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'Best of' Star trek TNG Blu-ray set? (1 Viewer)

Joseph Bolus

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Originally Posted by Douglas Monce




I don't think the audio and video presentations would be any better than what we have on DVD now. The big stumbling block in this case is not the codec being used on the DVDs, but rather the vintage late 80's telecine work of the show. Its always going to be soft with bleeding colors. Using a more advance codec won't help that situation. In fact Trials and Tribulations, on the second season TOS blu-ray set, looks in my opinion worse than it does on the original DS9 DVD.

Doug
Doug,

*sigh* .. . Well it just seems a shame that TNG may never look as good as TOS ...

Perhaps Steve is right that a good place to begin would be a set of "fav" eps. (Perhaps 4 eps on a single BD.) This would give the CBS/P execs some idea of what they're up against in reassembling the series ...
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Joseph Bolus




Doug,

*sigh* .. . Well it just seems a shame that TNG may never look as good as TOS ...

Perhaps Steve is right that a good place to begin would be a set of "fav" eps. (Perhaps 4 eps on a single BD.) This would give the CBS/P execs some idea of what they're up against in reassembling the series ...
Yes as long as they are using the video masters of the show, it will never look as good as TOS.

Having said that, if there is one show that is most likely to get the work needed to upgrade to HD, its Star Trek: TNG. It is the show that is most likely to see a return on the cost of doing the work. But the bean counters are going to be the ones that will make that call.

Doug
 

Jeff Robertson

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I believe the next generation differs from TOS in moving to Blu-Ray in two areas:

TOS had only three seasons on readily available/restorable film elements and was more popular.

TNG exists completed on video and the show didn't get off the ground until the third season.

In both cases though, new CGI makes sense, correct?

Of course, for the Blu-Ray releases of ST:TOS, we learned that we could have both original and CGI effect shots, but would there have really been enough to showcase the new format if only the original effects were included? Purists would say yes, and I tend to lean in this direction, but it does make sense from a marketing standpoint to include something new, beyond the restored live action.

So I suspect it will be, as others have indicated, mostly a question of economics if we will see TNG come to Blu. Surely, the film elements exist but it will be much more expensive getting them together and then creating new CGI to replace the standard def content.

It would be nice if it were to happen someday. I really enjoyed the series and there is potential to improve beyond the current DVD release.
 

Nelson Au

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Star Trek The Next generation is over 20 years old now! ( "Jim, The Enterprise is 20 years old, she'll never take the pounding...!")

I agree of all the spin off shows, TNG was the most popular and successful and had a great following at it's height. But it doesn't have the same following TOS did. That's my impression anyway. Interest in TNG of course could never keep up with TOS, not to put down TNG. It just didn't have the same lasting impact.

I agree with Doug, TNG should come next on BD and if they can find a way to do near as good as TOS in the transfer, then that would be great!

And I still wonder, does an archived TNG exist as a tape or film stock, lock, stock, effects and all? If so, they could just do what they did with TOS without the CGI.
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Nelson Au

Star Trek The Next generation is over 20 years old now! ( "Jim, The Enterprise is 20 years old, she'll never take the pounding...!")

I agree of all the spin off shows, TNG was the most popular and successful and had a great following at it's height. But it doesn't have the same following TOS did. That's my impression anyway. Interest in TNG of course could never keep up with TOS, not to put down TNG. It just didn't have the same lasting impact.

I agree with Doug, TNG should come next on BD and if they can find a way to do near as good as TOS in the transfer, then that would be great!

And I still wonder, does an archived TNG exist as a tape or film stock, lock, stock, effects and all? If so, they could just do what they did with TOS without the CGI.
TNG exists as two things. The edited 480i videos of each episode, and unedited original camera negative as it ran through the camera. The film was never even printed. It went directly from the negative into the telecine machine.

The effects elements on film would just be the motion control shots of the models against green or blue screen. Again all the combining of motion control ships, with backgrounds such as planets and stars, were done at NTSC resolution. If these effects elements were re scanned at HD resolution, and re combined they should look quite good. Its also possible that the planet elements were not models at all but something created in a paintbox type device at 480I resolution.

Doug
 

Jonathan Kaye

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Originally Posted by Nelson Au

"Jim, the Enterpise is 20 years old. We feel her day is over."
 

Nelson Au

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Originally Posted by Jonathan Kaye

Doug,

Regarding my question about what form TNG exists now, I understand what you're saying. It exists as those elements. Perhaps it wasn't clear in my post, but I was wondering if each episode exists as a complete film negative. If so, why wouldn't they do what they did for TOS and wash that negative through their process and clean things up. And do this without doing new CGI effects. I would guess this is the easiest way to remaster since everything is already in place on the negative.

As mentioned above, the hook could be new CGI effects blended into the negative so they could market this new TNG blu ray set. The only bad thing about this process is that if a live action shot is cross faded into an effects shot, you lose some frames of live action. TOS suffers from this as you know. But a show like Best of Both Worlds already has some fine effects. So CGI work could be very minimal.

Of course, no one really knows the answer except the people at Paramount/CBS.
 

Worth

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Originally Posted by Nelson Au

Perhaps it wasn't clear in my post, but I was wondering if each episode exists as a complete film negative. If so, why wouldn't they do what they did for TOS and wash that negative through their process and clean things up. And do this without doing new CGI effects. I would guess this is the easiest way to remaster since everything is already in place on the negative.
The original series was shot, edited and completed on 35mm film, much like a feature film, so it was comparatively simple to take the original elements and re-tranfer them to HD.

ST: TNG was shot on film, but edited and completed on video, so there is no negative cut of the episodes. The completed episodes only exist as NTSC video.

In order to create a hi-def version, they'd have to go back to the original, unedited camera negative, re-transfer that to HD, then re-edit all of the footage to conform to the episodes. On top of that, they'd have to go back and redo all of the FX shots in HD.

It could also be possible to create a compromise version, where all of the film footage is re-transferred and re-edited in HD, while keeping the FX shots in SD as they are - though it would probably be a jarring transition to cut from pristine HD footage to 20-year old NTSC FX shots.
 

Nelson Au

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Got it Nick. I had understood the effects were edited in video, but I wasn't clear it and live action remained in the 480 NTSC video realm.
 

Bryan^H

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Originally Posted by Camper


I myself would not buy season 1 or 2 and it seems that if they released season 1 and 2 and they weren't big sellers they'd possibly stop right there.
Also doing the whole series would take literally years to do----while the focus of the franchise is now back to the original characters.
That's the problem. Many Trekkies consider the first two seasons rather poor. I think they are the best seasons of the series. That being said, I don't think any TNG will make it to Blu-Ray. And if it does happen, it will probably be a handful of episodes on one disc to maybe test the waters of how good a seller TNG can be for Blu-Ray.
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Nelson Au

Got it Nick. I had understood the effects were edited in video, but I wasn't clear it and live action remained in the 480 NTSC video realm.
Yeah Nick is right. Sorry Nelson that I wasn't clear about it. TNG suffers from the same problem that almost every American TV show from about 1988 through about 2005 does. It exists in finished form, only in an NTSC video. Almost 20 years of Television can't be put on blu-ray in HD unless all the film is completely re-scanned and re-edited.

It seems short sited today, but a show like TNG would have been impossible to produce with the budgets they had any other way. Once other producers saw what they were doing, along with a few other shows, and saw the savings, everyone jumped on board.

Doug
 

Alex cosmo

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On a side note, doesn't Star Trek Generations actually have a few shots from the tv show re-done on film?
 

Nelson Au

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Thanks Doug for that added insight.

I'm sure they didn't see the coming boom for home video in hi-def back then. I can see the reasoning to make a show like that more cost effective. Like sitcoms such as WKRP in Cincinnati were cheaper to make on video rather then film. (Not to mention the music rights issue)

As another aside, here's an article written by the webmaster at Trekmovie.com back on July 27th 2007. This was during the remastering of TOS and coverage of the new remastered episodes as they were airing weekly in syndication. They had interviewed CBS about TNG and their testing for HD. This article has been brought up before, but I thought I'd repost it here for fun.


I had a moment to have a chat with some of the CBS team behind the TOS Remastered project at Comic Con about what’s next (after TOS). David Grant tells TrekMovie.com that they have "had discussions" to bring Star Trek The Next Generation onto high definition. They have also created an HD test for one episode. One concern is the visual effects which were were done in video and therefore more difficult to translate to HD. The team are seeing if the effects can be ‘upresed’ or if they need to be entirely redone (as they did with TOS). Ryan Adams says "that is part of the tests that we are trying to massage and figure out." No decisions made yet on if, when or how, but TrekMovie.com will keep an eye on this exciting potential project.
 

Douglas Monce

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Yes and the results of those tests seem to be the upresed episode of DS9, Trials and Tribulations that is on the TOS season 2 blu-ray set. It looks really terrible. I think it looks worse than watching the original episode on the DS9 set.

Doug
 

SilverWook

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Originally Posted by Alex cosmo

On a side note, doesn't Star Trek Generations actually have a few shots from the tv show re-done on film?
They reused some original Enterprise E shots ILM did for the pilot, which became stock footage for the rest of the series..
 

ManW_TheUncool

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I would go for something like a 20-episode "best of" on BD, but I'm not *THAT* big of a Trek fan, so...

_Man_
 

Nelson Au

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Well guys,
 

If you were in Las Vegas last weekend for the annual Star Trek Convention, you may have heard some news about TNG on Blu Ray.
 

One fan asked the CBS Consumer Products VP, John Van Citters if they would. His reply was that it's still a technical challenge, but they have been in talks about how to do it. It's now a matter of when. ( I think most of us know the technical challenges compared to the ease of converting TOS to HD, so I won't get into it. It was discussed above if you're new to this thread.)

 

No budget or schedule set yet. They just have to figure out how to do it.

 

Here's a quote from the report at trekmovie.com

 

 

 

Next Gen on Blu-ray?

All three seasons of the originalStar Trek are now available in HD, but what about TNG? In a response to a question about TNG on Blu-ray, CBS Consumer Products VP John Van Citters told the crowd in Las Vegas that releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray was much more "problematic" than the original Star Trek, due to how the TNG original effects shots were composited, and how that makes the transfer to HD "incredibly difficult without making them look awful." However, he also said that there is "a lot of conversations going on" within CBS on how to convert TNG to HD, and Van Citters expressed optimism noting "It is being worked on and I expect it will happen, it is just a technical challenge."

Following his talk, I confirmed with Van Citters that even though he is optimistic that the challenges will be met, as of now there is no specific plan or budget for the project within CBS. So this is still something that is a long-term project.
 

And link to the story: http://trekmovie.com/2010/08/09/vegascon10-cbs-products-panel-tng-on-blu-ray-being-discussed-new-enterprise-pizza-slicer-kelvin-salt-pepper-shaker-more/
 

Jamie E

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Wow, forget TNG on Blu-ray, where can I get one of those Enterprise pizza slicers?

 

Seriously, I hope the bean counters decide to go whole hog on this project. I'm a Star Trek fan, and loved TNG, but I just can't see myself buying it on Blu-ray unless it's in HD from beginning to end (high def transfer from the OCN, then episodes rebuilt with optional new HD special effects). Wow, that would really look stunning. I'll bet they could have a nice secondary revenue stream by licensing that out for syndication too, like Seinfeld. Come on guys, throw the dice! It'll pay for itself eventually!
 

ATimson

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Originally Posted by Jamie E

I'll bet they could have a nice secondary revenue stream by licensing that out for syndication too, like Seinfeld.

They did that with TOS, but from what I understand in most markets it got relegated to 3 AM - not exactly what they do to something that people are actually watching...
 

Nelson Au

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Yeah, for close to the first year they broadcast Remastered TOS, it was 11:00pm in my area on a Saturday night. Then it got moved to 1:00am or so Sunday morning. Really annoying! It moved around to Sunday afternoons too.

 

I think that CBS knows there's a market for TNG, The guy did say they are trying to figure it out. But I also think that the main market for TNG are the Trek fans. It may have taken a bit of a hit with the mainstream BD buyers. But I could be wrong. It's 23 years now since it first aired and the affection it once had with mainstream audiences may be nostalgic for it.
 

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