Why doesn't Paramount just use AI to upscale DS9 and VOY into HD?

I know that with TNG, they had to manually remaster every episode into HD and it was a huge pain in the ass to do. Because of that, they didn't wanna go through all of that again for DS9 and VOY and honestly, who could blame them?

However, this was before AI for upscaling SD into HD ever was widely available.

Now, with the magic of AI look at what someone on YT did when upscaling these scenes from DS9 into 4K! BEHOLD!



Look at that! Not bad for an AI upscale right? So why don't they just simply do that for all DS9 and VOY episodes? There's no need to manually remaster them into HD anymore thanks to AI.

Granted, the non-CGI scenes don't look nearly as good as the CGI scenes but even those scenes look better than regular SD.

 

Except the description of that video literally says they remastered the footage to 1080 for the documentary, and then this guy came along and upscaled that further...

 

Ah, I missed that. Fair enough. How about this clip then:

 

because even the AI is gonna cost money and they probably dont think the investment is worth it.

 

This.

Until they see diminishing returns and people stop watching it then it is not worth the cost.

 

And it still doesn't come close to a digital scan of the original negatives.

Upscaling has its benefits for deinterlaced video, especially when the deinterlacing is done right (e.g. no wobbling during horizontal pans and bobs), and the "AI" (read: pattern matching algorithms and blending in from a high-definition texture catalog of a similar pattern) but selective edge enhancement and color and contrast smoothing only go so far, but items that can't be improved will still stick out.

Such as fine print on a wall plaque. it's blurry blocky on SD, but at a native HD (film scan) you'd be able to read it. AI still, to this day, does not add in detail because it has nothing to latch onto due the lack of definition in those blobby blocky bits to begin with.

Nor will AI replace color with the accurate originals. There used to be a terrific Babylon 5 article, where you could drag a slider over an image to show before/after. The SD VT material is drab and dull. The color used for a light looks bright bold blue. Drag the slider and, WOW, the level of original and true and intended color could never be conjured up. Especially what was beyond the window in the middle of the scene. Oh, and that blue I'd mentioned? It's actually a deep purple UV light. No "AI" tool I've used or seen has managed to correct that either. Not possible. The true remastering will do bring out more than a programmed series of algorithms on a server farm can.

And I've not mentioned Quark's outfits (which surely took up 10% of the budget on their own but I digress) yet; the level of detail and color breadth and sheen (color depth) in those makes VT SD upscaling laughable as an idea because of the color 'data' that film holds that was (a) lost when recorded on VT for editing, and (b) is part of the same issue like what the B5 example I'd already mentioned talks about.

Why do people keep advocating for a cheat? When the salt mine collapses and the only option left is the current software, that's great.

Here's one of the other threads of recent covering the same topic

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/paramount-working-on-ds9-hd.315391/

 

It must then be incredibly depressing, if the streaming numbers for TNG are that low that the costs still haven't been made up for. (TOS and ENT were comparatively easy, but those had the occasional live action shot having the occasional phaser fire or other little bits updated as well. Just not as much, and the ENT F/X were rendered at 720p and nimbly upscaled to 1080p - where the result is definitely a bit blurry but not bad - the latest AI could probably do a better job with that (I've used Topaz AI and for some types of source material it really does a great job for what it is and why), and having seen examples of B5's upscaled CGI FX, those are pretty darn good... even with moire removal, which I was not expecting to see at the time...)

 

Because the characters will look like waxwork figures

 

Paramount will eventually upscale both DS9 and VOY. In their entireties. Why? Because they don't want someone else to do it illegally.

I wouldn't put it past Paramount+ to make upscaling DS9/VOY be the last stab at getting new subscribers from the existing fanbase. After that, they'll have every pre-existing Trekkie they'll ever get. It'll help them to know where exactly the cap is.

 

Because I don't think AI is quite there yet.

 

Yeah basically. Also I saw an AI upscale of the DS9 Season 4 intro, which while nicely vibrant with color, made the station and docked ships look like they were melting.

 

Speaking as someone who actually works with Video AI.

My biggest issue with AI isn't the "melting". My biggest issue is when it gets "creative" and starts making funky things from out of nowhere. You have to learn how to be very selective, and how to outsmart the AI (kind of like Kirk). My solution has been to selectively upscale and use layers.

This is my second pass at a public domain film from 1929 that I both colorized and upscaled. I'm working on a third, more thorough upscaling now, that will take a while to finish. I started with a 360p B&W video and upscaled it to 1080p Color.

 

It probably wouldn't be worth the negative publicity they would get from the fanbase.

I think they considered doing something similar with TNG (at least with the FX shots) when they started remastering that but concluded it wasn't worth it, that and the fans got wind of it and voiced their objections. Obviously tech has come a long way since then.

Ultimately it's a question of whether it would attract additional subscribers to their service. I would guess that the majority of people watching DS9/VOY now probably either are not bothered or don't even notice the picture quality. I think even now if you really want to see them in the best quality possible DVD is still the way to go, comparing the DVDs to Netflix a while ago it was like the Netflix version had a layer of vaseline on top, I imagine Paramount+ has similar issues. The biggest improvement they could do is boost the bitrate so the picture quality wasn't crushed so much.

 

Honestly, the cost to do this is falling all the time. If obscure stuff like SeaQuest and Babylon 5 is worth doing, then it really is only a matter of time.

The VFX in particular could simply be re-done from scratch. Most of the assets exist and by todays standards, there are far fewer VFX shots per episode. Or, you go the B5 route and just rescan the live action stuff and apply a simple upscale to the VFX shots.

DS9 season 1 and 2 will look weird when they come to HD though, cause they used some weird soft filters back then.

 

I think that carried through the whole run of DS9. An artistic/stylistic choice no doubt. Pretty noticeable compared to Voyager which looks pin-sharp in comparison.

 

People like that haven't liked anything Star Trek's put out in 20 years. They won't get those people anyway. Star Trek as a whole has done fine without them. How they reacted to TOS-R wasn't enough to stop TNG-R from happening.

For the rest of us, we very much would like DS9 and VOY to look as good as the TNG Remaster. The more time passes, the less people will want to rewatch these because of how they look. This is especially a problem for VOY because someone watching Picard or Prodigy might want to go back to watch Voyager. The same if Legacy is ever made. They might want to go back and watch Voyager. Having it look SD will hurt it. It does hurt it.

 

These things inevitably become cheaper with time, there will come a time when it's so cheap there's barely any risk - they'll do it then. Treks 70th anniversary maybe, or 65th.

 

Is SD that big of a difference maker?

I'd be curious to see the statistics on buyers choices.

 

Last I saw, which was maybe 2-3 years ago, DVDs still outsold BluRays by 2:1.

I don't think the general audience cares as much as videophiles wished they did.

 

Personally, I expect high visual quality. I'm a visual person and this is a visual medium. I would sure hate it if I went to an art museum and everything looked blocky and muddy, which is how a lot of 90s television looks when played on modern equipment. This includes DS9 and VOY, which are visually horrendous.
However, with TV shows mastered on videotape there's only so much that can be done.

With TNG, they had film sources, which in themselves are effectively "high definition." That makes a tremendous difference with the whole remastering process and the results. Uprezzing VOY and DS9 are never going to look as good. So part of me thinks, "Why even bother?" At the same time, anything would be better than nothing.

It's been a long time since I really looked into any of this, but I wonder if the film sources for live action footage are still available. Perhaps as a compromise, those could be properly rescanned, and then all the effects shots could be upscaled. But that would still be cost-prohibitive, without enough potential return to make the project worthwhile for CBS/whoever.

Kor