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DS9 on blu ray?
- Thread starter borgboy
- Start date
I'll definitely get around to ordering a set eventually, but I really do wish they packaged it for a US release. I hate those stupid UK tv ratings that are plastered all over it....
Still holding out slight hope that if they DO release a US version they include the omitted special features like the commentary on All Good Things, etc... It's pretty damn lame for them to not include stuff like that...
I don't... deny it.
It looks unlikely, but I'm still holding out hope for an announcement for a HD remaster next year. It don't necessarily care if it's blu-ray. Just would like HD, and I'll buy the digital version. They don't even have to invest in commentary or having extras.
TOS and TNG have always syndicated better, but I do wonder how this series would do now with so many serialized shows out there.
TOS and TNG have always syndicated better, but I do wonder how this series would do now with so many serialized shows out there.
It likely wouldn't look as good as TNG Blu-ray anyway. From the start, DS9 was shot in that soft focus that TNG suffered with from about the 4th season. At best DS9 on Blu would look like TNG Blu does from season 4 onwards ie clean but soft.
Now, I'd take soft focus remastered DS9 on Blu-ray all day long, but I'm not sure people should kid themselves in to thinking it would be early TNG image quality, especially given how awful the first couple of seasons of DS9 already look in SD.
It's. 20. Years. Old.
DS9 switched to a more wide-angle long depth of field look from season three onwards, when they changed DPs from Marvin Rush to Jonathan West.
Yeah, I have to admit when watching TNG again remastered a lot of it (outside of the excellent and very good episodes) has dated horribly badly. There are literally no consequences in a lot of episodes.
A great example is the episode "Ethics" where Worf breaks his back. The Doctor uses an experimental treatment that kills a patient and gets... a stern talking to...
Then at the end - Worf's extensive period of rehabilitation that will last approximately a week!
DS9 will actually date better on this criteria, but it is still extremely episodic for the most part.
I might even be being too generous with TNG because of Nostalgia - I grew up on it!
This has always been the nature of self contained episodic television.
Watching the DS9 rerun on SyFy, I can't believe how badly the first season's aged. . .and just how terrible Siddig's acting was in the early days.
And as for Andy Robinson hamming up the gayness as Garak. . eek.
. .Asexual/omnisexual my arse.Nothing much wrong with rose tinted nostalgia. Everyone needs a comfort blanket.
Tsk, tsk, Admiral Bear. There's no room in this thread for nostalgia, rose-tinted or otherwise.
And that is a bad thing?
It makes the episode in question seem dated by modern TV standards.
But bad, no not really, many doubtless prefer the more episodic nature of 80s/90s TV.
Oh it's going to happen. The question is "When will DS9 go HD?"
Just last week I downloaded the 480p version of Datalore from iTunes. The SD version looks incredible, even on an older CRT TV over composite. I popped in the 2002 DVD version of the episode and even in scenes without the crystalline entity, the colors and even the sharpness of the image on the CRT was so different. And for both versions the image filled the entire CRT screen, so with iTunes this was no an SD downcovert of the show in a 16:9 black matte, this was a downconvert from the 16:9 HD master to 4:3 Pan and Scan.
So even for TNG, even if stations and streaming sites do not pick up the HD versions, CBS can still charge a higher price for an all new 480p Enhanced Definition version that TV stations can play back as 480i content.
Or they can continue to collect licensing fees for 20 year old prints without spending a dime. A lack of an HD print or remaster doesn't stop many, many series from continuing to have life in the HD era.
Or they can improve their profits by getting stations to license their material, even in SD, by spending the money to remaster the series in HD. Remember CBS remastered TOS in HD, but then released the remasters in SD first in all-new, more expensive syndication pacakages to stations in 2006, with the HD masters being released on PS3, Xbox, iTunes, Netflix and HD-DVD before being released to broadcast. Even now, aside from AMI French TV, all the broadcasts that I have seen of TOS, whether it is SD or HD, have been the 2006 versions --- it's only on AMI that I have seen the 1960's versions and I think that's only due to the fact that AMI needs to have the sound track remixed to add overdubs for people with vision problems (you know the announcer says "Kirk takes his phaser out of his holster and fires a beam that destroy's the door"). As Hilary Estee McLaughlin of Telepictures Productions said in December 2007, "The digital model is now mimicking or duplicating the syndication model. It's maximizing distribution, putting together ad networks with targeted demographics that advertisers can buy." (http://www.tvweek.com/in-depth/2007/12/syndication-roundtable-warming/)
Suffice it to say, broadcast syndication for reruns is dying, while digital syndication is alive and kicking. And Deep Space 9 and Voyager's future are going to be a lot more valuable as shows available in HD for streaming on the web, than as 240p de-interlaced SD shows.
Also, lately, aside from "Star Trek Voyager", "Murder She Wrote", "Bumper Stumpers" and "The New Liar's Club" (with STTOS and "All In The Family" on AMI, or the Retro cartons and the 1960's Batman that air on Teletoon Retro), I haven't seen or recall seeing any pre-2005 TV shows airing on the TV channels in my area, and yet it was only 5 years ago that I recall still seeing "Home Improvement", "Quantum Leap", "SeaQuest DSV", "Babylon 5", "Star Trek Deep Space 9" and other pre-2005 shows being aired on stations early in the morning (i.e. 5 a.m., 2 a.m.), Saturday and Sunday and even during the Summer as replacement series (back in 2006 I remember YTV re-running the 2 series from 1995, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and I found that it was interesting that they were airing it around 8 p.m. in th evening, but it was also nice to see that both shows were getting airings considering that they had just been released on DVD here in Canada in April 2006, even though both shows only had 13 episodes each. So instead of having to commission even a short series for the summer, YTV was airing 2 series that had not been on the broadcast airwaves since about 1997). And right now, the only thing that is really making a go on broadcast is first-run programming. Also, up here in Canada it has become increasingly difficult to market syndicate shows, as the majority of stations are O&O Network stations, so unless the syndicators are able to convince the Network to purchase the syndication rights, then most of the "available time" goes to paid advertisements.
Now then I found that, for comparison, in 1997 ER was selling early episodes in syndication on cable channels, such as HBO, for $1.2 Million dollars per episode (http://www.ew.com/article/1997/10/17/divine-tv-profits), and according to the link, at the time that article was written, Touched By An Angel, once it's early episodes entered syndication, were expected to be priced at $1 Million dollars per episode, while Universal was selling Hercules and Xena for $300,000 per episode. And I wouldn't be surprised if each episode of TOS, TNG and DS9, back then, were priced between $1 and $1.2 million an episode, if Paramount didn't offer them on a barter basis. But nowadays, in SD, the stations probably are not willing to pay, even with brand recognition, more than $250,000 for a SD show. And, just to clarify things, TNG only re-entered syndication in 2009 in the US, according to this article (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/programming/next-gen-again/34016?rssid=20101) after being locked into an eight-year deal on NBCUniversal's SCI-FI channel. And the 2009 syndication packages were for 2 years only, so those packages would've ended in 2011---right when CBS was starting to remaster TNG! And because the 2009 packages were on the barter system (same as TOS, where the station is allowed to sell the major part of the advertising time, while CBS sells the remaining time), CBS probably had found that they had a harder time selling TNG to advertisers with it only being in SD. And sure there are cable networks, but those networks want primarily HD.
Right now, DS9 and Voyager are financially unviable for CBS to even offer in syndication and for most cable channels are turn-offs being in SD. Being in HD CBS will be able to convince advertisers and cable channels, such as HBO and SPACE up here in Canada, to air the shows. And even 480p Enhanced Definition copies that were sourced from 1080p masters would definitely make stations more willing, if they were looking at the SD copies, to pay $250,000.
In 2007, and this is the latest that I can find data for this, the price for a 30 second commercial in one of the Top 50 syndicated shows ran from $8,767 for The Lost World, all the way up to $130, 783 for Friends, with shows like Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda commanding $24, 985 US Dollars, Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict commanding $13, 915 dollars, []Home Improvement[/I] commanding $22, 048, ER going for $27, 922, and The X-Files costing $51, 296. (http://www.frankwbaker.com/syndicated.htm) Now then at the time these numbers were released, all the Trek shows were owned by different networks, so they weren't able to be included in these figures. But going by Andromed and Earth: Final Conflict at the $14, 000 to $25,000 range, even if TNG was in syndication at $20,000 per 30 seconds, at 6.5 minutes per hour, CBS would've been raking in around $260,000 per episode from every station the show aired on in one day. And if there were 10 stations airing the show each day in the US that would've been $2.6 Million per day for TNG. And that's not even counting how much the individual stations, in a barter situation in the US (where CBS gives them 8 minutes per hour to sell) would get from selling their portion. But even selling a 30 second spot at $1,000 per 30 second, or even $500, CBS would be in a spot to make, $6,500 to $13,000 per hour, and on 10 stations, that would be $65,000 to $130,000 per day.
Right now in SD I can see CBS only being able to get in the $500 to $1,000 dollar range per 30 second spot, while in HD DS9 and Voyager could get the $20,000 per spot.
Ask BBC America why they aren't jumping all over seasons three thru seven of TNG Remastered? Or anyone for that matter? That seems to be the piece you're desperate to ignore. There is no syndication market for these shows.
TOS hangs out on MeTV where I doubt CBS is even getting that $500-$1000 per spot, TNG is on BBC America, where I doubt the remastered episodes demanded any more in the way of ad revenue or enough to make the increase in cost worth it to BBC America. Or else, they'd have went forward carrying seasons three thru seven.
From a syndication point-of-view, it is all academic: if there isn't enough of an increase in viewers then there won't be an increase in ad revenue. Then the station isn't going to be interested in paying an increase of licensing fees. This doesn't even take into account the fact that Deep Space Nine and Voyager haven't been in syndication (in the U.S.) since roughly 2008.
I'm with you in the idea that I'd love to see the shows get remastered. I just don't think the economics support it, or else CBS would already be doing it.
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