TNG DVD Transfers

[Amaris]

Well, I got a replacement, and as you can see, there's a world of difference:

1st Set of Discs:

2nd Set of Discs:

I am watching this right now and it looks much better.

J.

 

[Warped9]

M.Robison, I really like your avatar.

 

[Amaris]

I received Season 2 of TNG today. I've made my way through the first disc and am into the second. It looks the same as the second set of discs for Season 1, so I'm relieved to see it was just a bad batch. I can't wait to get Season 3!


J.

 

[Similitude]

J. a comparison of the same shot would probably show us how different they are. Hard to tell with two totally different shots.

Also I don't think I have any kind of zoom on, as everything is centered properly and nothing is missing off the screen. When something is zoomed you usually notice things on the edge being cut out, this doesn't have that. Very odd, but hey it looks good so I'll take it.

 

[Amaris]

J. a comparison of the same shot would probably show us how different they are. Hard to tell with two totally different shots.

Also I don't think I have any kind of zoom on, as everything is centered properly and nothing is missing off the screen. When something is zoomed you usually notice things on the edge being cut out, this doesn't have that. Very odd, but hey it looks good so I'll take it.

Alrighty. I was able to find which episode I had snapped that from (thanks TrekCore!).

Here's the original:

Here's the new discs:

I couldn't get it right at the exact same time, and all I did was resize to 640x480 to conform to board requirements.

J.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Re: 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.

I was referring to how they would have to present the original miniature work alongside the new VFX, not how they would redo them in CGI. On the TOS-R Blu-ray set, they have the original miniature shots seamlessly branched in with the CGI. The poster I was responding to wrote that they would probably include the original TNG 1987-1994 VFX on the Blu-ray set... I was explaining what CBS would have to go through to make that happen.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

By the way, before I forget... the first TNG movie, Star Trek Generations contains an original 1987 35mm VFX shot that was done by ILM in 8-perf VistaVision for the pilot "Encounter at Farpoint." It is the shot that directly preceeds the stellar cartography scene, if I remember correctly. It's a shot that was used a billion times on TNG. We can all see this shot later this year on Blu-ray, of course... but if anyone would like me to upload it, I have it in 720p from an airing of the film on HBO-HD. I also have the "Menage a Troi" 35mm shot that was pulled from the archives and transfered to HD for the final Enterprise episode "These Are the Voyages." It's also in 720p from an airing on HDNET.

Let me know.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Re: TNG visual effect shots

maxwell thanks for clarifying. i didn't realize.
If TNG-R were to happen and a seamless branching feature were added I think it would only be upconverted visual effects from the master videotape.
CBS Digital would concentrate on the CGI visual effects as that is where the time and money need to go into other than dustbusting.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, I got a replacement, and as you can see, there's a world of difference:

1st Set of Discs:

2nd Set of Discs:

I am watching this right now and it looks much better.

J.

Screen caps of the same scene would make for better comparison.

Edit:

Shit! - Keep reading next time, Trekker.

The difference is... slight. I can "see it" but I also can't help on thinking some "oddities" in the posting is going on.

Anyway, odd that two different sets would produce different results like that.

At any rate, glad the second set seems to be more to your liking.

Trekker, still swears his sets look pretty damn sharp -well, as sharp as the 1st and 2nd season can look.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

For those of you who are interested, here's an example of how TNG was filmed in-camera as far back as the third season (at least) when Marvin Rush took over as Director of Photography (I'm pretty sure Jonathan West continued this practice in seasons 6 & 7):

• The Green area represents the 35mm TV transmitted area -- the image we have on the DVDs (this scene is from "Menage a Troi.")
• The Red area represents a Super 35mm 16x9 transmitted area -- the image you saw a glimpse of in the Enterprise episode "These Are The Voyages."
• The Blue area represents the full 35mm camera aperture. This area is of course black because I don't have access to the actual film element.

http://www.panavision.com.au/PDFs/Info-PV/Panavision_Formats.pdf

This demonstrates how from season three onward, TNG has the potential to be presented on Blu-ray in 16x9 format (if every episode was filmed this way). Below you can click on the DVD images of this shot and compare them to a 720p HDNET broadcast of the final Enterprise episode. Make sure that when you choose the 1280x720 images you double click the images for full size.



Note that the 720p images still lack the fine detail that would be present on a 1080p Blu-ray... the 1080i MPEG2 broadcast was taken from DirecTV and downsized and re-compressed using variable-rate AVC @ 13.5mbps peak. If some of you would like to view it, I can upload the full-motion clip so you can take a look at the complete shot. It's an MPEG4 transport stream (.ts), so I don't know how many of you can view that. It plays fine in PowerDVD.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

35mm film framing for TNG and remastering

an example of how TNG was filmed in-camera as far back as the third season

This demonstrates how from season three onward, TNG has the potential to be presented on Blu-ray in 16x9 format (if every episode was filmed this way).

Wow. thank you for a great example.
"protecting for 16:9" when shooting 35mm for 4:3 and posting for 4:3 was not a priority before the late 1990s. Only a few shows did it like "ER".
I hope a Blu-ray fan collective set comes out to dip the toe in the Blu-ray water for TNG TV Trek remastering to HD.

 

[Falcor5]

For those of you who are interested, here's an example of how TNG was filmed in-camera as far back as the third season (at least) when Marvin Rush took over as Director of Photography (I'm pretty sure Jonathan West continued this practice in seasons 6 & 7):

Wow that is really cool thank you for posting that! Would be awesome if they ever could get TNG to be widescreen for HD.

 

[JoeD80]

• The Green area represents the 35mm TV transmitted area -- the image we have on the DVDs (this scene is from "Menage a Troi.")
• The Red area represents a Super 35mm 16x9 transmitted area -- the image you saw a glimpse of in the Enterprise episode "These Are The Voyages."
• The Blue area represents the full 35mm camera aperture. This area is of course black because I don't have access to the actual film element.

Except TNG was filmed at 1.37:1; not the whole of a 35mm frame. That would give you about 12.33x9, not 16x9. There really isn't anything extra past your red and green areas.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

• The Green area represents the 35mm TV transmitted area -- the image we have on the DVDs (this scene is from "Menage a Troi.")
• The Red area represents a Super 35mm 16x9 transmitted area -- the image you saw a glimpse of in the Enterprise episode "These Are The Voyages."
• The Blue area represents the full 35mm camera aperture. This area is of course black because I don't have access to the actual film element.

Except TNG was filmed at 1.37:1; not the whole of a 35mm frame. That would give you about 12.33x9, not 16x9. There really isn't anything extra past your red and green areas.

On the contrary, the fact that the red and green areas exist is prima facie evidence (to me anyway) that the blue area must have been fully exposed. It's the only way the two red and green images can co-exist. It's evidence that for at least this one shot from "Menage a Troi" and perhaps the whole series from season three onward, that they were exposing a full 35mm camera aperture, aka "Super 35mm" (the blue area) which is 1.37:1. The green area is the 1.33:1 they extracted for the video telecine in 1990. THAT area appears on the DVD sets.

Did you look at the Panavision PDF I provided a link to? Look at the last 35mm format. That's what they exposed on the film negative in 1990. The first one that says "35mm 4 perf" on the left is the area they extracted for telecine and editing. The fourth 35mm one from the bottom, the one labeled 1.78:1, is the area that Marvin Rush (the DP) went back and extracted from the original negative for the final episode of Enterprise, "These Are The Voyages."

The area you are suggesting -- the red and green areas taken together -- only adds up to an aspect ratio of 1.59:1, which is a non standard aspect ratio.

 

[JoeD80]

Yes, they were exposing 1:37:1. What I meant was, they were not filming widescreen. I was a little confused by what your blue area represented. 1.37:1 gives you a little extra, but it's close to the television aspect (1.33:1). The TNG footage in the Enterprise finale is *cropped* on the top and bottom in order to fit the 16x9 Enterprise frame. There was never a 1.78:1 version of TNG, which is what you'd need for 16x9, unless you're okay with extending the sides and cropping the top and bottom like that for every scene.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Yes, they were exposing 1:37:1. What I meant was, they were not filming widescreen. I was a little confused by what your blue area represented. 1.37:1 gives you a little extra, but it's close to the television aspect (1.33:1). The TNG footage in the Enterprise finale is *cropped* on the top and bottom in order to fit the 16x9 Enterprise frame. There was never a 1.78:1 version of TNG, which is what you'd need for 16x9, unless you're okay with extending the sides and cropping the top and bottom like that for every scene.

Right, that's what I'm saying... a 1.78:1 image IS possible and Marvin Rush (DP on TNG in 1990 and on ENT in 2005) thought that this framing was acceptable -- for at least this one shot. So they may, stress may, have been protecting for widescreen following the original 16:9 Action Plan instituted in the early 1990s. Either 1.85 or 1.78.

It's a stretch, I admit... but it is possible. They are doing this same thing with Seinfeld on TBS in HD:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14578659#post14578659

 

[Amaris]

Screen caps of the same scene would make for better comparison.

Edit:

Shit! - Keep reading next time, Trekker.

The difference is... slight. I can "see it" but I also can't help on thinking some "oddities" in the posting is going on.

Anyway, odd that two different sets would produce different results like that.

At any rate, glad the second set seems to be more to your liking.

Trekker, still swears his sets look pretty damn sharp -well, as sharp as the 1st and 2nd season can look.

Well, my set was only a few weeks old. In motion the second set looks way better, and I am quite happy with it. My 2nd Season disc set looks great (relatively) so I'm certain it was just a bad set of discs on the Season One set.

J.

 

[Starfleet]

Santa, could you repost the image from the first page? It has been removed from Photobucket.

 

[Tomalak]

Interesting thread. If you think it looks bad on DVD, you should have seen the BBC transmissions in the nineties. The first two seasons were especially bad, with a terribly botched standards conversion resulting in some of the murkiest pictures and dullest sound I've seen. It was barely broadcast quality at times.

The DVDs are a marked improvement, but it's still pretty obvious that a full remaster from the original elements would result in a far superior picture quality. I'd love it to happen.

 

[Amaris]

Santa, could you repost the image from the first page? It has been removed from Photobucket.

Sorry, Starfleet, I don't have the original images anymore. Here, however, is a new screencap of Season 1 TNG on DVD (The Battle):

J.