I remember back in 2003 paying $150 plus tax for a couple of Seasons of DS9 at cdplus.com's physical location. Most of the time I was paying $120 for TNG, DS9 and Voyager. And that was a lot, especially when you think that Paramount had released all of TNG, Seasons 1-5 of DS9 & Seasons 1-2.5 on NTSC VHS and Laserdisc (and some of TNG's Season 1 had also been released on Betamax; Voyager's Season 3 only had half of its episodes released on VHS). And yet now Walmart is offering Seasons 1-3 and 4-7 in the big packs from the 2012 complete set for $45 per set. Of course it would've been nice had CBS put 480p copies of the 2012-2014 remastered episodes on the DVD's instead of reusing old 2002 DVD masters (the DVD's are the only place where the 480i masters are used, except stations that haven't upgraded, as the SD versions on iTune, Amazon, etc are 480p versions sourced from the 1080p masters, so anyone downloading or streaming TNG in SD are watching and paying for the Remastered episodes). Of course it's ridiculous how many people are referring to information that hasn't been updated since early-2013. When comparing CBS's past actions, we are still in the same span of time as we were in February 2011 before CBS announced TNG-R in September 2011 (going from April 2008 when the last frame of "The Cage" was finished). And back then people were also saying that TNG HD was impossible. Until February 2018 (assuming the last shot of "All Good Things" was finished in October 2013, giving CBS six weeks to package and ship out the Season 7 sets for December 2014). I remember J. Michael Straczynski talking about Babylon 5's profitability in 2006, and WB had told him that, even though the series had made $500 million on DVD, it was still $40 million in the red, even though Straczynski knew that for all 5 seasons (not counting The Gathering and the other movies and Crusade, and Lost Tales was in preliminary stages) he had spent $90 million for 105episodes from Midnight on The Firing Line to 'Sleepinlg In the Light'. So how WB (in 2016 DVD's have probably sold $200 million or show is still losing money is based on Hollywood accounting
I think some folks forget that TNG was a completely different animal than TOS when it comes to remastering the series. TOS created new effects and did some clean up work (scratches and coloring) and that was pretty much it (they also redid some music). TNG had to have its post-production work redone from scratch, including hunting down every piece of film for every episode. Deep Space Nine, if done, would require more work that even TNG. I simply don't see a full blown restoration ever being done. I would love for it to be done, and if it is, I'll buy you a Coke.
If Star Trek: Discovery is a big hit, you might see something like what was done for The X-Files -- where the original film (when available) gets re-scanned, but any shots with visual effects are in standard definition. Sales of TNG on Blu-ray have probably put a kibosh on a total rebuild of DS9 along the same lines. TV on Blu-ray in general is a tough sell. Even I Love Lucy won't be completed on Blu-ray because sales were so bad -- and that's a show where HD masters have been completed for every episode.
Hell, they didn't even release the final season of Glee on Blu ray, and that would have been a cakewalk by comparison.
Are we saying that Blu Ray is basically going to be a dead technology soon like vcr machines? What IS selling on Blu Ray? Jason
Less of most things. Bluray hasn't really achieved market penetration - the majority of houses have a device of some sort that will play DVD's. A much lower percentage have Bluray players - even houses with HDTV tend to watch SD discs, and even DVD is losing ground to streaming.
DVDs caught on quickly because a flat disc was a radical change from the clunky plastic rectangle that was VHS. Blu-rays are pretty much just fancier DVDs, and thus never grabbed as many people.
Perhaps the future is finding away to make streaming quality match that of Blu ray. I also think I use to hear about the idea of a disk that had so much room that you could in theory record all 7 seasons of DS9 on one disk. Jason
The future is obviously in steaming. People don't want to be tied down to a TV, player and discs. I have a boxset of Frasier still shrink-wrapped. I'd love to watch it, I just haven't got around to it. If it was on Netflix I would have watched it already. I have the Blu-ray of TAS but ended up watching 17 of the episodes on Netflix on my tablet whilst cooking. Did I notice it was HD? I'd love DS9 to be remastered, and if it is I will buy the Blu-ray on day one as I did with TNG. But not going to lie, I'd watch half the episodes streamed from Netflix when they're available.
Both these points are basicly what it's all about. Some of us are HD nutters. We notice a lot of difference between SD and HD and really want HD quality for basicly everything. However, 8 out of 10 people I talk to, don't really see the difference between SD broadcast or HD. I don't know about the US or the UK for example, but in the Netherlands, we get a lot of channels in both SD and HD. If I show my parents or some friends the difference between both, most squint a bit and say 'huh, yeah, the other seems a bit more crisp'. And that's it. They don't care. They don't feel the need to invest a lot of money to get everything in HD. Like Hey Missy said, most people simply see a fancier DVD when you show them a bluray.
I understand the convenience and appeal of streaming - most everything I watch is streamed, now - but there's no beating the quality of a high-def disc. This is something that will be even more apparent with 4K source material. When I'm watching something that the visual presentation is a big part of, I'll bring out the discs whenever I can. I've been putting off my first re-watching (since the original airings) of TNG and just started a few weeks ago. Broke the seals on the discs I bought a couple of years ago and am really enjoying it. Still, I recognize that I'm in the minority in terms of my interest in visual fidelity, and, like I said, even I watch most everything streamed. Disc buying/watching is quickly going from the mainstream to a niche for videophiles. Which also means I buy discs whenever i care about something, as I know they're not going to be available forever. Streaming will replace physical media, but owning physical media is a desire for fans (just look at the resurgence of vinyl: that has everything to do with fandom and tangible, physical ownership, and nothing to do with quality or convenience). Plus, we're years away from the quality of streaming being as good as discs, if ever (less for technical reasons than for economic ones). So... I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, streaming is killing discs, and that will be sad for many of us. If you care about the fidelity of the material, buy discs while you still can.
One thing that's helping with this a bit is the advent of affordable large-screen TV's. A 55" screen is incredibly cheap now, and when a consumer sees that a 55" isn't much more expensive than a 45", they'll frequently choose the larger screen even if they don't know the difference between DVD and Blu-ray. The differences in resolution and quality become more obvious as the display gets bigger, so I'm hopeful that even the average person will start asking for better-than-SD quality (even if it is only for streaming).
They said the same thing when LED of any size became a thing, didn't happen then either. It's wishful thinking.
I own five Blu-ray players between video game consoles and dedicated machines. Yep. Just not as many people are wrapped in getting the best picture quality possible. And the picture-and-picture and internet features just weren't very good. I've had a player since 2009, and I think I've used either feature a total of once.
Wasn't one of the bonus of disks though being the special features? If we start getting audio commentaries and deleted scenes on a regular basis from streaming then won't that be the final nail in the coffin for dvd/blu ray disks? Jason
Special features were value added material useful to justify why people should buy DVD over VHS. I've noticed special features have significantly declined in recent years, presumably because distributors realised they no longer have to include them. As you say when you stream a film or TV series you rarely get extras. Extra content tends to be available online as part of promotional campaigns. Sadly I think the days of regular commentaries etc are over. Though to be honest I can't recall the last time I sat down and watched a film with a commentary track.
All five of mine still work. Including the two that I bought in 2009. One was a Magnavox basic player that will play anything you throw at it. Paid $128 for it on sale.