The simple truth of the matter is if Paramount believed they'd make money of DS9 or Voyager in HD, they'd have already done it.
Why doesn't Paramount just use AI to upscale DS9 and VOY into HD?
- Thread starter The Rock
- Start date
Exactly. If sales of Blu-rays of TOS & TNG didn’t justify the expenses involved, Paramount would do better to just make a new show rather than update 14 seasons of old shows that people can still stream in SD anyway.
Really, the technology just isn't there yet. If Paramount thought they could upscale these shows for cheap and have it work, they would do it, but AI upscaling of live action is very hit or miss and requires a huge amount of human intervention and tweaking when being used with other methods to make something look decent. If you toss episodes of DS9 into Topaz Labs Video AI or any of the open source options like Hybrid with the RealCUGAN model, you are going to be sorely disappointed with the results no matter how much you play with the settings. Maybe in a few years it will get there, but we have a ways to go.
I think you probably assign too much motivation to Paramount. Paramount has had some execs that have taken an interest, but largely if it makes money they won't care if it's a series of Tribbles.
I also don't think it's unreasonable that if you're referencing past shows you go for what has the broadest appeal and knowledge outside of the core fan base.
A more potentially controversial view: NuTrek writers often wrote to the lowest common denominator and I suspect some of them were highly amused by fart jokes judging from some of the dialogue. They probably found DS9 too cerebral for them.
They could always go the Babylon 5 route and use the SD footage for scenes with composited effects. It wouldn't be as good as recreating those effects, but at least the majority of the footage would be true HD.
I doubt Paramount cares which shows the new shows reference, as long as their making money. This is stuff at the creator level.
Quite true, but there's a common misconception among some parts of fandom where it is believed all parts of a franchise are of equal financial (or cultural) value. They are not, and that's never been the case, especially with Star Trek. Its not a stretch to say DS9 and VOY are simply not as popular or desired to ST fans or to the general audience as TOS, which does not mean big profits.
They just need to show off more clips of beautiful re-rendered HD space battles, that'll get people to hand over the cash.
