Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far - Page 40

Your post really belongs in the Season 1 thread, not this one.  Still, I'm wondering why you don't just look inside the box?  It lists all the episodes per disc there.

Doug

Why the need to read booklets when it could be on disc. Plus someone like me with a disability can't easily search through booklets with out major effort. Sorry I guess I'm just thinking differently because of my condition..

Not to be pedantic, but it's not a booklet.  It's printed on the inside front and inside back of the box.  But you're right, it's hard to read (for everybody - disability or not), and we've complained before about why Paramount didn't just list the episodes on each disc.  Also, check out Nelson's thread where he created a nice booklet for us.  One page of the booklet lists all the episodes and their disc numbers.  I put the booklet inside my box with that page facing out.  It's much easier to read than what they printed inside the box.

Doug

I found this amusing video review about the problems with Generations. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06WKYFYdlo Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azSh47-oRPI

Sorry if I got a little lazy but I just got internet back after about 2 months and I didn't feel like going through all 40 pages, ROFL.  Anyway I just wanted to get the general concenses on the video quality on the Bluray releases for the original movies and the next generation movies.  I have been thinking about picking up the HD Blurays to replace the SD-DVD's I allready own.  Are they worth the investment?  How good do they really look and how is the sound?

Thanks in advance 

Concensus from forum members here is:

1: Audio is pretty good in 7.1. Few complaints.

2: Picture depends on the type of display you have. If you have a 40-42" then you may find few problems but many with larger screen sizes (especially projectors) say the DNR is excessive and ruins the PQ for them.

The big issue is that DNR has been applied to all movies and removes some detail and it all comes down to how sensitive you are to this and the type of display you have. Me personally I thought the PQ was overall very good & a big step up from the SDVDS (search this thread I posted several pictures from them).

One thing most agree on is the they are all a step up from the SDVD's.

ST4 + ST6 have the worse PQ.
ST1 or ST3 are about equal best.
ST2 + ST5 are very good but not exceptional.

TNG movies are not yet available (due in a few months).

Your mileage may vary as they say. I have a 1080i 50" plasma that I viewed these on.

The most praised of the releases is Star Trek 2 as it apparently got the most attention during mastering. 

I found Star Trek The Motion Picture to have a stunning image. The area that stood out for me is a bridge shot of Spock late in the film. I don't know if its the lighting or DNR or just the image appearing as it should. Leonard Nimoy's make-up really stood out as uneven and unnatural looking. I saw that as simply being a terrific image where we are able to see the defects of the production that day they filmed that scene. A surprising reveal for such a meticulously made film. Or it's the DNR as so many have postulated.

Star Trek 6 looks great to me too. I think all six saw massive improvement and well worth the investment for the dedicated Star Trek fan. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming standard def DVD's look in comparison on an upconvert player.

And as an aside, for fans of soundtrack albums. The out of print Star Trek 2 sound track album has just been re-issued. But this version is an extended version. Where as the original release was limited to 45 minutes due to space limitations, the new release is 75 minutes long and includes all the tracks, AFAIK. Plus a bonus track of the final piece before James Horner knew they reshot the ending. I got it yesterday and it's amazing to listen to because you hear stuff I've never heard before that the sound effects and dialogue covers.

It's available from the website, http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/cds/detail.cfm/CDID/431/Star-Trek-II--The-Wrath-of-Khan/

I understand it's available at Amazon too for 5 cents less. I got mine very fast from the Film Score site.

 Box art here for the individual films and TOS S2:

http://trekmovie.com/2009/07/31/box-art-for-star-trek-season-2-blu-ray-individual-star-trek-movies-on-blu-ray-dvd/

Thanks for the input on these releases.  I think I will hold off awhile for Star Trek on Bluray, just for awhile longer and see what happens.  Besides I need the cash to buy Battlestar Galactica Seasons 1-4 on Bluray , that will set me back a few dollars.    I would eventually love to replace all my Star Trek movie SD-DVD's with HD Bluray's..  My display is a 50" Sony 3 chip LCD that accepts 1080i but is a 720p native resolution HDTV.  I also hope to upgrade this to a 60" - 70" 1080 sometime in the near future or maybe a 1080p projector with a 120" Stewart Film Screen.  Just need to come up with the money! 

Dave,

Did you get in on the DeepDiscount sale for the BSG complete set?  There was one day or two when they had it priced down to around $200 *BEFORE* the 25% sale discount.  It's currently back to ~$226 before the 25% discount.  And you can also get additional 4% cashback via Bing.com (for a 28% net discount), if you're inclined to do that.


RE: these Star Trek BDs, yeah, I think I'm gonna just hold off as well until Par offers better releases in the future.  I didn't even jump in on the apparent Amazon pricing mistake on preorders for the separate releases of Undiscovered Country and First Contact (that lasted for maybe a week) because of their suspect quality trend w/ catalog releases (and even new day-and-date releases at times).

_Man_

Sorry to hear what happened to your box. I know how you feel.

It would be interesting if someone could learn where the boxes are made and maybe one could see if a replacement could be acquired there.

The other option maybe is to try to exchange it from where you bought it? But that might not be cool. Or maybe buying a used set from ebay, Amazon or craigslist?

Good luck.

^ I think you're much more likely to get an exchange if you say that it was a gift (so you have no reciept) and one of the discs doesn't work rather than saying that it's way past the exchange time period and you want to return it because the inside of the box has a small tear in it.

The Trek films have been popping up on one of the cable channels in HD, and it's depressing to see how much better they look compared to the blus. No frozen grain, no pumped-up contrast, no overly blue colour timing - oh well. Maybe they'll get it right the next time around.

 Just curious if there are any blu ray plans for Star Trek in 2010? I'm planning on picking up the TNG film set, the new Trek film and season 3 of TOS. I only picked up the Trilogy set of the older films. That set seemed to scream double dip as the director's cuts of 1, 2 and 6 were not included this time.... 

What about the Enterprise tv series? It was filmed in HD correct? 

The Animated Series was redone in HD for the DVD set as well? 

I hope we will continue to see the Star Trek tv shows being released. I know TNG, Voyager and DS9 are not looking good do to the editing on video from film and reconstruction problem. 

Seasons 1-3 were filmed on 35mm still, while season 4 moved to HD. However, unlike earlier series, these were edited in the HD realm and not video. However, some of the effects are uprezzed SD instead of HD. (Not that that can't look good--see the Firefly release.)

I'd expect to see Enterprise next year. Maybe TAS, if the standalone DVDs sold well enough. But I'm not getting my hopes up for the other TV shows.

I think it was season 2 when they switched to HD aquisition. But yeah. :)

 With all of the films and TOS episodes released. Is there any future Star Trek blu ray news or rumors? 

Enterprise should be an easy release on blu ray. As would the Animated Series. 

I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) Director's Cuts of the Star Trek films as well. I know it will most likely be until the next JJ Abrams Star Trek film is released. 

Sigh.

Recently I decided to do some DVD to Blu-Ray comparisons just for kicks. I concentrated on the titles I knew had excessive DNR and I have to say that I am even more disappointed now than I was originally. Star Trek VI was my first comparison. While I prefer the change in aspect ratios, the DNR (it should more accurately be called DFGR for digital film grain removal!) really destroys the fine detail. The lower-res DVD retains it.

It was suggested that the presence of DNR in some Blu-Ray releases is the result of using old masters that were originally prepared for DVD release and the "noise removal" was done to provide better compression results for the DVD medium. I agree that may have happened but I'm not sure I agree that an old, completed master was used in this case due to the aspect ratio change. So at some point in remaster of ST VI someone very intentionally dialed up the DNR knob and called it "good". It is apparent that ST II had more supervision from Meyer than ST VI did unless Meyer thought the lack of grain looks "good" also. I doubt that.

Wikipedia states that a transfer from the year 2000 was used for the Blu-Ray:


"The Undiscovered Country was remastered in 1080p high-definition from the 2000 DVD transfer. The film, like the others in the set, features 7.1 Dolby TrueHD audio. The disc also contains a new commentary track by Star Trek screenwriters Larry Nemecek and Ira Steven Behr.^[119]"


Wouldn't a new transfer have been necessary for the aspect ratio change? Although, I suppose that could be done in the digital realm also.

It is my hope that timing these films for release on Blu-Ray to coincide with the reboot film meant shortcuts were made and that someday these films will receive the better treatment that they deserve. On the other hand, if they all received true remasters (as the packaging described?!) that had varying degrees of DNR applied to them, that is simply regrettable and someone in charge needs have their hand slapped.

If other studios can correct mistakes made with poor Blu-Ray releases (Fifth Element, Gangs of New York, soon-to-be Gladiator?  ) so can Paramount, especially with their most successful product. I don't want a long wait though.

I would think a new transfer would have been done as well if there is visual evidence of a difference in source material from the first edition DVD to the special edition. Does the fact that the SE is 16x9 stand as proof alone of a new transfer? At any rate, I wonder how much "new" effort was put into the preparation of the master for the BD. Too bad the "restored" description only applies to ST:TWOK.

 While part of me wants to hold out for the next batch of Trek TOS films to be issued on blu ray the other part of me would like to pick up the current set. 

I borrowed if from a friend and was very impressed with Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek V. Both in terms of picture quality and the audio tracks were very, very good. Both TMP and 5 had very good new audio commentary tracks as well. 

They really did a nice job of cleaning up TMP!! Wow. Plus the audio is so much better than the DVD. I was very impressed. 

That being said, I really would've liked to have the Director's Cut. 

I understand the DNR concerns, but thus far all of the films look better in terms of clarity and audio sound than the DVD versions. 

Not condoning what Paramount did with the use of DNR and old masters for some of the films, but I guess I didn't think it was as big of a deal after finally watching them. 

For the record I only bought the Trilogy set initially. 

The reviews here have commented that the DNR is not as evident till you go over a 50" screen size. I have a 50" screen and to me, I couldn't really tell. Star Trek The Motion Picture to me does look fantastic. There are shots on the bridge towards the end and you can see the make-up on Nimoy's face is very uneven.

Regarding Star Trek The Motion Picture Directors Cut, I was chatting on a Superman thread and one member said he spoke to David Fein who was involved in the Directors Cut remastering. He said that David was presented with resistance from Paramount on the whole project and were not going to fund it. When he showed it could be done technically, they showed some interest, but would not fund an HD version. He said, okay, I can do it for that much money if it's Standard Def.  Hopefully soon, we'll see it on BD! And without all the DNR.

On another thought, perhaps Paramount was playing chicken, if David Fein agreed to do the HD version for that money, we'd have it and Paramount wouldn't have had to pay as much. But I can see David made a proper business decision. I wonder what the cost would have been for? If it's computer time to crunch the renderings? Because that's no labor I would guess. I do renderings of still images in CGI as part of my job and when I'm done building and setting up lights, then it's the computer time to render it. So I can go play when it's doing that.

I am interested in getting The Wrath of Khan on Blu-ray and was wondering if it looked good and does it have the same problems that the other Star Trek Blu-rays have? I did see TMP on HDNET last night and thought it looks pretty good since they used the Blu-ray master and since they will be playing The Wrath of Khan Wendsday night I think I will watch it see how good it looks to me.

 I think the majority of the reactions to the blu rays is that The Wrath of Khan got the best makeover.

It would be great to know if Paramount has any blu ray plans for the rest of the shows. Hopefully we have some news on releases this year. I would think Enterprise would be first up for blu ray? 

More like "only", without reediting all the episodes (and possibly redoing the VFX).