If you doubt BD will only remain an enthusiast’s format, then hear the reasons why. By your own admission, BD only benefits screen sizes over 40″. You’d be surprised how many people know this and how many have TV’s under that size. This was not the case with the VHS to DVD jump. DVD benefited every TV in the world. No sooner had DVD come about, manufacturers were soon talking about stopping making VHS machines. I was forced to scrap my tapes because I couldn’t even buy a decent VHS player and, more importantly, because my tapes were wearing out with use. Something optical media does not suffer when kept clean and scratch free. Asside from that, DVD impressed the hell out of me…..something BD hasn’t managed to do. I will also be able to buy a DVD player for the entire life-span of BD. VHS also never had something like upscaled DVD to extend its life with. Toshiba and Oppo have invested fortunes in upscaling technology….and it works. It is a fine half-way house between bog standard SD and full on HD. For people with sub-40″ screens, upscaling is a godsend.

My TV is 32″ only because I live in a quaint little English cottage…anything more would be ghastly for my sitting room. THAT is why I upscale my DVD’s…..BD is wholly impractical for me and many others like me. It has got nothing whatsoever to do with how much money I’m prepared to spend, or how much of a fan I am. I flew from the UK to Sydney Australia JUST to watch the Star Trek XI premiere……if you want to judge how much of a fan I am by the format of my Star Trek collection, feel free……but you will just make yourself look foolish.

I’m honestly sick to my back teeth with BD fanboys such as you. I can understand you want the public at large to jump on board, as it will lower the price of BD’s for you and other early adopters, but that is NOT our responsibility – so please stop acting like it is. It is YOU that chose to back an enthusiast’s format over the dominant market leader…….not us. We are quite happy with what we have. And despite your 2X better to 5X better argument, if I had £1 for every time I heard someone say that the jump from DVD to BD is no way near as impressive as that from VHS to DVD, I’d be rich. Your numbers may be a fact….but MANY people just don’t see it in practise. Again, sitting distance, screen size and many other factors play a part. Whereas I never met a single person that wasn’t blown away by DVD when it came along. Fear not, though, an enthusiast’s format can happily live alongside the market leader and see many releases in its life. Just be prepared to pay for the *privilege*!

Markus McLaughlin / linuxglobe @ twitter.com /
marknetproductions.wordpress.com / Hudson, MA, USA

53. Ensign RedShirt – March 23, 2009
TNG, DS9, and VOY will very likely never see the light of day in HD. They were shot on film but unfortunately were mastered onto SD video, unlike TOS which was mastered on film and was all set for the HD era. Enterprise was mastered in HD so that’s probably on the way sometime in the future.

AHHH! TNG HD, DS9 HD, and VOY HD is easily possible. Just read the link below.
http://www.dvdtown.com/messageboard/topic/8274/3/0

82. Matt Wright – March 25, 2009
P.S. Double sided DVDs are considered a huge liability to companies. They are harder to produce and crack easily, since it is basically gluing two single layer DVDs back to back. Since the widespread availbility of double-layer single sided DVDs most studios have shied away from them.

Plus, they’re evil. I hate double side discs.

52. toddk – March 23, 2009
It would have also been a neat idea if the sets would have included a peek at what TNG, Voyager and DS9 would look like in HD, (Just short clips) to generate interest in possible future plans regarding the jump to HD for the rest of trek.

Heck yeah! That would rock.

The one and only thing that would keep me from buying this set is knowing that’ they’ll probably release a ten/eleven movie set in the Fall. I always wanted the ten movie DVD set, but I already got some of the films by the time the set (with all special editions) came out. May wait to get that movie set rather than this one. Anyway, thank you Paramunt for not hiding the theatricals away forever. Maybe put both versions on so there’s a choice, however.

P.S. Double sided DVDs are considered a huge liability to companies. They are harder to produce and crack easily, since it is basically gluing two single layer DVDs back to back. Since the widespread availbility of double-layer single sided DVDs most studios have shied away from them.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trek-Original-Complete-Remastered/dp/B001S3GDTK/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1237963625&sr=1-5

#30 — Wow I’m really sorry you didn’t know that Blu-ray players are backwards compatible. It wouldn’t make any sense to produce players that can’t play DVDs (which aren’t going anywhere, any time soon). The player manufacturers generally have gone out of their way to make sure people know it plays DVDs too. Maybe with Blu-ray catching on now they’ve stopped emphasizing it as much.

As TrekMovie’s resident home theater enthusiast, when it gets closer to the boxed sets being released I’ll have a Blu-ray article or two to help people who are interested in buying a player.

#63 — Right but seamless branching in the DVD format was sort of a hack and caused all sorts of issues with older players and even with some newer players it still makes quite a pause while it branches. One of the biggest improvements in Blu-ray (and HD DVD too) is that the specs require it buffer ahead of what the user is watching currently. Making layer change hickups and seamless branch hickups a thing of the past.

#70 — There aren’t new TOS-R DVDs. Only a Blu-ray release. Paramount already released the 3 seasons of TOS-R on DVD in 2007 and 2008. The information is at our newly updated TOS-R portal page: http://trekmovie.com/tos-in-hd/

- Nostalgic G.

Star Trek: The Home Video Saga now at: http://www.treknostalgia.blogspot