Netflix and Hulu are streaming services. I believe with Amazon, like iTunes, you download the episode you pay for and keep it as long as you have the account.
But I also like having a physical library.
Original or remastered effects?
- Thread starter Melakon
- Start date
Netflix and Hulu are streaming services. I believe with Amazon, like iTunes, you download the episode you pay for and keep it as long as you have the account.
But I also like having a physical library.
The Netflix package I have is not a pay-per system. I pay 7.99 per month for access to all of their streamable library. It's limited - you have to upgrade if you want to receive DVDs of new material to watch, but I watch several hours a week and it's worth it to me. Also, they have a 30-day free trial, and I had recommended it in answer to the original question - original, or remastered. They have all the remastered TOS (all of the Star Trek series as a matter of fact) and for one monthly price you can watch as many as you want, whenever you want. You could check out the remastered versions and see if that's something you'd like to invest in for your physical library.
Like you, I prefer to have a copy that I can put on shelf, but this is a way to sample before you purchase. I have the original version of TOS on DVD, bought it when it first came out, but watching the remastered on Netflix has convinced me to buy the remastered version - just haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Here's a useful montage I found comprising multiple quick fire comparative stills. Despite some admittedly weak shots throughout the project, selecting the new FX as my default is a no brainer for me...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4VRcT6DSRA&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4VRcT6DSRA&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/yt]
I dunno, maybe I'm not so dumb. Even after changing the aspect ratio output (repeatedly), the picture is still in the center of the screen. Actually, in order for the Hi Def 4:3 picture to fill the screen, it would have to zoom, (which would cut off the sides of a widescreen movie, focusing on the center) and my TV doesn't do that.
Standard Def DVDs in 4:3 fill the screen when played on the BD player - always have. 4:3 fills and 16:9 is letterboxed. However Blu-Ray discs letterbox everything on the CRT set, so Blu-Ray Trek is letter and piller boxed. I hope I'm explaining myself adequately, I'm bad at this...
Standard Def DVDs in 4:3 fill the screen when played on the BD player - always have. 4:3 fills and 16:9 is letterboxed. However Blu-Ray discs letterbox everything on the CRT set, so Blu-Ray Trek is letter and piller boxed. I hope I'm explaining myself adequately, I'm bad at this...
The black bars on the TOS BD's are coded into the 1920x1080 pixel area, so this might be causing the problem. The actual viewing area is 1440x1080. To be honest, I haven't had a 4:3 set for many years - so I haven't had to overcome this issue.
Oh yes another great site for comparing the changes made is
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/
Specifically:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets1.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets2.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets3.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_surfaces.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/
Specifically:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets1.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets2.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets3.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_surfaces.htm
Yeah I must admit that you might be stuck with it that way. I haven't had to worry about 4:3 TV in quite some time. Since HD is inherently a 16:9 format, they pillarboxed the 16:9 frame. So you might end up with the "postage stamp effect" on a 4:3 TV (i.e. a tiny 4:3 image inside a 16:9 image which being shrunk down to fit in a 4:3 screen), unless you can find some zoom mode in your TV set (not the player) that will zoom a 16:9 image to 4:3, and yes you'd have to toggle the zoom mode on or off depending on the content you'd be watching.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Kinda fits with the bits I've glanced at ... the planet surface environments are mostly improved but the ships look godawful. It's almost like saying TAS looks better than TOS just because there aren't any matte lines ... you lose too much visual credibility with respect to the physical presence of the ship with these particular CG attempts, especially in terms of lighting.
Yes, the lighting is waaay too bright in many shots, but to be fair, there are some lovely Enterprise beauty passes rendered perfectly as well. For me, the original FX look extremely ropey on quality HD monitors, and on balance, the new material definitely improves the experience of TOS overall.
I can certainly understand why many would disagree though. But, the beauty of the BD's is the ability to choose for yourself - a really smart move from CBS.
While there are occasional individual elements that are of interest overall I feel TOS-R is a fail. I don't mean fail in terms of overall execution...if it were for a contemporary television production which TOS is not.
Dedicated fans have done better work than CBS because many fans often try to recreate the same TOS aesthetic in terms of lighting, lenses and camera movement. Doug Drexler's work for Star Trek Continues is a good example: the new f/x look like they fit seamlessly with the aesthetic of the live-action footage. As such there's nothing to jar you out of the story because it doesn't look like two distinctly separate productions stitched together, which is exactly what TOS-R is.
Here in Canada the new versions are being syndicated on Space so it can be seen on cable television anytime. I don't need to spend anything for Blu-ray and I can stick with my DVD box sets for TOS. And, yes, I do have a Blu-ray player. I now buy new film releases on Blu-ray, but I don't feel the need to replace previous DVD purchases. If they ever release the TMP DE on Blu-ray then I might pop for that one.
TOS could have been cleaned up and enhanced with new sequences that could have fit seamlessly with the original aesthetic and would have been clean enough to not be jarring to younger new viewers, but CBS didn't bother going that route. As such while I satisfied my curiosity in seeing the new versions I choose to stick with the originals.
I will add that I did go for the purchase of TNG-R on Blu-ray (the first few seasons which I like anyway) because the approach there is what should have been done for TOS. Yes, I know the situations are different because they had access to TNG's original f/x composites and they chose to offer the f/x as they were meant to be seen originally. Sadly TOS' original f/x composites are long gone, but it still could have been done though admittedly it would have been laborious and time consuming. Maybe someday it'll be done.
Dedicated fans have done better work than CBS because many fans often try to recreate the same TOS aesthetic in terms of lighting, lenses and camera movement. Doug Drexler's work for Star Trek Continues is a good example: the new f/x look like they fit seamlessly with the aesthetic of the live-action footage. As such there's nothing to jar you out of the story because it doesn't look like two distinctly separate productions stitched together, which is exactly what TOS-R is.
Here in Canada the new versions are being syndicated on Space so it can be seen on cable television anytime. I don't need to spend anything for Blu-ray and I can stick with my DVD box sets for TOS. And, yes, I do have a Blu-ray player. I now buy new film releases on Blu-ray, but I don't feel the need to replace previous DVD purchases. If they ever release the TMP DE on Blu-ray then I might pop for that one.
TOS could have been cleaned up and enhanced with new sequences that could have fit seamlessly with the original aesthetic and would have been clean enough to not be jarring to younger new viewers, but CBS didn't bother going that route. As such while I satisfied my curiosity in seeing the new versions I choose to stick with the originals.
I will add that I did go for the purchase of TNG-R on Blu-ray (the first few seasons which I like anyway) because the approach there is what should have been done for TOS. Yes, I know the situations are different because they had access to TNG's original f/x composites and they chose to offer the f/x as they were meant to be seen originally. Sadly TOS' original f/x composites are long gone, but it still could have been done though admittedly it would have been laborious and time consuming. Maybe someday it'll be done.
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I know that, after some complaint by fans over the quality of season 1's remastered FX, they put a new team on it and had them produce improved models/FX for the following seasons.
I find the new cityscape and structure shots almost invariably to be superior to the originals.
For those who have the budget, and who care about a better picture, blu-ray matters and has become the default.
I'm sure that CBS isn't marketing the remastered versions to people who aren't these people.
If I were still working and making the kind of money I was 25 years ago, I'd be buying a big screen tv, a nice sound system, Blu-Ray, and the whole bit. I used to have about 500 titles of prerecorded videotapes. But I can't afford that kind of stuff anymore, and I'm gradually going blind so upgrading would be wasted. And it sucks being a member of the lower class now. 
That's incorrect. Same team (CBS Digital), they just learned from their weekly grind how to improve their rendering speed and CG modeling skills.
http://trekmovie.com/2006/10/18/trek-remastered-is-getting-a-new-enterprise/
http://trekmovie.com/2006/11/20/behind-the-scenes-at-cbs-digital/
The new Enteprise CG model was debuted after a handful of episodes were made (8 to be exact), not an entire season. It debuted with the airing of "The Trouble With Tribbles" on the week of November 4, 2006.
Also note, TOS-R was done in batches grouped by "popularity" for first run broadcast syndication on US TV over the course of 2006-2008, not in the original production order. So those 8 episodes with the pretty poor Enterprise model is in a few second season episodes they did in the first 8 as well.
The eight episodes with the rather poor Enterprise model are (in 2006 TOS-R airing order, not original order):
Balance of Terror, Miri, The Devil in the Dark, The Naked Time, The City on the Edge of Forever, I, Mudd, Arena, Catspaw
I find the new cityscape and structure shots almost invariably to be superior to the originals.
Yes indeed. The work Max Gabl and others like Niel Wray did on enhancing planets and planetscapes (matte paintings) is incredible work and very faithful to the original work. Those same guys are why the new TNG remastered planets look so great
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The new FX just do not sell. Reasons:
1. The 1701 never...ever appears to be a body of large scale at any time, and cannot escape the digital game look.
2. The shuttlecraft is entirely too large for the hangar. All one has to do is visualize the scale of the passengers, then apply that to rest of the ship. TOS was somewhat off in the miniatures' scale, but TOS-R seemed to enlarge the shuttle size. What were they thinking?
3. "Tommorow is Yesterday's" 1701-around-the-sun shot was horrible--the ship just "sat" there, while the sun appeared to be a spotted, orange blob looking nothing like that which is....in the damn sky every day.
4. Not so much an FX comment, but the new editing technology does not seamlessly match the dissolves from the oriignal production. In otherwords, the transition from TOS footage to new FX looks very much like any video edit job of today, which takes the viewer out of the moment.
In defense of #4, the issue they faced was that all that remained was the completed episode on a master 35mm reel in the Paramount vaults. So to make a replacement shot, they had to make the new VFX sequence go a split second longer than the time the original VFX shot took, so yes there's often a noticeable sort of cheap "time edited for syndication" look to it. CBS-D said they had no choice, and hated that it kept turning out that way despite their best efforts.
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