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

What an optimistic sentiment! Hear, hear.

Last night I watched Broken Link to Apocalypse Rising and I gotta say... the quality wan't as bad as I remember - or as jarring as going to Emmisary from any TNG. I think partly due to lighting change, they underlit seasons 1 and 2 at least... but 4/5 are very bright by comparison. Sisko's office is lit like a pharmacy. The extra light helps.

 

Yeah, it's a bit sad, isn't it? DS9 and VOY are 2 out of the 3 Trek shows that managed to run for seven entire seasons! But then, they still look as good as any other television show of that era. That we have TNG now in HD - and in THIS kind of quality HD! - is noting short of a marvel!

The good thing is: All the material is archived. As long as Star Trek is around, there will always be (even if only minimal) interest in it, and the original material is still there, and technology to make it cheaper progressing and progressing. There's a good chance some day it will happen. Just not in a forseeable time.

 

How much of the FX are going to have to be re-done? Almost none of TNG was done with CG while DS9 had more and Voyager had a lot more.

 

For the first five seasons of DS9, there wouldn't be much difference between how it would be remastered and how TNG was remastered. I'm not too sure about VOY. I think they went full or almost-full CGI for special effects early on.

They only had to worry about making sure the CGI Voyager matched the physical Voyager model, because on that show they ran into new aliens every week. Whereas on DS9, it wasn't just the station. Everything pre-existing had to be transitioned from physical models to CGI. So the process would have to be a lot more gradual and seamless.

 

Yeah DS9 only really heavily switched to CGI during the sixth season, although they used effects such as the wormhole and Odo's morphs from day one.

For Voyager, pretty much everything from the third season onwards is CGI.

 

I think they are waiting for me to die before they upgrade it. The 1% who control everything including Trek stuff are still mad about me getting my old Trek dvd's for cheap on Amazon many years ago. They might be mad at many Trek fans for not buying them at full price.


Jason

 

The forseeable future, but who knows what kind of tech will be around in ten years or how much cheaper it will be and they might be able to easily upgrade them. The TNG Blu Rays were kind of a bust financially because the physical media market is quickly declining, I was able to watch them on TV though and they're on Netflix for me. In a few years with this CBS push for their own service, they may decide it'll be worth it.

 

It's the same deal with Voyager. When it's lit reasonably brightly it looks good, even in SD. Unfortunately every time they go to red alert in that series the lights dim on the bridge and it goes to looking like shit.

 

Yeah, I think the TNG remaster came both at the right time (the technology was advanced enough, the CGI that TNG used cheap enough to replace it with new one, and enough people that originally worked on TNG still working that could do the job), but also at the wrong time: The rise of streaming media - most people didn't saw the need for blu-rays if the show was available in [almost] the same quality.

But to be honest, I think physical media will make a come-back: The more streaming services start (ALL Access, Disney's one, and god knows who else), and the more they get competetive with each other - people will realise that they don't actually own what's in their streamin service library, and that it can get pulled at any time. See all the Disney properties moving away from Netflix to the new Disney service.

I guess people will start to buy physical media more often then - at least for the shows/movies they really care about. And Star Trek has a good chance in that market. And if we're really lucky - the TNG remaster by then can turn into the profit territory, and then people will inevitably start asking for a remaster of DS9 and VOY again. So the chance of them actually happening is really NOT zero - it's just not going to happen in the very near future.

 

Yeah I'm not giving up hope either, for Voyager in HD as well. It WILL happen, in time. The Trek universe has been "Marvel-ized" now.... give it time. They will realize the importance of HD DS9 & Voyager eventually.