That HD remaster of our 35mm negatives

[ZapBrannigan]

Like everybody, I love that the original camera negatives were scanned for 1080p and they look so great. I'm guessing the HD scan was done to future-proof the 2006 DVD project, and fully utilized for the 2016 Blu-rays. Maybe I heard that at the time. This old thread touches on some of it.

Thing is, I always imagined the 35mm negatives themselves still looked great. Like they needed to digitally erase some dirt and scratches, do slight color correction, but basically those reels had endured tremendously, because look how the discs turned out.

Now I see this video on the restoration of Space: 1999, another case where I thought the same thing, and it looks like the color negatives are fading their way to extinction. If you're short on time, just check out the Alan Carter image at 1:32 to see:

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It seems likely that the Star Trek negatives are as bad or worse, and the era of HD digital scanning came along just in time. And that goes for the whole history of film and television. Eventually digital masters will be all that survives, but they won't fade so it's a good thing we have them.

 

[Tosk]

I love that so many old shows are getting careful and loving remasters.

Thunderbirds, Blakes 7, Space: 1999...

but I still have to admit it hurts a little bit more each time one comes out that DS9 and VOY are still languishing.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

It's pretty amazing that Blake's 7, Space 1999 and Babylon 5 have all been looked after better than Deep Space Nine. Meanwhile Voyager's had a recent cartoon sequel, main characters recurring in two live action shows, and a new video game, and it's still not getting a remaster.

 

[Maurice]

I really depends on the film stocks and how they're stored. Some stocks turned out to be less stable than others and prone to fading. This is why three-strip processes hold up better, because black and white film tends to last longer and doesn't feature dyes that fade. Downside is cost.

 

[Qonundrum]

Unfortunately. In theory and under ideal conditions, the film should last a century or two, but fading will be inevitable - especially if cheaper grade film was used. On top of the risk of vinegar effect, the real-life application doesn't always match up.

Just keep a backup of the digitized copies, made at best possible resolution at the time...

B7 and other videotaped shows had been moved from their 625i videotape to D3 (or D1, I don't recall) digital archival tape a long time ago, partially due to the inevitability of the magnetic medium sandwiched between thin layers of plastic depolarizing (hence dropouts, grainy noise, color bleed, etc). Since then, various restoration tools can counter all of these - even color bleed - and the results are amazing, especially considering the limited range of the source media type. The halo effect you'll sometimes see around contrasting edges isn't as easy to get rid of, unfortunately...

 

[Qonundrum]

I love that so many old shows are getting careful and loving remasters.

Thunderbirds, Blakes 7, Space: 1999...

but I still have to admit it hurts a little bit more each time one comes out that DS9 and VOY are still languishing.

Apparently, TNG cost $20M to remaster (and had little in the way of needing new CGI). Initial sales were low and who knows if the cost of this level of remastering care has even been recouped yet. Given how extensive DS9 and VOY had with CGI edited in with live action film (not just outer space pew-pew scenes), I'd read somewhere the cost to remaster each series would be $40M. A shame, as DS9 clearly had the largest costume/clothing budget of perhaps any sci-fi ever with all that use of color and intricate detail, never mind set lighting and shadow detail, for which no upscaling utility can begin to imitate what 1993's telecine scanning tools (effectively 12MP 35mm down to NTSC 480i) stripping out so much detail and color range/gamut but keeping all the grain as part of the inherent process... grain can be given DNR treatment and gamut artificially widened, but it's still not a patch on the real deal. Eventually artificial detail improvements using multiple passes with different settings to iron out any issue will work, but then those costs would likely exceed just scanning the films. A 5-hour piddly upscale process alone for a 43-minute episode just doesn't induce true HD quality, add in enough cleaning and tweaking and 5 hours becomes exponentially more, and then you'd also need a server farm... and hope your settings were thoroughly tested, as they weren't for the infamous episode of "I Love Lucy" where they didn't have the film and had to resort to upscaling but made a mistake and now you have soft blurry heads with sharp eyes that looks rather disturbing... (that issue was fixed, BTW, kudos for the efforts put into the entire box set and taking the time to fix...)

A shame TNG didn't get 4K scans, but that along with editing was cost-prohibitive at the time, and the blu-rays do look rather good on a 4K TV that has a proper image processor in it (as there's more detail in 1080P to upscale to 2160P with as opposed to puny 480i (two 240p interlaced fields melded per frame as a form of temporal dithering...)

 

[Dar70]

Oh my that looks incredible. If they release S1999 on 4k.... I WILL get it...