An official announcement of Star Trek: TOS will soon be upon us.... (1 Viewer)

[Ed St. Clair]

And its a full blown geekathon in here!

Those pics are stunning. And I'm not even a Trekie.
Was watching the "new" versions on CW at 11:00pm on Saturday, just killing time before SNL.
I thought I would hate or at the very least be dismissive of the modern effects. Cartoon Network had the original original on about the same time. While enjoying both, prefered "watching" the futzed w/stuff.
It's funny how Mr. Nimoy SHOUTED all of Mr. Spock's lines at first.
Don't know why he thought a Vulcan would be LOUDER than anyone or anything else. Later, it turned into a very reserved performance.
"Highly illogical", yet "fascinating"!

 

[troy evans]

Yeah, That's Spock....Fascinated by the illogical.I love Star Trek and Spock is a great character but after watching all the TOS episodes I'm stunned Kirk didn't go over and sucker punch His ass outta His chair a few times.He's quite the wise ass.I can't wait till this drops on HD DVD. I am ready even if It's $200.00.After They Finish This I Hope They go and remaster"TNG". At least clean up the PQ.

 

[Douglas Monce]

The big problem with TNG and all the shows up to Enterprise is that they were all completed on NTSC video. Even the compositing of effects shots was done on video at NTSC resolution.

This means that every foot of film for 24 episodes of each of the 7 seasons would have to be re scanned and re edited from scratch. Even with the effects shots, each element would have to be re scanned and re composited. Add to that not all of the effects shots were models shot on film. Things like the phasers, transporters, light creatures, etc were all done in a computer at NTSC resolution, so all of those things would have to be completely re created from scratch.

This means going back and finding the editing notes, if they still exists, and trying to figure out which takes were used for which shots. (sometimes they will use part of take one and part of take 4 for instance)

Thats a LOT of work and a LOT of money. I wouldn't count on seeing any Star Trek other than TOS and Enterprise on HD.

Doug

 

[Dave Mack]

very true, Douglas.
Same with The X-files, Buffy, S1-S4 of Angel...
Ironic that shows as old as The Twilight Zone are more HD-ready than ones done in the 90's....!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I thought Voyager had a chance of an HD release?

 

[Douglas Monce]

No. Enterprise was the first Trek show to be edited on HD, in fact the last season was shot on HD, but all of the other shows were plain old NTSC. In fact the first 2 seasons of TNG were actually done on analog video, which is why it looks so crappy. They switched to D1 in the 3rd season I believe.

And Dave is right. Almost all American TV shows from about 1986 till about 5 years ago were edited on NTSC video. None of them could be released on HD with out completely re scanning and re editing them.

At the time TNG first started airing you could tell that the effects shots were being composited on video, and I wondered at the time what they were going to do when High Def TV arrived. Very short sighted.

Doug

 

[troy evans]

Man, That Bums Me out.Here I thought this would be the begining and It's 6 more season releases of the Hi Def capable shows and That's It. Kinda disapointed to say the least.My favorite was DEEP SPACE NINE.I would have loved that in HI DEF,Oh Well.

 

[ReggieW]

Since Bill Hunt will be a panelist at the San Diego Comicon, does anyone think he may have some early info to share on this TOS HD-DVD event? I went to the Bits and checked his entries from the last week and found nothing.

It appears that he's completely ignored this story.

 

[Dave Mack]

Dang Bill Hunt! (Sorry! Used to seeing that everywhere!)

Maybe he's just not a Trekker...?



I would love to see my Buffy and Angel shows in HD. I do own S4-S7 of Buffy in PAL, Higher res. and anamorphic WS, (I know, I know, the OAR for buffy is 4x3, PAL speedup...) but to me that is the closest I'll get to Sunnydale in HD.
Also the R1 NTSC versions shamefully omitted the "previously on's.." which is inexcusable IMHO. Especially on "The Gift" where they showed one shot from every previous ep. getting faster and faster...

 

[MatthewA]

Adding insult to injury, many of those video-posted shows don't even look so hot on SD DVD.

But if they can go back and re-do Seinfeld in HD, which has virtually zero FX in it, I imagine they can try to justify the costs for TNG.

 

[Dave Mack]

But that's partially it. They didn't have to make any new special FX shots for Seinfeld. It's taking CBS Digital 2 years to do just 3 seasons of FX for TREK:TOS.
Imagine now 21 seasons of TNG, DS9 and Voyager...?

 

[Douglas Monce]

And TNG, DS9 and Voyager had LOTS more effects per episode than TOS did.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I believe the last season or two of Voyager is in fact HD ready, thought that's still not saying much.

If TOS does well in HD I'm absolutely sure they'll follow with TNG. I think people don't realize that the vast majority of work going into the Remastered TOS is the thorough restoration of the original footage. Something TNG wouldn't require (I'm sure it could use some work, but nothing like what they're going through with TOS). The new effects work is actually very minimal and I'm sure takes a rather small portion of both time and money.

 

[Dave Mack]

Actually, they would have to find all the footage first. Who knows what condition it's even been stored in? Or if it's even all intact? This goes back to the 80's. For all we know, once transferred tp video, some footage might have even been discarded.
Then they would have to rescan the footage and re-edit completely from scratch before even getting to the FX. Would require alot more work than TOS...
And Douglas is right, many more FX shots per ep. than TOS.
That takes time. Once again the CBS digital FX artists are taking 2 years to do the TOS FX and even they admit they are rushed.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Problems like missing footage *could* pop up, but there's no reason to assume they will from the get go. Paramount undoubtedly already knows how much of an issue this will be. Trek as always been stored well due to it being such a large property (meaning there's a LOT of stuff to store). This makes it less likely the footage would be lost in contrast to individual films or singular series who don't essentially require their own entire vault for storage.

As for re-scanning the footage, this has to be done for every episode of TOS already, before restoration. Re-editing the episodes together is a very small chore, it's not "from scratch", they merely have to match the original broadcasts. Just the kind of work this involves would result in the show being "re-edited" regardless of the source material (again with TOS, after the restoration work is done I'm sure each show has to be edited back together as they undoubtedly work on individual scenes).

In terms of SFX, yes there are more shots to be done than in TOS, but more of nothing is still essentially nothing. For the most part you have exterior space shots that would be 100% new CGI, assuming they take the same approach and keep it faithful to the original shows, these are very easy to do. Virtually anyone could recreate the shots they're doing for TOS ,and anything necessary for TNG, by themselves on a run of the mill home PC. Where it gets more difficult for TOS is when its necessary to integrate old footage with new effects, as it requires extensive matting and often takes time to work out the logistics of the shots. But this is something that TNG is in a prime position to do more easily because the footage is unaltered and if an effect is needed, they'll already be working with a clean slate instead of having to replace what is already there. Blue screens and plate footage will be ready to go.

All in all, assuming the footage is easily accessible, I expect a lot more from Remastered TNG than what we've seen with TOS, its just a better fit for the idea. I should point out I'm only talking about TNG, I don't know if they'll be keen to redo DS9 or Voyager as the money may not be there, and both of those shows pushed their SFX far more than TNG was able to do.

 

[Dave Mack]

But first off you have to find all the shooting logs. Okay. So the 35mm footage from Reel 17 from episode 11 has 8 different takes of shot one, 5 takes of shot 2, 12 takes of shot 3 etc... etc...
The TOS eps. were fully edited together already.
It takes ALOT of work to edit a one hour show together and it's not as simple as you might think. As Douglas pointed out, in the same scene in say an "A", "B" shot exchange between two characters they might very well have taken shots from different takes and edited them together during the exchange. The current team doing TOS doesn't have to deal with ANY of this. They don't have to figure out which take of which shot on which reel stored in which vault goes where.
The only edited versions lying around exist on 480i SD video. Obviously back then they weren't thinking of "future proofing" or they would have edited the eps and done the FX on film instead of crap, low res SD video. At the time these eps. were made, Paramount probably thought that aside from broadcast, these would be sold on VHS, Laserdisc at best.
So matching to the exact frame, correctly using every single shot, color timing it again...
Some of this footage is 20 years old. The odds that hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage is in pristine shape is very wishful thinking. And then if the new FX aren't any better than what some guy can do on his PC, there will be alot of bitching. Look at the debates on Trekmovie.com about some of the early CGI shots.
The CBS Digital FX artists are taking 2 years to do JUST the FX for the 3 seasons and even they say they feel rushed. Imagine 7 seasons of TNG with more shots per ep...?
And what if you have say, a reel that's damaged beyond salvage or even missing? Will they just upscale the 480i video based footage for those scenes..?
I'm not saying it can't be done but it would take years.
Maybe for TNG but I doubt DS9 or Voyager will get that treatment. Just not enough $ to be made. There are hardcore fans who will buy TOS, TNG and maybe some casual viewers but I really doubt that the average consumer or even Trek fan will rush out to drop $150 or so on a season of Voyager in HD.

but what do I know...?

 

[Douglas Monce]

The problem with your idea is that each episode of TOS is an edited original camera negative. They have the whole episode edited the way it is for the final show. All they have to do is put the edited negative on the scanner and scan it in at HD resolution. (of course then the real work starts with the restoration.) But there is a ton of work that would have to be done to TNG before you could even get to the restoration.

TNG and all other shows after that were edited on video tape. Which means that if they go back to re scan the show, they have to search through the thousands of feet of negative shot for each episode and figure out which shots were used in the final. Each shot could have as many as 8 or 10 takes. That means you have to have the editing logs to know which take was used. (this assumes the editing logs are accurate which they aren't always)

Some times they will use parts from different takes to complete one scene. This means if you don't have those logs, you have to sit there and watch each take, matching it to the original epidsode, and try and figure out which one was used. If multiple takes were used. the task becomes even more difficult. This would have to be done for each of the 176 episodes of TNG. Thats not even talking about the huge job of rescanning and re compositing all of the effects shots. Not to mention recreating the ones that were not done on film IE electronically generated images like phasers and that kind of thing.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

Dave is right not only would it take years, maybe as long or longer than the actual run of the show. But a project of this type today might cost as much for each episode as they cost to make originally. Now Paramount/CBS might decide that its worth it, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

From what I've read Enterprise was the first Star Trek show to post in HD.

Doug

 

[Dave Mack]

Thanks, Douglas!

Said more eloquently and efficiently than I could have.