Windows? He is probably using DOS.
With a COVID-19 related "Trek drought" coming, is it time for CBS to crank out remasters?
- Thread starter eschaton
- Start date
Windows? He is probably using DOS.
This. The investment just isn't profitable at this point in time.
Someday I'll understand the cry for the HD. Until then, DVD for me.
I don't understand the "they wouldn't make money off of the remasters." No one buys DVDs anymore anyway - I was talking about some new exclusive content for CBS All Access - which IMHO is kinda important given you can for some reason watch any Trek series (including TOS/TNG remastered) on Netflix or Amazon Prime).
If you want Trekkies to stay subscribed 12 months out of the year, you need to have something which makes it worthwhile. Otherwise lots will just cancel between series.
If you want Trekkies to stay subscribed 12 months out of the year, you need to have something which makes it worthwhile. Otherwise lots will just cancel between series.
Speak for yourself regarding DVDs. Still prefer physical format to streaming.
Also, it's a cost benefit analysis to this investment. And, thus far, it doesn't look like they see it worth while.
I hated DVDs. I haven't had a standalone player in like 15 years. I used to watch them on my computer, but it got more and more difficult with the anti-piracy codecs. Plus so many DVDs were slow to load, and often had those un-skippable promotional trailers at the front. My kids still watch DVDs sometimes on a portable player, but it's so much easier to browse and click directly on the episode I want which exists on the cloud somewhere.
Different strokes. Still have a DVD/VHS combo player.
I'm slowly getting onboard the streaming train, but I hate the idea of changing services and them removing content that I prefer, i.e. when contracts change.
Pretty simple, really. They didn't make money off the TNG remasters, and it was a more popular show than DS9 or Voyager.
But at this point, they're not really making money off CBS All Access in general are they? My impression has been that almost every show is a money-losing proposition to them to date, until they build up a more substantive subscriber base. I mean, Neflix can't make a real profit on streaming, why would CBS?
And? If people aren't subscribing to CBS All Access to watch remastered TNG episodes, they aren't going to subscribe to watch remastered DS9 or Voyager.
But aren't the HD-remastered episodes of TNG available everywhere? Physical Blu-ray disc as well as multiple streaming platforms (from CBS All Access to Netflix to Amazon, etc.)? What if Trek remastered became an exclusive to CBS All Access (or whatever the product morphs into this summer with the "relaunch" or rebrand or whatever)? CBS seems to have decided that Trek is their crown jewel and they want to provide a plethora of content for their streaming service to lure in the Trek fans. What about mining their existing library and giving everything a 21st-century makeover in addition to pumping out new series? This could not only apply to DS9 and VOY, which haven't received any attention, but the feature film library, too. I feel like there's opportunity to keep "fresh" Trek content coming without having to spend as much money creating and producing 100% new content.
It's still going to take several years to do and therefore not a solution to any kind of Corona related "Trek Drought."
Completely honest? I'm a decades-long fan of Star Trek, and I watched the shows on "normal" television for years. Than I dropped normal television in favor of Netflix and other VOD services (because they switched free tv over to DVB-T2 here, which requires a monthly fee for all but the state run public stations), started to rewatch TNG on Netflix ... and kinda questioned my sanity because I could have sworn certain things (especially CGI) looked different then I remembered. That's when I found out that they had the remastered version. But I didn't know that beforehand, and if someone had wanted to entice me to get a Netflix account, "they have the remastered version of TNG" would have warranted a shrug and an "that's... nice?". I really think that some fans seriously overestimate how much interest there is for remasters even among fans, and how much of a draw the promise of better graphics actually is for most people.
Those who stream should stick to CRTs; all the frames being removed and compression, and converting a progressive signal to interlace to free up bandwidth - okay, the image is still better than DVD but it's still weaker. The fact blu-ray discs look sharper and with more color detail than 4K streaming says it all.
Blu-Ray is to the 21st century as to what Laserdisc was in the 1980s-90s. A niche, high-end format for collectibles. And VHS existed at the same time, as well as leased TV viewing via cable as well being the norm. It also costs less when all is said and done, though most people are spending more per month on all the gear needed to stream as opposed to a cable setup.
Blu-Rays are still sold nowadays but go for $40 to $50 per title instead of the $20 to $30 they used to. TNG at $80/ season was a flippin' steal given all the remastering work put into it. Many of us would have paid the MSRP of $120. Many people bought the DVDs at MSRP, which had a few bonus features but nothing big compared to other shows whose seasons at the same time were less to purchase.
Bingo. What doesn't sell on blu-ray gets streamed as HD. And while streaming isn't as good as the physical media (higher compression, frame removing, et al to reduce bandwidth requirement) , again - it's not rubbish as far as end result looks. The combined sales vs streams would make up for the cost in a not-terrible period of time. HD streaming is big and will be. Heck, most of us have the blu-rays of all existing Trek shows and would still stream for convenience. I'd be more inclined to stream if they were to do the remastering. And given all the streaming services out there, people are going to choose one or two max and not do all of them because the costs to stream are higher than cable to begin with, and each additional service only ratchets up the total difference in cost of what amounts to renting.
The feature films - many look solid on blu-ray, even if some had too much DNR applied. They still look far better than DVD and SD streaming.
For me this is the case. Thus far I have yet to feel that the improvement of graphic is substantial enough to warrant my investment. Yeah, I'm slow to change at times, mostly because "substantial improvement" is a large threshold to cross in terms of money. And, quite honestly, I'm rather fatigued at the idea "It's just better, OK!" argument rather than a demonstration.
I dunno. If material is able to be at genuine HD then make use of it. Especially as film - as we all know - suffers from slow disintegration over time, "the vinegar effect". Yes, it's not cheap. I'll spare a tangent and stay on this point for once: If people are balking over this they'd be genuinely far more surprised about other things. The tangent would make your heart sink, anyway.
The graphics improvement is substantial to the point the adjective "radically" can be used legitimately, especially in a show whose sets and costumes are clearly more steeped in color and pattern than any other in the Trek franchise.
Otherwise, why did anybody bugger off to the store to get an HD set to begin with? To watch 3rd gen VHS copies of a show only to bicker without understanding why the picture looks so much worse on a 60" screen?
Image processing-dedicated microchips (or GPUs -graphics processing units, why not) in the TV only go so far, and depending on make and model there's not much of any of that. So quick everyone, get that 8K set - just to watch 480i (which is a magnitude lower than 1080P, never mind the analog-to-digital conversion.)While the industry has known about the vinegar effect and other issues - at least Trek wasn't filmed on nitrate film stock:
https://www.realclearscience.com/ar...yndrome_is_decaying_classic_films_111405.html
(But don't read it, it's genuinely depressing stuff... so here's an excerpt:
And another:
)
So it's a lot more going on than even that...
(On edit: Grammatical and sundry clean-up/content modification not affecting the points in this post.)
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No clue.
