Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

[FrontierTrek]

I would be interested how this looks:

It has a nice and vivid colors on DVD cap, I hope it was maintained in HD, and not purposefully washed out like some of the other caps were.

The DVD screencaps on TrekCore are actually contrast and color enhanced (because the source material looked so bad), so that's not a true representation of how it looks on the DVD.

Here is the Blu-Ray still of the same shot:

Spoiler: Contagion Blu-Ray Cap

 

[Jaro Stun]

oops. that looks washed out and blurry..... hmm just re-confirms my fears again. anyways, thx for the cap

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

oops. that looks washed out and blurry..... hmm just re-confirms my fears again. anyways, thx for the cap

Yes, I'm becoming more disappointed by the day.

 

[MickJo1701]

oops. that looks washed out and blurry..... hmm just re-confirms my fears again. anyways, thx for the cap

We've seen CBS D do the very same shot, they are quite similar in quality. The only elements that differ are the bussard collectors, the glow from the illuminated windows and the hull is colourless in the HTV shot. Its not a bad composite at all, just not as good as CBS D's take on it.

It does raise that question again, why spend time and money recreating a shot that has already been re-composited by CBS D?

Spoiler: CBS composite

 

[NewHorizon]

The footage can be ruled out as the culprit. Looks fine in the CBS-D shot.

It does raise that question again, why spend time and money recreating a shot that has already been re-composited by CBS D?

Probably so they wouldn't have to go to the bother of matching the quality and style of Season 1. Everything is blurred and overblown in the HTV shots. HTV has been faithful to the original tapes to a fault, while CBS-D managed to update and modernize the old footage with a surprisingly light hand. I think the original guys on the team wanted to show these 'new kids' up and show them how it's done, but for my money CBS-D showed THEM how it's done. They've taken old footage that could be dodgy (and in HTV's hands continues to be), and made it look like it was made on a much higher budget.

Why HTV chose not to put the original footage in the best light possible is beyond me. I'm not talking about Lucasfilm revisions here, but simply making things clean and crisp rather than simply looking like clearer versions of the old SD broadcast.

I mean, really, tone down the glow so we can see some bloody detail...and stop blurring things to hell HTV.

 

[Jaro Stun]

Probably the first VFX shot from S2 i have nothing against:

It shows they actually can do it right so there still may be hope for S4&S6

 

[FrontierTrek]

'A MATTER OF HONOR' looks incredible in HD... those old dark murky Klingon episodes always looked terrible on the DVDs, but in HD the detail shines through, the nuanced shadows and the red grill lighting - beautiful stuff!

 

[gaghyogi49]

I bet the murky interior of the Pakled ship Mondor in "Samaritan snare" will look really cool now as well! And all holodeck scenes in "Elementary, dear Data" and "Manhunt"! :-)

 

[Scotty]

Loved the new screenshots on your Facebook page Frontiertrek. Although I still think that HTV Illuminated's work isn't on par with the stellar work of CBS D, I can appreciate what Dan Curry and the team are trying to do, and that is to stick as closely as possible to the original effects work. Some shots just don't look as good as season 1, but others make me giddy with joy. I'm still very much looking forward to getting this set on the 5th of december (Dutch releasedate).

 

[MickJo1701]

Probably the first VFX shot from S2 i have nothing against:

It shows they actually can do it right so there still may be hope for S4&S6

Certainly is the best we've seen the Enterprise look so far from season 2, stars look great and its for the best the original bird of prey has been restored.

In the 'furore' surrounding the FX quality, the live action material has been all but ignored. It looks excellent from what we've seen so far. One of the problems with season 2 that really bugged me was the searingly over-powerful colour palette of all the episodes past 'The Outrageous Okona' (examples below), appears to have been rectified.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x04/okona003.jpg

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x06/loudasawhisper119.jpg

 

[NewHorizon]

Probably the first VFX shot from S2 i have nothing against:

Live action looks great. NO issues with it.

Yep, it's the first one that I'm actually able to say that I 'like'. It's better than the digital matte CBS had to use on the sampler, but overall it's still below CBS standards. Colors are off (red impulse engine, purplish blue nacelles) and the stars are still very blurred. Definitely a step above the rest of the work we've seen. If the rest of the screen shots had been up to this standard, I probably could have let the drop in quality pass.

I don't have much hope for Season 4 unfortunately, they're probably well into finishing it by now...probably even into Season 6. I'm guessing all the HTV effects will take the approach of blurring the materials. Wish it wasn't so, but I guess that's what we'll be stuck with.

 

[Tosk]

It seems one nice side effect of two companies working on TNG is that shots which were repeated no longer are. We now have two different versions of the Ent-facing-BOP shot.

 

[Minuet]

Honestly, I almost feel like the majority of the thumbnails we've gotten were just randomly low quality for some reason. I have a sneaking suspicion that the actual Blu-rays are going to surprise us, especially if Okuda is still pimping them. I feel like he has more integrity than some of us have given him; I doubt he wouldn't be honest if the remastering work on season two was actually terrible.

 

[Tosk]

Huh. I just had a thought...could it be that some of the stock shots were duplicated on film back in the day rather than using the original negative every time? If HTV were using footage with generational loss of detail in it to start with, that would explain the blurriness we're seeing in some of the season 2 work. Is it just a coincidence that the one shot we've seen that people seem to like is a shot that we know CBSD could not find?

...Surely this can't be the case though. They're all working from the same pool of stored footage, you'd think they might mention it to someone if they found a bunch of duped stock shots. Forget I said anything.

 

[Dac]

Um. That bird of prey shot - wasn't a whole big deal made around the promotion of season one that they used a CG model to correct the perspective issues that this new shot now once again? Why big up a big fix so to speak if they're gonna go back to the old angle again?

I mean quality wise it looks great, but the perspective is off again.

 

[Salinga]

It looks to me, like the black background is actually overlapping the edges of the Enterprise model? Bad matte?

 

[Jaro Stun]

Honestly, I almost feel like the majority of the thumbnails we've gotten were just randomly low quality for some reason. I have a sneaking suspicion that the actual Blu-rays are going to surprise us, especially if Okuda is still pimping them. I feel like he has more integrity than some of us have given him; I doubt he wouldn't be honest if the remastering work on season two was actually terrible.

Hardly. It would be quite strange that a promo material woul be selected not representing (showing off if you want) the product.

Other than that nobody is fi ing or improving the blurays now, they are well in manufacturing if the release date is to be met.

 

[NewHorizon]

Why big up a big fix so to speak if they're gonna go back to the old angle again?

CBS-D had to make a digital fix originally because the footage could not be found. It has since been found and the mandate is to use original footage where possible.

Honestly, I almost feel like the majority of the thumbnails we've gotten were just randomly low quality for some reason. I have a sneaking suspicion that the actual Blu-rays are going to surprise us, especially if Okuda is still pimping them. I feel like he has more integrity than some of us have given him; I doubt he wouldn't be honest if the remastering work on season two was actually terrible.

Mr. Okuda, with all due respect to him, is simply doing his job. He's not going to say bad things about the project, he wants it to succeed. It's also highly unlikely that he would say anything bad about the work HTV Illuminate has done, considering he has friends from his days on TNG working there.

The best we can do is be completely honest and tell them we would like to see them do better with Seasons 4 and 6. Ideally, I would like to see them NOT blur the restored footage like they have been and match the colors established by CBS for the ship in Season 1. I find it annoying that they've been given the opportunity to restore the show, only to blur the footage in HD. It's probably already too late for those Seasons though, they're likely well into them already. If that turns out to be the case, I won't buy them.

 

[throwback]

Mr. Okuda is, also, known for making short cuts if they serve his needs, and then pointing that he is doing short cuts. I know of several Okudagrams where he did just that. The most glaring are the Okudagrams seen in the final episode of "Enterprise" where he stated,

Unreadable biographical text goes here. It would be telling us vital information about the handsome fellow pictured to the right, but let's face it: Writing all that up for every single person would take more time then I care to spend. In the end, it will be so small, no one will be able to read it. Instead, I will write sentences of sufficiently different lengths so that it looks like regular English usage. See how nice and short that last sence was? This will be a longer paragraph made up of several sentences, as if listing the many amazing accomplishments of the too-soon-departed Ensign Wallace: After all, Riker remembers him so fondly, he must have been a pretty terrific guy. I mean, sure, there were those rumors but Starfleet Investigative Services cleared him of any wrong doing. I wonder if this will be readable in Hi-Def? And this sentence will take us off the end of the page in such a way that it ends in the middle of a very important thought.

I am sure that Mr. Okuda is a nice guy, but he does take short cuts to get the job done. This is probably why he succeeds as well as he does in the corporate world.

Consistency is an issue with the first season blue rays as well. They fix or add okudagrams, while leaving others alone. They fix some registry errors, while leaving others alone. They fix production mistakes - items appearing in the episode that shouldn't be there, while leaving others alone. This is based on reading Observations at Ex-Astris-Scientia. It's frustrating that there isn't a higher level of consistency.

 

[Falcor5]

Anyone seen any good deals for Season 2 yet? Still seems to be $79.99 on Amazon and the release date is just a little over a week away. I guess I am spoiled after paying $59.99 for Season 1. Plus Season 2 has less episodes.