New details on TNG Blu-ray project

In July a report surfaced that CBS had started to begin work on remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD for a Blu-ray release in 2012. Now comes news that the 4-episode sampler disc may be released this December.

TNG-R sampler disc this December?

According to The Digital Bits on September 28 — which is the 24th anniversary of the show’s first broadcast in 1987 — CBS may officially announce the Star Trek: The Next Generation – Remastered Blu-ray sampler disc. Digital Bits further reports that the disc is likely to be available in the U.S. in early December, “on or around 12/6”.

As previously reported, CBS is expected to roll out TNG in Blu-ray during 2012–the 25th anniversary year. As Digital Bits reported earlier this month, the four rumored episodes are the two-part series premiere “Encounter at Farpoint”, the season three episode “Sins of the Father” and the season five episode “The Inner Light”.

LeVar Burton tweets about TNG-R

Last week TNG castmember LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge) tweeted the following message attached with a picture of the gate to CBS Television City confrming that the project is well underway:

"Stopped by to see how the TNG conversion to HD for Blue Ray was coming along… #mindblown #bydhttmwfi "

Watch Star Trek episodes online

TNG is currently available streaming through Netflix, along with "Star Trek (2009)" and four other Star Trek series: "Star Trek"; "Star Trek: Voyager"; “Star Trek: Enterprise” and “Star Trek: The Animated Series”. “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” will become available on the service October 1. Only ‘Enterprise’, “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: The Animated Series” are available in HD. Star Trek series and movies are also available through Amazon.com’s Amazon Instant service.

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

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Just wondering- many series were actually filmed in 16×9 widescreen format and cropped for network TV. TJ Hooker went back to the negatives and created HD versions for HDNet- will TNG follow suit if the widescreens are available?

Yawn….1st

HdNet or wherever it was i saw the series,,,

2- At least have something to say when you post…

Can’t wait.

Love to see new effects for TNG! Not to mention hi-def.

Heard about this a few days ago.

What I’m hearing is you may not be seeing new effects so much as hi-def photography and wildly improved compositing.

I wonder what the cost would be to remaster every eppisode from all seasons.

The effects were done in standard def, so they have to be redone. No choice.

10 – Not quite, the effects were filmed, just like the live action. The COMPOSITING was done in standard def.

Some of the model space-shots I would think would still look good. Other effects never looked good…

But even HD with no replacement of effects will still be a heck of an improvement…

I agree Obsidian. I don’t expect or need a full cgi treatment like they did for TOS-R. All model photography was done on 35mm and should look great with HD compositing! gone will be the ‘jaggies’ around the Ent-D from Farpoint! Obviously any minor effects rendered back then on video will be replaced.

1. TNG was filmed on 1.37 35mm. Not widescreen. There are very lengthy discussions of the amount of film used for the final 1.33 presentation, but the show was not filmed in 1.78:1

Regardless, the composited shots and opticals were created for the locked 1.33 frame.

T.J. Hooker was not opened up, it was cropped for the HD broadcast. I have both.

Better late than never lol

There are conflicting sources about whether or not the FX elements are still available on film…some sources say if they even existed they are lost. From what I can tell, the most likely scenerio is that the film of STNG was never “mastered”, meaning only the live action footage exists, not the FX elements.

When they release sets first you release the conversion to blue ray. Next the blue ray with bonus features, after that we’ll see the enhanced sfx. Long ago when TNG came out I did not really like it. After a while it grew on me, Voyager was the one I had trouble getting into. Enterprise was alright, but I think they should have went out into the galaxy with good intentions, wreak some planets and interfere with everything and then come up with a Prime Directive. When the explorers set sail long ago, they went and wreaked most soceities they ran into. I think some where along the way humans would need to be humbled and realize everything does not need to be like human cultures.

RAMA that is interesting, but I would like to hear the final word on if the model footage exists. I find it hard to believe that they would have converted it to video and thrown out the footage and negatives. There was a lot of money invested in that work and from my years at Paramount I can tell you, not much was ever discarded. I am assuming that Paramount took posession of the 35mm film from the fx and post houses that worked on TNG and subsequent series.

So would the TNG BluRay be 4×3? or 16×9 with the black bars?

unless they crop the top and bottom, it would be traditional 4×3 pillar box

Craiger that would be black bars on the sides, for those using a modern widescreen tv.

So is TNG getting the TOS style makeover? Updated visual effects, etc etc?

I wish they would be able to do all TV shows, movies and even commercials in 1080p or at the very least 1080i 16×9 and no black bars.

It seems unlikely to me that effects are being updated… Okuda said he hadn’t been involved a few weeks or more ago … It sounds like recomposite or uprez… I hope for née effects or recomposite… We shall see.

They have a ton of work to do. The dvd’s look very, very bad.

Nice to wake up to trekmovie news in the morning!

Glad to hear this is really happening- the dvd video transfers are pretty bad- lets hope they can take some of the magenta out of seasons 1 & 2?

The original 6ft model they used for the first 2 seasons was beautiful, movie quality so much so they re-used it for “Generations” & that footage deserves remastering & recompositing but It would be great if they could substitute the Chunky pasty 3rd season 4 foot model they started using with a digital replication of the 1st season model.

“New” Not “née”

Then there is this…but does “all the footage” mean FX as well?? http://postfifthpictures.com/2010/02/the-editor-answers-daryl-baskin-star-trek-tng-editor/

What took you so long Trekmovie?

Is the sample disk going to be free? Or are the going to sell it?

Trekboi – I’m sure they will do some color correcting and judging from Levar’s reaction we will all be blown away by the never-before-seen clarity of the original footage. I am really looking forward to that.

I’m sure it will reveal some production limitations like TOS-R did, showing Nimoy’s coffee stained shirt etc, but that is part of the fun!

I would love to be surprised with new enterprise fx here and there, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

Good link RAMA, I’ve been following your thread on TrekBBS, it’s really worth a look for everyone! I’m 22 Stars there, so I’m sure we will talk :)

25. Yes the ILm footage is good but limited…there’s a lot of Post Group and Image G footage that is not up to the standard or resolution of the other FX. Anything that ILM didnt shoot is probably not on film…meaning every other FX shot since the Pilot basically.

What about using the same CGI used in the Star Trek 2009 reboot movie for TNG Bluray? Imagine the 1701-D with that CGI.

17. I think my answer in 32. is probably the most likely answer.

I am eager to find out the lenghts CBS can go. Craiger, unfortunately a remaster to that extent would cost a lot of money, and take a lot of time.

Not sure if I’ll get the show on Blu-Ray until the price comes way down.

Anybody else notice they misspelled “Geordi”?

Sadly, this project is likely to disappoint. I predict it will again be carried out right at the corporate “sweet spot” of “How little money can we SPEND on it?” and “How much money can we CHARGE for it?”

CBS/Paramount, when it comes to Trek on homevid, have mastered finding the exact intersection of those two axes. And shame on us – myself included – for allowing them to do so, again and again.

The Original effects were simple but nice by todays standards & don’t need that much work but it would be nice if at least the Enterprise was Consistant.
They used 2 main filming models throughout the series that didn’t match.

They used a blue/grey 6ft model for season 1 & 2 then they started using a chunky, poorly detailed grey 4ft model that was easier to film but was given chunky surface detail to add “scale” by someone (obviously a fan of the Star Wars Star Destroyers) who didn’t realise it would actually do the opposit & show it was a plastic model.

I was hoping they would use a digital model, still hope they still use one to redo the shots with the chunky 3rd seson model with a digital replication of the model made in the first season

@4 I did, but the yawn covered it up…and some one beat me to 1st LOL
Any way, TNG isn’t worth the effort.

A rather detailed articcle on the actual FX editing:

http://reocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1116/sfxartcl.html

Looks like it was being done on digital video…at least after season 1-2.

To quote:

Star Trek: The Next Generation does all of its visual effects on video tape, unlike the original series which posted on film. The reasoning behind that decision is that “Peter Lauritson, Bob Justman, and Rick Berman thought that (video tape effects) would be faster,” states Robert Legato, Visual Effects Supervisor. “Bob Justman worked on the original show and they had a lot of problems with delivering on film.” Legato explains that, “You have a built-in turn-around with the lab. You would do one shot and then have to wait for the next day to see it. If it was wrong, then you would have to wait a whole day to see it again., They said, you have to come up with a faster system. Tape was available. They didn’t know much about it, but they knew THAT was the way to do it.” And, “the way” was to go with The Post Group.

39. STNG is the most watched (ad rated), most award winning and best ST series…of course its worth it.

cool news!!!!!

It was posted on video, and phasers and other elements added digitally, but the ship work was always filmed as far as I know, I could be wrong but don’t think I am.

All the behind the scenes footage of them shooting the models always shows a 35mm camera shooting them.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, like many shows of the 80’s and 90’s was shot on 35 mm film. 35mm film is a higher resolution than both standard and high definition. This means that the episodes can be transferred into standard or high definition without issue. Unfortunately for many shows with special effects, the editing process was done digitally with standard definition video. So the final copies of the episodes exist in standard definition video only. Many times shots with miniatures, green screen, matte shots and other effects were all transferred and edited in standard definition rather than edited more expensively with film.

http://kotwg.blogspot.com/2011/07/technology-time-star-trek-next.html

So as I said, looks like they were not mastered into final FX with film…most of those shots existed only with digital video editing.

And how much will each season cost? I have to buy the dvd’s for Star Trek at a pawn shop because I can’t afford $70 per season…There are a lot of seasons of Star trek…I love ST, but I can’t afford that…
So I hate to know how much they are going to charge..
And they better include more interviews and such…The ones you get on the dvd’s are too short…They provide very little information…

Great news… but are there any plans to eventually show these remastered episodes on television, as they did with TOS-R? A collection of remastered TNG episodes would make for a great holiday marathon on one of the cable networks.

[Hint, hint,] SyFy… that is, if you guys are still interested in Sci-Fi.

46. The first Blray sampler should be afforadable at least…somewhere in the range of $20-30 retail, probably less with discounts.

47. So far, no mention of over the air broadcasts, only news stories about them being shown on Netflix or Epix.

44. There is some question–I believe Mike Okuda raised the doubt-that the film negatives for FX still exist. The blogspot article does seem to suggest if they exist then much of the FX COULD be re-used…but if they do have them…they may want to re-do the FX anyway to make the ILM/post Group/Image G FX, and the 4-foot and 6-foot model work more consistent…also to reduce stock shot usage….which is what I prefer.