With a COVID-19 related "Trek drought" coming, is it time for CBS to crank out remasters?
- Thread starter eschaton
- Start date
I don’t see it happening unless Disney buys CBS.
That was my positive face.
ViacomCBS does have 2 animated series in the works and nowadays animation is the only thing can still be in production in Hollywood:
https://www.inverse.com/entertainme...-season-1-release-date-trailer-cast-canon/amp
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-c...sis-has-created-a-big-opportunity-189911.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/animation-covid-1.5562552
ViacomCBS could also work on some animated short treks.
There the optimistic view Trek fans are known for.
My understanding is they have ordered a third animated series for quick turnaround, from the studio behind Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures.
I am not used to see the words "animation" and "quick turnaround" in the same sentence.
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.
"ghetto HD"?
Amazing how it can figure out hair strands and those notches in the tricorder. I cannot deny some individual frames look astonishingly good.
If not... "artificial".
Upscaling AI is not perfect, those close-up scenes overall still look far waxier than - to compare - the excessive DNR used in STVI-TUC's Blu-Ray, which even took away blobs of smoke... So many textures ironically have been rendered flat and almost cartoony; pancake batter with excessive unsharp masking. Look at the uniform the EMH wore, the quilting and fuzzy texture is nonexistent and is just as flat. Close-ups on faces are a macabre joke with amazing hair detail but pancake batter skin and uniforms with oversharp eyes yet mud flat eyebrows. Seven's lips still have the red videotape bleed artifacting too. What's worse, I can't even make a parallel to "today's CGI vs 1950s pie plate hung from a string" since even the pie plate can look suitable realistic whereas this "AI" looks too surreal. But I did find a more relevant comparison:
The computer is just simulating, like fumbling around in a dark room at 1AM trying to find the light switch while hung over. It's made a few hits but quite a few misses. I can't really damn the process but there's not much to praise. Especially when the original material still exists and should be preserved before the vinegar effect starts to set in (so they still have a decade or so before the risk of it hitting the proverbial fan renders any problems higher.)
I've played with the like and while the software does have some positive compensations, it's still far from complete and is also arguably a cheat. Especially given the original negatives exist. One piece of software used for still images in tandem with Photoshop, which has "AI" in the title as well, does a better job than scaling within Photoshop alone but telltale signs of trickery are still there in doing a post-processing comparison of scaled original material to AI-enhanced. The fact they still looked genuinely sharper at scaled-down resolution after the enhancement was still telling where the AI is still having problems in one area or overcompensating elsewhere. (I used a HD film image from TNG and a download of a B7 episode still frame from the 4th series. The latter was more impressive in a couple areas. I expected far more out of the close-up of the 170D hull but it was just waxy pancake batter without MPEG noise from the screencap. But it did recreate the Aztek patterning somewhat decently. It's a fascinating mixed bag.)
All in a ll, for a show like Doctor Who, which was shot on VT to begin with, this technology seems more suited.Given it was on VT then transferred to film (where detail is not added since one is copying 405 line interlaced material rather than filming directly onto the sets...), meaning the end result looks remarkably well - if not better. But 90s Trek wasn't shot on 404i, 525i, or 625i VT. Or even 16mm film. Some details can never be enhanced (e.g. police box pull to open door text) and I suspect there was some AI enhancement being done on those blu-ray releases and they do look great compared to the DVD...
In other words, there's a lot more going on here than wanting a cheat. Especially with film rot being "a thing".
Computer animated "anime" that reuses audio from existing series and films doesn't take that long to produce.
My varied thoughts:
- I finally bought a blu-ray player when the first season of TNG Remastered came out.
- Because of the recent talk of how "Demolition Man" foretold modern-day coronavirus concerns, I sat down to rewatch my DVD copy on my new OLED tv. I was shocked how poor it looked. Time to upgrade to blu-ray for that one.
- I think DS9 and VOY in HD will eventually happen. I don't really understand why it hasn't so far with all the focus on maximizing streaming income, but I guess that is why I am not a TV exec. In the meantime, someone should start an internet movement to get some billionaire Trekkie (I don't know if there are any, but out of Gates, Musk, Cuban, etc, there has got to be one) to fund the upgrade. What would one of those guys care about dropping 100M on the project?
- I finally bought a blu-ray player when the first season of TNG Remastered came out.
- Because of the recent talk of how "Demolition Man" foretold modern-day coronavirus concerns, I sat down to rewatch my DVD copy on my new OLED tv. I was shocked how poor it looked. Time to upgrade to blu-ray for that one.
- I think DS9 and VOY in HD will eventually happen. I don't really understand why it hasn't so far with all the focus on maximizing streaming income, but I guess that is why I am not a TV exec. In the meantime, someone should start an internet movement to get some billionaire Trekkie (I don't know if there are any, but out of Gates, Musk, Cuban, etc, there has got to be one) to fund the upgrade. What would one of those guys care about dropping 100M on the project?
It did? All I remember is people making jokes about how the three seashells used in bathrooms in the movie was a result of the toilet paper shortages experienced during these Corona Times.
They didn't recoup the costs of remastering TNG. Since DS9 and Voyager are less popular than TNG, it's understandable why there's hesitation to sink that kind of money into remastering them.
There was one who donated a few million to give Enterprise a fifth season back in 2005. Nothing happened.
Yeah, the whole "no physical contact" - no kissing, no physical sex, air high-fives - Huxley (Bullock) says rampant socially spread diseases was one of the major downfalls of the old society.
And yes, toilet paper shortages early on in the shutdown was often referenced as a portent of the three seashells.
Oh, and video calls - but that is hardly unique to Demolition Man's view of the future.
It has been awhile since I last saw that movie. I think ten years, and that was catching it on TV during early morning hours on an insomnia riddled night.
Plus, there are may be rights issues even within the Trek IP the fanfilm makers didn't concern themselves with that could be a problem for a commercial release.
Heh heh heh. Seep and underwear in the same post. Heh heh heh heh. Heh.
