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Enterprise on Blu-ray

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard

Commodore
Commodore
I am going to be watching the show for the first time on Blu-ray. Last time I watched Enterprise, I think it was with my mom in 2012 before she died. I'm pretty sure we have a rewatch thread. This is a review of the show as a whole on the Blu-ray format. Does anyone want to join me?

I'm watching "Broken Bow" tonight.
 
You will find that many exterior effects shots were not rendered in high definition. So scenes with people are crystal clear, and then ship stuff looks like blocky mud. As the series goes on this happens less, but it still occurs with stock shots originally rendered for earlier episodes. ENT could benefit from some "remastering."

Kor
 
Yeah, I think so. From what I understand they got the whole gang back together for this release.
If you're thinking of the 2017 complete series blu-ray release, the info I've seen indicates that it's just a repackaging of the previous single season blu-ray releases, with the exact same features.

If you mean the blu-rays compared to the DVDs, then I believe the blu-rays do have additional features and stuff that were not on the DVDs.

Kor
 
I haven't started the show yet, but I have a question that I don't believe was explored in the show. What was Starfleet before Enterprise? Warp drive has been a thing for 88 years. Enterprise is the first ship to go Warp 5. "First Flight" established that Archer and Trip were part of the project that broke the Warp 2 barrier.

So let me get this straight. Starfleet is established with basic warp drive and what, about a dozen ships? Archer and Trip come along, and now ships can go Warp 2. The Enterprise is completed and can go warp 5. This means Henry Archer had conceived of the Warp 5 engine before Warp 2 was a thing. Was Starfleet even a thing when young Henry Archer came up with the idea of a Warp 5 engine?

Can someone make pre-Enterprise Starfleet make sense?

I do like that the NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship in the vein of the Federation Starfleet of previous shows.
 
If you're thinking of the 2017 complete series blu-ray release, the info I've seen indicates that it's just a repackaging of the previous single season blu-ray releases, with the exact same features.

If you mean the blu-rays compared to the DVDs, then I believe the blu-rays do have additional features and stuff that were not on the DVDs.

Kor

Yes, there's some great special features. Some new episode commentaries, some remarkably candid interviews, and a couple of round-table reunions. One of the cast (including Jeffrey Combs), and one with the writers.

Both of those are great. Pretty much all the other actors fawn over Scott Bakula, and express how gracious and generous he was as a lead, to the point that Scott was clearly getting a little uncomfortable with all the praise. (Basically the exact opposite of Shatner and TOS' cast).

There's also a funny moment when Dominic Keating complained about having to endure the Suliban makeup for the episode "Detained" and Jeffrey Combs said "Oh, poor baby!" :lol:

I learned some interesting things in the commentaries too, like the scenes of losing the baby in "Terra Prime" were REALLY emotional for Connor Trinneer, because he'd just found out his wife was pregnant with their first child.

And definitely check out the one that John Billingsley and his wife Bonita Friedericy recorded for "Regeneration". It's a hoot!

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Audio_commentary

I haven't started the show yet, but I have a question that I don't believe was explored in the show. What was Starfleet before Enterprise? Warp drive has been a thing for 88 years. Enterprise is the first ship to go Warp 5. "First Flight" established that Archer and Trip were part of the project that broke the Warp 2 barrier.

So let me get this straight. Starfleet is established with basic warp drive and what, about a dozen ships? Archer and Trip come along, and now ships can go Warp 2. The Enterprise is completed and can go warp 5. This means Henry Archer had conceived of the Warp 5 engine before Warp 2 was a thing. Was Starfleet even a thing when young Henry Archer came up with the idea of a Warp 5 engine?

Can someone make pre-Enterprise Starfleet make sense?

I do like that the NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship in the vein of the Federation Starfleet of previous shows.

The NX-Alpha and Beta in "First Flight" were explicitly based on Henry's design. The Warp 5 engine was always the ultimate goal but it probably took years or even decades of testing and working out the kinks at lower speeds before you get an engine like the one they had on the NX-01 (especially with little or no help from the Vulcans). Think of it like the Gemini and early Apollo missions. You have to get a lot of things right before you can land on the moon: long-duration spaceflight, rendezvous and docking with another spacecraft, testing the spacesuits, testing the command module, testing the lunar module, testing the command and lunar modules in lunar orbit, etc.
 
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Memory Alpha suggests Starfleet was founded 10-20 years prior, spending most of that time at Warp 1. Archer and Trip broke the Warp 2 barrrier. If we go by Star Trek Beyond, the Franklin was the first Warp 4 ship, followed by the Enterprise at Warp 5.
 
I picked up Season 4 on Blu-ray from Amazon. I got a Canadian cooy with the casw in both English and French. Is there any reason to expect the disc content to differ from American Blu-ray? Censorship, film rate, things like that.
 
The colours seem to have been boosted compared to the often greyer DVD picture quality.

I seem to recall there being complaint about the Season 1/2 CG being upscaled, but aliasing aside - usually around moving straight-lines on the repeated NX-01 ship flybys - it's all very sharp and a better viewing experience.

The biggest difference is seeing Star Trek episodes played at the right frame rate on Blu-ray. For us in Britain, we got everything sped up fractionally to our TV standard. 24fps becomes 25. Or NTSC 60 became PAL 50hz. Not immediately noticable to a lot of people apparently, but it certainly annoyed me ever since watching The Next Generation back in the 90's. And if you've liked a film song's arrangement, bought a soundtrack album but suddenly started hating it on TV... I wouldn't say that's ever going to convert anybody to liking Faith of the Heart, although it does sound less grating pitched down a bit slower.
 
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So what was Starfleet up to before the NX-01? How many ships are we lead to believe Starfleet consisted of when the NX-01 launched?

They didn’t give us details.

But its fair to say that the focus was launching probes and maintaining the defense of Lunar colony, the Martian colonies Jupiter Station, Yosemite 3 and the creation of the spacedocks. Since the cargo ship routes were managed by the Earth Cargo Service.

And considering how poor Earth defenses were when the Xindi came to Earth (there were like 4-10 Earth ships in total, I think), there is no reason to think it was any better pre NX-Alpha flight.

There is also the factor that the Vulcans inhibit the development of Starfleet ships. As for why they would do that to Starfleet, but not the cargo service, it would likely be because the cargo routes were out of the way of any Vulcan interests and would not disturb them. They were controlled destinations. Whereas Starfleet would run the risk in interfering, since their mission is to explore.
 
I'm guessing it's safe to say everyone was flying around at simply... warp speed, later renamed Warp 1? This would help establish the importance of the Enterprise if Warp 2 had only been accomplised by Commander Archer and friends just years before the ship's launch.

I'm guessing this places the Franklin from Star Trek Beyond as being the "Warp 4" starship somewhete between "First Flight" and "Broken Bow?"
 
the ENT BluRays are one of them few physical survivors in my media library, mainly for nostalgic reasons and to display them in my cabinet :)
Still love the show and it's characters and rewatch my favorite episodes regularly.

If I remember correctly season 1 and 2 weren't (fully) filmed or processed in HD yet, whereas 3 and 4 were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise#Broadcast_and_release
The Blu-ray releases featured both the same additional features as the DVD release, in addition to new features exclusive to these releases.[138] In January 2017 a new 24 disc Blu-ray set of the whole series was released.[140] This set includes the whole series in 1080p with a screen size ratio of 1.78:1 (widescreen) and with the sound in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (5 channels plus subwoofer).[140] The set includes 97 episodes from its original broadcast run at the dawn of the 21st century and features like a cast reunion.[141] Note that the Blu-ray release in 1080p is actually higher than its original broadcast resolution which ranged from 720p to 1080i.[81]
 
If I remember correctly season 1 and 2 weren't (fully) filmed or processed in HD yet, whereas 3 and 4 were.

Live action for the first three seasons was filmed, film has a higher resolution than HD, but season four will not be able to be done in 4K except as an upscale because it was done digitally in 1080p. Rendering times for special effects were still a monster, so it took time for them to become fully HD. With some 480p and 720p effects mixed in.

Note that the Blu-ray release in 1080p is actually higher than its original broadcast resolution which ranged from 720p to 1080i.

No one was broadcasting in 1080p, at that point. I'm not sure if anyone is, even now.
 
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