This weekend is another repeat for Star Trek Remastered: ‘Devil in The Dark’. In honor of the event StarTrek.com has put up a wallpaper (in 3 sizes) of the excellent matte painting by CBS Digital’s Max Gabl. Click image below to go to their download page.
TrekMovie.com coverage: PREVIEW | VIDEO/SCREENSHOTS | REVIEW
I love that matte shot.
And CBS has embraced a “Star Trek: Digitally Remastered” brand name it seems. Anthony, is there any chance the good people working on this (Rossi, Okuda and CBS-D) will get official “credit” on the show at some point?
as i understand it, the closing credits will remain untouched. Any credits will have to wait for eventual DVDs. I have talked to the guys at CBSD and I plan on adding a full credits page for the team here in our speial TOS Remastered section. And I do try and promote the names of those involved as much as possible to give credit where credit is due…like mentioning Max’s name in the above article.
Darn, it isn’t as good of quality as I was expecting. It looks like screen capture quality :(
I think thats because they add grain in the postprocessing of their renders, so that it looks more “natural”. I don’t like it eighter, it’s the same with HD shots of BSG or most other series.
Lots of chroma noise in the 1600×1200 one.. thats kinda weird considering these shots were created to UPDATE TOS for HDTV (1920×1080) in the first place… if that is all the quality boost they are aiming for, they could’ve sticked with the original SFX shots after all. Maybe they scaled up a SDTV screenshot in this case, bcos the castle shot that was posted here before was decidedly sharper (and no noise at all). But then again, that one was probably the pure render shot not yet “adapted” for the live footage…
A straight CG effect probably would be much cleaner and sharper than a film image of live-action footage. They probably added simulated film grain so the new effects wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb.
Yeah that’s not just film grain, that’s video noise. It sure looks like someone at startrek.com blew up a PVRed recording of TOS remastered.
Here is my screencap resized for 1024×768, it looks much better then the one on ST.com as far as noise goes:
Some Corbomite Maneuver 1024 wall papers I did a few weeks back:
You can apply noise reduction to the noisy wallpaper.
(Note, this is for personal use only.
I do not advocate or intend any copyright infringement.)
Install Noiseware Community Edition for Windows (it’s free):
http://noiseware.com/download.aspx
(The Community Edition is the last download link on that page.)
Leave the “Noise Level Adjustment” sliders at 0%.
Set the “Noise Suppression” sliders to:
Luminance 70%, Color 100%
(my preferred settings for the 1600×1200 wallpaper).
Set the Sharpening slider to: -2
Press the “Go” button.
Save the file (for your personal use only).
The result is much cleaner than the original.
My comment is general, applying to a good number of episodes featuring ‘aliens.’
I would like a ‘middle road’ approach to alien digital enhancements.
Taking one episode as an example, after viewing the Horta in the updated clips, it seems that the original alien props, no matter how cheezy, will not be visually ‘replaced.’ I understand the reasoning behind this decision.
So, instead of entering into an “totally change vs. totally keep” discussion, I have a third suggestion.
Go ahead with keeping the original versions of, for example, Flint’s M-4, Nomad, the Horta, the psudeo Rastafarian Cocker Spaniel (“The Enemy Within” episode) and so on. However, do something with them; digitally add to, erase, airbrush…whatever the most laughable visual elements while retaining the prop’s overall original appearance.
Returning to the Horta example, the obvious, four human limbs moving under the horta prop are what make it visually cheap. So, digitally copy and paste, say, two of those intermittently buldging parts to two, additional areas of the prop as it moves (resulting in, for example, three moving budges per side.
GRAtRez
My goodness. Why can’t Startrek.com give us some high quality pics of the new remasterd shots?
I’m really bothered by the lack of care they seem to give the franchise these days – this even extands to the reamstering effort, as impoved as it is, I thin kthey really went cheap initially.
#11 seangh, check out the rest of the startrek.com wallpapers — they still believe that ST:ENTERPRISE airs on UPN Friday night’s at 8:00pm.
Is there any wonder that trekmovie.com has become the place for up to date news and info?
Greg – Yeah I know. Startrek.com is badly managed, lowbudget and seems to the last to know about anything ST.
Like always, it’s the fans that keep these franchises alive.
I watched Devil in the Dark last night for the first time in 20 years. There seems to be chunks of this episode missing.
Does anyone know what was excised to make room for diet pill ads?
As much as I love Star Trek and I think the picture quality is fantastic now they have finally cleaned up the original slides. The 3d Generated Enterprise feels somewhat Jerky on TV, it also looks TOO GREY and does not have that bright friendly glow of the original model. Now if they had gone to the Smithsonian Museum and said “Please can we borrow the original Enterprise”, then put some modern day special effects on top of it, such as lighting and the odd touch up, some new planets and star fields, That would have made a far superior improvement to the show. I hope one day in the future, that becomes a reality. 3D Graphics are good, but the ones used in the Enhanced Star Trek, would have made a great remake of the Animated series, but are not good enough to replace solid objects in the TV series. The 3D enterprise is a BIG let down, but the new generated planets and other effects whilst on the planets (such as in the Menagerie with the little flying shuttles in the windows/background) are excellent. It would be great if they would release the original series on DVD with the original special effects, all touched up and perhaps the odd bit of improvement, without changing the enterprise to the point where it looks like a toy from a computer game, instead of Starfleets finest method of travel.
#15..Unfortunately the Smithsonian Enterprise you refer to is has been horribly restored a few years back, and no longer resembles the TOS enterprise at all. It’s really a shame…
As far the way the Enterprise looks, the first few remastrered episodes were definately lacking in some CGI effects, especially the way the ship looked. But happily they have greatly improved upon this in later remastered episodes.
In January, when they begin releasing the next remastered episodes, you will see a great improvement in how the Enterprise looks and moves on screen….
Merry Christmas!
Mike :o)
Startrek.com has posted a number of New Remastered Wallpapers:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/store/downloads/desktops.html
Question: “Why is “The Menagerie” featured as the episode this week?”
The airing schedule and site refer to “Mirror, Mirror” as next in order – – unless the wallpapers do not plan to “mirror” the next upcoming episode? Or just a mistake.