Season FIVE OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[Doug Otte]

I still haven't finished Season 4 yet, but the above discussion is what's been going through my mind. We're becoming inured to the higher quality! I guess I should go back and watch a DVD to get proper perspective.

The other night I watched The Host (can barely make it through that boring episode), but whenever one of Max's planets is on the screen, it takes my breath away.

So, I'm not completely immune to the improved quality.

 

[trekker670]

I still haven't finished Season 4 yet, but the above discussion is what's been going through my mind. We're becoming inured to the higher quality! I guess I should go back and watch a DVD to get proper perspective.

I've gotten into the habit of occasionally watching the trailers before the episode, so I can be reminded what it used to be like.

On a related note, I was spent the holidays with family and they were watching TNG on BBC-A and I could hardly stand watching it like that.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

^ I agree, we've kind of been "spoiled" so there aren't many episodes that surprise us anymore. As I made my way through S5 I can only say I was noticeably impressed with 3-5 episodes and the rest were on par with everything else.

That's not to say I'm not enjoying the project, but I think it was inevitable, we get used to seeing TNG in HD and it becomes the standard of what we expect, instead of comparing it to the DVD releases and noticing the vast improvement.

The other problem with this is that it makes the flaws that do creep in all the more noticeable, such as the missing bluescreen replacements in "Imaginary Friends" and the up-scaled shots.

Yeah, it's really just a simple case of us no longer being surprised by TNG in HD. It seemed so new and special in 2012, it was the 25th anniversary and we already got our cast reunion special on the second season blu-ray. At this point, we're just waiting for what's expected such as picture improvement and more bonus features. Not really a bad thing, that's just how it is when the novelty wears out.

 

[tomalak301]

I talk about the lack of visual effects in Season 5, and the very next episode I watch, The Masterpeice Society, had a good array of effects. I think the last time I saw this whole episode, Leann Rimes "Can't Fight the Moonlight" (From Coyote Ugly) was a hit song so it's been while. The HD version looks lovely, especially the exterior shots of the colony. By the way, what other episodes has that actress who played Hanna been in because she looks really familiar.

 

[Tosk]

Dey Young was in an ep of DS9 (A Simple Investigation) and one of ENT (Two Days and Two Nights.)

 

[NewHorizon]

Novelty still hasn't worn off on me. Every Season is a treat to behold. I always watch the SD previews so the difference is more apparent.

 

[groundhog]

Not to take this off-topic, but would love to know if there's been any word at all of late about The X-Files and 24 on blu-ray.

 

[Doug Otte]

On a related note, I was spent the holidays with family and they were watching TNG on BBC-A and I could hardly stand watching it like that.

I saw Brothers on BBC-A and it was obviously the new HD version, but due to heavy compression, it had much less detail than watching it via blu-ray.

 

[Borjis]

On a related note, I was spent the holidays with family and they were watching TNG on BBC-A and I could hardly stand watching it like that.

I saw Brothers on BBC-A and it was obviously the new HD version, but due to heavy compression, it had much less detail than watching it via blu-ray.

are you sure about that? BBC-A is still airing them SD but top and bottom crop filled (small black bars on sides) last I saw this week. You would be seeing more detail if they were HD, even with cable compression levels.

Amazon Prime has all but Season 5 in HD and they look just a little worse than the blu-rays.

 

[GameOn]

I watched two season 7 episodes because my wife hadn't watched them yet, and I had to suffer through the quality. I even noticed bad starship matting I never noticed when I used to watch the show. This bluray project is one of the great entertainment efforts of our time!!

I saw a couple of season 6 episodes on the UK SyFy and the quality was horrendous. It was like watching a pirated copy filmed off a screen with a camcorder.

 

[Tosk]

That's one of the things I'm still loving about seasons 1, 3, and 5...the blue and greenscreen matting around actors is just amazing.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

On a related note, I was spent the holidays with family and they were watching TNG on BBC-A and I could hardly stand watching it like that.

I saw Brothers on BBC-A and it was obviously the new HD version, but due to heavy compression, it had much less detail than watching it via blu-ray.

are you sure about that? BBC-A is still airing them SD but top and bottom crop filled (small black bars on sides) last I saw this week. You would be seeing more detail if they were HD, even with cable compression levels.

Amazon Prime has all but Season 5 in HD and they look just a little worse than the blu-rays.

Right. BBCA still has the original SD versions. Currently no network in the US has the new HD masters. In the US, to get the remastered HD versions it's select streaming services, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus, or Blu-ray disc.

 

[tomalak301]

Dey Young was in an ep of DS9 (A Simple Investigation) and one of ENT (Two Days and Two Nights.)

Oh she was Odo's (And I assume Archer's, since I haven't seen 2Da2N in a long time) love interest. I remember her in that episode.

 

[Doug Otte]

I saw Brothers on BBC-A and it was obviously the new HD version, but due to heavy compression, it had much less detail than watching it via blu-ray.

are you sure about that? BBC-A is still airing them SD but top and bottom crop filled (small black bars on sides) last I saw this week. You would be seeing more detail if they were HD, even with cable compression levels.

Amazon Prime has all but Season 5 in HD and they look just a little worse than the blu-rays.

Right. BBCA still has the original SD versions. Currently no network in the US has the new HD masters. In the US, to get the remastered HD versions it's select streaming services, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus, or Blu-ray disc.

I guess I'm overruled, and stand corrected if true. I thought I did see more detail, as well as deeper contrast, than the SD versions. However, at that time I had just bought a newer Panasonic plasma than I'd been using for 6+ years, and it does a much better job at resolving SD than the previous one did, so maybe I was fooled. I could have done a side-by-side w/ the BD version, but it's too late now.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Isn't BBC-A also cropping the picture?

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Isn't BBC-A also cropping the picture?

Yes, what they're doing is making effectively a 14:9 image, that's a slight zoom (and thus slight crop off the top/bottom) of the original 4:3 video. It leaves some black pillar bars on the sides, but less so than would be if it were the actual 4:3 ratio. This is commonly done on HD cable channels to sort of "split the difference" between the two aspect ratios when they have SD content. If you look you'll see it on other channels too. I've seen this compromise on FX, The Hub, etc.

 

[USS KG5]

Does anyone know anything about what is happening with Season 6?

Expecting to start seeing pre-orders and so on by now, but very quiet!

 

[trekker670]

Seasons 6 and 7 are spread out longer than 3/4/5 were, due to only releasing two seasons this year and CBS doing both. I think we've been told to expect S6 in late April or May, so I wouldn't expect any big announcements until late February.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I listened to the commentaries for both Cause and Effect with Brannon Braga & Seth MacFarlane and The First Duty with Ron Moore and Naren Shankar last night. Both were informative (I always wondered what book Picard had in the case) and hilarious (the story of Rick Berman freaking out because Wesley's Academy door was an old fashioned handled one, so they added a space age sound effect to it )

 

[Borjis]

I wish Macfarlane had not interrupted Brannon with comedy the few times he was trying to explain something of the scenes. Granted they were funny but I feel we missed out on some good insight.