Video Of Trek Remastered In Widescreen

As we have reported, CBS is future-proofing The Original Series by creating all the new effects for Trek Remastered in 16:9 widescreen and HD. Although CBS affiliates are broadcasting only in SD (where all effects shots are cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio), many episodes are now showing up in HD on the XBox Live download service.  Due to a fluke of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing at CBS, these XBox Live episodes include the widescreen effects shots mixed in with regular 4:3 live action shots. I have been told this is not how the TOS-R team want it to be shown, but it does give us a glimpse of what Trek can look like in widescreen. So for your enjoyment here are some clips of TOS-R WS.


Opening Title (mov | avi)

 

 


Naked Time Teaser (2 ws shots) (mov | avi)

 


 


Naked Time Open (ws shot mixed with standard shot)(mov | avi)

 

Big TrekMovie.com thanks to David C. Fein (producer for the ST: TMP Directors Edition) for making these caps for us. Check out David’s regular podcast at 2LiveFools.com.

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Well, I’d rather deal with aspect-switching than cropping.
(Anyone see “Brainstorm” in it’s original release?
If it worked for Doug Trumbull, it works for me.)

Fascinating.

Hmm.

I am thinking about the whole filming process for TV productions in that day.

I winder if there is a different type of 35mm film that is shaped like 4:3 or if they used “wide” camera-like 35mm film. if they used the former, then the show should forever be in 4:3, no cropping for 16X9 at all. if the latter is true, then we have a totally new ball of wax on our hands. It means that Star Trek, TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voy have had a wide screen ratio from the start that we have never seen due to editing.

I am warming up big time for the new FX big time. But throwing away film and scene recomposition is totally unacceptable and does the franchise no justice. I still think Eden and DTS could have done a better job from the start but CBS IS getting better.

Ach, even if they had a wider 35mm film shot, every frame would be composed for 4:3. I’m all for widescreen, but that seems like it’d be pretty ugly.

I’m pretty sure the fullscreen shows were shot in that aspect ratio to begin with. A director wouldn’t shoot in in 16:9 knowing it was going to be shown in 4:3. It would mess up his vision for the shot. None of the shows were pan and scan, because they were shot in 4:3 to begin with.

I am totally digging the widescreen shots though, they look beautiful! I wish they’d broadcast it this way!

Even if they were wide, composition would be a key factor in story telling. True.

Enterprise was the only Trek besides the movies where 16X9 was considered from the start. Season’s 1-3 and all 10 films were shot on 35mm film wide ratio. Enterprise’s 4th season was shot in 16X9 high-def video.

Since true 16X9 High Definition is 1920×1080 then True 4:3 High definition would have to be 1600X1080 and that is what I feel TOS, TNG, VOY, and DS9 should be mastered in.

The original motion picture film was 35mm with a 4:3 ratio, the film running with the sprocket holes along the sides. This is 90° rotated from 35mm photographic film with sprocket holes along the top and bottom.

There are also sound tracks on each side, taking up a bit of the available surface area.

Altogether, I don’t think there is anywhere near enough exposed film to pass for 16:9.

Man, we’ll need a miracle upconvertng from that negative if we are ever to have High Def TMP. Not that TMP was anything great IMO but, still.

I have used certain cameras where the film is identical to 35mm photographic film orientation and there are no sound strips. Of course this was on modern day equiptment where sound was digital and carefully logged. That obviously did not exist back then.

Seriously, they NEED To call DTS Images and have them do a miracle on these films. Now there is no excuse.

I really, really wish the sound wasn’t deleted from any of the clips or FX reels that are posted here. Silence completely sucks the life out of moving pictures (even silent films had musical scores). Sound is needed to give the shots presence and weight.

This is completely off topic but I just realized that they show 2 episodes of TOS remastered here every weekend!………..Just felt like bragging I suppose, did not have anything to contribute on topic……………….oh god i have become like all the “others”

Hey guys,

First of all I would like to say that I am EXTREMELY grateful for Joe putting up these wonderful clips, but could we PLEASE have some with sound?

I’ve thrown together a couple myself but we DONT get remastered Trek up here in Canada eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6PrHmyDt14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpJufG0VsuY

It’s exceedingly difficult to judge the effects without that classic TREK sound.

Once again, however, I DO genuinely appreciate the efforts made by this website.

EXCELLENT JOB!

idk, the cut between aspect ratios is a little jarring. it kinda makes your mind go from “ahh enterprise orbiting planet… nice” to “whoa! … oh it’s just Kirk.”

i dont really find it that jaring. i think id like to see an episode shown this way.

If we were watching those clips in high-def, we’d be hard-pressed to complain about anything, aspect-rations be damned.

Looks like we have another issue to be split over folks…

If there is to be a 16:9 “widescreen” version, I say great…I for one would love to see a cinematic looking aspect version, cropped or not…but I personally could NOT watch a “switching” of aspect ratios back and forth between 16:9 and 4:3 during an episode, that would just “take me out” of the episode and be too distracting. “Brainstorm” only used it as a device to enhance the experience of the “Memory transfers” if I remember Dr Image, and it was used sparingly and worked “ok” in the context of that particular movie’s plot. But as ever, I will agree to disagree!

Oh, and a huge thanks again to those responsible for all these wonderful preview videoclips for us all to scrutinize.

Many thanks.

By the way Anthony, can you please clarify if the TOS-R Team don’t like the XBox Live service screening the mixed ratios because they’d presently rather the WHOLE episodes to be show all in WIDESCREEN THROUGHOUT or 4:3 THROUGHOUT ? I’m curious which it is. Thanks.

The widescreen looks gorgeous, but it does make the oddity of the Enterprise trajectory more apparent.

In the old show, you got the feeling that the obvious curve to the trajectory was a useful attempt to communicate to a less sophisticated audience that “It’s in orbit … it’s going *around* the planet, not past it.” But to a bystander close enough to see the Enterprise without a telescope, the orbital path looks like a straight line, just like standing when you stand on the ground, the surface of the earth looks like a flat surface. It’s too big to see the curve, unless you’re very very far away.

As depicted in these scenes, the Enterprise trajectory is a tight circle, or a momentary turn, with no indication of how or when it will straighten out and “orbit” properly.

I’m surprised the jump between the ratios doesn’t seem to bug me. I think in the darkness of outer space it’s less jarring, but the shot of the ice planet where it’s mostly white, it might be more of a jump cut. Maybe on those shots they will make the side bars be white for a second and have them fade to black. Still pretty cool. I just wonder how long before we can get computers to add the remaining sides to a scene so that when an actor goes from 4×3 ratio he/she can be digitally walked off into the 16×9 ratio?

I like the widesreen images, but dont want to loose any of the original image, what does the CBS-dig team want to do? I think they’d be pretty aware that any cropping of the original image is going to case an outcry…so because of the potential image loss, im all for the aspect ratio switching, i dont find it jarring at all.

When I was watching “How William Shatner changed the world” All of the shots from the original series appeared to be in “widescreen” or 16X9 format and it looked really good!! Did they simply crop it or did they do something else to accomplish this. Why can’t our friends at CBS digital do this?? I am in no way an expert on this issue. Just thought I would point it out.

This topic seems a bit premature if you ask me…

We are shown some very low qualitiy “video bites” from youtube.com, that in no way represents the massive improvement in picture quality that the HD/widescreen format will bring to TOS, and then people are writing comments regarding this new format….

I think this will be an interesting topic a few years from now when Star Trek TOS fans have the HD Widescreen DVDs in their posession, and the HD Widescreen TVs to play them on….

Mike :o

Guess this is one of those opinion things. I think the whole widescreen thing is silly, and Tony, I have to disagree: on my HDTV I don’t insist on widescreen; I insist on high-quality, unedited material. It’s bad enough that nitwit content providers like HBO crop and/or do pan-and-scan…IMO taking parts of the image AWAY does not make it better, no matter the shape.

GIve me 4:3.

Well the widescreen would explain why some shots look so badly cropped IE-The extreme closeup of the Botany Bay and the Enterprise “alongside for 10 hours now” scene will look amazing with the WIDESCREEN uncropped.

SPACE SEED was definately the high point of the remastering thus far.

Well done boys.

I think they should crop the HD effects, so that they remain the same aspect ratio as the source material, and it doesn’t change while watching. I have done test encodes of 4:3 and 16:9 material together, and the 16:9 material looks great, but once the 4:3 material shows up, BAM! The black bars appear right in your face. It is much less noticeable on all-4:3 material. Of course, you could crop the 4:3 material to be 16:9, but then you’d lose part of the image. If you don’t care about losing the image, practically every widescreen TV comes with a zoom option.