The Problems of Remastering TNG, DS9 & VOY

[jefferiestubes8]

because links are so much easier...

There's a long and heated thread in the TNG forum about the issues surrounding this.

Star Trek TNG Remastered?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are less likely candidates for Blu-Ray release

Star Trek: The Animated Series, like its live action counterpart, could easily be remastered and released on Blu-Ray,

Enterprise was mastered in widescreen HD,

I agree with Harvey's nutshell info.
Enterprise will get a Blu-ray release. Least amount of capital outlay from CBS Television to author the Blu-ray for a decent R.O.I. sometime in the next 2 years.

Here are the other related threads for you to read DS9Master83

REMASTER THE ENTIRE DEEP SPACE NINE SERIES.

Remaster the entire Voyager Series...........

Star Trek: Enterprise seasons Blu-ray spec. features wishlist

 

[Tosk]

Please explain. Why did those DVDs require all that work?

Because they wanted them to look their best, and the video-based versions used for TV at that point would not hold up on a better format.

I applaud them for the effort.


Oh, and I double-checked to make sure my memory was correct. ...

"Castle Rock Entertainment, which produced the show, returned to the original film elements and spent many months digitally remastering every episode in high definition; the original analog audio tracks went through a similar process."

http://www.filmstew.com/showArticle.aspx?ContentID=10084

 

[Truth_Seeker]

I recall that the later seasons of Voyager aired in 720p, so remastering them to 1080p should not be that difficult.

 

[SFRabid]

Studios have already tried fooling people by releasing upscaled versions of shows and movies on blu-ray without going through a mastering process. Critics are quick to catch this and people are now more weary about what they purchase on blu-ray. You can now buy a lot of blu-ray content for under $10 that looks no better than a regular DVD played through a DVD player that upscales to HD.

I'm not sure how much is to be made on re-releasing something on blu-ray. I just bought the Star Trek TOS movie set for less than half of retail on Amazon. A few other movies I've bought recently come with 4 discs. Blu-ray movie, regular movie, computer digital release, and extra content DVD. All for under $20. It's getting competitive out there.

 

[USS KG5]

That is unfortunate if only for the fact that with the proliferation of larger and larger HDTV screens, all older TV shows - not just ST - don't look all that great when played. It is almost to the point now where I only want to watch HD signals or Blu-rays on the large screen. If I want to watch anything else I go to the Sony CRT. When it goes, I'll need to get a 'small' HDTV so the signal still remains relatively decent. There is, of course, upscaling, but frankly the quality of the picture is still noticeable. I would hope than in the future, technology will be in a position to be able to overcome the problems that exist now with transfers. Don't really know enough about these things, though.

Thing is though the TNG and DS9 series will never look as good as Blu Ray can look, or even close, without some truly massive work. Not just remastering but almost reconstruction. They were shot on cheap film and while they look better on DVD than say, the first three seasons of Buffy, they do not look very good.

Can't you just enjoy the story? Sometimes that really does have to be enough. Any brand new Trek show will doubtless be in HD with state-of-the-art effects and you will be able to look back on TNG much as many old shows as "of its time".

 

[Truth_Seeker]

That is unfortunate if only for the fact that with the proliferation of larger and larger HDTV screens, all older TV shows - not just ST - don't look all that great when played. It is almost to the point now where I only want to watch HD signals or Blu-rays on the large screen. If I want to watch anything else I go to the Sony CRT. When it goes, I'll need to get a 'small' HDTV so the signal still remains relatively decent. There is, of course, upscaling, but frankly the quality of the picture is still noticeable. I would hope than in the future, technology will be in a position to be able to overcome the problems that exist now with transfers. Don't really know enough about these things, though.

There's an old trick for watching low resolution video files with a better quality - play them on your PC and adjust the Windows resolution to 1024x768 or even 800x600. This way they look much better than when you watch them on a Full HD television screen.

 

[trevanian]

Thing is though the TNG and DS9 series will never look as good as Blu Ray can look, or even close, without some truly massive work. Not just remastering but almost reconstruction. They were shot on cheap film

Film's still got a ton more latitude than any other originating format, so I don't know where you get off dismissing it. Maybe when there is a 4K TV set in ____ years, you'll be able to really SEE just how much info there is on a 35mm film frame.

And it wasn't CHEAP either ... stock price is such a concern that some pictures shoot 3-perf instead of 4-perf to save 25% of the film cost (they will sacrifice that much just to be able to shoot on film as opposed to digital capture.)

 

[Nick Ryder]

"Old trick" wow... its already become an OLD TRICK? LOL

But yea that makes sense, providing someone has a computer hooked up to their TV. Although I forsee a day when most TVs will have a basic computer built right in, basically a glorified netbook built in to give it more extended PC functions and alternate ways of displaying content. With more and more video and such being served up online, a simple set top solution won't really be enough. I for one would love to be able to just open up my remote like a qwerty keyboard cell phone and pull up a web browser and play youtube or hulu videos on my tv, or hell play my own videos and such without having to put any kind of external drive up to my tv. In some ways the old WebTV was before its time, but all you really need is a couple inches in the back to hide an atom processor netbook and a bluetooth or rf receiver to link up to a remote keyboard either full size or built into the remote.

Once that day occurs and even old TV shows can play in a more native resolution on the High Def... we'll have to do work arounds. Honestly unless they SERIOUSLY remaster and add to the old TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT DVDs, I will never buy the BluRays. Other than maybe space saving, like if they can put all episodes from a season on like 2-3 bds, there's no real reason to upgrade.

I would love to see at least the first 3 seasons of TNG redone they look the most dated of the 7. Even DS9 wasn't that bad. TNG still reused a lot of TOS style effects and set work. I'd love to see the old "planet hell" set (like the one they used for Skin of Evil and Q-Who that ep where Riker was made into a Q - there were so many Q eps with similar names) sort of remapped or something so it looks less like a set.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I recall that the later seasons of Voyager aired in 720p

You recall incorrectly. VOY has never aired in HD. (And by that I mean actually *in* HD, as opposed to upconverted SD.)

A show that was never made in HD can't air in that format.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

"Old trick" wow... its already become an OLD TRICK? LOL

But yea that makes sense, providing someone has a computer hooked up to their TV.

Actually all you need is a DVD-ROM/Recorder device and preferably a larger monitor (20''-22'').

P.S. I almost forgot abou the software. You need to install the program Power DVD and K-Lite Codec Pack to watch them!

 

[USS KG5]

Film's still got a ton more latitude than any other originating format, so I don't know where you get off dismissing it. Maybe when there is a 4K TV set in ____ years, you'll be able to really SEE just how much info there is on a 35mm film frame.

If TNG is in decent nick on film they did a TERRIBLE job of putting it on DVD, same for DS9.

I'm clearly not dissing film full stop but Trek does not look good on DVD, and was put together with a bit of care, so logically without a massive amount of work it would not look good on Blu Ray.

And it wasn't CHEAP either ... stock price is such a concern that some pictures shoot 3-perf instead of 4-perf to save 25% of the film cost (they will sacrifice that much just to be able to shoot on film as opposed to digital capture.)

Well I don't actually remember saying they should drop film in favour of digital anywhere, I was just talking about the apparent quality of the masters used for the DVDs.

Now with a complete remaster, including rebuilding the SFX, going back, rescanning and cleaning up the negative and really doing a super job, I'm sure all the shows would look amazing. Would cost an absolute fortune though.

 

[TheGodBen]

If TNG is in decent nick on film they did a TERRIBLE job of putting it on DVD, same for DS9.

I'm clearly not dissing film full stop but Trek does not look good on DVD, and was put together with a bit of care, so logically without a massive amount of work it would not look good on Blu Ray.

That's the point, TNG and DS9 (and Voyager) do not have film masters, they were edited on videotape. All the shows were shot on film but they weren't edited on film because videotape was faster and/or cheaper for that process, and what is on the DVDs is the transfer from videotape, which is why they look so crappy.

If any of the shows is to be released on blu-ray it would involve collecting all the film (which supposedly still exists) and editing it all together shot for shot so that it matches the original videotape master. It would be a long, expensive process, especially once the special effects are added into the mix, so it's not likely to ever happen.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Although I believe the editing "cues" (if this is the right term) still exist, so the original editing could be reconstructed through software. Assuming the new FX sequences have exactly the same length of time as the originals, I think they could make it work.

 

[cubdukat]

I'd settle for a DVD remastering. I'm currently watching the 3rd season of DS9 on DVD, and I don't remember the image quality being quite that bad. The bitrate doesn't even break 5 megabits per episode most of the time, and for a dual-layer disc without supplementary materials, that's just wrong.

I suspect Paramount probably abandoned the upscaling approach because they knew fans would never stand for it. So I would suspect the only avenues left for them are digging up all the film elements they used and re-compositing everything for HD, or redoing the effects in CGI. Personally, I think they should avoid the last one, given the disappointing (IMHO) job CBS Digital did with TOS. There were so many opportunites they just missed.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

DS9 & TNG

I'd settle for a DVD remastering. I'm currently watching the 3rd season of DS9 on DVD, and I don't remember the image quality being quite that bad.

This is not going to happen. DS9 DVD sets have made their money and CBS Home Video knows it. TNG is still a property though that can bring in money and the next avenue would be syndication in high definition as well as Blu-ray releases of fan collectives to start.

 

[ichab]

Frankly I think they look fine the way they are. I'm rewatching my DS9 DVDs on my blu-ray player and new 40 inch HD TV and the show looks better than it ever did. I highly doubt I would shell out more money for this show that I already own.

 

[Magellan]

TNG, DS9 and Voyager will all get a blu ray release, it's inconceivable that they would pass up this chance. It's my bet that it will be some kind of upscaling though. Most people wont even know the difference anyway. After a few years I could see a proper HD re-edit of TNG, maybe for it's 30th anniversary, but not for the other two.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

TNG, DS9 and Voyager will all get a blu ray release, it's inconceivable that they would pass up this chance. It's my bet that it will be some kind of upscaling though. Most people wont even know the difference anyway.

Oh, I think they will. And that's why it won't happen.

Why should Paramount go through all the trouble of releasing the shows on Blu-Ray without making them HD? Doing so would give exactly the same result as if the standard definition DVDs are played on a Blu-Ray player. (Remember, all HDTVs upscale all standard definition content anyway.) So why would they bother re-releasing the shows in a manner that will not give them anything new?

 

[Harvey]

Paramount could do what some more recent shows have done, like FIREFLY, in which the live action material is in 1080P but the visual effects are only at 480P. Of course, FIREFLY was originally shown that way, so it would take more work for a similar release of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, etc.

 

[BillJ]

Paramount could do what some more recent shows have done, like FIREFLY, in which the live action material is in 1080P but the visual effects are only at 480P. Of course, FIREFLY was originally shown that way, so it would take more work for a similar release of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, etc.

What would be the point? All the work talked about in this and other threads would still have to be done. Retrieving, scanning and re-editing all the original film elements. Then you would still have to re-do the effects (current ones which look terrible in 1080p).

If The Next Generation gets redone, I imagine they will go ahead and future proof it by doing the digital masters in 4k resolution.