For the sake of the current discussion, I'm not sure the sources or accuracy of this article, but it places the estimate of the entire TNG remaster at "north of $20 million."
DS9 on blu ray?
- Thread starter borgboy
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I saw the figure $9 million quoted, I thought it was for the entire project.
But $25 million dollars? when they can spend a tiny fraction of that on an SD upscale (if they even bother) for Netflix and their own CBS streaming network, guess which one they'll go for.
I don't think anyone thinks it would be cheaper to give DS9 the same treatment they gave TNG. But the comparison is much easier to swallow than the incorrect information you posed earlier, which was $2 million for TNG vs $9 million for DS9. Sounds like the cost would actually be similar to give DS9 the same sort of treatment, which is what I would have expected. Not saying it's going to happen, I'd just rather us at least post sources when we throw out figures.
On second thought, forget the Dabo!
Just remember to do it through Kickstater, that's what all the cool ID thieves are doing these days.
I was once suggesting to save money to combine the HD film with upscaled effects (like a CGI morph or CGI backgrounds in the green screen portions of the real film). I am watching X-Files on Bluray right now and they did just that in the episode "Anasazi"; some shots combine the new scanned HD film material with upscaled SD material as "matte paintings" (that are photos from the Grand Canyon) in the background.
This seems like the right thread to ask this question, since it's about the blu-ray releases, even though it is not about DS9 (since it has not had a blu-ray release... yet?). Moderators, feel free to move it to a more appropriate place if you feel this is necessary. Apologies if this is already discussed somewhere else, but I couldn't find an answer.
I don't own any of the series on blu-ray (or dvd for that matter), but I am tempted to give them a try. From the online reading I've done, I understand that the blu-ray release of TOS contains both the original and remastered episodes, but I couldn't find any information about whether or not the same is true for the TNG and ENT blu-ray releases (or TAS, which an article on Memory Alpha tells me is 'forthcoming'?). Does it even make sense to ask this question, perhaps the differences between the original and remastered episodes are too small to warrant this? I understand the process by which TOS has been remastered is quite different from that by which TNG is remastered (which might be different again from ENT?), but I won't claim to know the details of this difference (I've never familiarised myself with the technicalities of remastering). Anyway, I think it would be nice to have the original versions of the episodes alongside the new ones and I was wondering if the blu-rays offer this for all the series that have seen a blu-ray release so far?
And a related question: Are there differences between the blu-ray releases in different regions where it comes to the inclusion of the original episodes (or the inclusion/exclusion of other additional material on the discs)?
I don't own any of the series on blu-ray (or dvd for that matter), but I am tempted to give them a try. From the online reading I've done, I understand that the blu-ray release of TOS contains both the original and remastered episodes, but I couldn't find any information about whether or not the same is true for the TNG and ENT blu-ray releases (or TAS, which an article on Memory Alpha tells me is 'forthcoming'?). Does it even make sense to ask this question, perhaps the differences between the original and remastered episodes are too small to warrant this? I understand the process by which TOS has been remastered is quite different from that by which TNG is remastered (which might be different again from ENT?), but I won't claim to know the details of this difference (I've never familiarised myself with the technicalities of remastering). Anyway, I think it would be nice to have the original versions of the episodes alongside the new ones and I was wondering if the blu-rays offer this for all the series that have seen a blu-ray release so far?
And a related question: Are there differences between the blu-ray releases in different regions where it comes to the inclusion of the original episodes (or the inclusion/exclusion of other additional material on the discs)?
TOS has the new CGI effects and the originals available via seamless branching, which is a nice solution. You can also select the original mono soundtrack, or the remastered 7.1 surround version. Basically, with TOS you can watch near enough the original episodes, just remastered in HD from the original film. It had previously only been released from SD transfers.
TNG only ever existed in SD as it was edited on video. So technically if you want to see TNG "as originally intended", the DVD is the best it will ever look. If you are being purist about these things, the remasters have some replaced effects shots for things like phaser beams, and the early CGI for the Crystalline Entity and Junior from Galaxy's Child. Some mistakes from the original episodes have been fixed, such as misplaced phaser beams in the pilot and Darmock. Matte paintings and planets have all been replaced too. However all the replacements are very much in the spirit of the original effects, and as a result I can't think of anything you'd actually miss from the eighties and nineties video masters*. It looks just like the original show, but about a thousand times better than it ever looked before.
*The exception, I guess, is season two, which has a few errors as a result of the work being outsourced to another company. They didn't work to as high a standard as CBS Digital, but in all honesty I didn't notice much wrong. It still looks great on the whole. If you were hesitating about buying the blu-rays, don't worry. Go out and get them, they are fantastic.
Enterprise was prouced in HD anyway, so it's as intended. IIRC the effects were only rendered in 720p originally, so they've been slightly upscaled to full HD, but you can't really tell. They are the definitive releases of that show. Similarly if and when TAS gets a blu-ray release, I imagine they'll just be scanned from the film and cleaned up, with no substantive alterations. The 'More Tribbles, More Troubles' episode is on the TOS blu-ray set, and looks great.
TNG only ever existed in SD as it was edited on video. So technically if you want to see TNG "as originally intended", the DVD is the best it will ever look. If you are being purist about these things, the remasters have some replaced effects shots for things like phaser beams, and the early CGI for the Crystalline Entity and Junior from Galaxy's Child. Some mistakes from the original episodes have been fixed, such as misplaced phaser beams in the pilot and Darmock. Matte paintings and planets have all been replaced too. However all the replacements are very much in the spirit of the original effects, and as a result I can't think of anything you'd actually miss from the eighties and nineties video masters*. It looks just like the original show, but about a thousand times better than it ever looked before.
*The exception, I guess, is season two, which has a few errors as a result of the work being outsourced to another company. They didn't work to as high a standard as CBS Digital, but in all honesty I didn't notice much wrong. It still looks great on the whole. If you were hesitating about buying the blu-rays, don't worry. Go out and get them, they are fantastic.
Enterprise was prouced in HD anyway, so it's as intended. IIRC the effects were only rendered in 720p originally, so they've been slightly upscaled to full HD, but you can't really tell. They are the definitive releases of that show. Similarly if and when TAS gets a blu-ray release, I imagine they'll just be scanned from the film and cleaned up, with no substantive alterations. The 'More Tribbles, More Troubles' episode is on the TOS blu-ray set, and looks great.
The TNG episodes are pretty much the original episodes, but just in HD. All of the original filmed footage for the space scenes were used, except in a few cases where the footage could not be found and then a nearly identical CGI replacement was created. In some cases, the CGI replacement is merged into the original star fields along side other filmed miniatures that were found. You really can't tell. In any case, it's super rare.
TOS was a complete CGI recreation, that's why both versions exist side by side on the blurays. There is no reason to do this for TNG.
Thank you all for the detailed answers! That clears up a lot.
The TAS blu-ray set is a definite 'go' then? They are working on that? And, as I gather from this thread, no word on DS9 or VOY as of yet?
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