DS9 on blu ray?
- Thread starter borgboy
- Start date
I understand and know in my heart that the chances of getting DS9 in HD are very slim, but still I have some hope left inside of me that I will see it happen some day. Yes, it might be foolish and naive to hold on to that hope, but I just can't help it. I just need it to happen. 
It would be such a nice way of falling in love with the show all over again.
It would be such a nice way of falling in love with the show all over again.
I'd love to see it happen, I'm just not sure CBS is going to put out the investment to do it. Especially considering that even with HDTV displays being in most homes, people still seem perfectly happy with DVD's. There are a lot of older shows that were popular that are still chugging along with their SD prints being displayed on TV channels and streaming services. After the lackluster sales of TNG and Enterprise on Blu-ray, CBS is likely happy to allow DS9 and VOY to continue on with their SD prints.
Whether it be a Best Buy or Walmart or Target, the DVD sections still are larger than their Blu-ray counterparts, nearly a decade after the Blu-ray format launched. Demand plays the biggest part in all of this. Is there a demand for these shows to have millions spent on them for a remastering effort? Right now, looking at the lackluster sales of Hi-Def material, I'd say "no".
Because streaming services and cable pay MORE for HD than SD. This reason, more than the blu ray sales, are why TNG was remastered. Disc sales just helped cover the cost. The profit was in licensing.
The chances of DS9HD was/is based not only on TNG-R (or even the new TOS-R and ENT-HD editions), but also on interest in DS9 itself. Stream it on Netflix, and maybe Netflix might be interested in an upgraded version.
Sure, if there isn't demand they won't supply. That's basic macroeconomics, and certainly something I'm fully willing to admit is a possibility. If DS9 and VOG *were* that popular, then we wouldn't be debating it. It'd be a done deal.
The question is actually how niche these shows are. Is a remaster bad business, or a higher risk/lower reward deal that might be profitable on its own, but CBS simply has better options for them to pursue at this time. The ol' hurdle rate and opportunity cost equations.
CBS should just throw up a kickstarter campaign. Get the bajillion dollars from the fans, get the marketing PR from the internet because of the campaign, and everyone is happy.
It's more that TNG was a lot of practical effects, and DS9 got CGI heavy, especially with those giant battles. And the problem is, in intervening years, a lot of those CGI elements have been lost or the formatting is unworkable/incompatible with modern software. And they're out of date anyway in terms of poly count and resolution. So it is cost intensive to build CGI models and format them from square one, and to redo all those scenes. TNG was mostly processing practical effects from film elements and reintegrating them with the rest of a scene, with some CGI work where necessary. DS9 would take a lot more, and that gets expensive.
That's not actually true. The CGI assets are scattered, but still out there. As for the assets themselves, they were generally overbuilt. Indeed, when DS9 got the First Contact assets (which work fine in HD) they often redid them anyway to look better.
http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/05/deep-space-nine-in-high-definition-one-step-closer/
It's not just a matter of what it would cost, but how much it would make. This has been stated quite a few times now. Bluray sales for TNG were not nearly as much as CBS expected. DS9 will be more costly to remaster, yes, but more important, it will sell less. That's a simple fact we Niners need to live with. The show simply is not as commercially viable as TNG was/is. So, more costs against lower sales.....
See the article I posted above. Since the files still exist, and could probably be tracked down completely over the course of a week or two (that is, probably less time than it will take to track down all of the film) DS9 w/CGI would probably cost *less* than a TNG episode (or DS9 filmed model ep) as you can toss the files into the appropriate program and render it out using the saved settings. No painstaking re-editing from the notes.
The issue is that while it would likely cost less, the demand (and again this is stream + broadcast + disc sales driving it, not just one source) is far lesser than that. 10% less costly compared to 30-50% fewer sales (e.g.).
And Blu-Ray is just a drop-in-the-bucket for a lot production companies. The bigger money comes from broadcasting and streaming revenues. You keep saying that DS9 and Voyager will not be remastered because of Blu-Ray sales of TNG, but as far as the overall scheme of things, Blu-Ray is a pebble, while broadcast and streaming are boulders. Blu-Ray only gives CBS payment once, while broadcast and streaming (especially streaming that is offered for free with ads) will bring income and revenue for decades to come, and CBS can ask whatever they want for commercials.
So to remaster DS9 and Voyager is not going to rest solely on Blu-Ray sales, but on broadcast-streaming revenue. And considering that "Discovery" has already made profit from the international sales, there's going to be demand for the other Trek series, plus right now with Voyager, Kate Mulgrew is extremely popular due to her role in "Orange Is The New Black", and I wouldn't be surprised if on Netflix Voyager is on the home page of OITNB where Netflix would list recommendations for other shows with connections to OITNB.
But for both DS9 and Voyager I can see that, if the TNG Blu-Rays didn't do well, CBS might discontinue Blu-Ray and just release DS9-HD and Voyager-HD through online streaming services, such as CBS All-Access in the US and CRAVE here in Canada.
If CBS does decide to make DS9-HD for streaming, why wouldn't they sell some discs as well? The marginal cost of making the discs is small.
It's also a matter of who owns the digital assets. The single biggest cost for a full-on HD remaster comes from locating, scanning, and recompiling episodes from the film archives - both for equipment and labor.
The next biggest cost would be to integrate the digital assets seamlessly into the new masters; considering that at about 15-25% of the digital work will probably need to be redone from scratch, due to misplacement of the assets, the software becoming obsolete, etc.
To do all 7 seasons could cost quite a lot that CBS simply isn't wiling to cough up because they don't expect a good return.
I'm sure it will be done eventually, if streaming partners like Amazon and Netflix are willing to subsidize it.
That's the only way really, if and when outside parties are willing to invest. And right now, I don't see that happening.
Right. "Right now" - no. But maybe in just another year or two, when/if DISC is a success to match the movies, it would make sense. Maybe more than that.
Quite frankly, compared to streaming, Blu-Ray's have just not made that much of an impact, especially in regards to TV-On-Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is more like VHS where you see a lot of movies released on it, but even in my area, a lot of people are watching Netflix and other streaming sites over their PS4's/PS3's rather than using them to watch DVD and Blu-Rays.
But CBS will get a bigger audience from streaming services and Broadcast TV. Plus they'll be able to cross promote the series with other series on the service.
I think it's just a realisation that there's no point paying £10-15 to buy a blu-ray to watch once when you can easily stream it on Netflix within a few months, or else rent for a few quid from iTunes or Google.
When you actually think about it, buying TV and film on physical media is a weird late-20th century affectation. People managed to not own TV and films until the mid-eighties (albeit they didn't have a choice), and now with streaming there's no need to actually buy a disc of anything unless you really want. That is why Steelbooks are popular among collectors - they'll pay a premium to have some kind of added value.
I only buy blu-rays of things I really want, or if it's not otherwise available on Netflix or to rent online.
When you actually think about it, buying TV and film on physical media is a weird late-20th century affectation. People managed to not own TV and films until the mid-eighties (albeit they didn't have a choice), and now with streaming there's no need to actually buy a disc of anything unless you really want. That is why Steelbooks are popular among collectors - they'll pay a premium to have some kind of added value.
I only buy blu-rays of things I really want, or if it's not otherwise available on Netflix or to rent online.
Well prior to the 70's, people could buy 8mm and 16mm film strips of movies and the odd TV episode for watching in private.
But really, Blu-Ray is like Laserdisc, it is a niche market, and one that is certainly headed for death. Even with 4K, people have been able to stream it for a few years now. Really the only thing with DVD and Blu-Ray is that you don't an Internet connection to watch, but in that sense DVD has won that market as its install base is bigger and even now there are more devices on the market. Just a few days ago I was looking at laptops, and very few offer optical disc drives now, but the few that did were DVD only. Unless you custom-ordered your laptop, they don't ship with Blu-Ray support, except for the few external-USB drives that you can buy afterwards.
But really, Blu-Ray is like Laserdisc, it is a niche market, and one that is certainly headed for death. Even with 4K, people have been able to stream it for a few years now. Really the only thing with DVD and Blu-Ray is that you don't an Internet connection to watch, but in that sense DVD has won that market as its install base is bigger and even now there are more devices on the market. Just a few days ago I was looking at laptops, and very few offer optical disc drives now, but the few that did were DVD only. Unless you custom-ordered your laptop, they don't ship with Blu-Ray support, except for the few external-USB drives that you can buy afterwards.
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