Comments on: UPDATED: More Details For Paramount’s Star Trek Blu-Ray/DVD Comic-Con Promotional Plans

By: Paramount wants a photo of you and your Tribble | Video Buzz

Paramount wants a photo of you and your Tribble | Video Buzz — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:04:41 +0000

[...] celebrate the release of the second season of the original Star Trek on Blu-ray, Paramount will be handing out free Tribbles at the San Diego Comic Con. Not only that, but they are asking people to upload digital photos of [...]

By: Star Trek (TOS and TNG) Blu-ray dvds. | Tech Monkey Trek

Star Trek (TOS and TNG) Blu-ray dvds. | Tech Monkey Trek — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:21:01 +0000

[...] clued for Paramount and CBS announcements at Comic Con, where news about new Star Trek Blu-ray and DVD sets is happening. Trek fans can enlist at [...]

By: RD

RD — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:03:25 +0000

#47 – yes that is the “normal” work-flow. What I’m talking about is what may have been necessary to produce one episode with extensive cutting-edge CGI at the time. Unfortunately he did not speak to how Trials & Tribble-ations was handled despite it being mentioned in the interview. What my theory suggests is merely substituting higher def D-5 for Digital Beta for the one episode, otherwise the process is identical.

What interests me in that article were his comments on HD in 1998:

JW: I did some extensive research before doing my project. I compared 16mm blowups to 35mm, with digital high-def transfers to 35mm. And I was overwhelmed with the quality of the high-def images, when projected in the theatre on film. I couldn’t tell the difference. They were actually sharper and had less grain than the 16 blowups. If cost is a factor, Sony is doing some wonderful work with transfers from Beta SP and DigiBeta to film. I’ve even seen Mini-DV cam transferred to film, with surprisingly good results.

By: Son of a Maui Portagee

Son of a Maui Portagee — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:34:17 +0000

#44. You are welcome.

#45, & #46.

Here’s what the director of Photography had to say:

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/community/chat/archive/transcript/1403.html

“We shoot on 35mm film … Eastman 5298, ASA 500. The film is developed and immediately transfered to digital Beta tape. The rest of post-production is done on tape. The negative is never cut and is stored. It’s edited on an AVID and then the on-line master tape is on Digital Beta.” – Jonathan West (Director of Photography), ST:DS9

By: RD

RD — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:21:15 +0000

#45. You may well be correct with respect to the final vfx and non-CGI elements, but I seriously doubt they were able to use interlaced video of any kind in order to composite the old footage with the new so effectively. So at least part of it was done outside their normal workflow. What I take from that article is that this single episode exceeded their usual episodic pattern budget in a number of ways. They brought in different people and processes all the way around to accomplish those things which were not part of their usual workflow. This included paying a double cast covering all of the TOS cast member’s appearances and likenesses. If any of the TNG era episodes exist in a higher resolution format, even in part, then this is it.

But I am fully expecting an SD transfer for the so-called extras.

Either way, if CBS were going to move ahead with re-mastering some of these era episodes, and we know they have been doing tests, I would think this would be one of them. Then again, I wouldn’t expect them to give such an effort away for free as an “extra” either.

By: Matt Wright

Matt Wright — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:17:36 +0000

43 — Well they may have used the same film stock, etc. to film it initially, but it still doesn’t answer how they edited it for air. I have a feeling it was done in their normal workflow, which would have been on professional grade video tape (480i).

By: CapnJake

CapnJake — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:18:23 +0000

43 thanks for posting that,

By: Son of a Maui Portagee

Son of a Maui Portagee — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:06:47 +0000

#41.,

Here’s what David Gerrold told the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/st/interviews/gerrold/page3.shtml

“They used the same make-up from thirty years ago, the same lenses, the same lights, the same lighting, even the same film stock, so that when you go back to that it looks identical and it matches perfectly to the original Star Trek footage.

Then they did a new master of the original Star Trek footage to get an absolutely pristine copy and it looked perfect. It looked so good that the studio decided to remaster all of the seventy-nine episodes for the DVDs. All in all I think it was one of Paramount’s best ideas.” – David Gerrold

By: CapnJake

CapnJake — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:28:49 +0000

you know what would have been a cool thing to have included stictly as an extra feature on tos original series the deep space nine trouble with tribbles cross over epsiode.

By: RD

RD — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:17:21 +0000

Correction. The more I think about it, the more I think these are the likely scenarios (most to least likely):

1) Combined TOS & DS9 footage only in HD, everything else in SD
2) TOS era scenes in HD, DS9 in SD, Ext. & vfx in SD
3) All live action in HD, Ext. & vfx in SD
4) All film in HD, vfx in SD
5) Entire project finished on HD

If any of the project was finished in HD, the most realistic scenario I would hope for is at least all of the TOS era scenes were conformed in HD before being combined with the DS9 SD scenes. This means it could have a Wizard of Oz sort of effect where entering the 23rd century emerges one into HD. Like the TOS project, all that would be required is new CGI graphics, most of which have already been created for the original.

The only reason I have any hope this might be the case is that it took so long to release the Second season on Blu-ray. Personally, I would have tried to release all three seasons before Christmas, so the delay seems somewhat odd to me. Then again, I’m sure we would have heard something about this leaked out.