TNG-R Season 1 (HD) Available In iTunes + TNG In HD On Hulu

[jefferiestubes8]

from an older thread:

Does anyone know if we will ever be able to buy TNG episodes on iTunes???

Yes.
Star Trek: TNG is finally on iTunes. The first season was added today – in HD.

available for download in both HD (720 and 1080) and Standard Def. Season 1 costs $69.99 in HD with individual episodes costing $2.99 each. The TNG available on iTunes is the same remastered version of the series which was released on Blu-ray last year. Presumably additional seasons will be added to iTunes some time after their release on Blu-ray.

so go and load up your iPads for those airplane trips.
also on Hulu Plus

the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation streaming are also streaming in HD.

with commercials.

Yes this info is for USA only. I do not know about the rest of North America or anywhere else as the Trekmovie article did not say.

http://trekmovie.com/2013/03/18/sta...hd-on-hulu-marchapril-trek-home-video-update/

On my 6 year old 720p native HDTV it looks really good at current 3.2Mbps highest streaming data rate on Hulu Plus.
The video looks like it was shot last year except for the 4:3 original aspect ratio and the 1980s period hairstyles. The Ent-D VFX looked great on season 2: The Child.
The stereo sound leaves a lot to be desired though on the streaming since it is not 5.1 The music all sounds from the center.
I'd like to check this out on a friend's 55" 1080p HDTV!

looks like DS9 and VOY will be the last Trek to be in 4:3 OAR and have this problem.

 

[BillJ]

On my 6 year old 720p native HDTV it looks really good at current 3.2Mbps highest streaming data rate on Hulu Plus.

Isn't that a really low bitrate?

 

[jimbotron]

Yeah, that's pretty low, but that's fairly typical for HD streaming. The audio is 192kbps of that stream (lossy DD 2.0). AVC and VC-1 can do fairly well at low bitrates.

I wonder when this is coming to Netflix.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Yeah, that's pretty low, but that's fairly typical for HD streaming. The audio is 192kbps of that stream (lossy DD 2.0). AVC and VC-1 can do fairly well at low bitrates.

3.2 Mbps streaming data rate is low especially when you consider ST:TNG-R is telecined from 35mm film at 1.485 Gbit/s and mastered to HDCAM SR tape at only 4:1 compression ratio for 10-bit 4:4:4 [color sampling] like the official trailer says at 35 seconds:
Star Trek - The Next Generation Remastered Blu-Ray Official Trailer
The specs on the HDCAM SR format at 4:4:4 10-bit is a 880 Mb/s datarate. So even Blu-ray has a maximum specification Video Bitrate of 40Mbps. Sure there is a difference between 3.2 and 40 when the compression is so high.
A typical blu-ray like The Avengers is average bitrate of 26 Mbps. So you can do the math of 26 to 880 and
3.2 to 880 to see how much higher the compression ratio is for streaming HD currently with Internet delivery.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

so go and load up your iPads

Oh, believe me... I did that months ago!

 

[jimbotron]

So you can do the math of 26 to 880 and
3.2 to 880 to see how much higher the compression ratio is for streaming HD currently with Internet delivery.

And that's likely going to remain the same for the foreseeable future. I don't think the ISPs have the capacity or the desire to provide bandwidths large enough to support 26Mbps videos. And even if they could, they would throttle the connections.

If I desperately want to watch something, I'll watch it on Netflix HD. But if I want to really enjoy a movie for its picture and sound, I'll get the Blu-ray.

 

[Bad Atom]

Considering the price, I'm not complaining.

 

[Indysolo]

iTunes has season 2 available now, too!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/star-trek-next-generation/id467933759

Neil