Remastered Star Trek: the Next Generation Blu-ray a Huge Leap Forward 470
MojoKid writes "There's been no new Star Trek TV series since Enterprise limped off screens in 2005, but the huge success of the 2009 Star Trek movie and the gradual growth of Blu-ray has caught CBS' attention (CBS acquired ownership of the Star Trek franchise in 2006). The broadcast company is preparing to release Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray with substantial improvements (article contains comparison image shots). The DVD boxed sets that exist today were created from the taped broadcasts that were shown in the early 90s. Rather than repackaging that material, CBS has gone back to the original film stock and started from scratch. The difference is enormous. CBS has released a preview Blu-ray titled Star Trek: The Next Generation — The Next Level with three updated episodes; the show's pilot (Encounter at Farpoint), Sins of the Father and The Inner Light."
Yeah... So... (Score:1, Interesting)
3 'remastered' episodes of a 20 year old tv show... Big fucking deal.
Look i liked star trek. It was entertaining. But the special effects and visuals were never the draw there..
And hollywood wonders why they have trouble selling shit anymore... They haven't done anything new or orginal for two decades.
what a difference! (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article, open them in different tabs and switch between. Wow. I always wondered why the DVD image quality and colors sucked so badly, that explains it nicely.
DVD [hothardware.com]
BluRay [hothardware.com]
The bluray shot makes the DVD image look like a photo after it's been ran through the wash.
Wide Screen (Score:5, Interesting)
I was really hoping they would attempt to create a wide-screen version of the series by over-scaning the original film, cropping the top and bottom a tad, and stretching a tad to end up with 16:9.
Of course, I don't know exactly what aspect the original film was, and it is likely there will be things that should not be seen to the right/left in the overscan region. And the special effects might be exactly 4:3, in which case it would be very expensive to "fix".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan [wikipedia.org]
Wrong three episodes (Score:5, Interesting)
They should have done episodes that would really show off the process. I would have picked Best of Both Worlds, Yesterday's Enterprise and either The Pegasus or All Good Things... because they are the best examples of what the series has to offer and would benefit from the effects uplift.
Rather something else (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember watching the first episode of TNG. The studio shooting was as dreadful as TOS, but when the music came up, and the Patrick Stewart voiceover came up, there was a great confort that along with the bad there was going to be a lot of good. Of course, one the quest for rating took hold and the overwhelming militaristic mission took over, it was pretty much over. TNG and the Borg. DSP and the dominion. Enterprise and the confusing and arbitrary Xindi. Peaceful explorations simply does not sell laundry detergent.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fuck Blu Ray (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheap ass finds weak ass excuse to make him self feel good about Infringing on people copyright, news a 11.
Re:torrents (Score:5, Interesting)
You're also forgetting the source material doesn't even look that great so no amount of messing with it will ever produce a bluray image even as good as most recent films and I doubt there would be much difference even at 720p..
You're also also forgetting they're releasing them 4 episodes at a time and being greedy, Paramount will probably want well over $120 for a season.
You're also also also forgetting file-sizes mean nothing. They could fill the black bars on the sides (yes, sides) with uncompressed nothing just to fill up the disc.
Re:Wide Screen (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to see a prime example of a TV show's aspect ratio being changed for the DVD release and the outcome being horribly wrong, check out the second season of Angel. In the very first episode, there's a climactic fight at the end in the hotel lobby between Angel and some demon. In the original 4:3 aspect ratio, no problem. In the 16:9, there is a very bored set hand off to the right of the fight in plain sight. It was clearly a lazy, shitty conversion (IIRC even Angel's own showrunners were appalled) but it stands as an object lesson of what not to do.
Even dramatic moments won't feel right when converting aspect ratios. A tight shot on an actor's face that looks right in 4:3, suddenly reveals another character standing behind him in 16:9. Two characters conversing in 4:3 fill the screen; in 16:9 there's dead space to either side of them (this one was also quite prevalent in that Angel set).
Bottom line: stick to the originally intended aspect ratio.
Original stock (Score:5, Interesting)
I watched a good bit of TNG on Netflix recently (I skipped over the worst episodes, 20% or so). I did some research into the rather poor picture quality, and I'm kind of surprised to hear of this BR version. From what I read, the "problem" with TNG was that although everything was originally shot on 35mm film, all of the editing and some of the special effects were done on video tape. Editing on video tape saved a lot of money and time during the production process. Thus the quality of the finished version of the show was merely broadcast / VHS quality of the day, and nothing better. Now maybe people were just making stuff up and that information is incorrect, but I was under the impression the picture quality was fuzzy and poor because, well, that's how it was produced originally.
So the BR version must involve more than just digitizing the original film stock - they must have re-edited all the various camera shots together again, matching the original edits, because it never existed as a complete version in film in the first place.
Here's a source for that info, although this is not where I had heard of the video editing before:
http://geekchocolate.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174:star-trek-the-next-generation-the-next-level- [geekchocolate.com]
It's good to see that CBS put the time and money into doing this properly.
Re:torrents (Score:5, Interesting)
TNG was shot on 35mm film which has higher resolution than a 4k TV 5380 x 3620. If they do the scan with a 4k scanner and use good software then we should have something good. TNG is not as old as star wars and the film should preserved better than the star wars film. I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
Re:torrents (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
I would have to agree that you need to consider that some copies are likely in better shape than the originals, but in the case of TNG, I don't think that is the case due to the production system that was used when it was produced.
Star Trek: TNG was originally filmed with 35mm film stock and then transferred to a conventional videotape editing system before broadcast. The original negatives were barely touched and mostly left in their original archived state, where Star Trek was already considered a very lucrative franchise and something worth preserving as well (so it wasn't treated like yesterday's trash heap either).
The largest problem I would see is syncing the audio with the video and getting the correct scenes matching with the stuff that was put into the production version of each episode. That shouldn't be too difficult as such information was recorded when the films were originally edited, but it would take some effort to organize everything, and certainly take time to remaster each episode in this manner.
Re:Rather something else (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:torrents (Score:3, Interesting)
There has never yet been (although we're getting closer and closer) a visual medium that captures the contrast range, the color gamut, or detail quite like motion picture film.
Yeeeeesss! Sometimes I think that people forget what real, quality film looks like. Watch a Kubrick film on VHS, DVD, and blu-ray--it's like watching a movie while the photogrey fades on your glasses. The difference in dynamic range alone is unmistakable. A big part of the "magic" of analog film is shouldering, which is when highlights blow out gradually in over-exposed regions. Anyone that has shot with 35 mm camera film and then gone digital has seen this phenomenon at work--particularly with BW photography. With digital, the highlights clip; the information is lost, and appears white (some amount of shouldering can be faked using "highlight recovery" algorithms, but the effect is incomparable to the effect on genuine film.) Analog tape transfers have finite bandwidth and clip even worse than digital, leaving you with light shadows and blown-out highlights. It is the visual equivalent of the perceived "warmth" of (quality) analog audio recordings; the dynamic range is centered at the mid-tones, at the expense of the tinny highs and deep lows.
Re:torrents (Score:3, Interesting)
"TNG was shot on 35mm film which has higher resolution than a 4k TV 5380 x 3620."
That is a bad assumption. 35mm film that is 80-100 ISO and shot with a good camera and good lens? Yes, it has close to that resolution in theory. In reality it does not.
It depends on the film quality stock, the generation of the copy, the ISO of the film used, some lower budget films and TV shows did NOT pay for the metric buttload of lighting, so they bought 400 or even 800 speed film to handle lower light conditions. The resolution or "grain" on those films are significantly worse.
So you need to quantify your statement. What brand of film, quality and chemistry is the TNG film stock? as that is what it's resolution is not what someone guesses in theory is possible.