UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ STAR TREK: The Original Motion Picture 6-Movie Collection -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[sbjork]

I have the DVD handy. Turns out it actually measures 1.89:1. Weird.

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Interesting. I wonder if that's different than the LD? I haven't watched that in ages, but I remember having thicker letterbox bars for it. Granted, memory sucks, but that's my memory.

 

[JoshZ]

Interesting. I wonder if that's different than the LD? I haven't watched that in ages, but I remember having thicker letterbox bars for it. Granted, memory sucks, but that's my memory.

I have the Laserdisc, but I don't currently have a player hooked up to anything.

 

[David Norman]

As noted elsewhere, the 3 seasons came first on NBC, then a two season animated run. Then the films. They aren’t based on any game.

Appears the Bug Zapper worked again.

Mr Harris must be a great Fisherman

 

[Mark-P]

Interesting. I wonder if that's different than the LD? I haven't watched that in ages, but I remember having thicker letterbox bars for it. Granted, memory sucks, but that's my memory.

Yeah, because Laserdisc was 4X3 letterboxed to 1.89:1, whereas the DVD was 16X9 letterboxed to 1.89:1 so of course the bars were much larger.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m pretty sure the letterbox laserdisc was the same as the letterbox VHS, and that was 2.35:1.

The DVD version of the directors cut is different than the special home video version that was on the LD/VHS so it makes sense it wouldn’t automatically be the same presentation. I wish we could go back to that version, actually - all the scene extensions without the cheesy mindmeld effects.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I’m pretty sure the letterbox laserdisc was the same as the letterbox VHS, and that was 2.35:1.

Nope. it wasn't 2.35:1 on home video until the 2009 Blu-ray. That's the only thing that disc got right.

 

[sbjork]

Yeah, because Laserdisc was 4X3 letterboxed to 1.89:1, whereas the DVD was 16X9 letterboxed to 1.89:1 so of course the bars were much larger.

That's not what I'm talking about, but thanks anyway!

 

[Osato]

TMP 4k box sets, 5 and 6 are arriving today. TMP standard 4k disc arriving on Thursday.

Looking forward to the new extras on TMP. And seeing it at home in 4k too!

 

[JoshZ]

I’m pretty sure the letterbox laserdisc was the same as the letterbox VHS, and that was 2.35:1.

Nope. it wasn't 2.35:1 on home video until the 2009 Blu-ray. That's the only thing that disc got right.

The Star Trek VI Laserdisc was definitely not 2.35:1. Neil is correct that the 2009 Blu-ray was the first home video edition in the movie's OAR. All prior widescreen transfers were open-matte.

The LD was advertised and widely reviewed at the time to be 2.00:1. It's listed that way on LDDb, and I have a copy of Doug Pratt's Laser Video Disc Companion book, which says the same thing. However, I would not take any of that as gospel, as very few reviewers actually bothered to measure aspect ratios on screen in those days. The DVD was also almost universally claimed to be 2.00:1 and we just proved that wrong.

One more thing to note (as I was reminded by looking at LDDb this morning) is that the Laserdisc placed the subtitles for Klingon dialogue in the lower letterbox bar, which means they'll get cut off if you zoom the disc up to watch on an HDTV. The Star Wars Laserdiscs also had this problem for subtitled alien dialogue.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

Doug Pratt was pretty reliable!

 

[JoshZ]

Doug Pratt was pretty reliable!

Yeah, but I still doubt he actually measured the aspect ratio. That sort of thing is difficult to do just by looking at the picture on a TV screen. You really need to take a screencap and count the pixels, which is not something that would have been possible with Laserdisc at the time.

If the studio press release said 2:1, most reviewers took that as confirmation and went with it.

I'm pretty sure I've spotted other reviews in that Laser Video Disc Companion book where Pratt said that an aspect ratio was "approximately" one thing, only for it to turn out to be slightly different in reality.

 

[jayembee]

Yeah, but I still doubt he actually measured the aspect ratio. That sort of thing is difficult to do just by looking at the picture on a TV screen. You really need to take a screencap and count the pixels, which is not something that would have been possible with Laserdisc at the time.

Well, one could also just pause the image, pick up a tape measure, and do it the old fashioned way.

 

[JoshZ]

Well, one could also just pause the image, pick up a tape measure, and do it the old fashioned way.

If anything, that probably led to the mistaken belief that this transfer was 2:1. All CRT televisions had some degree of overscan that would have obscured a bit of image from the sides of the movie's letterboxed picture.

 

[JoshZ]

Although, now that I think about it, that would actually lead someone to conclude that the image was narrower than it actually was, not wider. So it would look more like 1.85:1 or 16:9 when more picture should be visible on the sides.

Regardless, measuring off a TV screen was problematic, especially in the CRT days.

 

[uncledougie]

In attempting to measure laserdisc aspect ratios, the disc would’ve blanked out if paused unless it were in the CAV format; no picture showed on a paused CLV disc. I’m not aware if any of the Star Trek films were released in CAV, or had the second disc in that format as some films did when they ran more than two hours.

 

[sbjork]

In attempting to measure laserdisc aspect ratios, the disc would’ve blanked out if paused unless it were in the CAV format; no picture showed on a paused CLV disc. I’m not aware if any of the Star Trek films were released in CAV, or had the second disc in that format as some films did when they ran more than two hours.

That depended on the player. Some of them used frame capture to allow freeze-framing of CLV discs. The last Pioneer that I had did it.

 

[JoshZ]

In attempting to measure laserdisc aspect ratios, the disc would’ve blanked out if paused unless it were in the CAV format; no picture showed on a paused CLV disc. I’m not aware if any of the Star Trek films were released in CAV, or had the second disc in that format as some films did when they ran more than two hours.

That depended on the player. Some of them used frame capture to allow freeze-framing of CLV discs. The last Pioneer that I had did it.

The inability to freeze-frame a CLV disc was only a problem on entry-level and lower-mid-range players. IIRC, in the Pioneer lineup, "Digital Field Memory" was an included feature from the CLD-D606 up.

That said, the player would only display one interlaced field when paused on a CLV disc, so the image would be half resolution. Only CAV discs would display full resolution when paused.

 

[uncledougie]

That depended on the player. Some of them used frame capture to allow freeze-framing of CLV discs. The last Pioneer that I had did it.

Interesting to know, none of the four Pioneer players I had allowed for that.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

In attempting to measure laserdisc aspect ratios, the disc would’ve blanked out if paused unless it were in the CAV format; no picture showed on a paused CLV disc. I’m not aware if any of the Star Trek films were released in CAV, or had the second disc in that format as some films did when they ran more than two hours.

Side 3 of the wide screen editions of TMP and TVH were CAV despite the labels saying "CLV." Side 2 of Generations (with the crash) was in CAV.

 

[uncledougie]

I didn’t recall off the top of my head, but after checking the only Star Trek film I have on laser is First Contact (1996), which is represented in the description on the sleeve as being 2.35:1.