Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far - Page 31

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I beg to differ with this. II's colors look far more natural now, whereas before there was too much of a red push. It is especially noticeable on a high-quality display and you have the other films to compare it to. Perhaps it was the intention in the past to purposely pump-up the red to further stress the whole submarine drama that Meyer was going for, but it now looks much more closer to reality to me.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I've got to give Amazon some props. They evidently upgraded me to next day shipping to make up for missing the release date. The thing shipped yesterday afternoon and the tracker says it is now waiting for me at home.

They even correctly added the Gold Box discount I signed up for back in March (even though the price has dropped almost $20 since I ordered).

I can't wait to spin some of these tonight.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I watched TMP the other night. At 1080p/24 on my 60" SXRD A3000, I found the image as a big improvement over the existing DVD. Color, contrast, and clarity was very good on BD. However, the DNR is too much. Most of the film grain is removed (except in optical/visual effects) and the faces of actors often take on a pasty look. So, while a big improvement over the DVD, the image doesn't look very film-like either.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

OMG so the US releases have player-generated subs too? The first time EVER that these movies don't include their original theatrical captions?

Okay, that's the straw that broke the camel's back. I won't be buying this set. I'll still with my DVD special editions.

Thanks for nothing, Paramount.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

'tis sad but true.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Trek V is a gag reel.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I must say that had me laughing for a while.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Watched part of TWOK tonight, (netflix) skipped around and it looked pretty good, sometimes excellent. It's too bad all the films didn't get remastered properly. Eric over at AVS also noticed some interesting anomalies...


"More DNR weirdness in STV, it has a hard time with dark scenes and forgets to remove the grain for a few seconds after a shot change..."



http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/5...shot200905.png

then

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/534...shot200905.png


and

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/534...shot200905.png

then

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5...shot200905.png

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Player generated subtitles on blu-ray have the potential to look exactly like the original. The Godfather blu-rays are a perfect example of this.

I don't know if they put that much effort into the Star Trek subtitles.

Doug

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I did not break on the Khan DVD for comparison, but the BR subs (Savvik and Spock speaking after Kirk and party board the Enterprise) looked very good to my eye.

These are nothing like the abomination on, for example, the Star Wars DVDs.

Brian

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Agree completely. II's colors look far more natural now.


Yancy

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Apparently they left the subs in Star Trek II alone - which is ironic since it's Trek II that was revamped.

It's the subs in all the other movies they buggered up.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Not everyone would take this as a bad thing, overall. Someone that knows just a little about film and film transfers would say this is the first time an early generation film element was used for the transfer of these movies. This would indicate more than a little effort and expense on the part of Paramount to try to get the most out of these new HD masters.

Obviously, their efforts are not appreciated (read; understood) by all.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

The James Bond blu-rays all contain their original theatrical subtitles - and so does Star Trek II - were these not first generation? And Star Trek III contains the "Genesis Planet" caption correctly apparently - so why not the rest?

So the "first generation thing" doesn't work I'm afraid :-(

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Well, that settles it then. I've been looking for one more reason to buy just Part 2 from the UK and write off the rest until the inevitable double-dip. This puts me way over.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Those shots show clearly how good it could've looked. Too bad.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I think the subs in TMP look great (even though they might not be in the "right" font). Much better than burned-in ones might have, I think.

Remember, these aren't DVD-generated subs. They are sharp and clear.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I had a quick look at a non-DC DVD version of Khan I had handy.

The subs look identical to the BR, at least to my eye.

Brian

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

They may be sharp and clear, but they're not the original font. Hence this is NOT what was shown in theatres. Thus this is NOT the theatrical version of this movie :-(

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Yes, like I said above, the subs on Trek II have not been changed.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I'm not dissing the color timing outright, but one shot in particular (the vertical pan from Enterprise 'up' to the other pole of Regula I, stopping at Reliant next to the station) looked WAY too blue. The planetoid itself had a more grayish tinge, looking fine, but the vessels themselves didn't have a single hint of metallic gray on their hulls. They're essentially blue outlines of the ships themselves.

Now my set's color temperature may not be exactly 6500k, but it's nowhere near the cooler temperature settings, and other program material looks very natural. If I had an idea of what the reference color scheme should be, then I could accept this better. All I could think of while watching that shot was, to borrow a U2 lyric, "Zooropa. A bluer kind of white..."

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

That strongly suggests that Paramount was using some kind of automatic temporal noise scrubber, which required a few like frames in front and behind to work. Interesting, as there are free filters for avisynth that work more intelligently.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

FYI - Fry's has this on sale for $59.99 this weekend. I was on the fence at $80, but for $20 less I bit the bullet.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

"http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u...k/e3291f42.png"

That.Is.Terrible.

It looks like something with a watercolor effect in photoshop would look like.

Some caps look pretty good while others look hideous.

I have to agree with what Bleddyn said.

No buy for me.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I never realized that Star Trek VI was a rotoscoped animated film all this time. Slap a 'Directed by Richard Linklater' credit on it, and we're good to go.

Thankfully, that's the worst of it in the transfer, but still...

I'm finding that the DNR work here actually gets more and more annoying as I progress through the movie. It's not that the level gets higher and higher, just that I subconsciously realize there's something WRONG with the image. It's very fatiguing.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Thank you for everyone's opinions. I was on the fence on this one as I was happy with my SD. I will not bite on this at any price.

Let's hope that Paramount does not mess up the transfer of the current film.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Okay, I'm looking at TMP right now. I think it looks great, pretty much how I remember it in the theater (I saw it 10 times when it was first released), but I do have a smaller, 34" display.

However, I'm noticing that the only way to see the English translation of the Klingon dialogue at the beginning is to turn on the full English subtitles -- that means that the whole movie is then subtitled! Am I missing something? Is there a way to have just the Klingon dialogue subtitled? This seems to be a major oversight.

I haven't looked at any of the other films yet, so I don't know if they are similarly affected.

- Mark

EDIT: This goes for the Vulcan dialogue between Spock and the Vulcan masters, too.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

All right, I can answer my own question. Apparently if you select "none" in the subtitle setup menu, it clears ALL of the subtitles, even those Klingon and Vulcan translations. If you don't make any selection, it defaults to no subtitles, but still provides the translations. Odd.

- Mark

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Sort of. Arguably, it's a bug in the menu. But it did give you exactly what you asked for--no subtitle track, instead of the foreign-translations-only track.