Is Star Trek: The Next Generation Destined For Blu-Ray?

Even though a rumor this is great news and i will certainly not purchase the dvds. TNG  blu-rays most definetly count me in as it happens

If a positive reaction to TNG remastered gets me DS9 remastered (yes, I will always hold out hope), I'm all for it with the usual caveat: the original version has to be on the same set like TOS or widely available. Otherwise, I'm geeked to see what they can come up with for every episode, but especially the biggies like Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds.

The original disks were such a investment I'd hate to spend more money on the blu's But like every good trek fan I probably will. The Dvd's are almost unwatchable now, as are DS9's. Voyager isn't too bad, I expect Enterprise might get released since the majority is in HD. TNG's DVD's are soft, full of noise and interlacing problems. I'd love to see a remaster, but TNG tends to have way more in the way of SPFX than the original show had. It's gonna Cost.

Stephen and TNG Fans like myself read the bottom link kindly provided from our friend Tim.

http://trekmovie.com/2011/05/09/rumor-cbs-moving-forward-with-star-trek-tng-in-hd-project/

There has been little in the way of technical discussion yet about TNG-R, doubtless that will come later after this rumor is (hopefully) confirmed.

 

The Trekmovie link states something about rotoscoping out the actors in front of the main viewscreen which seems odd. Was there not a green or bluescreen in the viewer for chroma keying? Hard to imagine that the original composite used rotoscoping, and if OTOH they are saying that the original plates are gone and they are rotoscoping out the old effect from the NTSC composite, that would mean B5-style quality drops everytime such a shot appears.

 

I recall seeing a documentary on TNG post production showing how they took multiple passes of the Enterprise using motion control; one exposure for the lights, one for the nacelles, one for the hull, one for the matte. These exposures would then be composited in video after telecine. The ideal reproduction would be to scan these exposures in HD and recomposite them — I worry that these will be thrown out in favor of all-CGI. Even the nebulae and wormholes in the show used 35mm smoke tank footage, so recovering and bringing these elements up to HD is possible (if the elements survive), and the most authentic to the original presentation. 

 

There is, of course, CGI in the show already, from Q's barrier to "Tin Man" and the illusory ship from "The Survivors." These, along with phaser beams, titles and other elements generated in the video realm, would be replaced in any regard. Replacing 35mm material would be a disappointment, IMHO. Perhaps handling that volume of film breaks the bank; keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Greg Jein lives! 

 

 

Edited by Joseph Burns - 5/19/11 at 1:41pm

So SNG is going blu-ray by next year. Fantastic news!!! Now maybe we can hope for all the Star Trek series my favorite DS9 but i will buy for sure SNG!!!

Thanks Bill Hunt for that great news!!!

Wait what where?
 

 

Matt here http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

They will get me with that sampler disc.   Just because you get that feeling it needs to sell well to get the complete series, I sure as hell will buy it.  I'm guaranteed to buy the whole series on BD as well, just in hopes it encourages them to do DS9

 

Someone had a thread "what would you pay more for"   Flat out, it's DS9.. that's another one.  If I have to buy TOS, TNG, and a Sampler disc to show them there is market devotion to do it, I'll be damned, small price to pay.  The DVDs of that series are TERRIBLE.   I will welcome whatever upgrade possibility there is.. the MPEG artifacts in the DS9 DVDs suck.   Any improvement for a series I love is worth it.

Matt I also see as you stated that even fans will be given a sampler disc later this year to show results of the project. I am with you all the way on this one. I love both series but do not have TOS or SNG only DS9. I loved the acting the writing i could go on and on. The whole show at first was suppose to be about a darker side to Star Trek. I never thought DS9 was anything but a very solid show with good actors and many many topics never written about on Network TV.

Yes the sets may have been dark compared to the other series. The station though had it's own look. I was in Vegas some years ago and it was fun to see a great deal Quarks Bar and other things.

I can be counted in for all the TNG release's!!!
Edited by Mark Collins - 7/26/11 at 8:10pm

If this is released on regular DVD, I'm in.

If it's only on bluray, I'll pass.

It's already on DVD (?!)
 

 

Remastered versions with new effects are already on DVD?

I'd also be in for a double dip on a remastered DS9, because the current DVDs look horrible.

Glad I held off on TNG and DS9. Bad reviews just kept me away. Looking forward to finally buying these on blu ray.

Just finished watching all of TNG on DVD over the past year, and what is very evident is that the series needs an HD upgrade. I will definitely look forward to and support blu-rays of the entire series, as well as DS9 (which I consider the best). 

I think the DVDs for both series (TNG and DS9) are good enough for my viewing. I won't be purchasing either series on blu ray.

I'd wait and see the reviews before purchasing. DS9 was such a dark series that it just might not translate well to being upconverted

Would love to see all the shows get an eventual upgrade but especially DS9 - Id pay extra for that show on its own.

Will be very interesting to see the results of the test disc. Actually think CBS/Paramount are leading the way here because whilst it might cost them now, surely in the long run they are going to make a profit.

And it may hopefully lead the way for other studios to consider upgrades to their shows - X Files ?? Babylon 5 ?? Buffy/Angel ?? I can hope!!!

I think when the TNG eventually is remastered and we see the results, we'll likely be surprised and impressed by the quality of the image.

I was really happy to see TOS on blu ray look so amazingly good! Granted though that series had superb cinematography and stylistic lighting. I think a true way to judge how TNG will improve is to just look at Generations on blu ray. While it's not on my top ten Trek films, what struck me was how the Data make-up looks.

The people doing the test remastering must have found a way to reassemble all the cuts and found or figured out a way to chase down all the film elements and cataloged them for reassembly without an excessive financial cost. Fans working for free?

The news that TNG is going Blue is such great news. I agree CBS will make a ton of money on this in long run. I also hope this ends the flood of those import counterfeit DVD"S.

I just hope CBS does not release the show in two parts for each season. I also hope that when and they will offer it as a box set that they do not shaft the fans with cheaper BD's like Battlestar Galactica. Yes it was from Universal but still it could happen.

Wild Wild West was a prime example CBS respecting the fans who bought each season. Yes they were complete but giving the two reuinon movies only in a box set was just to much. CBS had done this with I Love Lucy but in the end released a dvd of the special features.

I also would like to see the original Battlestar Galactica in BD. I think Universal would make money on the show if released in HD..

Here is more Trek news form Bill Hunt!!

Finally today, a lot of you have been asking for updates on CBS's Star Trek: The Next Generation - Remastered Blu-ray project, which we first revealed was in the works MANY months ago (here and here - click and scroll down a bit for the relevant text). As we said after Comic-Con, our sources have confirmed that it's coming and that a demo disc of episodes was being prepared for release during the holiday season, but there's obviously been no official announcement made by CBS yet. We don't know if CBS is ready to make an official announcement yet or not, BUT... tomorrow in Las Vegas, Creation's big annual Star Trek convention opens to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Trek franchise. If CBS IS finally ready to official reveal the project to the world, that's the obvious place to do it if they want to get a buzz going in the geek/Trek community. It may or may not happen, but I would definitely keep your hailing frequencies open this weekend for any news that might break or leak out of Sin City. I'm sure our friends over at Trek Movie (who will be reporting from the Con) will be all over it if there's anything officially revealed

(counts)
Ouch, man. Just ouch.

My wish list for a demo sampler...

 

Encounter at Farpoint

The Challenge (looked ass even back in 1987!)

The Best of Both Worlds [arguably the most new effects heavy episode (as opposed to endless looping stock footage) in the series]

All Good Things

 

I'm thinking if they really will go for a series release on blu ray, doing The Best of Both Worlds on a teaser demo disc would be cutting their throats!

That's a high water mark episode and the perfect selling point. You'd want to hold that one to get consumers excited. Yesterdays Enterprise is an effects heavy episode and a highly regarded one. That one might be a good choice.

But what is the true point of the remaster, a beautiful new high def image of the live action? Or the addition of cgi effects. For me, the remastered TOS really shines for the live action images and the only real reason to do it. The new CGI was a delightful bonus and succeeds most of the time and the redone theme music in the titles was overkill.

The new CGI for TNG could be good if they have the time and budget. The TOS CGI suffers from limited time and budget, but it works over all because they deliberately dumbed it down to an appropriate (sometimes) level for the 1960's. The Doomsday Machine was one of the best efforts and the TOS equivalent to TBoBW. With TNG, I think the bar will be much higher for the effects.

Yeah, I don't think they can put Best of Both Worlds on a demo disc.

 

I think the episodes they will likely consider would be something like:

 

Encounter at Far Point

Q Who - this is a good way to involve "The Borg" without giving away the big eps (Best of Both Worlds) that will be a selling point of the BD set

Silicon Avatar - would be an ideal episode to show how they can convert fully digital effects to the new media

Lessons - It's a Patrick Stewart piece all the way, but again, a good way to show baseline effects and the soundtrack off, especially as the soundtrack is important to this ep

 

I think the goal is to chose the intro episode, and a few others that would not be in the "MUST OWN" category but would be ones that would give you a reason to buy to see what the final set will look like.  If they do Best of Both Worlds etc. it just hurts themselves.

 

How does the format change from 4x3 to 16x9 get handled for a show like this?

Surely they don't crop the top and bottom to create a widescreen image,
do the masters really have more unexposed image to the left and right that
can be "opened up"?

This is one of my all-time favorite shows. The Paramount DVDs image quality
in standard definition is poor, even by my forgiving expectations. I don't really
like the idea of messing with a classic show, and altering it from the "as aired"
version, but I would like a better quality picture.

Grabbed from Wiki,,,

I don't get the need to blow up 4x3 shows to 16x9. It makes them look like crap, and you lose information because the shows weren't meant to be seen that way. It's no better than pan and scan. People need to learn to deal with black bars.

If you have Universal Network HD on your cable or satellite system, check out their airings of T.J. Hooker. Those are remastered for hi-def, and have been done with tilt and scan so they appear to be 16x9. But, if you compare an episode, or even the opening titles to the TJ Hooker DVD set that's out, you see exactly how much has been lost because of the pointless 16x9 conversion.

Here's an interesting fan page that studied the effort that went into scanning some 4:3 footage from TNG that was used for the final episode of Enterprise, which was shot at 16:9 format. The author went to some effort with screen caps and dissection of 4:3 image from TNG used on Enterprise. The text may be a bit tedious to some, or informative to others.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/ent_vs_tng.htm

What is interesting is that it "appears" there is still image information to the sides. Though the images show they cropped the image above and below. I noticed the same thing with a film clip I have of TOS. I scanned it and matched it to a screen cap and there is image information to the sides and top still.

If the TNG remaster has any intent to go 16:9, I hope they give the viewer the option to view it as 4:3 as well. Or just leave it 4:3. One thing did happen to TOS in the remaster, they did expand the framing area a bit. Because on one episode, you can see the plywood edge of the set! This wasn't visible before. (It was Errand of Mercy IIRC)

that's probably just picture information that was normally lost in the "overscan" area of tube TVs.

They'd best leave it 4:3 for the Blu-Rays, like TOS. If they want to make a 16:9 version for TV broadcasts, fine, I can live with that, just as long as the Blu-Rays are OAR. As for the 'added' framing you noticed, that's probably just overscan area that got reclaimed and got missed by the remastering team (a similar thing happened when the BBC remastered Space: 1999: they opted to show the viewer the extra 4% or so of picture area that was normally lost due to overscan, but on one episode, they noticed plywood showing at the edge of the frame, so elected to "zoom" back in on that shot to make sure it didn't show on the DVDs (and later, Blu-Rays).