With a COVID-19 related "Trek drought" coming, is it time for CBS to crank out remasters?

[eschaton]

Just an errant thought:

We know that the third season of Discovery/first season of Lower Decks are in post-production, even with the public health emergency, with people working at a low level from home. But like much of the rest of film and TV, the release schedule for everything following is now shot to hell because the shooting schedules have been pushed back.

Thus this strikes me as a good time for CBS to revisit remastering DS9, VOY, and maybe even ENT. I know the remasters are a time-consuming process. Someone needs to go through all the film, find the "real cuts" from the episodes among all the bad takes/deleted scenes, and then entirely new VFX need to be pasted on top. However, this is something that could be done by one person at home - albeit in a very laborious fashion.

It seems to me that this might be a valuable thing for CBS to do at this time, allowing them to roll out remasters (even if in a piecemeal fashion) while we wait until some time in late 2021 for new content.

 

[Lord Garth]

ENT is already HD-ready, which is why it's on Blu-Ray... but I do think they should upgrade DS9 and VOY to HD. It's silly that everything else is HD and then you have two Star Trek series in the middle that aren't.

If nothing else, more people might want to check out VOY, thanks to Seven of Nine being on Picard. And maybe some Orange Is the New Black fans might want to watch Kate Mulgrew's other series.

 

[NCC-73515]

They might focus on Lower Decks and Prodigy now, cause they're easier to do from home

 

[DEWLine]

One person at home? For VFX do-overs?

Neighbour, you want this done well, never mind done right, you're gonna need a not-so-small regiment for this. Granted, CBS can find and hire them, set them up with hardware and net pipelines sufficient to do their shares of the work from their respective homes. I bet it's going to take at least as long to get even one season of any of these series re-mastered as to wait out the development of a safe and effective vaccine.

Not saying it shouldn't be done, though.

 

[NCC-73515]

The whole team at their homes. Certainly much easier than live-action stuff where you need sets, costumes, makeup, actors, cameras, lights, etc.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

You’re more likely to see them commissioning a third (but quicker to turnaround) animated series, than a remaster of DS9 or Voyager. They could write, voice record, animate and edit it from home.

 

[Commander Richard]

I'd think that having everyone work from home would stretch out the project and make it more expensive. Don't know if they want to do that.

 

[The Wormhole]

It still goes back to the fact that remastering the 90s shows is a very expensive and involved process. It's not something that can be crapped out by people working at home during a lockdown. And ignoring that, TNG's HD remastering ended up not being profitable at all, and it's a far more popular show than DS9 or Voyager. And it was done in an era where there was no new Star Trek onscreen aside from one movie in 2013. With production at various stages on three live action shows and two animated shows, it makes far more sense to focus on those than it does to revisit two shows from over twenty years ago just to make them pretty by today's standards.

 

[Visitor1982]

It would take several years to remaster DS9 and VOY to HD.

Also, there simply aren't enough people buying them.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The remastered samples from the DS9 Documentary whetted my appetite for more!

 

[USS Firefly]

The remastered samples from the DS9 Documentary whetted my appetite for more!

I have whetted myself for more remastered DS9!
No wait, that didn't come out right, I Just want more remastered DS9

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I have whetted myself for more remastered DS9!
No wait, that didn't come out right, I Just want more remastered DS9

 

[F. King Daniel]

I reckon they should mail greenscreens and iphones to everyone and do bizarro lockdown one-man-show Short Treks

 

[Captain Moe]

I think in the economic climate that will proceed after C19 is done CBS will be even less likely to want to invest the money needed. It’s such a shame for the cost of a couple of new episodes we could get DS9 remastered, for the cost of a couple more we could get Voyager as well.

I am watching the TNG set at the moment and the achievement of what was done was absolutely staggering.

 

[eschaton]

It would take several years to remaster DS9 and VOY to HD.

Also, there simply aren't enough people buying them.

I'm not talking about DVDs, I'm talking about new exclusive content for CBS All Access. They have to provide SOMETHING for Trekkies who otherwise aren't interested in the service to keep them enrolled. You can just watch any other Trek on Netflix or Amazon Prime after all.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm not talking about DVDs, I'm talking about new exclusive content for CBS All Access. They have to provide SOMETHING for Trekkies who otherwise aren't interested in the service to keep them enrolled. You can just watch any other Trek on Netflix or Amazon Prime after all.

It would be easier and more cost-effective to make a new animated series instead of remastering DS9 or VOY. The interest just isn’t there.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm not talking about DVDs, I'm talking about new exclusive content for CBS All Access.

It would still take several years, and that's in optimum conditions, which we're not in at the moment. Really, that time's better spent working on new content than it is revisiting shows from twenty years ago.

 

[Lord Garth]

I keep thinking they'll do some ghetto HD version at some point. "Look at this upscale we can do with this scanning technology that's become cheap for us to do! It practically does the job itself!"

"But it would look terrible!" Of course.

 

[eschaton]

I keep thinking they'll do some ghetto HD version at some point. "Look at this upscale we can do with this scanning technology that's become cheap for us to do! It practically does the job itself!"

"But it would look terrible!" Of course.

Someone's been posting 4K Voyager mockups to Youtube:

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[Lord Garth]

Someone's been posting 4K Voyager mockups to Youtube:

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Yup. I've seen those. That's why I think CBS might give this a try some day. Obviously it would look better if they scanned film negatives but, as this is, it actually doesn't look bad. I played it on my 42" TV and I could live with it.