Is it impossible to release HD DS9?

[Tosk]

But DS9, considering a lot of episodes were more action heavy than TNG & Voyager, there might be issues with the high action scenes.

Probably my biggest beef with the DS9 DVDs may not even be compression related...there are instances where one part of a face moves independently of the rest of the face. (Like a sort of shifting mass within the rest.) It's a weird effect I've never seen anywhere else.

 

[arch101]

I would expect that the fans themselves will do this job eventually, probably within the next decade. Some of the cg model work I see on Trek ship sites is better than what we saw in TMP, and just read in this post how much knowledge and expertise there is here.

 

[Karla1]

Couldn’t the money be raised for making a HD version be done through crowd funding? I think a lot of money could be raised that way.

 

[Relayer1]

I would expect that the fans themselves will do this job eventually, probably within the next decade. Some of the cg model work I see on Trek ship sites is better than what we saw in TMP, and just read in this post how much knowledge and expertise there is here.

Which is fine for the SFX shots but you'd still need to access the original film for upgraded scans of the live action.

As I said, a collaborative project between fans and the studio could be the answer, but when has something like that ever happened ?

 

[tomswift2002]

Which is fine for the SFX shots but you'd still need to access the original film for upgraded scans of the live action.

As I said, a collaborative project between fans and the studio could be the answer, but when has something like that ever happened ?

I remember when Enterprise was cancelled and fans raised money for a Season 5. It had to be returned because of some law that Paramount couldn’t accept “charity” because Paramount was a for-profit business.

But with the CGI, it wouldn’t make sense to upscale that and then have the live-action looking like it came from VHS. It would be the reverse of the Babylon 5 DVD’s.

 

[dub]

Couldn’t the money be raised for making a HD version be done through crowd funding? I think a lot of money could be raised that way.

I think they would have done that for a lot of shows by now if that was an option. But I was secretly hoping that the insanely impressive showing for What We Left Behind would have caused TPTB to rethink DS9 in HD. If a *documentary* about a supposedly forgotten Trek spin-off could bring in that much money through an online crowd funding campaign with no advertising, imagine what a series remaster could bring in? Or alternatively, someone with the documentary project say, "hey, while we're going through the trouble of remastering this footage, can't the studio just invest in the whole shebang?" Yes - I know the expense of a remaster. I get it. Ah well. It was fun to see some remastered DS9 footage in the documentary, and on the big screen as well! Never thought that would ever happen! So I'm incredibly grateful.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Couldn’t the money be raised for making a HD version be done through crowd funding? I think a lot of money could be raised that way.

Not tens of millions, which is what the TNG remastering cost, if the estimates were correct.

 

[arch101]

Which is fine for the SFX shots but you'd still need to access the original film for upgraded scans of the live action.

As I said, a collaborative project between fans and the studio could be the answer, but when has something like that ever happened ?

Something like this might need to happen for the Trek Channel, er, I mean, CBS All Access to provide filler programming around its future Trek shows.

 

[Armus]

I've given up hope. I'm just gonna buy the SD DVDs.

 

[Relayer1]

I've given up hope. I'm just gonna buy the SD DVDs.

I did.

 

[Qonundrum]

I’ve been waiting a long time to see if a HD version of DS9 would be released on dvd or blu Ray, but I saw the following tweet and apparently because the data was not stored properly it would be much to costly to do? Is this the case? Also, has it ever been tried to raise the money for a HD version of DS9 via online fundraising?

“
That would be awesome. Unfortunately, they lost all of the information needed for CGI and non-film data due to horrific storage methods. They'd have to rebuild all of that from scratch, which is way too cost prohibitive. Same for Voyager.
”

https://twitter.com/widescreenjohn/status/1127241778955018240?s=21

The last I'd read, a lot of CGI assets had existed. And made at higher resolution detail than needed in the 1990s. But that was from a few years ago and computer storage media is also prone to failure over time and even assets one knows are stored could suffer from bit rot and thus be harder (if not impossible) to recover. But models were built and used for TOS-R... or if nothing else, scan the negs and upscale the CGI for the space shots and make new assets. (VOY would be much more time-consuming due to even greater reliance on merging live action with CGI...)

The "AI" used to upscale has come a long way but the latest clickbait articles showed how little improvement there was - just some contrast adjustments along edges and no real detail added into the baseball stitching or anything else, reminding that detail cannot be conjured up not of nowhere. Or that the designation "AI" was used loosely for this instance. (to compare, the "AI" used to simulate frames to improve FPS, like any TV set whose interpolation processing can turn a 24fps show into a 29.97fps show natively to completely or almost achieve that smooth videotape soap opera effect...) Artificially creating "HDR" has shown rather more formidable results (which is remarkable given the often flat nature of videotape sources, either native VT or film source transferred to VT such as 90s Trek) but the better the source material is, that much better any enhancing will be.

At least the 35mm film negatives are preserved and have presumably a few decades before the vinegar effect starts to kick in.

 

[Jonesy]

The reason it's not being done is that DS9 isn't that popular

The reason why it hasn't been done is because TNG underperformed on it's remastered blu ray release. This was discussed in depth by Robert Meyer Burnett.

 

[Jonesy]

I’m sure it turned a profit at some point, the question is whether or not it was a good use of resources. Could they have taken that investment and made more money elsewhere?

There is no confirmation it turned a profit at all. If it did, it was not anything to make Paramount inspired to go further, particularly with the added complexity of DS9's remastering.

 

[Jonesy]

Well it might have been a little less in profit after the TNG-HD project ! Even so, it's preserved and future proofed TNG going forward and if it hasn't paid for itself yet, it will eventually.

Besides, if you went to a major studio and offered to conjure up seven seasons of a halfway popular new show for $20m they'd be delighted. DS9 and Voyager could effectively be that.

DS9's use as repeats or channel filler is currently very limited at SD. Even 1080 HD is becoming obsolete but as new standards are only incremental improvements, a HD rework to will always be watchable. There's a business case but only when the costs drop sufficiently.

EDIT : It may be a good idea to offer widescreen versions as well as the original format going forward. Deciding scene by scene whether to stretch, crop or zoom (or even extend by CG if affordable) could give a much better result than otherwise obtained.

I could see future technology such as deep learning making the standard def material look better. But it don't think it will ever look as good as what was done to TNG.

 

[kkt]

Making a profit eventually after years and years is not a compelling case. What management is after is a commercial rate of return. If they could have done better buying an index fund with the investment, they don't want to put it into remastering Star Trek, no matter how many fans are clammering for it.

 

[tomswift2002]

The reason why it hasn't been done is because TNG underperformed on it's remastered blu ray release. This was discussed in depth by Robert Meyer Burnett.

Burnett was a contractor for CBS, not an employee or management. Any information he was given could’ve been’ filtered’ by management and what he has said is in no way close to what has actually happened and is more or less propaganda.

Also the last time CBS said anything officially was in December 2013, half-way through the Blu-Ray releases. So to say the Blu-Rays failed, you are talking out of your foot.

As for profitability, considering that CBS has all but thrown out the SD masters (with only the DVD’s still using them—-only because they are using the 2002 DVD Masters) they have switched over to the HD masters for everything from broadcast to streaming and are making profit on them right now.

 

[BillJ]

As for profitability, considering that CBS has all but thrown out the SD masters (with only the DVD’s still using them—-only because they are using the 2002 DVD Masters) they have switched over to the HD masters for everything from broadcast to streaming and are making profit on them right now.

That doesn't mean they are making any more profit than they were off of the SD masters.

 

[tomswift2002]

That doesn't mean they are making any more profit than they were off of the SD masters.

The can charge a lot more than they could for the SD masters (it’s like the 60’s and 70’s when color TV was coming in, Disney could make a much higher profit on color prints of their color 1950’s TV programs than black & white prints of the same programs). It wouldn’t surprise me that when Bell Media bought the Canadian rights to the Trek franchise if DS9 and Voyager were thrown in for free because they are SD.

But when you look at iTunes, the HD versions are $1 more than the SD versions.

 

[Jonesy]

Burnett was a contractor for CBS, not an employee or management. Any information he was given could’ve been’ filtered’ by management and what he has said is in no way close to what has actually happened and is more or less propaganda.

Also the last time CBS said anything officially was in December 2013, half-way through the Blu-Ray releases. So to say the Blu-Rays failed, you are talking out of your foot.

As for profitability, considering that CBS has all but thrown out the SD masters (with only the DVD’s still using them—-only because they are using the 2002 DVD Masters) they have switched over to the HD masters for everything from broadcast to streaming and are making profit on them right now.

I never said the blu ray's "failed". I paraphrased what I had read about them underperforming. I'm guessing you just don't like the possibility that what Robert Burnett said may in fact be true. I think he'd be the last person to put out false or misleading information to fans.

(edit - If he has ever put out false or misleading information in the past, I'd like to know. If there is any verified quotes or bits of information from anyone working at CBS Digital about this topic, I'd love to read it.)

But lets just say for arguments sake that what he said isn't true. Then, why wasn't DS9 and Voyager's remastering put right into production? If the profit or financial motivation is there for them to do it, why hasn't it happened?

My answer is - because there is not enough financial motivation for it to happen.

As far as the HD masters, whatever may exist for DS9 and Voyager in syndication/home video/streaming is at best up-rezzed standard def material. What shows up is no more "high def" than my DS9 dvd's being upscaled off my Oppo.

 

[tomswift2002]

I never said the blu ray's "failed". I paraphrased what I had read about them underperforming. I'm guessing you just don't like the possibility that what Robert Burnett said may in fact be true. I think he'd be the last person to put out false or misleading information to fans.

(edit - If he has ever put out false or misleading information in the past, I'd like to know. If there is any verified quotes or bits of information from anyone working at CBS Digital about this topic, I'd love to read it.)

But lets just say for arguments sake that what he said isn't true. Then, why wasn't DS9 and Voyager's remastering put right into production? If the profit or financial motivation is there for them to do it, why hasn't it happened?

My answer is - because there is not enough financial motivation for it to happen.

As far as the HD masters, whatever may exist for DS9 and Voyager in syndication/home video/streaming is at best up-rezzed standard def material. What shows up is no more "high def" than my DS9 dvd's being upscaled off my Oppo.

Your forgetting one thing. Even before TNG got its Remaster, CBS was still looking at all its options in house to see what would be good, and it took years for them to decide, at which point the TOS-R team had broken up. Suffice it to say, we don’t know what the internal politics of CBS are having on DS9 and Voyager.

And Burnett, really all that he would know is what he was involved in. If his contact at CBS was told not to tell him stuff or to make stuff up if Burnett asked, he could’ve received a bunch of misinformation because Burnett was not a CBS employee and did not have that level of clearance.