Poll Would you purchase a legit remaster of DS9?

[Bad Thoughts]

This guy pretty much said they had those film scanners within two weeks and set up shop.

Dave Zappone has been talking about the problems with Paramount this year based on difficulties he has had this past two years getting just remastered clips. No one helped him from the archives. No equipment was available to check the films. No one offered to scan them. Nothing got done.

 

[Outcast91]

Hence why I'm saying fans who care and want these should probably write to Paramount on the link I provide.
It might help. Best one can do.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

That brings up interesting questions for discussion:

What TV or movies have you owned on DVD (or VHS) and then bought BluRays?
And is there anything that have you thought about replacing when BluRays were available but then decided against it?

I have replaced:
Downton Abbey seasons 1-2, the sets and costumes look much better
2001 A Space Odyssey
But i'm a Cheerleader!
Apollo 13
Lord of the Rings
the Harry Potter movie collection
Clueless
The Devil Wears Prada
several of the Bond films
Singing in the Rain
The Wizard of Oz

Probably 20+ movies I replaced DVD's with blu-rays and maybe 5-8 I had VHS, DVD and BD. I didn't have anywhere near the number of things on VHS that I do on disc now.

 

[King Bob!]

If it had happened ten to fifteen years ago, probably. I own both TOS and TNG remastered. Now? I just don't know? Might pick up the first season just to support the project.

 

[Ragitsu]

If it had happened ten to fifteen years ago, probably. I own both TOS and TNG remastered. Now? I just don't know? Might pick up the first season just to support the project.

I purchased a complete TNG Blu-Ray box set. Was the HD remaster of either TNG or TOS initially released/sold season-by-season?

 

[Tosk]

That brings up interesting questions for discussion:

What TV or movies have you owned on DVD (or VHS) and then bought BluRays?
And is there anything that have you thought about replacing when BluRays were available but then decided against it?

I've replaced pretty much my entire collection several times. From VHS to LaserDisc* to DVD to Blu-ray. The collection gets a little bigger each iteration. Current count is...let's just say it's in the multiple-hundreds and leave it at that.

*LaserDisc was never my full collection, it was more of a "the best of the best" supplement to VHS. And then DVD came along and made both collections redundant.

Was the HD remaster of either TNG or TOS initially released/sold season-by-season?

Yes.

 

[tomalak301]

I would love a remaster, and to replace my broken packaging that didn't survive after the first few years. I know it will never happen though, especially with the issues Paramount is dealing with currently.

 

[Outcast91]

I would love a remaster, and to replace my broken packaging that didn't survive after the first few years. I know it will never happen though, especially with the issues Paramount is dealing with currently.

www.paramount.com/contact-us
If you want, write them here.

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If Paramount is hard up for cash, I wonder if we could crowdfund them 100,000 bucks for two film scanners.
DS9 started at 150k, and got 650k for it's documentary, and Voyager asked 150k and got 1.2 million for it's' doc.
I wonder if we just crowdfunded them two film scanners, if that might help Paramount get the ball rolling lmao.

 

[tomalak301]

If Paramount is hard up for cash, I wonder if we could crowdfund them 100,000 bucks for two film scanners.
DS9 started at 150k, and got 650k for it's documentary, and Voyager asked 150k and got 1.2 million for it's' doc.
I wonder if we just crowdfunded them two film scanners, if that might help Paramount get the ball rolling lmao.

I am very hesitant about giving money to anything associated with Star Trek considering what happened with the Voyager documentary.

 

[Firebird]

If Paramount is hard up for cash, I wonder if we could crowdfund them 100,000 bucks for two film scanners.
DS9 started at 150k, and got 650k for it's documentary, and Voyager asked 150k and got 1.2 million for it's' doc.
I wonder if we just crowdfunded them two film scanners, if that might help Paramount get the ball rolling lmao.

Historically, studios don't take crowdfunded offers like this for restorations. It's been attempted several times for movies owned by Warner Bros and United Artists/MGM to no avail.

Besides, Paramount's got a fantastic in-house archival preservation and restoration team led by Charlotte Barker, so they've got the equipment. She discusses the projects being done by the team regularly on her podcast Perf Damage.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Does anybody have any clue how well TNG ReMastered sold?

 

[Outcast91]

Does anybody have any clue how well TNG ReMastered sold?

It's a matter of perspective as to whether it was a success.
But it did underperform.
There are reasons for that, but in 2013 terms, it's widely believed that it's under-performance stopped DS9 and Voyager from getting upgraded.

 

[Tosk]

But it did underperform.

Or more specifically, it underperformed in terms of studio expectations. Which I acknowledge is the only metric that ultimately matters when it comes to further projects, but we just don't know how much it actually made.

 

[Outcast91]

Does anybody have any clue how well TNG ReMastered sold?

So, studio numbers were 5.5 million for the first season in a few days. No hard numbers were ever provided after that.
I have my critique of some of what Bill Hunt said.
Assuming the cost of both are 34 million, then Paramount needs enough buyers at least to clear 102 million dollars, probably closer to 115 million dollars. Any profits help, even the people looking for discounted sets, but I feel that 204,000 me's (People lacking in common sense, aka Suckers) are needed to get a greenlight, lol.
Let's say the investment cost to remaster a single season is 2.5 million dollars.Then each round of boxsets (along with digital markets and streaming) needs to produce around 7.5 to 8 million dollars per season.Assuming the market cap for home video is 35 percent, and this is a rough estimate, then each show needs to profit at the very least 56 million dollars in total to justify remastering. Home video needs to profit around 39,200,000 based on current market metrics.
Streaming has to literally cover the other 80 million, or Home Video needs to produce the actual profits, and make streaming look like a supplement.
So, if 204,000 fans got together, and committed to buying (2x 250-300 dollar bulk boxsets), then that would make streaming look like a supplement. That means about 30 people have to be working around the clock tracking down film negatives. Then you need humans to supervise reassembly, ideally using iConform, along with VFX artists and the Okudas.
ROI, 115,000,000 USD (Studios usually want 3x their return on investment at the box office to greenlight a sequel; I'm assuming that's a universal rule?)
2.5 million to remaster a single season14 seasons total
If the US domestic audience cares, you need 204,000 people.
I'm 1 extremely committed buyer.
If you can get globally to 420,000 people it would double to around 230 million bucks ideally...
So USA, Canada, UK, Japan, Australia and the tiny tiny market in the PRC that cares.
If you can target a bulk boxset at 250 bucks or 300 bucks and if you can get an 120 dollar digital bundle
(iTunes, Microsoft, Sony, Google, Amazon and Vudu), that means 3 of those buyers equals 1 collector.
The final market is syndication, and Streaming.
TNG failed for a number of reasons, double dipping that early in a premature market killed that product.
TNG's original DVD offering looked awful, and honestly all around set it up for failure. That remaster also had to compete with Netflix, and most viewers want okay HD not perfectly excellent HD.
Most people die in their late 70s and mid 80s (which sucks), but I would argue pricing a single season over 85.00 (which is already pushing it) is universally setting yourself up for failure.
People gravitated toward netflix and the cheap option, but the fan commitment, and nostalgia factor has to be worth that investment.
So, in an ideal world you'd balance things...will ideal ROI (IR) = Reality (r).
The question is, can (r≥IR)?
That is the question.
Other than rumors from 2023 on DS9 and Jon Van Citters at least entertaining the idea, we're not gonna know until we see something if ever.

 

[Outcast91]

The silver lining for DS9 and Voyager?
DS9 attracts people who don't usually watch Star Trek and is a critical darling, even lacking the pop culture appeal (It has pop culture and meme appeal despite that.)
It has 3 million fans constantly from the 90s to present somehow if the data I've seen is legit. 204,000 people would be a good potential domestic sliver.
They'd probably love a nicer presentation from a newer film scan.
It has that going for it. US, Germany and the UK love DS9.

Voyager? Sex appeal, to 90s guys, and a constant fandom of about 6,000,000.
It was also more popular internationally. That means it would probably sell pretty well too.

Finally, better presentation means better numbers could be attracted, and DS9 might be your vector into attracting some of those new people.
Not unlike what DISCO was supposed to do.

 

[Tosk]

My only hope these days is that the new owners might feel like it's not good business to let the last two SD-only Treks languish in such poor condition comparative to the rest of the franchise.

But I fear it's been too long and we'll only get an artificial upscale. One which will sometimes look pretty good, and sometimes look awful. And will be a less-comprehensive job than the best of the LaserDisc preservation projects. (I don't even dare to dream that they would approach the one that is using many multiple LaserDisc copies to get the best quality possible. But if they were to properly convert the original masters we'd still be a step ahead of the DVD-era transfers.)

 

[ananta]

If Paramount is hard up for cash, I wonder if we could crowdfund them 100,000 bucks for two film scanners.
DS9 started at 150k, and got 650k for it's documentary, and Voyager asked 150k and got 1.2 million for it's' doc.
I wonder if we just crowdfunded them two film scanners, if that might help Paramount get the ball rolling lmao.

Oh dear Prophets, I’m not giving them a penny. If they’re hard up for cash they maybe shouldn’t have given $16 million to Trump.

Im not crowdfunding a thing. I’d rather give money to worthy and worthwhile charities.

For now, I’m content enough watching DS9 upscale on my blu ray player (and with my TV colour, saturation and brightness settings appropriately adjusted it actually looks pretty good for the most part).

 

[AntonyF]

The cost isn't the equipment, that can even be rented. It's the labour costs. It's time intensive to not just scan, but then recompile the exact components and do special effects.

And the prevailing thinking is that TNG didn't do well (as described above) and it was by far the most commercially successful Trek. And DS9 and VOY moved more into CGI so that it's not just redoing the film it would need new CGI work.

If they wanted to derisk it they could take pre-orders and say it'll only happen if they receive x orders, a bit like a Kickstarter. But I don't see these things happening.

Let's hope... one day...

 

[Outcast91]

The cost isn't the equipment, that can even be rented. It's the labour costs. It's time intensive to not just scan, but then recompile the exact components and do special effects.

And the prevailing thinking is that TNG didn't do well (as described above) and it was by far the most commercially successful Trek. And DS9 and VOY moved more into CGI so that it's not just redoing the film it would need new CGI work.

If they wanted to derisk it they could take pre-orders and say it'll only happen if they receive x orders, a bit like a Kickstarter. But I don't see these things happening.

Let's hope... one day...

Yeah that's true, I crunched those numbers afterword.
So, I'll only probably buy something from Paramount if it's remastered DS9 or Voyager.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

A glance at the Vinegar Syndrome catalog shows how some companies will remaster old movies and TV shows with less commercial potential. The problem is Paramount's lack of vision and rapid contraction.