Season FOUR OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread
- Thread starter TheSeeker
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Links to EAS photos are always blocked. Link to the webpage instead.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/hollowpursuits.htm
Here's the page the photos are on.
Here's the page the photos are on.
I rewatched The Drumhead, and was struck by the CG Enterprise at the beginning. It just sits there far in the background motionless, and then starts coming at the camera. I take it that CG shot was not meant to be shown that long.
Speaking of bloopers, why are the warp engines lit if the warp core is off? The original episode had that error too.
Speaking of bloopers, why are the warp engines lit if the warp core is off? The original episode had that error too.
I just got Season 4 today. Wow, "The Drumhead" looks like garbage. At first I thought the Blu-Ray wasn't playing right, with the Nintendo-64 era Enterprise-D just sitting there for 5 or 10 seconds before jerkily moving forward. Even on close-up, the ship did not look anywhere close to the original model. Plus I'm finding that "The Drumhead" is over-saturated. Although the upconverted shot does not stand out as much as the shots in Paris.
I'm glad they're actually improving that CGI Enterprise starting with S5, too bad it couldn't have been done for S4 which is when that certain fly-by became prominent. Almost made me wish they had just settled with the original fly-by to replace the 4-footer fly-by as that one is roughly similar.
I watched Qpid last night. Fun episode, but I did notice two new things about it.
The opening scene in Picard's ready room, it seems that Picard's computer now has some text on the screen for his speech he's working on. Nice! I could be wrong about that but I don't ever remember seeing it before.
The other thing I noticed is when Picard is about to get his head chopped off and the camera tilts up towards the sky and clouds, it looks much better than before.
The opening scene in Picard's ready room, it seems that Picard's computer now has some text on the screen for his speech he's working on. Nice! I could be wrong about that but I don't ever remember seeing it before.
The other thing I noticed is when Picard is about to get his head chopped off and the camera tilts up towards the sky and clouds, it looks much better than before.
Got season 4 today. Watched BOBW part 2. Very disappointed at how grainy and dark many of the shots were. Had the DNR set to the max setting on the TV, but I was still having to turn down the sharpness to alleviate the grain. Also some close up shots of Riker in the observation lounge with Shelby appear well over saturated. She looks like she's been DNRd in close up shots, while Riker looks like he's being filmed from behind a sandstorm.
I'm no fan of DNR, but when done properly, it can have benefits on excessively grainy stock. Is beyond the wit of CBS to have made all the scenes look similar in terms of toning down the grain to a level where do you don't notice it so much straight after a scene with no grain?
Even The Digital Bits have only given the video quality for season 5 a B. I'm holding off buying it, mainly till I can pick up an Italian copy for about 30 Euro in a few months.
I'm no fan of DNR, but when done properly, it can have benefits on excessively grainy stock. Is beyond the wit of CBS to have made all the scenes look similar in terms of toning down the grain to a level where do you don't notice it so much straight after a scene with no grain?
Even The Digital Bits have only given the video quality for season 5 a B. I'm holding off buying it, mainly till I can pick up an Italian copy for about 30 Euro in a few months.
Grain == Detail, leave your DNR out of my TNG-HD :-P
I happily have the DNR settings on my TV set to off and I love the quality of the TNG-HD results thus far!
I happily have the DNR settings on my TV set to off and I love the quality of the TNG-HD results thus far!
Darker scenes naturally show more grain and they look good to me however I make a point of disabling every picture "enhancement" setting my TV has. It's default settings of 50% sharpness, edge enhancement, dynamic contrast and noise reduction make the picture an complete mess.
Typically they're enabled out of the box (typically in a moderate or low setting). The first thing I do is disable it, but most people don't know it's an option. Very rarely do I hear of people knowingly enabling it.
Have you ever scanned a newspaper or magazine cutting at too high a resolution, the sort of res that's usually fine for scanning photos, but that makes a really grainy and fuzzy mess of newspaper print?
That's what a lot of TNG HD looks like. To a layman, it looks like either much of the film stock is in poor condition, or it's been scanned at too high a resolution.
Quite a few episodes I've watched from season 2 (OK, it's season 2!) have so much grain and distortion on the red of the command uniforms (usually Picard's) that the image seems to be on the verge of breaking up. That's the best I can describe it. Sorry.
I seem to be in a position now where due to the excess grain, I'm getting so disgruntled at the picture quality of a lot of these episodes, that I'm almost preferring the upscaled DVDs at 720p.
Going on eBay lately, there are a lot of second hand TNG Blu-ray sets for sale, even season 5 which has only been out a few weeks. You don't shell out £45 for a Blu-ray set and then stick it on eBay a week later. My guess is a lot of people are less than impressed with the quality.
If what you say is true, then where's all the hate on the internet about bad picture quality? Remember season 2? If people are underwhelmed by the other seasons, please show where.
Looking on eBay, all the copies I see are new.
To a layman, the very idea of film grain is bad. They've been trained to think everything should look like the Predator Blu-ray.
Here in the UK, unless you have SKY HD, the vast majority of terrestrial TV is in SD. I find DNR really helps when I'm watching SD on a mid range to large LCD or Plasma screen. If nothing else, it helps to smooth the fuzz you get with SD.
Last week, a UK seller had all 5 seasons up for sale second hand. I couldn't believe it. Why buy them in the first place?
I don't trawl this forum looking for people complaining about the quality of the sets, but I've seen a fair few grumbles on the season 5 thread.
Grain is physically part of the film. It's not a defect that needs to be fixed. It's supposed to be there.
You mean the jutter elimination? Yeah, that's just awful. It makes everything look like a soap opera. It's incredibly jarring.
Season 2 does have more grain due to differences in film stock but it's not as bad as you're describing. It really sounds like the issue is with your TV and not the blu-ray transfers.Quite a few episodes I've watched from season 2 (OK, it's season 2!) have so much grain and distortion on the red of the command uniforms (usually Picard's) that the image seems to be on the verge of breaking up. That's the best I can describe it. Sorry.
I seem to be in a position now where due to the excess grain, I'm getting so disgruntled at the picture quality of a lot of these episodes, that I'm almost preferring the upscaled DVDs at 720p.
Not a lot of TV shows are shot in film today, so it can be jarring to see an HD presentation of a show that was made over 20 years ago, since it has been stuck in SD for so long that the grain was never noticeable until now, especially at high film speeds compared to TOS. I'm a photographer, so I enjoy seeing proper blu-ray transfers with film grain. That's about as pure as an image you will get from that format, the opposite at the end of the spectrum being THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY where everything looks like rubber city. Gawd, would I kill just to see a proper blu-ray transfer of that film! It'll also be interesting to see the shift between film and digital, between seasons 3 and 4 of ENT, as the change in format was only subtly noticeable on DVD.
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