'Best of' Star trek TNG Blu-ray set? - Page 2

Yeah Nick is right. Sorry Nelson that I wasn't clear about it. TNG suffers from the same problem that almost every American TV show from about 1988 through about 2005 does. It exists in finished form, only in an NTSC video. Almost 20 years of Television can't be put on blu-ray in HD unless all the film is completely re-scanned and re-edited.

It seems short sited today, but a show like TNG would have been impossible to produce with the budgets they had any other way. Once other producers saw what they were doing, along with a few other shows, and saw the savings, everyone jumped on board.

Doug

On a side note, doesn't Star Trek Generations actually have a few shots from the tv show re-done on film?

Thanks Doug for that added insight.

I'm sure they didn't see the coming boom for home video in hi-def back then. I can see the reasoning to make a show like that more cost effective. Like sitcoms such as WKRP in Cincinnati were cheaper to make on video rather then film. (Not to mention the music rights issue)

As another aside, here's an article written by the webmaster at Trekmovie.com back on July 27th 2007. This was during the remastering of TOS and coverage of the new remastered episodes as they were airing weekly in syndication. They had interviewed CBS about TNG and their testing for HD. This article has been brought up before, but I thought I'd repost it here for fun.

Yes and the results of those tests seem to be the upresed episode of DS9, Trials and Tribulations that is on the TOS season 2 blu-ray set. It looks really terrible. I think it looks worse than watching the original episode on the DS9 set.

Doug

They reused some original Enterprise E shots ILM did for the pilot, which became stock footage for the rest of the series..

I would go for something like a 20-episode "best of" on BD, but I'm not *THAT* big of a Trek fan, so...

_Man_

Well guys, 

 

If you were in Las Vegas last weekend for the annual Star Trek Convention, you may have heard some news about TNG on Blu Ray. 

 

One fan asked the CBS Consumer Products VP, John Van Citters if they would. His reply was that it's still a technical challenge, but they have been in talks about how to do it. It's now a matter of when. ( I think most of us know the technical challenges compared to the ease of converting TOS to HD, so I won't get into it. It was discussed above if you're new to this thread.)

 

No budget or schedule set yet. They just have to figure out how to do it.

 

Here's a quote from the report at trekmovie.com

 

 

 

 

And link to the story: http://trekmovie.com/2010/08/09/vegascon10-cbs-products-panel-tng-on-blu-ray-being-discussed-new-enterprise-pizza-slicer-kelvin-salt-pepper-shaker-more/

Wow, forget TNG on Blu-ray, where can I get one of those Enterprise pizza slicers?

 

Seriously, I hope the bean counters decide to go whole hog on this project. I'm a Star Trek fan, and loved TNG, but I just can't see myself buying it on Blu-ray unless it's in HD from beginning to end (high def transfer from the OCN, then episodes rebuilt with optional new HD special effects). Wow, that would really look stunning. I'll bet they could have a nice secondary revenue stream by licensing that out for syndication too, like Seinfeld. Come on guys, throw the dice! It'll pay for itself eventually!

They did that with TOS, but from what I understand in most markets it got relegated to 3 AM - not exactly what they do to something that people are actually watching...

Yeah, for close to the first year they broadcast Remastered TOS, it was 11:00pm in my area on a Saturday night. Then it got moved to 1:00am or so Sunday morning. Really annoying! It moved around to Sunday afternoons too.

 

I think that CBS knows there's a market for TNG, The guy did say they are trying to figure it out. But I also think that the main market for TNG are the Trek fans. It may have taken a bit of a hit with the mainstream BD buyers. But I could be wrong. It's 23 years now since it first aired and the affection it once had with mainstream audiences may be nostalgic for it.

I can't help but fixate on the irony of how the oft considered antiquated and cheesey SFX of the original series turned out to be an easier technical exercise to spruce up for the universe of high definition viewing than its sucessors.

I recently started re-watching TNG from the beginning, and the show desperately needs an HD upgrade. The video is often murky and blurry compared to what we are used to these days. As I have said in other threads, if Paramount wants TNG (or DS9 or VOY) to continue to be discovered by future generations (no pun intended), they need to invest in the HD upgrade. The video elements of the show make it look antiquated compared to TOS, which is ironic. That said, we need to understand that this is a huge task - there are more effects elements in TNG than there ever were in TOS, and for all of them to be redone will take a lot of time and money. Patience.

 

Here's a tip for the CBS/Paramount "Bean Counters":  Please don't bother converting "Shades of Gray" to HD!  In addition to the fact that it's a *terrible* episode, the many clips of the shows from the first two seasons could now serve as a tribute to the SFX effects team of that era.  They really did a terrific job considering what they had to work with; and are mainly betrayed now only by the decision to go with 480i resolution and post-production editing on video.  Both of those decisions made perfect sense in 1987 for a syndicated show with no network financing.

 

That said, I'm really looking forward to a HD updating for this series.  Starting with the third season, ST:TNG provided  a (mostly) stellar five year run of outstanding "anthology"-based Star Trek.  With updated effects it could appeal to a whole new generation of Star Trek fans.  (It's just too bad that there were only about a dozen great eps from the first two seasons combined.) 

This was the first TV series I was ever addicted to. I doubt it would play the same way as when I was a kid, but I would sure enjoy rewatching remastered episodes. 

 

The current masters do look pretty grisly on cable. It seems to me that Paramount has to find a way to pony up for the whole series. 

If they do it, they are future proofing TNG.  There is going to come a point where hi def will be so pervasive that SD programming will fall by the wayside.  A hi def TNG will be good for syndication, Blu-ray, download and any other distribution method they can think of. 

 

Anyway, am looking forward to THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS in hi def. New CGI Borg effects would be real cool.

 

 

 

I don't think there is any need for CGI effects shots (other than recreating the animation IE phasers and such) The original model photography is really quite good and would be spectacular if just recomposited at HD resolution.

 

Doug

The potential upside to remaking the effects in CG is they could break up the repetitiveness of the ship sequences, specifically the short establishing shots, which are all too obvious on all the Trek shows.

I don't think it's a matter of IF they are going to upgrade this series for hi def, but when and how. This franchise is not going to be left to rot.

Seems this thread and the thread below could be merged now since we're talking about the HD conversion:

 

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/259505/star-trek-the-next-generation-complete-set-coming/30#post_3721080

I came across Reading Rainbow on youtube after looking at the TNG special as TNG was ending it's 7 year run. 

 

It's the Reading Rainbow episode where LeVar Burton takes you behind the scenes on Star Trek TNG. I always missed most of this episode when it aired! There's a segment where LeVar takes you behind the scenes and how the show was edited and the SPX were composited. While it's aimed at kids and not very in-depth, it gives a pretty good idea of how it was done. And how difficult it could be to re-assemble clips to reconstruct each show.