First Look: TNG-R sampler disc cover art

Two weeks ago we reported on new details for the Star Trek: The Next Generation – Remastered project. Now comes the first look at the cover art for the upcoming sampler disc release. Full image over the jump.

Could TNG-R be officially announced tomorrow?

The Digital Bits’ Bill Hunt once again notes that CBS / Paramount may make the TNG Remastered project official tomorrow (September 28), which is the 24th anniversary of “Encounter at Farpoint”. The two-part series premiere is rumored to be included on the disc (in addition to “Sins of the Father” and “The Inner Light”).

TNG-R Blu-ray sampler disc cover art

Ahead of the possible announcement and/or preview trailer release, we also have our first look at what is likely the cover art [via TrekWeb] for the Blu-ray disc. The cover art was attached to a listing at Amazon.de for Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Level – A Taste of TNG in High-Definition. It’s not clear if this will be the cover art CBS / Paramount decides to go with for the US release. The Amazon.de listing also confirms the previously rumored episodes and lists a December 15 release date. The Digital Bits, however, says the sampler disc is expected to be released in early December in the US, "on or about 12/6".

TrekMovie will continue to track this project as further news is announced.


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Oh, so they’re going to draw the TNG Blu Ray improvements? Guh-reat………

What do you mean Mr. Ballz? I’m pretty excited for this in Blu-Ray! I’ll definitely pay the money hahahaha

Why in the box art the NCC-1701D backwards on the saucer.

The big question— if they could do TJ Hooker and Charlie’s Angels in 1.85×1 widescreen format, can they do TNG in the format? Were the original negatives widescreen or 4×3 and will they bother with the widescreen negatives if they are available?
It would be a huge selling point with many people…

#2

I was hinting that they were going to hand draw the improvements of clarity for the TNG footage.

Yes, I too will pay for this new version.

yeah, baby!

Only if they remaster the external ship scenes like they did in the TOS remastered edition. But you don’t need Blu Ray to enjoy a remastered edition. 480p looks good even today.

I don’t think any of the shows can ever be in 1920 pixels wide except for Enterprise. Unless they were originally shot with widescreen cameras, which they weren’t.

A few years ago I read something about how TOS and Enterprise were the only shows capable of HD. TOS because it had been filmed with HD equivalent cameras, and Enterprise because they were digitally recorded and filmed in HD. TNG-VOG just used regular SD film. Not sure what this will look like but I’m guessing it’ll just be upscaled to 1080p.

@3

Bloody hell mate good eyes there!

Better than that hair grip that Geordie La Bored wore!

Mmmwwwooooaaahahaha

;)

@3

Bloody hell mate good eyes there!

Better than that hair grip that Geordie La Bored wore!

Mmmwwwooooaaahahaha

;)

Ooooh I’ve cloned my comment.

Maybe one is wearing a little-bitty goatee beard!

Mirror Mini Me

@4 TNG was shot on 35mm film so widescreen is not a problem.

@7
Uh, there’s no such thing as “standard def film”
There’s 70mm, 35 mm (which is what TOS and TNG were shot on) super 16, 16mm, super 8, and 8mm.

35 mm film is 4k, so it is a much higher resolution than 1080p HD.
Here are some examples(courtesy of Doug Drexler)
(be sure to hit the zoom)

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/322823.jpg

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/283310.jpg

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/302516.jpg

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/341400.jpg

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/421509.jpg

I guess film school finally paid off!

:)

Can anyone confirm if the external/space scenes have been digitally redone? This would be selling point for me. I paid quite a lot of money for the TNG box sets a few years ago, It would have to be exceptional to justify the cost.

If I remember right, while TNG was filmed on 35mm, but the digital effects were only added to the SD crop and the final composite was stored as video. So for TNG to be 1080p, they would have had to remaster every single effect shot. Whether you see alterations or improvements as in TOS is anybody’s guess, but the must have had to re create them for a widescreen aspect ratio.

If the effects haven’t been redone, it’s a “no go” for me.

It’s the 10th Anniversary of ENT this week. Howabout an announcement that I can own that on Blu ray too?

Thank goodness they finally released the cover art for this!

3

Sounds like they flipped the shot of the Enterprise.
Would love to see how TNG looks on HD.

But I have heard the effects aren’t being redone. TNG is one of my all time fav shows so like to try it.

Make it 16:9, crop stuff if you must! Purists be damned, if you want to see TNG how it was intended to be seen then watch the SD DVDs, TNG was edited on video tape and you can be sure that all kinds of flaws will be visible in HD because they knew at the time they where making this for SD & small TVs and would not have envisaged it being shown in HD! The original intention by the creative staff was for TNG to be viewed in 4:3 SD so they already have their pure version out there. Lets get it cropped a bit and 16:9 (whilst opening the frame up a little with new picture info from the negative) and make it better for the audience of today who demand widescreen and those stuck in the past purists can watch the DVDs :)

The “1701-D” is backwards on the Enterprise. I hope they fix this on the release, I’d be hesitant to spend money on some sloppy release where they miss stuff like that.

I read that they’ll be using the original model-based effects shots and I support that! The TOS CGI stands out too much from the 60s footage. Some of those shots of the Enterprise in TNG are downright beautiful in 480i and I imagine they’d still look great in remastered HD.

Who the heck chose the episodes to release?! Encounter at Farpoint is acceptable being the first episode but most people aren’t nuts about it or the first season in general. Why not Best of Both Worlds, Time’s Arrow, Dese

The “1701-D” is backwards on the Enterprise. I hope they fix this on the release, I’d be hesitant to spend money on some sloppy release where they miss stuff like that.

I read that they’ll be using the original model-based effects shots and I support that! The TOS CGI stands out too much from the 60s footage. Some of those shots of the Enterprise in TNG are downright beautiful in 480i and I imagine they’d still look great in remastered HD.

Who the heck chose the episodes to release?! Encounter at Farpoint is acceptable being the first episode but most people aren’t nuts about it or the first season in general. Why not Best of Both Worlds, Time’s Arrow, Tapestry, Measure of a Man; the good episodes?! I can enjoy just about any TNG but Inner Light is the only one in the selection that’s “good”.

Don’t over think it #20, it’s just the release day, anniversary of TNG’s debut on T.V. in the states…most people would never remember the date those other episodes were released and then you would have them wait for those dates for release, not realistic for them to wait for for one of those dates, makes sense to coincide with the debut on T.V. But i agree the show took awhile to really find it’s legs.p.s- nice name:)

amazon should send a free copy to everyone who has purchased at least a total of 7 seasons of the ST franchises…

FLAKE! Why don’t you just you just use the Zoom feature on your TV to fill the frame and stop trying to sabotage the release for those of us with more common sense?

@20 – I suspect if they put all the fan favorites on the sampler that no one will shell out money for a full season. Besides, from what I’ve read the choices were actually very deliberate. “Encounter at Farpoint” is obvious because it’s the premiere, has a lot of effects, introduces Q, etc. “Sins of the Father” is an overall dark episode (in terms of lighting and scene composition) and I think the hope is to demonstrate how the HD upgrade brings out a lot of the hidden details of those sequences, plus it’s a popular episode and the start of the Klingon arc. “Inner Light” is almost the reverse…as the planet is dying, the light level increases and again it’s an opportunity to show what HD can do to the clarity of these sequences. It’s also a very popular episode, if not an action heavy storyline. I also like that they have included episodes that span the series, to some degree.

SO psyched about these! I just hope it’s not a big tease…

22 – I wish.

I’ve bought 24 seasons of star trek so far. That’s everything but Enterprise.

(With TAS would that be 25 or 26?)

Remastered TNG is intriguing, I’ll probably at least pick up the sampler to see how it looks.

I must laughing !!! 4 Years ago the most people say the new FX in TOS are a no go. And now about the new TNG remaster: “If the effects haven’t been redone, it’s a “no go” for me.”

Holy crap … THIS is a no go for me!

@3 et al.

Isn’t it obvious why the registry number is backwards? So you can read it correctly in your rear view mirror when you’re being pursued. :-)

Um, will they be airing it? That’s what I would like.

I sure hope you ‘Next Gen’ fans get a BETTER ‘remastering’ than was given to the Original Series ‘remastering, where effects are concerned! What an inconsistant, missed opportunity that was,overall.

I’m certainly interested to see how much effort they’ll put into these ‘Next Gen’ episodes eventually. Somehow, I get the feeling a lot of you are going to be underwhelmed.

28 – Unless they air/sell them as ‘specials’ CBS would need more episodes than this to sell into syndication. Even when they had whole seasons of TOS-R, the syndication package wasn’t shown at decent times in most markets.

Boo-yaaa! Getting closer and closer to DS9 on Blu-Ray!

RE: backward Enterprise. It’s probably backward to discourage counterfeiting. Of course, in Bejing that was probably released a year ago…

#31: “Boo-yaaa! Getting closer and closer to DS9 on Blu-Ray!”

that would be nice, but i doubt it will ever happen. ds9 and enterprise are the only two “new trek” series i would purchase on blu-ray.

this is a 4×3 show (square) and not widescreen (16×9). This is the way it was designed by the directer for each episode (Just like TNG, DS9, TAS, VOY). I don’t want to have peoples heads and feet cut off to force a square image on a rectangle screen. Putting this in 1080p is not an issue because that’s the hight of the screen and not the width. I will look great in it’s intended 4×3 format just like TOS-R does. I just hope they don’t do CGI with the outside shots and re-compose the model shots.That would be way more work and would cost alot more.

The quality of the existing TNG DVDs is pretty bad. Hope they are doing a remaster worthy of such a great series. If it’s just some sort of quick and dirty upscaling so they can call it BluRay, I’ll be sorely disappointed…

@18 FLAKE: I agree with you!.

I watch TOS Blu-Ray zoomed to 16:9. Most people I show it to don’t even know, All they see is a huge Enterprise on my 3 metre wide screen. And yes there is a bit cut off the top and bottom and that is the compromise but it looks great. I think I’ve watch nearly every STNG DVD cropped as well(al-be-it on smaller 16:9 TVs).

If they rescan all the original film elements including model footage for Next Gen and re-composite digitally with new effect overlays, converting to 16:9 won’t be a huge push. Also, when they are compositing they can vary the crop in each scene to reframe every shot quite easily.

Getting the film like resolution into the picture will be sensational. With today’s technology (remember its 5 years or so since they started the TOS HD-DVD conversion) it could be easier to do remastering then some might think.
I know I’ll have my order in to Amazon as soon as the link is set!

PS Anthony What’s happenned to the Polls?

How about a few on Next Gen Blu-Ray?
Suggestion, “If it can be done would you prefer Next Gen 16:9 or 4:3?”

Mike Okuda addressed a number of issues along the way when people complained about shots in the early episodes of TOS-HD. Maybe we could get our thoughts to the NG HD team thru TREK MOVIE again.

Hey, this is totally off topic but i’ve not been to trekmovie.com for a while but can anyone clue me in to WHAT THE CRAP IS GOING ON WITH THE MOVIE?

Thank you and apologies to the TNG Blu-ray crowd.

#38 YEAH!! Really.
As for TNG-R, please KEEP the original aspect ratio.
Re-scanning all those model fx elements? They’ll probably re-create them digitally- and that could suck worse.
(Just as long as they get those damn nacelle caps right….;)

Gad zooks, I can’t believe how many people want something like this CROPPED.

What is WRONG with you people? Do black bars bother you SO much that you think the answer is to CHOP OUT PARTS OF THE VIDEO FRAME?

I cannot wrap my head around that line of thinking; I honestly cannot.

Trailer is up at startrek.com

What little is shown looks GREAT!

Agreed! That little bit looked great. Interesting that Picard’s scene was in 4:3 ratio, but the Enterprise warping away was in 16:9. I wonder what aspect ratio the actual episodes will be delivered in?

new effects AND widescreen!

“CBS is, in fact, returning to the original film negatives, a mother lode of material encompassing 25,000-plus reels of footage, and editing the episodes together precisely as they were when they originally aired between 1987 and 1994. Visual effects will not be upconverted from videotape, but instead will be recompositioned. The freshly cut film will ultimately be transferred to high definition with 7.1 DTS Master Audio. And all of the work is being done in conjunction with respected, longtime Star Trekfigures Denise and Michael Okuda, who are on board as consultants.”

Good news all around. The fact that this isn’t going to be a simple uprez, and that Denise and Michael are involved is enough for a buy in from me. Kudos to CBS for doing this the right way!

I literally almost have tears streaming down my face I’m so excited. I’ll skip the sampler, but will preorder Season One.

I love Blu-ray, but to collect this entire series again isn’t worth the money to me.