Remastered Shots vs. Original Shots

[trevanian]

That's complete bull. The SFX were filmed in 35mm just like the rest of the episodes. The SFX would have looked just as good as the rest of the eps in HD. The only thing you might get, is lines that held the ship or something, that weren't visible in SD, might become visible now. And I stress "might". The thing is, the idiots looked at the SFX, and didn't see cartoony 2D crap with bad lighting of the past 30 years, considered it too bad for HD, and went to produce the cartoony 2D crap

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation. This was especially noticeable with the ship shots, since they were copied over and over during the series.

Even someone who doesn't know about optical effects could see a standard-def DVD of the original Star Trek and notice that the space scenes are noticably grainer, fuzzier, dirtier, and have an overall lower image quality than the rest of the scenes. In high-def, the difference would have been even more apparent.
.

Not ALL of the space scenes are noticably fuzzier, grainier, et. al. Plus there are live-action scenes with these same issues (like when they do an optical zoom on a flashing light instead of a camera zoom or dolly - the grain friggin' explodes ... remember the 'transition ins' in SPECTRE OF THE GUN?)

ADD-ON: The black levels on the space stuff have the contrast and style of the live-action to a far greater degree than the CG 'improvements' which don't seem like they were shot in the same century (big surprise there.) That's your incongruity, not grain issues.

What you're not acknowledging is that on the non grainy TOS fx shots, you'd have an even better view in HD (as in it would be an improvement, one that would be very significant when comparing the good original shots with the inferior new CG ones), which is pretty signficant when you're talking about the really good ones, like the engineering hull coming into camera, or the later-on-shot enterprise pivoting view of the primary hull with the nacelle caps spinning behind (with the latter, they are in so close that the scale is slightly blown, but that's easier to overlook than a ship that looks painted in.)

I ain't a wannabe on this subject either. Get as technical as you want, and I'll be right there ahead of you treading water. For really good CG ships, you need to go 4K and with real artistry, a la SOLARIS. Even there, I'd still take the EVENT HORIZON miniatures over it in a minute.

 

[Trevacious]

What I dislike is the misuse of the word "remastered." Replacing and even redesigning visual effects sequences does not constitute remastering.

Replacing the theme music with a new recording is also not remastering. Yep, I dislike it as well. Trek Enhanced would've been accurate.

(Though, the main theme redo is not an enhancement to me...I want the original back. I hate the new vocal and the audio mix that pushes it way too far out in front...I usually have to mute it.)

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Is it just me, or do the remasters look way darker? It looks like I turned the brightness down on my tv or something.

 

[Trevacious]

Is it just me, or do the remasters look way darker? It looks like I turned the brightness down on my tv or something.

Way freaking dark, but I've also been watching it on a standard definition television set on a station sending a substandard signal. I would presume it looks much better on an HDTV, so long as the station in a given market is also broadcasting it in HD.

 

[USS Mariner]

That's complete bull. The SFX were filmed in 35mm just like the rest of the episodes. The SFX would have looked just as good as the rest of the eps in HD. The only thing you might get, is lines that held the ship or something, that weren't visible in SD, might become visible now. And I stress "might". The thing is, the idiots looked at the SFX, and didn't see cartoony 2D crap with bad lighting of the past 30 years, considered it too bad for HD, and went to produce the cartoony 2D crap.

Here's some direct, HD shots of the SFX, without remastering, from the S1 TOSR Bonus disk.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd164.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd194.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd195.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd223.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd224.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd226.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd227.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd238.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd262.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/spacelift/spacelifthd353.jpg

Most are pretty bad, but several shots (especially the pilot shots) are just as good as what we've been getting. I'd be willing to bet that, once remastered with the rest of the footage, they'd fit just fine (especially since some of the SFX are re-used often, therefore one could take the best copies and reuse them for everything.)

Great comparison. If you wanted to split the difference between whole cloth CG and the originals, though, you could just recomposite the old elements digitally, assuming some or all are available. Then you'd have the clarity of 35mm film elements w/o 1966 mattelines.

I found it fucking hilarious that the staff and TOSR fanboys kept on proclaiming how shitty the original SFX would look in HD, and yet when you look at them, not so much.

And to add to that, these are direct transfers, with no cleanup. I'd imagine that with the proper effort (with or without original composite masters,) they'd look more than up to snuff.

If they kept Max Gabl's delicious matte paintings with clean up footage, I would have bought it from day one.

 

[Therin of Andor]

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation.

Yep. The way I heard it explained when the remastering first started was that, yes, the elements were originally filmed in 35 mm, but when the elements were run together in the compositor (or whatever it's called) to create the final effect, it's akin to taking it down to more like a 16 mm standard, something that isn't suited to HD.

AFAIK, the original 35 mm FX element shots are not on file at Paramount.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Is it just me, or do the remasters look way darker? It looks like I turned the brightness down on my tv or something.

It's normal for HD products to sometimes look darker on some regular TVs. Just turn up the brightness control!

I had the same problem with episodes of ENT.

 

[ST-One]

Oh, please. These days amateurs on their home computers can produce theater grade special effects. It shouldn't be difficult, even on a limited budget, to produce at least GOOD special effects for professionals. Problem is, the theater Enterprise will probably be as flat and cartoony as just about all other SF movies with starships in the past 30 years.

Yes, there are hobbyists out there how can create fantastic looking, movie-grate CGI.
CGI as in computer generated IMAGE. It is one thing to set-up a scene and then wait 18 hours for a single frame to get rendered in the necessary resolution but a whole different affair when you want to render a whole animation.

The rest of your post is just stupid rambling.

Go watch "Star Wreck - In the Pirkinning". Amateur created. By a guy in his living room. Makes the average Hollywood SF starship film with battles look pathetic. Then come back here and dare to repeat the above.

I own the DVD.
The VFX are great - for an amature production.
Nothing more, nothing less

 

[USS Mariner]

Oh please, they're a little better than amateur.

Maybe more due to the scale of what they did on screen (I think some of the green screen/motion tracking could've used some help,) but they certainly aren't run-of-the mill. That's just plain dishonest.

 

[3D Master]

That's complete bull. The SFX were filmed in 35mm just like the rest of the episodes. The SFX would have looked just as good as the rest of the eps in HD. The only thing you might get, is lines that held the ship or something, that weren't visible in SD, might become visible now. And I stress "might". The thing is, the idiots looked at the SFX, and didn't see cartoony 2D crap with bad lighting of the past 30 years, considered it too bad for HD, and went to produce the cartoony 2D crap

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation. This was especially noticeable with the ship shots, since they were copied over and over during the series.

Even someone who doesn't know about optical effects could see a standard-def DVD of the original Star Trek and notice that the space scenes are noticably grainer, fuzzier, dirtier, and have an overall lower image quality than the rest of the scenes. In high-def, the difference would have been even more apparent.

This isn't a slam against the guys who did the original effects. They did fantastic work. Similarly, it's not to say that CBS-D's work was perfect, although I did like it a lot. This is merely annoyance with wannabes who think theirs is the only valid opinion.

Which also happened to the actors filmed, and also happened, to say... Star Wars, before it got the Special Edition treatment. It's the reason why they all were put through a painstaking process of cleaning up film, and digitally restoring/remastering them. (And as is usually the case indeed, "remastering" says this, a new cleaned up film or digital master is created - sometimes both). The same thing would have happened to the SFX shots, and they would have come out as clear as the live-action. In fact, cleaning up the SFX properly would have allowed them to remove matt-lines, overlay problems, and removal of what held up the Enterprise in cases where they couldn't properly remove it. All without altering the SFX, all without CGI things in.

Go look above, and watch how good some of that looks without that treatment, now imagine how good they would have been with that treatment. Or go watch the remastered Star Wars editions that were released on video before Special Editions came out. You can see it can be done, and can be done well.

In fact, I believe they STILL should do this - no MUST do this, and any successive release should carry both versions - the original and the CGI-ed. Removing the original versions is horrible. You don't decide you can do the Mona Lisa better on a computer and simply print your computer version over the old painting.

The loss of the original is absolutely horrible.

Oh please, they're a little better than amateur.

Maybe more due to the scale of what they did on screen (I think some of the green screen/motion tracking could've used some help,) but they certainly aren't run-of-the mill. That's just plain dishonest.

Indeed, and the explosions are absolutely magnificent. Every SFX artist for spaceships should go this guy to apprentice explosions and (pieces of) destroyed ships.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation.

Yep. The way I heard it explained when the remastering first started was that, yes, the elements were originally filmed in 35 mm, but when the elements were run together in the compositor (or whatever it's called) to create the final effect, it's akin to taking it down to more like a 16 mm standard, something that isn't suited to HD.

AFAIK, the original 35 mm FX element shots are not on file at Paramount.

That is what I remember as well. There is simply no arguing around that.

Oh, and nobody is trying to destroy or get rid of the original release.
In fact I agree, that the unaltered FX should be remastered. But they can't really do it in HD format because the original 35mm filmed FX dodn't exist anymore. I have no reason to doubt that statement of the people in charge of the project.
The HD-DVD BOX release had both versions. So in the end it's simply a matter of preference anyway.
I'm very optimistic about a similar combo set when Star Trek is released on Blue Ray.

 

[ST-One]

Oh please, they're a little better than amateur.

Maybe more due to the scale of what they did on screen (I think some of the green screen/motion tracking could've used some help,) but they certainly aren't run-of-the mill. That's just plain dishonest.

Indeed, and the explosions are absolutely magnificent. Every SFX artist for spaceships should go this guy to apprentice explosions and (pieces of) destroyed ships.

Oh, their VFX (SFX are in-camera effects) are better than the usual fan-work, but still not up to movie-quality (TV maybe).
And, the explosions, as 'beautiful' as they look, are quite often-used stock-footage that you can see in far too many fan-productions all over the net (they are also used in a huge number of still-images).
But all that aside, 'In the Pirkennig' as a huge achivement considerring the limited resources they had (I bought one of the 'War Bonds' they offer for their new project 'Iron Sky' to help a tiny little bit financially).

 

[ST-One]

Which also happened to the actors filmed, and also happened, to say... Star Wars, before it got the Special Edition treatment. It's the reason why they all were put through a painstaking process of cleaning up film, and digitally restoring/remastering them. (And as is usually the case indeed, "remastering" says this, a new cleaned up film or digital master is created - sometimes both). The same thing would have happened to the SFX shots, and they would have come out as clear as the live-action. In fact, cleaning up the SFX properly would have allowed them to remove matt-lines, overlay problems, and removal of what held up the Enterprise in cases where they couldn't properly remove it. All without altering the SFX, all without CGI things in.

Go look above, and watch how good some of that looks without that treatment, now imagine how good they would have been with that treatment. Or go watch the remastered Star Wars editions that were released on video before Special Editions came out. You can see it can be done, and can be done well.

If you could provide Paramount/CBS with the original VFX footage for new composits then you would have a point.
But the sad fact of the matter is that, due to the composeting processes they used back then, the image quality is far too low (look a those image linked above - most of them look like shit) to be presented in a higher resolution.
And since the original footage of the VFX doesn't exist anymore how do you expect them to restore the VFX-shots?
Do you know why the image-quality of (for example) the 'Gone with the Wind' DVD is so much better than that of the VFX-shots from 'Star Trek'? Because they actually had the luck of being able to work with the original prints; they were able to re-composite everything from scratch for the restoration.
If that option were available for the HD-version of 'Star Trek', don't you think it would have been used?

 

[alchemist]

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation.

Yep. The way I heard it explained when the remastering first started was that, yes, the elements were originally filmed in 35 mm, but when the elements were run together in the compositor (or whatever it's called) to create the final effect, it's akin to taking it down to more like a 16 mm standard, something that isn't suited to HD.

AFAIK, the original 35 mm FX element shots are not on file at Paramount.

That is what I remember as well. There is simply no arguing around that.

Oh, and nobody is trying to destroy or get rid of the original release.
In fact I agree, that the unaltered FX should be remastered. But they can't really do it in HD format because the original 35mm filmed FX dodn't exist anymore. I have no reason to doubt that statement of the people in charge of the project.
The HD-DVD BOX release had both versions. So in the end it's simply a matter of preference anyway.
I'm very optimistic about a similar combo set when Star Trek is released on Blue Ray.

It's unclear to me as whether or not the negatives for the original optical elements exist intact (i.e., not cut-up into film clips). I've been told by the son of a former Desilu employee that many of them do, but it's only third-hand knowledge. And, AFAIK, the film clip archives do not contain any negatives from any of the optical elements.

I would agree with the analogy of the 35mm to 16 mm reduction in quality for the matte sequences. When you examine the work prints that contain the individual optical elements, and then compare the quality of those elements to the ones in the final composited scene (generally done on a device called an optical printer), you'll find a significant degradation in the final image due to dirt (e.g., dust, hair and fingerprints), contrast build-up, and loss of focus. This is because the film has gone through the printing process many times (as NCC621 pointed out), and, of course, copies of copies get degraded. And the pressures of weekly television added to the degradation because the special effects houses had to work at breakneck speeds with less-than-adequate budgets. Anyway, using digital manipulation to fix or correct any of the original 35mm matte sequences would not be very effective, especially for HD. Dirt can be "removed," but the poor focus and contrast issues would be very problematic.

 

[Outpost4]

Is it just me, or do the remasters look way darker? It looks like I turned the brightness down on my tv or something.

Way freaking dark, but I've also been watching it on a standard definition television set on a station sending a substandard signal. I would presume it looks much better on an HDTV, so long as the station in a given market is also broadcasting it in HD.

Trevacious, you're on to someting.They look fine on the HD DVDs. Remember brightness is subject to bandwidth and compression, something many broadcast stations play with a lot, even those broadcasting in HDTV. I'm active in a satellite broadcasting forum, and the quality of different HDTV signals is widely debated and easily visible. Often worst is your situation, but I had three different feeds for the Superbowl in HDTV this last year, and they all looked different.

God, I've grown so tired of this debate on TOS-R. The original effects crowd sound like Luddites and the remastered crowd sounds frivilous.

Both sides can sure suck the joy out of Star Trek in a heartbeat. Are you folks ever entertained by your entertainment?

 

[trevanian]

Are you folks ever entertained by your entertainment?

Never after it has been pissed on; the reek interferes with my pleasure centers.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

For someone who seems to think he knows a little about visual effects, this guy seems to be unaware of the process of optical printing and duplication, especially of the buildup of contrast, grain, and dirt, as well as the accompanying loss of sharpness and clarity with each succeeding generation.

Yep. The way I heard it explained when the remastering first started was that, yes, the elements were originally filmed in 35 mm, but when the elements were run together in the compositor (or whatever it's called) to create the final effect, it's akin to taking it down to more like a 16 mm standard, something that isn't suited to HD.

AFAIK, the original 35 mm FX element shots are not on file at Paramount.

That is what I remember as well. There is simply no arguing around that.

Oh, and nobody is trying to destroy or get rid of the original release.
In fact I agree, that the unaltered FX should be remastered. But they can't really do it in HD format because the original 35mm filmed FX dodn't exist anymore. I have no reason to doubt that statement of the people in charge of the project.
The HD-DVD BOX release had both versions. So in the end it's simply a matter of preference anyway.
I'm very optimistic about a similar combo set when Star Trek is released on Blue Ray.

 

[Outpost4]

The HD-DVD BOX release had both versions.

You're mistaken but it's a common error. The HD DVD set had only the remastered version, both in HD DVD and regular DVD resolutions. The screencaps shown upthread were from the extras.

So in the end it's simply a matter of preference anyway.

Such an enlightened attitude.

I'm very optimistic about a similar combo set when Star Trek is released on Blue Ray.

I, too, hope that the Blu-ray release will have both the regular and remastered versions in HD so we can end this overwrought debate.

Are you folks ever entertained by your entertainment?

Never after it has been pissed on; the reek interferes with my pleasure centers.

Q.E.D.

 

[3D Master]

The thing is, that 16mm isn't half as bad as people claim it to be, for HD or not. A sufficient advanced digital scan, can actually be blown up to 35mm these days, without hardly any loss in quality. Not that that would actually be necessary.

However, all of that matters not. The simple fact is, that whether you consider it too little quality for HD (broadcast), whether or not there is 35mm prints or 16mm prints, does not matter. As best a cleanup and restoration should have been done one way or the other, to be placed on any DVD sets, and to be chosen by any channel to show whichever. (Hell, I can see some channels who know there are big enough fans, or people just plain interested in film-making/SFX, in their broadcasting area, to show the unaltered first, directly followed by the Enhanced Special Editions.)

The fact that they didn't even bother cleaning up originals, and that they are not on the DVD / HD sets, should tell you what's really going on.

It also tells you what they're agenda was with their new SFX, not like the TMP DE an attempt to create the film with the SFX as it would have been created, but to make it look like SF (Star Trek) of the past two decades.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thingol
The HD-DVD BOX release had both versions.

You're mistaken but it's a common error. The HD DVD set had only the remastered version, both in HD DVD and regular DVD resolutions. The screencaps shown upthread were from the extras.

I stand corrected. Thank you