Comments on: Full Details On Star Trek Season Two Blu-Ray Set

By: The Weary Professor

The Weary Professor — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:07:09 +0000

My youngest daughter is at cheerleading practice, so I might as well do my own cheer–Hooray for the job CBS did on the Season 1 Blu-Ray set, which I’m now watching through for the 2nd time. As I said someplace around message 28, the classic show has never looked this good. It really is like seeing it for the first time. I cannot wait for the Season 2 set to come out.

By the way, it still seems strange to an old-timer like me to say CBS while refering to NBC’s Star Trek.

By: Sean4000

Sean4000 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:21:27 +0000

God I hope they give the job to EdenFX. Their work on These Are the Voyages was astounding!

By: RD

RD — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:34:16 +0000

#108, my example is not flawed. I was very clear that Seinfeld was a “less complex” show. TNG & Seinfeld are no different except that TNG requires rescanning and compositing of numerous elements whereas Seinfeld likely required no compositing at all, plus some limited CGI fx. SInce CBS is already prepared for CGI exteriors with Trek, I would expect almost all compositing to be replaced with more updated CGI, which will also likely be cheaper, but either way, preserve the investment for the future.

There are three obstacles:
1) money – as it will cost considerably more than Seinfeld
2) time – it will take longer to do and to pay for itself (Seinfeld allegedly took between 4-12 months to re-conform the negatives)
3) TNG may not have kept as copious notes to make re-conforming the negatives quicker, which could result in a much more expensive and time-consuming eye-balling process of matching edits.

Since CBS has been shopping the project to various post houses and have conducted some tests, we know they are interested in doing it. It is merely a matter of when. Like Seinfeld to Sony, the TNG era shows are equally as valuable to CBS.

I suspect CBS is going to take a good long look at the purchases of the 4 Blu Ray TNG films over the next few months and the holidays. If the numbers are sufficiently high, I would expect CBS to at least start the process in some way.

By: Matt Wright

Matt Wright — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:44:11 +0000

107 — You realize of course the flaw in your example of Seinfeld is that it required zero visual effects, so it was just a matter of rescanning the 35mm film and regenerating the title text/graphics.

By: RD

RD — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:18:28 +0000

#106 – It WILL happen. Just a matter of time. Other less complex shows like Seinfeld have already done it. More than Likely CBS will wait until the costs go down and profits begin to fall from the lack of demand for syndicated SD programming. If they don’t remaster the series, they might as well throw it all away to save storage costs for all the profit it will earn them over the next 40 years.

FYI, the only difference between the TOS-R and TNG shows, is that in addition to restoring the footage it must be re-edited. Some of the vfx shots will have to be re-composited as well. It may actually save costs and look better to CGI all the vfx rather than re-assemble and re-composite all the model footage. If anything the re-editing is child’s play, patient, pain-staking child’s-play, but a relatively simple conforming process none-the-less.

By: raffie

raffie — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:28:58 +0000

#104 Yes it remains an interesting issue, and the more I think about it the more I see what a monumental underatking it would be to have to go back to the originnally filmed footage and completely redo every episode of TNG/DS9/VOY. I mean, the TOS remastering project almost looks like childsplay compared and it does make me wonderf if we will EVER see a great show like TNG in HiDef.

By: Andreas -horn- Hornig

Andreas -horn- Hornig — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:22:31 +0000

hi, I’m a huge DS9 fan and would really like to see the complete series in hd, but I think that will merely happen, because they did a lot of stuff directly on video. so this special epsidoe will be one of few examples how to transfer som episodes into real hd.

and Star Trek: TAS was already broadcasted in hd on AnixeHD in Germany in 2007, because Anixe directly does transfor from film for their programmes.
http://www.hdtvtotal.com/module-pagesetter-viewpub-tid-1-pid-1037.html
unfortunally the aspect ratio is 4:3 and AnixeHD cropped it into 16:9 (that HD aspect ratio) and so some details are missing :(. but it looks quite good for an animation and for an animation of that age :).

greets, Andreas

By: Magic_Al

Magic_Al — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:16:56 +0000

I would wager the first Berman-era episode in HD would be a simpler one than “Trials and Tribble-ations”. The live-action composites would make it one of the most expensive episodes to do compared to one that just cuts between live action and space and just has some phasers and transporters here and there.

Although… a way to cheat it would be to claim artistic license in leaving all the 1960s/23rd Century-style shots in SD and only have the 1990s/24th Century-style shots in HD, sort of a Wizard of Oz thing. Have CBS Digital reuse their Trouble with Tribbles Remastered assets to replace the model photography, and there you go, quick and dirty DS9 HD.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:03:29 +0000

@Anthony Thompson – 101

Amen to that! I’ve been wanting these for a very very long time.

By: capnjake

capnjake — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:22:52 +0000

So awesome as i have said on other threads involving season 2 of trek on bluray. I was hopeing we would get trials and tribulations as a bonus feature on this set. Nice to see it is being included and is in HD at that. very exciting.
will be nice to see the crew of DS9 in HD (even if its just one episode)