DS9 on blu ray?

[Relayer1]

I'm sick of the previous remastering efforts essentially destroying history, even in the case of TNG-R, as there is no reason that CG needs to replace the 6 or 4-footer models in any capacity.

No reason at all? None? So instead of the "parking" shot in Unification, you'd be happier with a blank screen or an upscaled shot from the DVD? Come on now.

There hasn't been any CGI used in TNG-R that's just there to be there. It's only been used to replace effects footage that was unusable.

Doesn't matter. I want TNG remastered, not TNG Special Edition. Again, if all the seasons were made in one go (and I'd be happy with an annual release of season packs), they'd likely have found that "lost" footage of the D that they replaced with CG in Season 1.

And I want ALL the stock footage replaced with custom shots, a greater variety of ships to be used rather than the regular Excelsior appearances, better planets, better backgrounds for live action sequences, new screen displays and it all in widescreen. I want everything messed with !

We obviously can't all have what we want...

 

[Hober Mallow]

Spoilers: They fixed the awful FX goof in season 5 where the Enterprise fires it's phasers from the Torpedo tube.
Try not to have a fit of rage.

Mistake or not, the original was a really cool shot.

 

[CrazyMatt]

I'm just hoping that there will be a bit more variety with the ships, is all.

It would be nice to see a Sovereign or two.... it's ridiculous to think Starfleet would keep its most capable combat ships out of major battles such as the retaking of DS9 of the Battle of Chin'toka.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm just hoping that there will be a bit more variety with the ships, is all.

It would be nice to see a Sovereign or two.... it's ridiculous to think Starfleet would keep its most capable combat ships out of major battles such as the retaking of DS9 of the Battle of Chin'toka.

The original reason why they never used the Sovereign in DS9 was because TPTB were worried that fans would think they were seeing the Enterprise every time, which all I have to say about that is a) who cares if they did, and b) did they really think their fans were that stupid?

A remastering effort shouldn't have to be tied down to that former edict. However, I'd be more interested in seeing new designs, with the exception of the Ambassador class. That ship needed to be seen far more than the four times it appeared in all of Trek.

 

[Jeyl]

Doesn't matter. I want TNG remastered, not TNG Special Edition. Again, if all the seasons were made in one go (and I'd be happy with an annual release of season packs), they'd likely have found that "lost" footage of the D that they replaced with CG in Season 1.

What makes this a "Special Edition"? The fact that it's in HD is going to make it different from the original no matter how you look at it. If you want it just the way it was, the original DVDs have the Standard Definition, the original DVDs are still available and being being repressed. If there is anything that can be used from the original elements, they're going to use them. I doubt that they replaced that one CG shot of the Enterprise in Season 1 just for the heck of it like Lucas did for a lot of shots in his "Special Editions".

 

[Hober Mallow]

Doesn't matter. I want TNG remastered, not TNG Special Edition. Again, if all the seasons were made in one go (and I'd be happy with an annual release of season packs), they'd likely have found that "lost" footage of the D that they replaced with CG in Season 1.

What makes this a "Special Edition"?

While I don't share USS Mariner's negative view toward TNG-HD, he has a point.

TOS was remastered. A new transfer was made of the film master. Complete episodes were simply transferred from film to digital HD.

TNG doesn't have a film master. It's masters are all on tape, and can never have any more resolution than what we get on DVD. So the actual TNG masters are useless. Brand new masters had to be made by going back to the original elements. Unlike TOS, which was simply transferred from film, TNG is actually being recreated, as closely as possible to the original episode masters, but they are essentially a different product.

Unfortunately, the only other option is to simply do nothing. TNG HD isn't possible with the original episode masters.

 

[milojthatch]

Does the entertainment industry think that everybody's made of money or what? Do they know how much it costs to use the Internet in most countries, even (Canada has the most expensive Internet ever)? Not everybody wants or will have the money to go online and watch movies/TV in streaming video; many will still want to own DVD's because there's no compression of the video and audio and things look amazing.

Stephen Bowie has talked about this (and made a better case against this trend) better than I could: Streamageddon vs. Discpocalypse

Despite what some may think, streaming service like NetFlix are NOT the next phase of the Home Entertainment market so much as what will replace cable tv. I have NetFlix, but for me it's how I watch things I didn't see yet and then decide if I want the DVD after. There have been a few titles I bought on DVD thanks to NetFlix, and some I ended up avoiding. I doubt I'm alone there.

As for DS9 (and Voyager and The Animated Series), based on the amazing things I've seen from the Original Series and Next Generation projects, I'm down for it. However, as expensive as they are, I'm ok if it takes a while (Not too long mind you) so I have time to go after TNG and Enterprise. I just barley finished getting the films and TOS on Blu.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Despite what some may think, streaming service like NetFlix are NOT the next phase of the Home Entertainment market so much as what will replace cable tv.

Not to mention the consumer has no control over what's on Netflix (for this example). Things can be added and taken away on a whim and we can't do a thing about it.
But when we own it, we own it completely.

 

[Mage]

I'm just hoping that there will be a bit more variety with the ships, is all.

It would be nice to see a Sovereign or two.... it's ridiculous to think Starfleet would keep its most capable combat ships out of major battles such as the retaking of DS9 of the Battle of Chin'toka.

The original reason why they never used the Sovereign in DS9 was because TPTB were worried that fans would think they were seeing the Enterprise every time, which all I have to say about that is a) who cares if they did, and b) did they really think their fans were that stupid?

A remastering effort shouldn't have to be tied down to that former edict. However, I'd be more interested in seeing new designs, with the exception of the Ambassador class. That ship needed to be seen far more than the four times it appeared in all of Trek.

As far as I understood, it had nothing to do with TPTB thinking that fans thought it would be the Enterprise, but with TPTB behind the movies wanted the Sovereign exclusivly for the movies and nothing else.

And in-universe.... Considering that the Enterprise was launched in 2372 and one of the first Sovereigns (appereantly) production on these big and new starships might have been halted during the war, which started late 2373, in favour of smaller ships and putting resources to use for repairing damaged ships, which could then be put back on the front quicker then building a big ships from scratch.

 

[FrontierTrek]

Been away from this thread for a while, although it seems most questions raised have been answered.

That said, here are a few clarifications:

* The new HD render of the U.S.S. Honshu we featured from Rob Bonchune was NOT an example of a finished shot. It was purely an illustration of what you get with minimal time and effort from rendering the original Lightwave scene files in HD. Rob did it on his laptop, with no access to any serious computing power. Plus he did it against a deadline. He himself points out in the comments that there are a million things he'd want to do to make it "Blu-ray standard"

* TNG HD - as already pointed out, CG replacements of the Enterprise are only used when the original footage is lost or damaged. CBS Digital's new model is SO good that when I was visiting them back in May, I couldn't tell the difference between the physical model and their new CG ship.

* TOS HD - It's very difficult to use this as a yardstick anymore. As far as CBS Digital are concerned, this was done a million years ago and they've advanced beyond all recognition since then. I doubt you'll find many people there today who worked on TOS-R who disagree with fans' opinions about a lot of the "toylike" CG.

* @Dick_Valentine - RE: Test Footage. CBS are looking at and talking about DS9. Work on TNG has already progressed well into Season 7 (indeed, film scanning has already been completed). No "green light" for DS9 has been given yet, but they certainly know that fans want the show in HD

 

[dub]

CBS are looking at and talking about DS9...No "green light" for DS9 has been given yet, but they certainly know that fans want the show in HD

Good to know they're at least discussing it! Thanks!

 

[Dukhat]

As far as I understood, it had nothing to do with TPTB thinking that fans thought it would be the Enterprise, but with TPTB behind the movies wanted the Sovereign exclusivly for the movies and nothing else.

Either way, that edict is obviously null and void now if they decided to add some Sovereigns into the mix.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

As far as I understood, it had nothing to do with TPTB thinking that fans thought it would be the Enterprise, but with TPTB behind the movies wanted the Sovereign exclusivly for the movies and nothing else.

Either way, that edict is obviously null and void now if they decided to add some Sovereigns into the mix.

Except, the edict for the TNG remastered project also precludes this. Their entire mission statement was to reconstruct the episode from the raw film, not to revamp or dramatically change things. So I don't think it will happen. For example BOBW's (or Unifcation's re-use of the) grave yard scene didn't get more variety of ships in it.

Not including Sovereign's wasn't an error, it was a silly but deliberate decision by TPTB at the time. So I don't expect to see any, even though it certainly does make sense that there should have been.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I always assumed the Sovereign wasn't included in any of the spin-offs because they wanted it to be something exclusive for the films, to make it that special.

 

[CrazyMatt]

Work on TNG has already progressed well into Season 7 (indeed, film scanning has already been completed).

I assume they're well down the road on Season Six then.... If you have any news regarding Season Six Blu-Ray plans, we'd love to see them posted on that board.

 

[Dukhat]

As far as I understood, it had nothing to do with TPTB thinking that fans thought it would be the Enterprise, but with TPTB behind the movies wanted the Sovereign exclusivly for the movies and nothing else.

Either way, that edict is obviously null and void now if they decided to add some Sovereigns into the mix.

Except, the edict for the TNG remastered project also precludes this. Their entire mission statement was to reconstruct the episode from the raw film, not to revamp or dramatically change things. So I don't think it will happen. For example BOBW's (or Unifcation's re-use of the) grave yard scene didn't get more variety of ships in it.

Not including Sovereign's wasn't an error, it was a silly but deliberate decision by TPTB at the time. So I don't expect to see any, even though it certainly does make sense that there should have been.

You misunderstand. The BoBW scene was filmed with physical models, and the scene was just remastered in HD. The DS9 fleet scenes were filmed with CGI. The scenes will have to be entirely redone, unlike BoBW, because the CGI will not stand up to an HD remaster. So there's no reason why the new CGI scenes have to look anything like they did before or have the same ships as they did before.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Either way, that edict is obviously null and void now if they decided to add some Sovereigns into the mix.

Except, the edict for the TNG remastered project also precludes this. Their entire mission statement was to reconstruct the episode from the raw film, not to revamp or dramatically change things. So I don't think it will happen. For example BOBW's (or Unifcation's re-use of the) grave yard scene didn't get more variety of ships in it.

Not including Sovereign's wasn't an error, it was a silly but deliberate decision by TPTB at the time. So I don't expect to see any, even though it certainly does make sense that there should have been.

You misunderstand. The BoBW scene was filmed with physical models, and the scene was just remastered in HD. The DS9 fleet scenes were filmed with CGI. The scenes will have to be entirely redone, unlike BoBW, because the CGI will not stand up to an HD remaster. So there's no reason why the new CGI scenes have to look anything like they did before or have the same ships as they did before.

No misunderstanding. The edict is the same. Recreate it faithfully. What's more we know the original CGI files exist for some (or perhaps most) of the assets, thanks to guys like Rob Bonchune taking them home. So it seems they really could recreate them exactly.

Also only the last couple of seasons feature CGI heavily. Before that it's all physical models, hence the many kitbashed ships.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I really hope something exists of the wormhole FX. The wormhole is as iconic to DS9 as the Enterprise is to TOS and TNG. IMO, that's one set of FX they need to get just right.

 

[Mage]

You misunderstand. The BoBW scene was filmed with physical models, and the scene was just remastered in HD. The DS9 fleet scenes were filmed with CGI. The scenes will have to be entirely redone, unlike BoBW, because the CGI will not stand up to an HD remaster. So there's no reason why the new CGI scenes have to look anything like they did before or have the same ships as they did before.

As has been stated several times in this topic alone, a lot of the CGI scenes have been saved by members of the team who originally created them. Re-rendering them in HD is as simple as loading them, checking for any errors, and rendering in a higher resolution. They have already tried this with a screenshot of a Nebula class starship in warp, from the episode 'Waltz'. They were amazed with how well the entire mesh and textures worked in HD, with perhaps only a little tweaking required.

Besides, a lot of fans don't want anything changed. They loved the show the way it was, and want to keep it that way. Since when is Star Trek the same as Star Wars, where the director feels the need to change every damned little detail all the effing time?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Besides, a lot of fans don't want anything changed. They loved the show the way it was, and want to keep it that way. Since when is Star Trek the same as Star Wars, where the director feels the need to change every damned little detail all the effing time?

I think CBS Home Entertainment is foremost interested in generating profits, so considerations to preserve the series in HD and to please the fans come second.

I mean, what do the demographics say? IIRC TNG was more popular than DS9, so CBS will take this into consideration when deciding how to "remaster" DS9.

Should the fanbase not be sufficient to justify the costs of remastering, CBS will probably consider options like these:

• re-envision VFX (DS9 "Special Edition"), probably depending whether the original CGI effects are still complete, affordable and how good these could look in HD
• re-formatting DS9 to 16:9

Bob