Trek Movies in HD

[Cyrus]

Those of you with HDTVs that get the "Universal HD" channel, get ready to program your DVR. UHD is showing The Search for Spock and First Contact in high definition on Saturday July 5.

It would be cool to finally see these movies in HD. I have already seen Nemesis, The Voyage Home & Insurrection in HD. I heard an HD version of The Final Frontier has been shown too, but I missed that one.

 

[Falcor5]

Cool thanks for the heads up!

 

[ScottDS]

Star Trek III just started. Unfortunately, the schmucks at Comcast compress their channels way too much but the film definitely looks sharper and more vibrant. It will undoubtedly look better on Blu-Ray which won't feature as much compression plus Paramount has stated they're giving the films a good "digital scrubbing." The version that's on now seems to be an HD version taken from whatever source the studio used for the last DVD release, pre-scrubbing.

P.S. Is it me or were the titles re-done at one point? I never saw the film in the theater (I was one year old in 1984!) and I don't remember the VHS version which I rented years ago but for the DVD (and this HD version), it looks like the credits that play over the opening have been re-generated. And sloppily I might add. The timing seems to be off and Nichelle Nichols' credit just jumps to Mark Lenard's; there is no fade or anything. Is it just me?

 

[Borjis]

I'm just catching the last half of Search for Spock, definitely looking better than ever can't wait for the BR release.

I had Star Trek V on my DVR awhile back it looked about the same.

What I'd really like to see is The Motion Picture.

 

[Cyrus]

I saw parts of it, I am recording it for later viewing. What I saw looked real good, very sharp, best I have seen it since the theatrical release. I am getting it on DirecTV which has good HD quality on its channels. They used to have HD-lite but stopped that a while ago.

It's not going to be as good as Blu-Ray since it's not being broadcast in 1080p. If Paramount is doing new transfers for Blu-Ray releases then that's good news too.

 

[ScottDS]

Star Trek: First Contact is on now. Lookin' just fine. I don't think we'll have to worry about the TNG films on Blu-Ray - they've always looked good, though Generations needs a new transfer since the current DVD is way too sharp at times and has a surprising number of print blemishes for a relatively recent film.

And I still think the "mid-21st century civilian clothing" the crew wears is (are?) probably the best-looking civilian outfits seen in modern Trek.

 

[Cyrus]

I saw a bit of First Contact too. Looked real good.

 

[Swarles Barkley]

Yeah that shot of the Ent-E cruising into the frame in front of the Defiant, blasting away at the cube looked pretty damned awesome in HD. One of my favorite FX shots in all the Trek movies.

 

[James Bond]

So no word on Star Trek on Blu-Ray I presume.

 

[ScottDS]

This was reported back in March from thedigitalbits.com:

"We have it today from a couple of angles that Paramount is currently working on another release of the Star Trek feature films, presumably to take advantage of next year's debut (in theaters and eventually on DVD and Blu-ray) of the new J.J. Abrams big screen reboot of the franchise. Our own industry sources have recently hinted that several of the previous feature films are currently receiving brand new high-def transfers and a good digital scrubbing to prepare them for future Blu-ray release."

And writer David Gerrold had said he was interviewed for new extras as well.

 

[22 Stars]

Got a chance to see and DVR these as well. Very nice!

 

[Borjis]

I wish they'd air Generations in HD. I have not seen the movie looking really good since I saw it in the theatre. That DVD is awful and non-anamorphic so it really looks bad on the plasma screen.

First Contact looked great.

some months back, last winter I think, Comcast had almost all the films on pay per view, though I think The Motion Picture was left out of the options.

 

[Hermiod]

Back when First Contact was released on DVD it was described by a lot of review sites as a reference quality disc. The sort of disc you should take to a store when buying an expensive TV or home theatre system. Hopefully the movies will get the same treatment when they're released on Blu-Ray as well.

 

[Therin of Andor]

And writer David Gerrold had said he was interviewed for new extras as well.

He was part of a reunion of fan extras from the ST:TMP rec deck scene.

 

[Tomalak]

I wish they'd air Generations in HD. I have not seen the movie looking really good since I saw it in the theatre. That DVD is awful and non-anamorphic so it really looks bad on the plasma screen.

Really? That's odd, as the R2 looks fantastic.

 

[Indysolo]

I wish they'd air Generations in HD. I have not seen the movie looking really good since I saw it in the theatre. That DVD is awful and non-anamorphic so it really looks bad on the plasma screen.

The 2-disc edition that came out in 2004 is anamorphic.

Neil

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Hey, sorry I didn't see this earlier. I started another thread on hosting a ST3 HD movie night. Well, at least it's not a complete knockoff!

 

[Borjis]

I wish they'd air Generations in HD. I have not seen the movie looking really good since I saw it in the theatre. That DVD is awful and non-anamorphic so it really looks bad on the plasma screen.

The 2-disc edition that came out in 2004 is anamorphic.

Neil

aha! I missed that.

How does it look?

aw well, I'll skip the double dip and wait for the BR disc.

 

[Doug Otte]

I wish they'd air Generations in HD. I have not seen the movie looking really good since I saw it in the theatre. That DVD is awful and non-anamorphic so it really looks bad on the plasma screen.

The 2-disc edition that came out in 2004 is anamorphic.

Neil

aha! I missed that.

How does it look?

aw well, I'll skip the double dip and wait for the BR disc.

Skip it. It has some horrible combing as a result of poor progressive tags, or some technobabble that I no doubt got all wrong. Anyway, it probably looks better than the non-anamporphic original release, but on its own, it looks pretty bad.

Doug

 

[Cyrus]

Some of Trek movies in HD are being repeated this weekend. First Contact is on the Universal HD channel on Saturday Nov 29th and Insurrection is on TNT-HD Friday Nov 28th (TNT's HD movies are sometime fake HD but hopefully that's not the case here).

HBO recently aired Generations in HD. I recorded it but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.