Star Trek TNG Disks look Awful (1 Viewer)

[Bryan^H]

ABSOLUTELY!!! When I upgraded to a 32" HD set, I kept my Sony 27" CRT, and I'm so glad I did. On my Hd set, no matter how much I tweak the settings, any of the Star Trek(and any classic televison for that matter) dvd's look absolutely horrible! It's kind of sad I have to keep two tv sets depending on what I want to watch, but it's absolutely essential. My Star Trek TNG dvd's look fantastic on my CRT set.

 

[troy evans]

DS9 "Once More Unto the Breach" has a very impressive attack on a cardassian/dominion outpost. In daylight non the less. I have an HD DVD A20 player hooked with HDMI to my Samsung 42" plasma tv. When I watch TNG and DS9 I set the player to "video" for the source. I also have my set calibrated using HD DVE. That's it.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I bet you find that to be the case with all 4x3 material, if you have cable. I watch something like Matlock and it looks dull and lifeless. I go in the other room and watch it on the 4x3, and it looks just fine. It really bothers me, especially since the screen is really too big for my viewing room anyway. It does look better the farther I get from it.

 

[Ockeghem]

Zack Gibbs:
It's probably not the appropriate thread, but I do agree with this (esp. the part about Picard). I loved it, though, on those rare occasions when he really stood his ground--when he instilled fear in those with/to whom he spoke. That's the Picard I love.

 

[Nick Martin]

I've seen a 16:9 CRT in action only once, and it was HD, so I gladly take your word on that.

In a strange sort of way, non-anamorphic 4:3 shows were in a sense not meant to be viewed on high resolution LCDs and Plasmas, so the reason they look so good on regular CRTs is because that's what they were meant to be viewed on, and that's what people who made the shows viewed them on while putting them together. I don't know if that's too extreme an assumption, but that's all I got.

 

[Ockeghem]

I have found that the farther away I sit from the 57" television, the better it looks.

 

[Nick Martin]

The only 4:3 show I have that looks good on my Plasma is season 1 of ANGEL, and while it's nowhere near its subsequent anamorphic seasons in terms of video quality, it's surprisingly sharp and decent, except for the pilot episode.

I tried Alien Nation on it - one episode, and had to stop because it looked so bad!

 

[Bryan^H]

It's not extreme at all, it's the truth. All of my standard dvd's(except some newer films) are viewed on my CRT! My HD set only shines when watching HD movies, and video games! I am using component cables, so maybe that's the problem, but even If I get an HDMI cable, I can't imagine the picture looking that much better.

 

[Nick Martin]

How does everyone feel about the audio side of things?

I find there's not much difference between the original stereo track and the 5.1, because the 5.1 is derived from that original stereo anyway.

I know how they did it by listening closely to each channel. They took the dialogue track and made a center channel out of it, then took the remaining stereo and ran a "vocal cut" pass on it, eliminating anything dead center of the sound mix. (Audio editing software such as Adobe Audition has this as a feature) You would do the same thing to make a karaoke version of a song if you wanted to. Then, they gave it soft reverb and delay effects. I've noticed that Paramount goes that extra step with their surround remixes on all their older movies as well.

I've done my own surround upmixing for fun, and my results were similar to what is heard on these DVDs, so I figured that must be how they did it.

 

[Citizen87645]

Checked out the scene from Sarek. I watched on an Oppo 971 at 480p and then on a Toshiba A2 upconverting to 1080i to a 1080p LCD.

No combing that bothered me so much on the first few seasons of X-Files. Upconversion made the picture overall look quite good, considering the source. Sharpness was the most noticeable of improvements, though it still couldn't do anything for the loss of detail in the wider shots or the aliasing around the Enterprise in the flybys.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I view these eps on an Infocus 4805 projector. This is a 480p native resolution device.

I have an HD-A1; but, due to handshaking problems with the Infocus DVI adapter, I'm running component. So these eps do *not* get upscaled. (In this case the benefit would be marginal anyway.)

The upshot is that I keep a separate set of User adjustments programmed into the 4805 just for TNG and DS9. I let the image go a little "flat" just to mask some of the horrid EE that shows up in the TNG first season. It also helps out a little with the overall loss of detail and the "stairstepping".

The 4805 has a "white peaking" adjustment that I normally keep at 10%. For TNG/DS9 this goes to 40% and my contrast/brightness controls (which are normally at 50%) end up at 38/42. This makes the picture at least somewhat tolerable for these shows.

I shudder to think how these transfers might look on a 1080p projector! (In fact, it's one of the reasons that I haven't upgraded to a higher resolution pj yet!)

 

[Nick Martin]

With ALL the major flaws of all these Star Trek TV releases, one has to wonder where the money for these criminally overpriced DVDs went, since it didn't go into any restoration or cleanup efforts.

If I can't watch on a CRT, I have to use the noise reduction settings on my television, and I switch to an S-Video input instead to further reduce the inherent image problems.

If it wasn't a "bargain", I never would have been able to afford DS9. The complete series set (just the seven previously released individual boxes sitting in a green tray) had a price tag that equaled seven boxes of an "average" priced TV show.

To all those who spent the absurd amounts of money getting them individually, which means spending (depending on where you bought them) up to $1200 per show...You guys must be seriously wealthy or seriously hardcore fans. Either way, I salute you!

 

[Gary Seven]

I watched Damok the other night and it looked fine. No bleeding colors, blacks were solid. The image was a tad soft but otherwise no glaring problems. I would classify the image as good. Not great but certainly, not awful.

FWIW, I used a Denon 3930ci with Sony XBR2 60" SXRD. The player upscales to 1080p.

 

[Ockeghem]

Nicholas Martin:
I spent approximately $1500 on DS9 alone. I wouldn't do that for just any television show. But I've been into Trek for over forty years. It's among my most favorite of shows. I won't be upgrading beyond the standard DVDs I currently own, either.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I bought DS9 as they came out, trying to find the best bargain each time. It was a lot of money, but spread out. I try not to think about the final cost.

 

[Bryan^H]

I paid around $300 for the complete sets of TNG, and DS9(after the price dropped a couple years ago). I bought the complete original series for $127.

Now that the complete sets of Voyager(which I bought factory sealed on E-Bay for just over $400 last year) and Enterprise have dropped in price by almost half of what they were going for just a few months ago, I can see many Trekkies with an agenda for their federal tax return checks!

 

[Nick Martin]

It's a shame the price tags weren't worth the video quality.

Earlier today I did some further experimenting with viewing on my LCD TV, and I'm glad the quality improves (slightly and gradually) as seasons go on, because, well, in the back of my mind I'm thinking I'm enjoying this but it's ugly.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

This is why I've always dated up.

 

[troy evans]

Yes, I've dropped some serious coin on the series sets myself. From TNG to Enterprise at about $100 a season. Yes, I have them all and am currently collecting the HD TOS series. Ockeghem/Scott , those Voyager sets that look like proton torpedoes are nice. About a year ago I almost bought them just because I thought they were the coolest packaging I've ever seen. Damn we do get shafted in this country as far as quality of releases.

 

[Ockeghem]

Troy,

I initially bought the North American releases of DS9 and VOY. The DS9 boxed set (esp. Season Four) arrived damaged three times! Then one night, while watching the season that highlights both Odo and the Defiant, I was surprised (and disappointed) to discover that the special feature on the Defiant--which I had seen discussed on various Trek Boards--wasn't included in the set. It was then that I began researching the packaging and the special features online, and found out that the U.K. releases for these two series have such superior boxes and features.

I can't recall in which thread I wrote this, but I actually picked up two(!) seasons (seasons one and two) of the U.K. VOY for $5 more than I would have paid for one(!) season of VOY in North America. Here are three pics of the VOY sets that I am currently purchasing. I think this is the version you mention above:







BTW, I don't know if anyone has sprung for the Slimline editions, but I have tended to stay away from those for aesthetic reasons.