HD experts, help an idiot!

[Trekker4747]

But in a very real way, Trekker, you prove my point. People, including you, like to watch television with the picture filling up the whole screen whether it was meant to be that way or not. The idea that TNG-R wouldn't be widescreen one way or another,

Well, I watch it that way, in part, because I'm too lazy to always change the settings whenver I switch medias, in part because it dosen't bother me and mostly because I don't want to unevenly wear the screen. But as for "short and fat" I've never really picked up on it even when flipping between the different formats.

 

[DarkHelmet]

Trekker4747 said:
Well, I watch it that way, in part, because I'm too lazy to always change the settings whenver I switch medias, in part because it dosen't bother me and mostly because I don't want to unevenly wear the screen. But as for "short and fat" I've never really picked up on it even when flipping between the different formats.

Trekker, what type of TV do you own? If it's LCD you don't need to worry about "uneven wear".

 

[Trekker4747]

Rear Projection. The manual for it specifically said to avoid watching TV in 4:3 mode too much.

 

[AviTrek]

LitmusDragon said:
They could always re-crop as best suits the 16:9 and then use digital processing to remove any boom mics or other unintentionals that happen to be in the frame.

Yes, that makes it an even more mammoth project. But as technologies advance this kind of thing will only become easier and easier to do.

I understand the arguments about re-cropping screwing up the framing. Certainly I wouldn't want them to recrop to a smaller version of the original 4:3 shots. But, if they used the wider pre-cropped stock, and kept the original 4:3 intended shot at center frame while adding additional information around the edges, I think that could work really well.

I think you misunderstood the earlier post. When a movie is filmed it is shot on 35mm(4:3) and then the top and bottom can be cropped(assuming it wasn't an anamorphic lens). In that case there is material on the top and bottom that could be used depending on anything too problematic showing. For a TV show that is originally 4:3 there is no extra material. On occasion there might be some material that was cropped to zoom in a little, but on most scenes there is no extra material to use. To make the image wide screen you must crop off the top and bottom.

 

[LitmusDragon]

AviTrek said:
I think you misunderstood the earlier post. When a movie is filmed it is shot on 35mm(4:3) and then the top and bottom can be cropped(assuming it wasn't an anamorphic lens). In that case there is material on the top and bottom that could be used depending on anything too problematic showing. For a TV show that is originally 4:3 there is no extra material. On occasion there might be some material that was cropped to zoom in a little, but on most scenes there is no extra material to use. To make the image wide screen you must crop off the top and bottom.

Do we know for sure that the entire 4:3 frame was used? The reused ten-forward sequence from "These Are the Voyages" would seem to suggest that the videotape transfers were cropped from wider shots. That extra information off to either side of the replicator has to come from somewhere.

Now whether this applies to the show as a whole or in only a few particular shots is not certain. Can we get the TNG editing staff in here to comment?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Trekker4747 said:
TNG wasn't filmed in widescreen so it shouldn't be presented in widescreen.

So, as viewer sophistication grows to where everyone owns and watches widescreen TV, they will choose to ignore shows that don't match up with their equipment, or at least find that they just don't watch it as often.

I have several favourite LPs not available as CDs and, as much as I love them, they are simply too much trouble to play in LP format. Cleaning them with anti-static clothes, getting up halfway through to flip the disk, being careful with storage to avoid warping...

Just as people found themselves no longer playing mono records on their stereos, replacing beloved LPs with CD version, watching early b/w episodes of "Gilligan's Island" in syndication when the laters seasons were in colour, or buying colourized "Bewitched" boxed DVD sets in preference to the b/w sets right beside them.

If Paramount aims DVD product only at the purists, they'll go under.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Trekker4747 said:
That's kind of the point, Baba, they'd pretty much have to remake every episode from scratch. Re-edit it, re make and insert SFX and then they'd have the episodes.

That's exactly what they're doing with TOS. And given that they're willing to put all that work into *that* series, it stands to reason they'll do it all over again for the others.

 

[Nebusj]

There's very little re-editing being done to the Original Series. With few exceptions it amounts to replacing special effects shots, mostly the views of the Enterprise in space or orbiting a planet. That's typically about one minute of work per episode in a half-dozen or so shots. The live-action footage isn't being re-framed or re-edited (apart from syndication cuts).

 

[DarkHelmet]

Trekker4747 said:
Rear Projection. The manual for it specifically said to avoid watching TV in 4:3 mode too much.

Yeah, I previously owned a 43" RP HD TV. It does say to avoid watching 4:3 mode more than 10% of the time.

 

[Doug Otte]

I'm wondering, Mods, since this topic (possibility of TNG in HD) comes up every other week, should it be a sticky at the top of the TNG forum? Otherwise, somebody ends up having to explain all the details about film, HD, and how TNG was created. Maybe we can post all these details in a sticky.

Doug

 

[JJohnson]

Based on the story at Trekmovie.com...there's test footage out there of TNG-HD. Anyone know anything about it?

James

 

[Mr. B]

Has anyone ever seen pics/scans of some original film reel from TNG?

 

[JJohnson]

That wouldn't be a bad idea - to see the original film, in comparison to what we saw on screen. Then we can see if there's additional information that was cut, what the original size of the film was, etc.

James

 

[Ezri]

It would be nice to see Star Trek in the letter box, or what we call today HD TV

 

[USS Mariner]

DarkHelmet said:

Trekker4747 said:
Rear Projection. The manual for it specifically said to avoid watching TV in 4:3 mode too much.

Yeah, I previously owned a 43" RP HD TV. It does say to avoid watching 4:3 mode more than 10% of the time.

That's retarded. I can understand it's a hardware limitation, but it's still stupid.

 

[Outpost4]

^ I don't get this. I have a tube HDTV set. Nothing burns in like a tube set. I watch mostly 4:3 broadcasts in windowboxing, with the bars on the side. I've owned it for 6 years. There is no burn-in.

This is the biggest reason the bars are grey, not black. This avoids burn-in.

 

[Salinga]

I don't know if this has posted yet, but ex-astris-scientia.org has wrote an article about this issue:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/ent_vs_tng.htm

 

[StewMc]

^
Good article, only one new thing in it that we haven't talked about, but its an interesting one: they widened the TNG footage slightly to fit the frame as there seemingly wasn't enough to fill the whole 16x9 frame without cropping too much at the top.

 

[RAMA]

StewMc said:
^
Good article, only one new thing in it that we haven't talked about, but its an interesting one: they widened the TNG footage slightly to fit the frame as there seemingly wasn't enough to fill the whole 16x9 frame without cropping too much at the top.

There's an obvious difference in the quality, and if the FX match up to the clarity and detail of the ENT shots, then STNG will only look better.

RAMA