HD Transfer of Star Trek: TNG To Arrive This Year

psychonaut writes "Digital Bits have confirmed through sources at CBS Paramount that CBS are working on a high-definition transfer of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A four-episode Blu-Ray sampler disc is to be released later this year; the episodes featured will be the two-part pilot 'Encounter at Farpoint,' 'Sins of the Father,' and fan favourite 'The Inner Light.' On 2 September, LeVar Burton tweeted that he had stopped by CBS Paramount Television City to check the progress and was 'mindblown' by the conversion. TrekCore has an article with further details and an analysis of some of the technical hurdles involved in remastering these episodes."

Which aspect ratio?

[mfraz74]

As the series was originally in 4:3 ratio when it was shown on TV, are we going to have a pillarbox or cropped wide screen transfer when this is put onto blu-ray?

So are the masters in HD or 35mm?

[DrXym]

If you watch The Prisoner in HD, it looks absolutely stunning. You wouldn't believe it was a 60s show. That's because it was shot in 35mm colour and transferred to VT. I expect other shows are filmed in a similar way. So ironically some 60s and 70s shows will benefit hugely from HD. But does that extend into the 90s?

Was Star Trek The Next Generation shot on film, or on video tape? If the latter, what exactly can be done with the content? Did the studio record to higher than broadcast resolution? I suppose they could sharpen it and upscale content, and redo titles and some of the effects. The higher res and audio / video codecs might yield a superior presentation. But is it really HD? Seems a bit deceptive to claim it is if it isn't.

Re:Good. 'cause it looks like crap now

[Dogtanian]

I've been watching TNG on Netflix and it looks absolutely awful. Certainly no better than a VHS tape.

I watched TNG on TV in the early 90s on the same 22" CRT I watched most programmes on, i.e. by the standards of the time on a moderate-sized set that wasn't going to show up any minor flaws.

And even *then* it was obvious to me that TNG's picture quality was f****** awful. It was almost distractingly soft and poor quality.

I live in the UK, and I noticed that the picture quality of a lot of US TV shows was visibly *worse* in the 90s than it had been in the 80s. I later found out that the reason was that until the late-80s most US shows were shot and *mastered* on film. In some cases at least (e.g. the original Star Trek series) the BBC got a film copy that they transferred live directly to the PAL transmission, with no NTSC intermediate.

From the late-80s, a lot of US shows switched to shot on film, but edited on video tape, probably to save money. This was probably okay for Americans watching on NTSC, because what got transmitted would have been degraded to crappy NTSC standard anyway. But showing that NTSC-edited programme on a UK TV system, you could see it looked rubbish.

Granted, the problem would probably have been exacerbated by NTSC->PAL conversion, but I've seen enough to confirm that the NTSC master probably wasn't that much better, and that the problems were down to NTSC. What you say just confirms it. ST:TNG's picture quality was garbage in the first place because it was downgraded to the lowest-common denominator NTSC quality at the editing stage.