Looks like we're never getting a DS9 HD remaster. (Quote from twitter)

I think I mentioned this before but I think it works better if you set the Contrast at 80 and the color at 90. Plus I think Netflix has he best look for some reason except maybe the DVD's which I need to buy again. Plus I watch it on my blu ray player that you can download the Netflix app, on. For some reason stuff looks better on that than my Amazon Firestick but that might be the case due to the fact I am still using a I think a first generation, firestick.

Jason

I made a mistake. I said contrast when I meant to say Brightness.

 

They seem fine on Netflix.

 

Not to me. Mud, mud, mud.

Kor

 

"Never" is a little extreme.
It's on film and it's not going anywhere.
Anyway AI up scaling is a very interesting new technology that's going to get better and better in the coming years.
Imagine a computer program that extrapolates a 3D environment from a 2D image and then uses the objects and lighting in that environment to fill in missing details in the 2D image.
In ten or fifteen years they might not even bother getting the film out to remaster it into 128K or whatever ridiculous format we're watching in that year.

 

But that IS the colour palatte of DS9.

 

Makes you wonder why TOS looks so good on TV yet the later Treks were fizzy and dull coloured doesn't it and yet TOS was made twenty odd years earlier than TNG!!!
JB

 

It's a simple matter of being mastered on 35 mm film (TOS) vs. videotape.

Kor

 

Really, is that all? Wow!
JB

 

Isn't the reason they look so bad kind of shown in the movie "Boogie NIghts." When whats his name wants Burt Reynolds to switch over video instead of film. It's why stuff from the 50's and later look better than half of the stuff made in the 80's and 90's.

Jason

 

DS9 looks exactly the same on an HDTV or a nice smartphone as it did on my box TV in 1996. It's always been muddy or drab or whatever. That's just how everything was back then.

 

The poor color gradations are more apparent on an HD TV to me.

Kor

 

Have to agree with Kor. I wouldn't call them unwatchable as such, but DS9 in particular (which is my favourite) looks pretty bad to me on Netflix and DVD. Much worse than some other older SD shows. Greg mentioned Buck Rogers , of which I caught end of an episode on TV recently, and that was a better quality picture. I can say the same for original BSG as well.

Like had been said though, the earlier episodes seem worse. I'm assuming the transfers of the late ones had better treatment.

 

If you can only watch new HD shows/movies and enjoy them on a 50" TV isn't it the TV that's the problem? You are cutting yourself out of decades of entertainment with that approach.

 

People are misunderstanding here. Buck Rogers being a 70s show was probably shot and edited on film . The practice of shooting on film and editing on video started in the 80s and really got into full swing in the early 90s . It's like taking a great image and throwing away all the great quality and using the bare bones as your master .

Black and white movies are really a bad analogy because they too would have been shot on film and edited on film. They should still look beautiful.

For all of those of you who say it looks fine that's great. I would say stop reading this thread, once you start to realise what makes a poor picture you can never under it. To my eyes, while not unwatchable, it certainly looks poor . The colours are muted, the resolution is being blown up from 480p to 3800x2160 it might as well be a postage stamp. Things look fuzzy and generally unpleasant. Does it stop me from watching it no, but it doesn't stop me from wishing that they would go back to the original negatives and recut the show.

 

Well, I think everyone here would be happy if they recut the show. It's just a matter of whether they're likely to do so (ever/anytime soon)...

 

I'm not seeing it.

 

Maybe the answer is "get a better tv and/or player"?

 

I just looked it up and Buck Rodgers has indeed been released in HD so this why or probably looks so good .

 

It wasn't a HD channel I caught it on recently, but if it is a remaster, it would still be an improvement from the time.

Personally, I thought DS9's issue was something very common to US television in the 90s. Often things earlier/later tend to look higher quality even in SD.

 

Absolutely things earlier and later were shot and edited on film . Things in-between were shot on film, transferred to video and the final master created from that. Started in the late 80s and laterl until about the early to mid 2000s .

I have been watching the special features on Enterprise and surprised to learn that there was even a period where it was being discussed that it wouldn't be shot and mastered with HD in mind.

The new documentary should hopefully show people the difference side my side. There is a huge world of difference between what it is now and reassembling the episodes from the original negatives.