrealistic expectations about how much money their products will make and are quick to declare them failures if they don't make "all the money, right the fuck now". If the remasters sold well, but not to the level the board rooms wanted, they're still considered failures. Doesn't matter if they are well received by critics or the general populous. Doesn't matter that they made and continue to make money in syndication and streaming. They probably didn't meet someone's unfair expectations for sales at the exact moments they started to be sold. And these were the more well known Treks, The Original Series and The Next Generation. So that probably put a damper on remastering DS9 and VOY. Why invest in remasters when you have to wait to make the money, and spend money on the remastering process at that? And now, you have new series being being corn-fed to the fanboys and the fan-girls, through a paid subscription service. Even less of an incentive to remaster. Coronavirus has nothing to do with it, they had a six years since the release of TNG Season 7 remastered to get the ball rolling. Don't get mad at me, get mad at the Corporate Culture whose avarice would even make Quark say, "Oh, shit!"

There’s one problem with your logic. TOS had been in “acknowledged” profit since 1990, while TNG had left the air in 1994 in profit. And even in 1994, DS9 was in profit, and it’s seems as if Voyager also entered the airwaves in profit and left in profit—-only Enterprise seems to have left with a loss. So even with the Remaster, TOS and TNG never left their profit status, even when you factor in “Hollywood Accounting” (I.e. back around 2010 J. Michael Straczynski revealed that for all 5 main seasons, he had produced those Babylon 5 episodes on a $90 Million dollar budget. And since that time Babylon 5 had brought Warner Brothers $500 million, but Warner Brothers told him B5 was still in the red by $70 million. It’s also like how Disney can claim that “Snow White” from 1937 is in the red every time they release it on home video. That’s Hollywood Accounting.) So it would appear that the Remasters were profitable, even in the 2012-2014 era (just think of the cost to Remaster TNG-R was $12.4 million—-compared to TNG’s profit over the 20 years before that was a drop-in-the-bucket and small investment for CBS), for CBS, but for whatever Reason, they have not gone forward.

 

[JoseNoodles]

I'm not saying that TOS and TNG were never profitable. I'm saying that the remastering of TOS and TNG maybe didn't pull in the money that CBS wanted, factoring in whatever money they put into remastering the footage, printing Blu-rays and DVDs, and advertising. If the Blu-rays were successful to an unprecedented level, we probably wouldn't be here wondering why DS9 and VOY aren't remastered. At the end of the day, CBS/Viacom is a business, and businesses are profit making centers. They heavily monetize Star Trek, from Enterprise shaped pizza cutters to Klingon funeral urns. If they thought remastering DS9 and VOY would bring in serious dough, they would have it done years ago. But evidently, they don't see the point of doing so from a financial standpoint. Probably because these shows do well enough in syndication and streaming in standard definition, and remastering probably wouldn't increase their profitable in any meaningful way (maybe a slight bump with the initial announcement and release). What other reason could there be to not remaster DS9 and VOY besides money? Anti-remastering Illuminati? I mean Enterprise got a Blu-ray release, and that is seemingly the least popular and successful Berman era show. It likely has something to do with the fact that Enterprise was somewhat "future-proofed" in the way it was filmed and doesn't require a lengthy (and probably costly) process to upgrade for Blu-ray, the way DS9 and VOY would.

 

[tomswift2002]

I'm not saying that TOS and TNG were never profitable. I'm saying that the remastering of TOS and TNG maybe didn't pull in the money that CBS wanted, factoring in whatever money they put into remastering the footage, printing Blu-rays and DVDs, and advertising. If the Blu-rays were successful to an unprecedented level, we probably wouldn't be here wondering why DS9 and VOY aren't remastered. At the end of the day, CBS/Viacom is a business, and businesses are profit making centers. They heavily monetize Star Trek, from Enterprise shaped pizza cutters to Klingon funeral urns. If they thought remastering DS9 and VOY would bring in serious dough, they would have it done years ago. But evidently, they don't see the point of doing so from a financial standpoint. Probably because these shows do well enough in syndication and streaming in standard definition, and remastering probably wouldn't increase their profitable in any meaningful way (maybe a slight bump with the initial announcement and release). What other reason could there be to not remaster DS9 and VOY besides money? Anti-remastering Illuminati? I mean Enterprise got a Blu-ray release, and that is seemingly the least popular and successful Berman era show. It likely has something to do with the fact that Enterprise was somewhat "future-proofed" in the way it was filmed and doesn't require a lengthy (and probably costly) process to upgrade for Blu-ray, the way DS9 and VOY would.

As far as we know, CBS did make a profit on the Blu-Rays. And considering that the Remastered episodes are the most easily accessed versions, CBS seems to consider them the “official” versions. If they were not successful, then CBS would’ve shoved them in the vault and just kept the originals going.

But CBS also gets a higher profit on the HD versions than the SD versions. A few years ago, Bell Media acquired the Canadian rights for all Trek both broadcast and streaming. The majority of the price that Bell paid went for TOS, TAS, TNG, Enterprise and Discovery. Deep Space Nine and Voyager were more or less thrown in as bonuses. Bell paid a little for their rights, but in this age, CBS cannot ask the price, value wise, for DS9 or Voyager that they were asking for 20 years ago. It’s like we are in the 1960’s with Color TV—-back then studios could ask a higher amount for catalog titles that had been shot and edited in Color, and in some cases, for series that had been partially shot in black & white and partially in Color (I.e. Adventures of Superman), a lot of times the stations would only run and pay for the color episodes while the black and white episodes would not be run or would be delegated to late-night. It’s the same for SD programs now, because they look terrible upconverted and when they are converted to 480p for streaming, most studios use the cheapest method and it looks terrible and soft. So broadcasters really don’t want to touch SD programming, or most SD programming ends up on a sub-channel that’s dedicated to retro shows.

Right now, DS9 and Voyager are very low profit series for CBS right now. CBS can get more profit from Enterprise right now than DS9 and Voyager combined, because Enterprise was edited in 1080p HD, so more stations would be interested in it because it’s in HD. From a business standpoint, it makes more sense for CBS to Remaster them because they are undesirable properties. Right now in 2020, there’s the pandemic so a lot of things have been put on hold. But the DS9 has the documentary come out at the end of 2018-beginning of 2019, with the Blu-Ray/DVD in August of 2019. That would’ve shown CBS that there was interest in the series, 20 years after its last episode aired, and they would’ve seen how much the producers raised to even get a few minutes of footage remastered. Someone at CBS has got to be thinking that if fans would put that much into fundraising to allow that, they would probably spend to get a full Remaster. And with Voyager, you’ve got Seven of Nine on “Star Trek Picard” and CBS is talking about doing a Janeway series, so there is interest out there for Voyager-related product. With “Picard”, CBS was able to put into stores a Jean-Luc Picard themed Blu-Ray set of “Star Trek: Picard Movie & TV Collection”. Yeah it was a repackaging of existing Blu-Rays, (and CBS did not release a DVD version using the old SD versions or downconverted versions of the Remastered episodes), but they were able to cash in on “Star Trek:Picard”. Right now they can’t offer anything from DS9 or Voyager on Blu-Ray to tie into Seven’s role or Janeway (unless they reissued “Star Trek Nemesis” for Janeway, but there’s nothing for Seven available in HD); they couldn’t release any DS9-tie in for the “What We Left Behind” documentary because they didn’t have any DS9 HD. Since 2011 CBS has essentially abandoned the DVD format for Star Trek “Best of” releases, since we’ve seen “The Next Level”, which was a test disc for TNG in HD, “TOS: Origins” that was released to tie into the film “Into Darkness”, then we had the Roddenberry Vault Blu-Ray, and now the “Star Trek Picard” set. There has not been a Region 1 “Best of” DVD set since 2009. Sure there were the 2017 reissues that were designed to allowed for the series to be sold as one (where the final season for both is exclusive), but the other 6 seasons could be sold in 2 seperate sets.
Right now, CBS has no DS9 or Voyager product to attract the attention of the casual viewer, or for people to buy for a Christmas gift for someone. “Best Of” Blu-Ray/DVD set still get people interested in different series, and usually get people to buy the more expensive season sets if they like the show or stream the series. But it’s physical, it’s something which flags a person’s eye. It’s difficult to flag a persons eye to a particular show online if the haven’t watched it before or heard of it.
Right now, out of all the TV shows, CBS has 409 episodes of 750 available in HD, while 341 are only in SD. In other words, CBS is only getting profit on 64% of their TV product, 46% of their Trek offering (which comes from only 2 series) is undesirable when it comes to sales and broadcast.

So from a business sense, it makes more sense to Remaster DS9 & Voyager to HD than it is to leave them in their 90’s/early-2000’s SD D2 composite video state.

 

[kkt]

I don't understand remastering in any aspect ratio other than how it was originally filmed. The shape of the frame affects directorial decisions when it was filmed and it's not possible to second-guess those decisions later. Cropping or stretching always makes it look wierd.

 

[tomswift2002]

I don't understand remastering in any aspect ratio other than how it was originally filmed. The shape of the frame affects directorial decisions when it was filmed and it's not possible to second-guess those decisions later. Cropping or stretching always makes it look wierd.

Well, on shows like Babylon 5 the original intent was always to convert it to 16x9 in the future, even though they had to shoot with a 4x3 safety. And from what was said on What We Left Behind, DS9's Seasons 3 to 7 and Voyager were shot with 16x9 framing in mind. So whenever CBS remasters DS9 and Voyager, we may see DS9 Season 1 & 2 in 4x3, but then the remaining seasons might be 16x9.

However, shooting 4x3 for 16x9 playback isn't unheard of. Many movies were shot that way, since it was less expensive to rent an anamorphic lens. Or like in the case of the 1990 film, Dick Tracy, Warren Beatty wanted to release the film to theaters in 4x3 to simulate the 1930's-type movie, and also to pay homage to Dick Tracy's comics origins, but Disney wanted 16x9 for the theaters, so he shot 4x3 with 16x9 safety framing, and then cropped it for 16x9. Unfortunately, since 2002 when the DVD was released, Disney has released the film only in 16x9, so if you want to see Beatty's original film, you need to track down a VHS, Betamax, Video8 or Laserdisc copy.

But you've got to remember that back in 2006, High-Definition broadcasting was still in it's early infancy. So CBS wasn't sure if stations would want to air stuff that, even though it was in 720p or 1080i, was in 4x3 (they might've even prepared 16x9 masters of old films from the 1930's to the 1960's that were shot in 4x3 in order to be able to offer those in 16x9). So they were hedging their bets by making a 16x9 version, or even a mixed version.

 

[Qonundrum]

I am not sure. It distresses me as a fan of the original series how many changes they made during remastering. I just wanted higher resolution. I didn't want them re-composing shots or changing what objects were in view. I guess having more different planets-of-the-week instead of just flipping them around and changing the color filters is a plus.

DS9 is not like the 60s show with a broken shoestring budget and primitive special effects technology. It doesn't need remastering that much, in my opinion.

They fiddled with color grading (too much crush at times but nothing too extreme). And they kept the original f/x alongside the new CGI scenes, many of which actually added more to the episodes' scenes in question than just being gratuitous crap (e.g. a certain "space battles" movie series with "laser swords"...)

All Trek remasters using new CGI have been used to enhance scenes but keep the same tone, but not adding more than what's needed since TNG was largely verbatim to the original material. With a few exceptions (e.g. CGI enterprise if the film stock couldn't be found.) And, of course, a couple incidents like in "Booby Trap" where they added asteroids to help flesh out the area more. Or "11001001" where they added some lighting to the starbase to differentiate it from ST3's use of the same model, but they didn't go to garish and asinine extremes the way that the pew pew movie series with cinnamon bun hairdos had. Trek's remastering has been a largely consistent example of how to do it right. IMHO, YMMV.

 

[JoseNoodles]

As far as we know, CBS did make a profit on the Blu-Rays. And considering that the Remastered episodes are the most easily accessed versions, CBS seems to consider them the “official” versions. If they were not successful, then CBS would’ve shoved them in the vault and just kept the originals going.

I never said they didn't make a profit, I said they may not have made enough of a profit for CBS to consider them a huge success and worth the effort of remastering the other TNG era shows. And why shove them in a vault? You have HQ, ready to be streamed versions of the most popular and well known Trek shows. Of course you're going to use them. You invested the money in the remaster, you're going to use them.

But CBS also gets a higher profit on the HD versions than the SD versions. A few years ago, Bell Media acquired the Canadian rights for all Trek both broadcast and streaming. The majority of the price that Bell paid went for TOS, TAS, TNG, Enterprise and Discovery. Deep Space Nine and Voyager were more or less thrown in as bonuses. Bell paid a little for their rights, but in this age, CBS cannot ask the price, value wise, for DS9 or Voyager that they were asking for 20 years ago.

Which is probably why TPTB are not currently invested in remastering DS9 and VOY. Plus even when they were new, neither show pulled in the huge number of viewers that TNG did. Maybe VOY did better when Jeri Ryan came on, enough to get a TV Guide cover with her and Lucy Lawless, but did it reach the viewership levels of TNG? Don't think so.

It’s like we are in the 1960’s with Color TV—-back then studios could ask a higher amount for catalog titles that had been shot and edited in Color, and in some cases, for series that had been partially shot in black & white and partially in Color (I.e. Adventures of Superman), a lot of times the stations would only run and pay for the color episodes while the black and white episodes would not be run or would be delegated to late-night. It’s the same for SD programs now, because they look terrible upconverted and when they are converted to 480p for streaming, most studios use the cheapest method and it looks terrible and soft. So broadcasters really don’t want to touch SD programming, or most SD programming ends up on a sub-channel that’s dedicated to retro shows.

Which seems to be the case with DS9 and VOY, which I see mostly on Heroes & Icons and BBC America, two sub-channels. Again not worth investing for shows relegated to "reruns only" channels.

Right now, DS9 and Voyager are very low profit series for CBS right now. CBS can get more profit from Enterprise right now than DS9 and Voyager combined, because Enterprise was edited in 1080p HD, so more stations would be interested in it because it’s in HD.

My point exactly.

From a business standpoint, it makes more sense for CBS to Remaster them because they are undesirable properties.

Actually, you're previous point seems to argue against this.

Right now in 2020, there’s the pandemic so a lot of things have been put on hold. But the DS9 has the documentary come out at the end of 2018-beginning of 2019, with the Blu-Ray/DVD in August of 2019. That would’ve shown CBS that there was interest in the series, 20 years after its last episode aired, and they would’ve seen how much the producers raised to even get a few minutes of footage remastered. Someone at CBS has got to be thinking that if fans would put that much into fundraising to allow that, they would probably spend to get a full Remaster.

Except the documentary only showed a few scenes, which actually required the makers to ask for more money on top of what they already received for the documentary. Which tells me remastering is not a cheap process. Now think about remastering the entire series, including effects shots, with later seasons rely mostly or entirely on CGI. CBS would be taking a huge financial gamble. Oh as a fan, I would be thrilled. But from a business standpoint, I'd be like "Yeah, no." Especially in the middle of pandemic where the (US) economy is tanking.

And with Voyager, you’ve got Seven of Nine on “Star Trek Picard” and CBS is talking about doing a Janeway series, so there is interest out there for Voyager-related product. With “Picard”, CBS was able to put into stores a Jean-Luc Picard themed Blu-Ray set of “Star Trek: Picard Movie & TV Collection”. Yeah it was a repackaging of existing Blu-Rays, (and CBS did not release a DVD version using the old SD versions or downconverted versions of the Remastered episodes), but they were able to cash in on “Star Trek:Picard”. Right now they can’t offer anything from DS9 or Voyager on Blu-Ray to tie into Seven’s role or Janeway (unless they reissued “Star Trek Nemesis” for Janeway, but there’s nothing for Seven available in HD); they couldn’t release any DS9-tie in for the “What We Left Behind” documentary because they didn’t have any DS9 HD. Since 2011 CBS has essentially abandoned the DVD format for Star Trek “Best of” releases, since we’ve seen “The Next Level”, which was a test disc for TNG in HD, “TOS: Origins” that was released to tie into the film “Into Darkness”, then we had the Roddenberry Vault Blu-Ray, and now the “Star Trek Picard” set. There has not been a Region 1 “Best of” DVD set since 2009. Sure there were the 2017 reissues that were designed to allowed for the series to be sold as one (where the final season for both is exclusive), but the other 6 seasons could be sold in 2 seperate sets.
Right now, CBS has no DS9 or Voyager product to attract the attention of the casual viewer, or for people to buy for a Christmas gift for someone. “Best Of” Blu-Ray/DVD set still get people interested in different series, and usually get people to buy the more expensive season sets if they like the show or stream the series. But it’s physical, it’s something which flags a person’s eye. It’s difficult to flag a persons eye to a particular show online if the haven’t watched it before or heard of it.
Right now, out of all the TV shows, CBS has 409 episodes of 750 available in HD, while 341 are only in SD. In other words, CBS is only getting profit on 64% of their TV product, 46% of their Trek offering (which comes from only 2 series) is undesirable when it comes to sales and broadcast. So from a business sense, it makes more sense to Remaster DS9 & Voyager to HD than it is to leave them in their 90’s/early-2000’s SD D2 composite video state.

The fact that they haven't remastered VOY in light of this really tells you something. If I recall an article someone linked to about the "Women of Star Trek", episodes featuring Seven of Nine are some the most watched episodes on Netflix. That would seem to suggest to CBS that they should remaster at least VOY, but it might also make the case that they shouldn't since evidently people have no problem ogling Seven in SD. So why invest the money?