Star Trek TOS season 2 cancelled on HD-DVD (1 Viewer)

[Jay_B!]

I have yet to upgrade to BluRay, but I am still apalled at the apathy treated to HD DVD buyers. Yes, maybe they are pulling HD players from the market, but for crying out loud, they were able to stretch 8-tracks out until around 1988 or so. I am sure a lot of diehard Trekkies decided to go for HD DVD instead of BluRay simply because of that one series, yet a confirmed season 2 release is cancelled because of the demise of the format? Surely they could've just slowed down the format instead of stopping everything cold turkey, making hundreds of thousands with a piece of junk they spent $400 on.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Well I have both FOrmats and to tell the truth I'm Glad I hated the Combo thing on the first set, My Disks were treated well and still are scratched to Hell. Hopefully Paramount will release this set in an SD edition, and a BD edition eventually.

 

[MarkHarrison]

I've heard it was canceled because it was actually Toshiba who was funding the restoration. They have no reason to continue funding this now that there's no HD DVD format.

 

[Jason Seaver]

CBS-Paramount is doing the restoration (cleaning up the film and adding the new effects), because an HD Star Trek is useful to have around; they can sell it to TV stations once distribution of syndicated HD material gets off the ground, they're making some cash off the Xbox 360 downloads, and they can re-sell it to some cable channel at some point when all that is finished. Toshiba apparently was funding encoding it on HD-DVD and all the fancy extras on the discs. It's up to Paramount to see if they want to do this themselves for BD or wait until there's more players out there.

Huh, I've never had a problem with that. I definitely wish they were still issuing these on HD DVD, because I can see the Java-based stuff bringing my BDP-1000 to its knees (while the pop-up stuff doesn't work at all).

 

[Ric Easton]

Count me in as one of those Trekkie suckers! Though, I had yet to buy the first season, as I was waiting to see if there was going to be a second.

Too bad, I really wanted to get my hands on the remastered Doomsday Machine!

 

[Sam Favate]

It says a lot about the perceived power Trek fans have if Toshiba was - as reports indicate - funding some of the HD-DVD work for the show. Their thinking was that "If we can get Trek fans to support our format, we'll have a better chance of winning." It wasn't enough, as we see.

 

[Nelson Au]

I got into HDM because of Star Trek too!

So what Jason is saying is that the Java based functions of the extras will not translate or will have difficulty with BD because it's code or language can't handle those pop-up functions like Starfleet Access in the HD-DVD version? Or the fly around Enterprise tour?

This is one area that I find interesting as the Paramount Chief Technical Officer had stated the reason Paramount went HD-DVD was because all these issues of functionality and the standardization of these elements were already in place and working while Blu Ray still hadn't sorted that out. I wonder how he feels now. Now I realize that CBS and Toshiba were doing the HD-DVD of TOS, so CTO's Prime Directive may not have fully applied to this situation of Trek on HD-DVD. And perhaps the CTO's statements were used to justify the support of HD-DVD only. I don't know, this was not meant as a format thing, I'm just curious.

 

[TonyD]

shouldnt this be in the HD section.

 

[RickER]

Paramount has never missed a trick with Star Trek. If i wait long enough it will be on Blu-ray. And i bet i wont have to wait til i am 80.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I don't know the specifics of the formats jibber-jabbish menu systems, but I know Microsoft is trying to get HDi included in the Blu-ray 2.0 spec. If that happens, would that mean anything?

From Wikipedia;

"HDi is Microsoft's implementation of the Advanced Content interactivity layer in HD DVD. It is used in the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on as well as stand-alone HD DVD players.

Advanced Content is a specification defined by the DVD forum used for authoring the interactive features, such as menus, bookmarks, picture-in-picture, and additional content and games for HD DVD."

 

[Jason Seaver]

It depends on the player. My Samsung BDP-1000, for instance, doesn't have the hardware to decode two video streams at once (you need at least Profile 1.1), so the picture-in-picture functionality is out for people with those machines. The stuff like the fly-around is probably straight Java, which all BD players can supposedly handle, but some handle it better than others. Again, my first-generation player slows to a crawl whenever that stuff comes up.

Folks with PS3s and other newer players probably won't have a problem; those of us who bought in early kind of got hosed. If I had a more powerful BD player, I probably wouldn't really have a preference, but since I don't and I do...

 

[Nelson Au]

I'm sure a mod will combine this thread with the Season Two TOS HD thread already there!

Thanks for the explaination Jason. I thought it was some sort of compatibility issue with the way the HD material is created that conflicted with how BD is encoded.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, unless Microsoft does get HDi added to Profile 2.0, CBS Paramount will have to rebuild the special features in BD-J rather than HDi; the two do the same thing, but with different syntax.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks again Jason, that clears it up.

Those features in the first season HD set were really well done. Though more intrusive then if it was audio commentary, which wouldn't have interrupted the image. I have a feeling they won't be so inclusive of the Season One features in BD, though it would be nice from a consistancy point of view. In which case, from a collectable point of view, would that make the first season HD-DVD of Star Trek have any value!

 

[Nelson Au]

I just posted this in the high def forum:

Here's a surprise new story, trekmovie.com is reporting that TVshowsonDVD is reporting that Star Trek Season 2 of the remastered Star Trek is still coming out, but as standard def DVD!

Release date is August 5, 2008. No other details. Here's the link to: Star Trek DVD news: Release Date for Star Trek - Season 2 (Remastered) on DVD | TVShowsOnDVD.com

 

[Joseph Bolus]

So ... Exactly *who* is this release supposed to be for??

The first season was a DVD/HD-DVD hybrid. It goes without saying that most of the consumers that purchased the first season owned HD-DVD players. Are they supposed to continue their collection now with a second season that's standard def only?

OTOH, why would a collector that doesn't own a HD-DVD player purchase the first season on the DVD/HD-DVD combo format?

Unless Paramount intends to re-issue the first season of Remastered on SD-DVD only, this release seemingly makes no sense.

 

[RickER]

I agree. I will be skipping it until i see a cheaper DVD only season 1. I own a Blu-ray player. But, for some reason i bet Paramount will ask $200 retail, not unlike the combo season 1 set, when and if it goes to Blu-ray. Thats to rich for my blood!

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Who would buy season 1 if they didn't have a HD-DVD player? Um... anyone who wanted it on SD-DVD. Why do you need it re-released in SD only? Anyone who wants the first season in SD can go get it right now for roughly the same price that all the previous SD trek series have debuted at. Undoubtedly they'll repress it again in non combo form, but not until they run out of existing stock.

 

[RickER]

Why would i pay for the side i cant use? Cause its not the same price as the older season 1 release. I could get that for under $50, but the cheapest i have seen the combo is $130-$150 Just give it to me on a single sided standard DVD.

 

[TonyD]

$96 at amazon