TNG DVD Transfers

[ManaByte]

I have a Sony HDMI upconverting DVD player hooked up to a LCD HDTV via HDMI and the TNG and TOS DVDs look excellent and vastly superior to the TV broadcasts. The TNG discs look as good as the SciFi HD broadcasts, and with even less artifacts than the digital cable delivers.

 

[Similitude]

ManaByte, do you still do reviews or Mailbag type things anywhere? I really enjoyed how you ran the IGN DVD section and It hasn't really been the same since you left.

 

[ManaByte]

ManaByte, do you still do reviews or Mailbag type things anywhere? I really enjoyed how you ran the IGN DVD section and It hasn't really been the same since you left.

I started a blog about a year ago for Trek/SciFi type things. Haven't really been doing anything with it lately, but I may pick up sooner or later depending on my schedule with classes and the like.

http://starbase.wordpress.com

I have wordpress on my iPhone, so I may be able to update more often.

 

[Malcolm Orr]

I watched Booby Trap tonight (again on the PS3) and in some parts, specifically Geordi in the holodeck (Utopia Planitia) the quality of the picture is astonishing. Riker and Picard walking down the corridor is quite poor though.

'Frame of Mind' looks dreadful. I'm amazed by the variability of picture both between different episodes and within episodes between different scenes

 

[Amaris]

I'm watching TNG right now on DVD, and I admit S1 and 2 look rough but they always did. The rest of the seasons always looked fine to me.

From the OP's picture up-thread I'd ask what kind of TV he is using, because judging from that screen-cap (setting aside any oddities with taking a picture of a TV, uploading it and then putting it here) I'd ask what kind of TV he is using. I'd guess a CRT or early RP.

My TV is an HD RP and TNG's DVD looks fine and perfectly watchable for me.

HDTV with HDMI connection.


J.

 

[Malcolm Orr]

I'm watching TNG right now on DVD, and I admit S1 and 2 look rough but they always did. The rest of the seasons always looked fine to me.

From the OP's picture up-thread I'd ask what kind of TV he is using, because judging from that screen-cap (setting aside any oddities with taking a picture of a TV, uploading it and then putting it here) I'd ask what kind of TV he is using. I'd guess a CRT or early RP.

My TV is an HD RP and TNG's DVD looks fine and perfectly watchable for me.

HDTV with HDMI connection.


J.

But even then it differs markedly. I have 3 devices that upscale a SD to HD picture - my Sony TV, my PS3, my Sony DVD player.

The PS3 is by far the best upscaler of the three (the DVD player and the TV are 2 years old whereas the PS3 gets upgraded).

 

[JoeD80]

$50 is about standard MSRP for a TV season these days.

Not really. Most season sets of non-Fox shows I see are around $20 - $30.

 

[Amaris]

But even then it differs markedly. I have 3 devices that upscale a SD to HD picture - my Sony TV, my PS3, my Sony DVD player.

The PS3 is by far the best upscaler of the three (the DVD player and the TV are 2 years old whereas the PS3 gets upgraded).

That pic was from a Blu-ray player on a 22" 720p HDTV.
I also tried it on the Blu-ray player in the living room on a 42" 720p HDTV.

Both had terrible artifacting.
It's possible I have a bad batch of discs.

J.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

As for the FX aspect, I'd be happy if they just adopted the pragmatic conservativeness used in the TOS remaster... a mostly faithul re-rendering of the original shots, with the occasional flourish or enhancement where it would really make an impact, or when it can be used to cover plot holes, glitches or undo special FX failure from the original shots.

And having seen the job done with the TOS blu-ray, obviously it's possible to have your cake and eat it too, since they can keep the old shots for those that just want a cleaned up live-action picture.

But how would they present the old shots for posterity ala the seamless branching on the TOS-R Blu-rays? They can't just simply up-res the video to 1920x1080 for the old VFX shots. For those -- the motion control miniature work done at Image-G -- they have to transfer all the multiple 35mm passes for each shot because they were all filmed separately (silhouette matte pass, beauty pass, window light pass, deflector glow pass, running lights and strobes pass, nacelle glow pass, bussard glow pass) and re-composite them digitally over the original background plates of stars and planets if they are available... and those are just the space shots!

The one upside to the way TNG was put together in post production was that the 35mm film was telecined to video then put away in storage... which means that all the optical transitions like fades and dissolves that were done in editing didn't affect the film elements directly (because they were done only in the video realm). In TOS the negatives were cut and spliced and sent through an optical printer for transitions and you can see the quality drop on the Blu-rays every time there is about to be an optical effect. Sometimes this quality drop lasts quite a long time because they were fond of doing scenes in long master shots back in the 60s.

For TNG, there would be no generation loss on any 35mm transferred footage.

 

[Similitude]

I've watched TNG on PS3 and 360 and it looks horrible for the most part on both.

How did they get TNG to be widescreen?

 

[Amaris]

^ It's not, as far as I know. I switch over my TV to 4:3 so I can watch the show.


J.

 

[Similitude]

Odd. when I watch them on my Widescreen Samsung TV, they fit in perfectly WS, no bars or anything.

 

[Amaris]

^ You may have smart fit automatically turned on. It zooms just enough to make a 4:3 behave like a 16:9. It reduces quality a bit, but if you don't want black bars it's better than just straight up Zoom.

J.

 

[ManaByte]

It could also be streatching the image.

 

[Amaris]

Well, if he's saying they fit perfectly, then I doubt any stretching is going on, since that would be immediately noticeable when anything round came into view, but you could be right, too.


J.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

TNG visual effect shots

For those -- the motion control miniature work done at Image-G -- they have to transfer all the multiple 35mm passes for each shot because they were all filmed separately (silhouette matte pass, beauty pass, window light pass, deflector glow pass, running lights and strobes pass, nacelle glow pass, bussard glow pass) and re-composite them digitally

For TNG, there would be no generation loss on any 35mm transferred footage.

see this post as to why if TNG were given a remastered treatment for Blu-ray why all of the visual effects would probably be done as CGI.

 

[Warped9]

It sounds like Paramount just doesn’t care very much about these DVDs.

There's nothing Paramount can do about it. That's what TNG looks like. The only thing they can do is find all the original film and put all seven years of the series through post-production all over again, reediting every scene, redoing all the visual FX. They can keep the music and sound FX, though. It's still going to take time and cost a pretty penny. Paramount "caring more" isn't going to improve TNG's resolution.

A shame, really. Now that they're reasonably affordable I'm thinking of picking up the first three or four seasons sets.

 

[Malcolm Orr]

It sounds like Paramount just doesn’t care very much about these DVDs.

There's nothing Paramount can do about it. That's what TNG looks like. The only thing they can do is find all the original film and put all seven years of the series through post-production all over again, reediting every scene, redoing all the visual FX. They can keep the music and sound FX, though. It's still going to take time and cost a pretty penny. Paramount "caring more" isn't going to improve TNG's resolution.

A shame, really. Now that they're reasonably affordable I'm thinking of picking up the first three or four seasons sets.

Don't get too disheartened. It seems that for the most part the DVDs upscale well.

The other thing is that TNG's poor raw state and it's relative lack of effects compared to DS9 and VOY mean that it's the one that is more easily rescueable as a remaster than the later ones, even leaving aside it's popularity.

Also there's a few points of note:

1. There are very few different Ent D sweeps used in the entire series - once a CGI set of sweeps are done, that'll be a lot of the work.

2. It's not like there's a huge mound of film strips lying somewhere. I'm sure when they were stored they'd have been stored per episode and to be honest if the Okudas didn't have a fair idea where the different scenes went, then no-one would (they did ask whether the film elements were present which suggests that they were thinking of this process as the likely route they would take)

3. There's no new sign of a series for a while. It's likely that the new films will be a trilogy, and so that's Trek for the next 5 years. The decision to make TNG into a remastered series will be not just based on Blu Ray returns

4. Some people have suggested we might see 10 or so of the best done. Unlikely - if they are going to invest in a team and make the CGI Ent D scenes etc then I think they'll go the whole way. After all they aren't doing these purely for BluRay - they are doing it to keep a future audience. It's be all or nothing...

I think some form of HD TNG will be seen, and I think it's just on the wrong side of commercial upscaling. I think they will bite the bullet and go for it

(Also Best of Both Worlds, the rumoured test piece, is actually atypical for the average episode - it would be far more expensive compared to most. The Inner Light, for example, requires little CGI effects at all.)

 

[Amaris]

^ Just to add, after some comparisons, it seems I may have a bad set of discs. I'm going to go exchange them today and see what happens.

J.

 

[M.Robison]

I have this series set for TNG that I bought back in 2002 I believe,

Seasons 1 through 2 were grainy and bad, but they cleared up by mid season 3 and on.