Deep Space Nine: For the Fans - Page 4

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I'm guessing that most of the participants in this thread are not necessarily watching season one right now, but does anyone recall if they had any glitches towards the beginning of the episode "Duet?" Right after Kira first confronts the Cardassian, and especially during the following scene in Sisko's office, I experienced what I would describe as interlacing errors, even though I'm using a progressive player and television. The movement was a little jerky, with some noticeable lines on the screen. It only happened for a brief time, and the rest of the episode was fine.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Greg, although these eps. were shot on film, they were edited and the FX done on video. What kind of Prog scan DVD player do you have? My old JVC which was flag based would get combing and interlace phantoms with the TREK:TNG and Buffy shows on DVD.
I have since gotten a Faroudja chip based player (oppo) and these are no longer seen.

From Secrets of Home theater page...

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...e-10-2000.html


"Shot on Film, Edited as Video

A fairly large amount of material these days is shot on film to get a film “look,” then transferred to video for editing and other post-production, as editing and post are much cheaper for video. Almost all episodic TV, music videos, and made-for-TV movies are done this way. This is a torture test for cadence-reading deinterlacers, as each scene will have the 3-2 cadence internally, but edits will more often than not break it, since the makers didn’t care about keeping the film cadence intact. In our test suite, we used More Tales of the City, which is a textbook example of this kind of material. However, you will find that most music videos and made-for-TV material will have the same problem. In addition, shows with lots of special effects have this problem all the time, because often the live action is shot on film and has a 3-2 pulldown pattern, but the effects are produced in a computer and have a 2-2 pulldown pattern. Overlaid titles like subtitles, show credits, dates and places (things that are shown at the bottom of the screen at the beginning of a scene like "New York City, 1856") also tend to work this way - the title generators used for TV are 2-2 coherent, and cause strange cadence glitches. We've seen problems like this on the X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and many other TV shows on DVD. Even films are not immune: the new footage on the special edition of Star Trek the Motion Picture has 2-2 special effects that screw up the cadence (and the flags)..."



And I'm now at the end of S3 and the show is very, very good.
1/2 of S1 was truly bad. S2 was better. S3 they finally hit their stride and I know it gets better though I really cringe at the Ferengi based eps...

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I've got a Denon, and it hasn't been a problem until this particular episode. I'm now curious as to whether or not I'll experience the season 5, I think it is, glitch. I didn't experience it the first time around, but I have a different player now. I'll have to do some research to remember what the season 5 glitch was.

I have to disagree about season 1. Outside of Dramatis Personae, I've enjoyed just about all of it. Just one more episode to go. I am a fan of the Ferengi episodes. I love hearing the Nagus's annoying laugh!

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

exactly, the "annoying" laugh....!!!!


agh!!!

and the actors were stiff as boards through almost the whole first season, it was like watching a high school play 1/2 the time!

Good luck with the glitch! I'm netflixing the discs so I can't check for you!

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I've found that I just don't enjoy watching older shows like this on the 'better' setup I have. On my LCD television, the image flaws are so obvious it's very distracting. The only thing that keeps me watching a show like this on it is that I can enjoy the surround setup. Otherwise, I prefer watching this show (and Buffy, Alien Nation, and older-looking/mastered shows) on a standard CRT TV. They look fantastic on that. Does that make any sense?

P.S. I'll have a look at "Duet" on both my computer and LCD / progressive scan player.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

A lot of 4x3 material is like that. I have a CRT 16x9, and I find that any 4x3 television in the house looks better on standard cable than the 16x9 does. Also, my digital cable 4x3 is several inches wider than 4x3 DVDs. I don't know why that is. They are both the correct ratio, but digital cable is "bigger." The DVDs are more correct, but it looks so small in comparison. Also, the image looks decent from a distance, but very fuzzy if I get too close.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

unfortunately, paramount just doesn't care about quality for their premiere franchise here. they just do a simple telecine from the master without cleaning it and letting fans pay for the ROI. paramount isn't the only ones, FOX's X-Files on SD-DVD also sux, i used to have it, it's terrible looking for a good content show.

i think TNG has fared the worst with DS9, VOY, ENT getting better since they were all newer and newer shows. but don't get me started on the trek films, none of them except the most recent looks good.

they're focused on TOS right now. now THAT looks BETTER THAN than TNG, DS9 and the rest of the series, even on SD-DVD! why can't they spend the $? cause it'll break the bank? there are more episodes for the subsequent series than TOS.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

One step at a time? I'd guess the focus on TOS now is because of the "let's update the effects" gimmick, and at the same time they would remaster for a future HD release. No doubt TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT will be revisited in due course, with hi def transfers for re-release on Blu-ray, but they also don't want to overload the fans' wallets with multiple releases at the same time. They are nothing if not expert at ensuring a steady flow of income from the Star Trek franchise. Re-doing all the series at the same time is both a big hit in terms of cost, and will not recoup as much in sales because of sheer fatigue on the part of fans.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Greg:
If your Widescreen display has a "Native" aspect ratio mode you will find that your 4:3 DVDs will have the same width as your digital cable 4:3 presentations. Again, use "Native" and not "16:9" or "4:3" for the aspect ratio.

On the DS9 transfers, the "fuzziness" is partially due to the compression technology of the day. Back when DS9 was transferred to DVD (2001) it was a daunting task to put close to 4 hours of video on a disc and maintain good black levels without "mosquito noise". This is especially true of a show like DS9 which contains a preponderance of dark scenes. The compression technology has improved by a factor of 10 since then and it's no problem now.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Yeah. Watching on a standard CRT TV makes these DVDs look like the best of the best of broadcasts, where as any other type or monitor (HD CRT, LCD, Plasma) makes the image so clear that all the image flaws and compression noise are clearly visible and distracting. Not remotely as bad as standard cable on an HD monitor though. Now THAT'S horrible.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Actually the eps. are 45 min each (no commercials...) so it's only 3 hours per disc.
The shooting style was soft alot of the time and they transferred all the film elements to 480i SD video for editing and FX work.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

We watched Battle Lines last night, and while I enjoyed the episode and the events it sets in motion (need for a new Kai, etc.), it was clear that the actors were still finding their characters. Still, even at this early stage of the game, the show was going somewhere. Not to dis season 1 of TNG (because I think it had a certain charm to it), but this show was pretty solid from the beginning.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I watched Necessary Evil. That is a damn good episode. Excellent script, deft direction (example of a small, almost invisible touch: Bajoran children playing on the station in the present, directly followed by a flashback scene with Bajoran children living in fear), and some of the first important character connections. There was even room for some genuine humor, and any script that calls for Ferengi howling is okay by me. I love their annoying laughs, too, though that was more to be found in the previous episode.

Peter Allan Fields wrote the script. He's got an absolutely stellar Trek resume. The Inner Light. Duet. In the Pale Moonlight. Wow.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Yeah, he's been one of my favorite writers on the series for a long time. (He even wrote some very good TNG episodes.) A shame he never became part of the regular DS9 writing staff when the show was in its groove. He would have done well as part of the Behr-Wolfe-Moore-Echevarria-Thompson-Weddle-et.al. group.

Watched The Stoyteller last night. Fun way to set up the O'Brien-Bashir friendship. Watching O'Brien trying to get out of a mission with Bashir, you'd never know how tight they end up becoming.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I was a little surprised that the mirror episodes started as early as season 2. I didn't remember that at all.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

We finished season 1 last night. The finale and the episode before it ("Duet") are some of the best episodes of the series, which is saying a lot.

As for the mirror episodes, I liked them generally, although the one with Mirror Bariel was kinda weak, and by the end, those episodes were being played too much for comedy.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Just watched this episode, and saw nothing like you described. No problems with my copy.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Just watched Distant Voices last night. Please let that be the last Joe Menosky epsiode. The man is just plain bad. If everyone's acting out of character, imagination or thought assumes bizarre physical form, and everything is reset at the end of the episode, you're probably watching Menosky. I was a little surprised to find that he didn't write the horrible "Waking Moments" episode of Voyager.

Hmm. I see that he wrote the Molly O'Brien reset fest that is yet to come, but that's his last DS9 script. Then, he moved on to stink up Voyager.

Unfortunately, the follow-up to this was Through the Looking Glass. It was actually a pretty good episode, but not a real palate cleanser. I'm not so big on the mirror eps.

To say something positive, you can have T'Pol or Seven. I just love Kira in that little orange jumper. Dax looked really good on the other side, though. It's a little disturbing that "our" Sisko apparently nailed both Dax and Kira over there.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Not one of my favorites.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

We're still watching season 2 - we saw Rules of Acquisition last night. Funny, when we watched TNG, my wife hated the Ferengi, but on DS9, she loves Quark and has come to look forward to the Ferengi episodes. At the end of "Rules," she was disappointed that Pel went off on her own at the end. She said she wanted Quark and Pel to live happily ever after!

I found it very cool that the first mention of "the Dominion" on the show is an innocent reference in a Ferengi episode. It stresses how the Federation had no idea what was to come.

Enjoying the show tremendously in what is, I guess, my third time seeing them all. How I wish there would be a movie or a TV-movie or a direct-to-DVD installment for this, the best of the Trek series. Maybe once Paramount sees how well it works for Babylon 5...

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

If this is her first time through, she'll only come to love the Ferengi even more. Wait until Nog kicks into high gear. I've said it before, but I still crack up at just the thought of Wallace Shawn as Zek. I watched Prophet Motive a few days ago, and he didn't fail to amuse me.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Some of the Ferengi eps were really funny and Armin was a highlight of rewatching these for me as well.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I think it shows just how good Ira Behr & company were, and how details really do matter. I remember a bit when TNG was starting, Roddenberry was being interviewed about the new villains, and his description was "we want motivated heavies. The Ferengi do what they do because they're extremely greedy; they're like the Michael Milkens of space!". I honestly don't think he gave them much thought beyond that, while Behr and his crew basically sat down and said, okay, what's Ferengi society like? What rules do they live by?"

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I am exactly 1/2way through now. Just finished Disc 3 of S4 and having a great time. Except for the extremely awkward shoehorning in of Worf's character, (I know he gets better but the whole first 1/2 of the season he just felt really tacked on and unneccessary IMHO...) the show is really flying now.

But man, that episode with Quark, Rom and their Mom at home....


aggghhhh....!!!! root canals are more pleasant!



and for the record, I LOVE Armin, (Buffy vet too!) but most of the other Ferengis just give me the wigguns...

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

I liked that episode in the past. I'll have to wait and see what I think now.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Haven't I read online that the episode "Explorers" is not highly regarded? I think it was excellent, in both the A and the B storylines. The lightship was beautiful, and it was neat seeing that kind of conveyance in Star Trek.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Most fans give this ep three stars (out of four). It was a very nice "change-of-pace" episode that just seemed to come out of nowhere. It was pretty obvious that the featured actors were really having a lot of fun with the material.

Here's a link to one of better reviews of the ep (The review contains lots of SPOILERS) :

http://www.jammersreviews.com/ds9-3/explorers.php

It's my understanding that if there had been a Star Trek: Fan Collective with an "Exploration" theme, this would have been one of the DS9 episodes that would have been considered. (Along with TOS' "The Corbomite Maneuver", TNG's "Relics", and Voyagers' "One Small Step".)

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

Thanks. I went to a few places I know like Memory Alpha and tv.com, but I couldn't get a real sense of how it was regarded.

Re: Deep Space Nine: For the Fans

ARGH!!!

I was all set last nite to really get into S4, disc 4, wife, baby and wienerdog asleep, raccoons scurrying on the porch, the Hayward fault (10 blocks away!) being nice and quiet after the 4.2 a couple of weeks ago that rattled our nerves, a tumbler full of chardonnay and seltzer, (yes, a spritzer, I'm a girl inside...) and I had gotten a good 20 minutes into the first ep. and it froze. I ejected the disc and it looked like somone had taken a marker and just defaced the hell out of it. Nothing I could do could get it to play.

(sigh...) I reported it to netflix but will have to wait until tuesday nite for the replacement!

(grumble, grumble...)