CBS D did screw up on these CG scenes why spend all that procesing power to render out that many more pixels? I do 3dcg and man the little bit extra on the side HURTS render time. And COSTS via a render farm. So CBS D is basicly throwing $$ away for the US market.
In the end whatever. :p HD optical is tainted with drm, least the gits are using HDDVD which is region free and accualy uses modern codecs.

Of course, this doesn’t fix the real problem with the HD-DVD/DVD release of TOS: Remastered, which is the in-bloody-sane price of $217. (Mr. Hunt actually credits you, Anthony, with discovering the price (and also mentions that the price was the joke of the Comic-Con from that point forward)…

Thanks for the interesting link… first I’d heard of a rumoured SIMOULTANEOUS widescreen release along with the 4:3 standard version, but won’t hold my breath for it being true…

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showpost.php?s=04ed347ebdc1f91d2f01defd6e074f0f&p=3126856&postcount=657

No cropping, please, leave the 4:3 television masters ALONE.

Please, please PLEASE read what I’m saying!! When 2.40:1 cinema films and 16:9 films are cropped to 4:3, this is done so at the expense of the composition of the original shots. The films were shot in that aspect ratio and use all the available frame as they are intended for cinematic viewing.

When we shoot 16:9 in ***TV***, we still have to shoot in at least ‘14:9 safe’ and sometimes ‘4:3 safe,’ in other words creating a sort of null zone where there’s picture that can be comfortably removed without wrecking the director’s and cameraman’s work. Indeed, the director and cameraman compose the shots for the very eventuality of different exhibition. In my line of business, failure to shoot with the safety area intact can lead to hefty reprimands.

For years, 14:9LB has been the compromise aspect ratio on UK terrestrial TV, allowing viewers to watch 16:9FHA material in LB with thin lines at the top and bottom of the screen. However, the material can also be arc-ed to 4:3 with acceptable results.

In the case of Star Trek and Man From UNCLE, to name a couple of old shows, it was the other way round. The directors were shooting open matte with a 16:9 safety area. This meant that all shows could potentially appear in cinemas. In other words, the composition of the shots is not compromised by the cropping to 16:9 . . . the shots are composed for usage in multiple aspect ratios in the first place.

Cinema and television are wildly different media, no matter how much the lines are blurring these days! Movies are usually shot with the usage of an entire frame in mind. TV is shot on the assumption that programmes may be seen in other formats in other territories, meaning areas of ‘null’ space are left to fill a frame if shown in a different format.

Japan choosing to use the widescreen masters is simply making an decision based on the fact that widescreen is the way things are going there. Hopefully the European release of TOS:R will be widescreen as well.

Now, they want to cut off the top and bottom of the image just to fit it on a 16:9 screen? I don’t care if the new FX are in 16:9 — the rest of the show was originally intended to be on 4:3, and all of the scenes were framed to fit 4:3. The 16:9 ascpect ratio will cut out things that the creative team wanted us to see. Are we going to leave it up to some 21st century video technician to decide what the original 1967 director thought was important to keep in frame?

Doing this is just as bad as cropping the 16:9 movie to fit a 4:3 TV. Maybe next someone will crop the Mona Lisa, so all we see is her face and enigmatic smile.