Poll Would you purchase a legit remaster of DS9?

[Ragitsu]

Sounds to me you don't actually want a remaster. You want a rebuild that only resembles the original show.

Besides which, with the original film genuinely remastered for the latest HD format(s), you can finally update your avatar .

 

[Cryogenator]

I've seen TNG remastered and it looks worse than the original DVD release. It's so bright that it looks like raw footage that hasn't been given any post-production.

No, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s still the largest and most meticulous restoration of a television show ever, and the brightness and vibrant color is an accurate representation of the 35mm film. The dim, brown, blurry mess of the SD tape masters was the only way to see the show for so long that some developed a nostalgic attachment, but the remastered live-action footage is objectively better in every way (although the CGI could be improved).

 

[Tosk]

SD TNG:

HD TNG:

Ungraded HD TNG:

 

[Ragitsu]

Any LCARS shot comparison will do nicely.

 

[Gaith]

Your reasoning is flawed, given the show originally filmed on 35mm which inherently has more image data capacity than even an 8K digital image.

Er, we're talking the same size of film that went into disposable cameras (remember those)? You can point as big a microscope at a postage stamp-size bit of chemicals if you like, but at a certain point, you're not capturing actual detail, just random splotches. And, from what I've seen, the standard Blu-ray resolution of 1920x1080p. captures about 97% of the information a 35mm film still can possibly hold.

 

[Cryogenator]

The digital resolution equivalent of 35mm film varies based on film stock and preservation quality, perforation (two, three, or four), and format. Super 35 provides more detail since it expands the image across the whole frame, into what was reserved for the optical soundtrack before the advent of the digital soundtrack.

High-quality 35mm recordings with three or four perforations certainly contain at least 4K-equivalent resolution, and 65mm/70mm (five perforations) is equivalent to at least 8K (quadruple 4K) and maybe as high as 12K, with horizontal 65/70mm IMAX (fifteen perforations) having vastly more detail still (18K, or more than quadruple 8K).

Some films shot on cheap stock with two perforations (such as many spaghetti Westerns) might contain only around 2K (a quarter of 4K), and a lot of lower-quality 3-perf 35mm falls short of 4K. 8mm might be around 480p with Super 8 possibly being able to stretch to 720p. 16mm might be roughly equivalent to 1080p and Super 16 might be able to go as high as 2K.

All Star Trek shot on 35mm could be rereleased with real 4K detail. It would need to be rescanned at higher than 4K to capture the most possible detail for a 4K output.

 

[Ragitsu]

All are superior to 480i/p.

 

[Firebird]

Er, we're talking the same size of film that went into disposable cameras (remember those)? You can point as big a microscope at a postage stamp-size bit of chemicals if you like, but at a certain point, you're not capturing actual detail, just random splotches. And, from what I've seen, the standard Blu-ray resolution of 1920x1080p. captures about 97% of the information a 35mm film still can possibly hold.

Comparing apples and oranges - disposable cameras use vastly inferior lenses and film stock in comparison to Panavision cameras.

Professional 35mm film stock has a resolution somewhere between 8-10 megapixels. A 1080p image is only about 2MP, so it’s nowhere near 97% of 35mm.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Comparing apples and oranges - disposable cameras use vastly inferior lenses and film stock in comparison to Panavision cameras.

Professional 35mm film stock has a resolution somewhere between 8-10 megapixels. A 1080p image is only about 2MP, so it’s nowhere near 97% of 35mm.

If you want Archival Quality Digitization of 35mm film, you could go to higher quality Film-to-Digital Transfer Studios like these folks @ filmfix.

With their High-End scanner, they can extract more MP out of the 35mm film for Archival Purposes.
These folks says their top of the line scanner can extract 61 effective MegaPixels out of 35mm film.

They give you a 9,504 Px × 6,336 Px = 60,217,344 Pixels transfer.
That's very impressive IMO with the top of the line scanner that they have.

@ 16:9 Aspect Ratio, you would need 12K equivalent Display Resolution of 11520 px × 6480 px = 74,649,600 Pixels to contain all of that info on screen w/o cropping & a bit of Black Bars on either side.
The amount of Pixel data that a quality 35mm film could contain for Archival Purposes before Down Sampling for distribution is much higher than I thought.
It's not just 8-10 MP, it could be MUCH higher at ~61 MP.

 

[Gaith]

High-quality 35mm recordings with three or four perforations certainly contain at least 4K-equivalent resolution

Eh, theoretically, maybe, but the overall point is, we're talking a show that was almost entirely filmed on some rather gray sound stages. A 1080p Blu-ray level scan of the original film elements and upscaling for the effects should satisfy fans just fine. DS9 is a fine show, but even by TV standards, we're not exactly talking a monumental production of profound historical cinematographic achievement in the vein of, say, The Winds of War.

 

[Tosk]

I don't know why we're even debating how much detail can be gotten from 35mm. There's no denying that a properly rescanned and transferred DS9 would kick the shit out of the grungy old SD masters. Anyone who argued otherwise would be either sight-impaired or lying.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

DS9 is a fine show, but even by TV standards, we're not exactly talking a monumental production of profound historical cinematographic achievement in the vein of, say, The Winds of War.

if we are going to compare it to huge epic productions, no, DS9 doesn't match up. On the other hand, there are unique aspects that any faithful preservation should honor: the depth of cinematography that was captured on the huge Promenade sets (which were unique for weekly television) and the hybrid design elements, the mixture of Cardassian and Bajoran with Federation, which set it apart from the other Star Trek shows of the era.

 

[Outcast91]

I'll pay full MSRP any fucking day for those, lol.

 

[Outcast91]

Eh, theoretically, maybe, but the overall point is, we're talking a show that was almost entirely filmed on some rather gray sound stages. A 1080p Blu-ray level scan of the original film elements and upscaling for the effects should satisfy fans just fine. DS9 is a fine show, but even by TV standards, we're not exactly talking a monumental production of profound historical cinematographic achievement in the vein of, say, The Winds of War.

The same was said about TNG, but the remastered segments of footage show nice hues for flesh, colorful makeup, and imo, the coppery tone of the promenade shines in HD.
We glimpsed it.
It surpasses the DVD by miles, and would continue to surpass the DVD by miles.

 

[Outcast91]

If we can wait until the tech is mature, an AI upscale could actually be better than a remaster from the original elements.

The props they used for batleths were not particularly sharp, and why should they be? You want untrained actors swinging sharp blades around when you can’t tell the difference on the TVs of the day?

On the 85” set I have today, the bluntness of the props is quite apparent, even with the crappy video quality. A remaster from the original elements would make it even more obvious. An AI upscale, with humans overseeing the process to tell it that batleths should be sharp, can give us batleths that look like batleths and not like props.

Cheap props representing supposedly valuable merchandise are common in the series. An AI upscale, when the tech is mature, can make them look like what they’re supposed to look like instead of the cheap props that were used on set. I don’t really need to see Quark drooling over colored bits of plastic.

AI will always be a hatchet job, and not worth anyone's time to watch.
If you're sitting on 35mm film, do 35mm film. AI looks like dog shit.

 

[Captrek]

AI will always be a hatchet job, and not worth anyone's time to watch.
If you're sitting on 35mm film, do 35mm film. AI looks like dog shit.

Always?

 

[Outcast91]

Always?

At the moment, it can't even replicate human facial expressions correctly.
There's a lot of subtlety to those.
Wide shots lack the resolution, the preserve the actor's face, which is one of the most important things.
If you're starting with a 2k scan, AI is cool.
If you scanned at 4k, stepped down to 2k, then started enhancing props, I probably wouldn't care.
But if you're stepping up 480i with AI, and you're a studio, it's an awful thing.
Any idiot can take a dvd and upscale it, only the studio can rescan the camera negative.
If you're dipping below 720p, down to 480i or below, you're not going to get good results.
Diffusion upscalers aren't something I favor.
I've seen shots of ships that were enhanced via diffusion, I didn't mind that.
But if you're saying upscale 480i actors, AI can't handle eyelids, teeth or lip movements correctly,
I'm not sorry, for a studio to use it is unacceptable.

 

[Outcast91]

Always?

You also have this thing it does with skin where it generates these white hairs on the skin, neural artifacts are a terrible thing.
They struggle with hair, very badly, I mentioned eyelids.
Then you have aliens, some could wipe away Kira's makeup, or fill Cardassian prosthetics with holes where the Cardassian looks like they're made of Lava Rock.
Martok's face at a far of enough distance tricks the upscaler, and the teeth then merge with the face in an odd way.
Sometimes teeth fold through teeth like 4 dimensional objects, this is usually caused by jagged lines.
It can't eliminate checkerboarding artifacts or light bleeds that are from the tape.
AI is just all around a bad deal. Especially on older analog tape based scans.

 

[Outcast91]

It handles pholiage badly.
With Cardassian makeup it literally could trigger someone with trypophobia.

 

[Captrek]

You are describing the limitations of current technology.

You haven't seen what AI can do. You have only seen what it can do today.