Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Any Plans For a Remaster? (1 Viewer)

[Ockeghem]

You have to remember that most of us are in the U.S. and we want our thinpack releases ... no Region 2 crap.

Mark,
Yeah, I know. I too am in the U.S. I must say that I do love my code-free DVD player, though.
I just completed my torpedo-cased VOY series (Region 2 U.K. releases); some went for $150 a pop, but others were around $50.

 

[Dave Mack]

Yeah, they shot six episodes on video but the other 150 episodes were shot and edited on film so they can go to Blu-ray far more easy than most shows that are 30 year younger (which I think is Dave's point). The 6 episodes shot on video are never going to look much better since the source is video.

It is a shame about thos video eps. they did. One of my faves is "Night Of The Meek" with an amazing performance by Art carney. Such a shame that that was one of the "budget" eps.
As of now, all the others have new HD masters that IMAGE made. I can only imagine how they look after watching the SD dvds

 

[John L]

Forget Region 2, the PAL speedup is bad enough.

No it's not. The 4% speedup is hardly noticeable at all. What is noticeable is the poor quality of NTSC with its 480i vertical resolution and horrible 3:2 pulldown effect in motion scenes.
PAL all the way for me.

 

[Nick Martin]

speech is (for me) less of an issue than other aspects that may be altered by speedup.

It's more to do with music than anything else for me.

 

[Ockeghem]

It's more to do with music than anything else for me.

Nicholas,
I think this would bother me more if I knew the music well enough to begin with (other than the main theme), which I do not. Since I lack a reference point in this case, hearing something (e.g.) in B-flat rather than A -- or a perceivable number of cents +/- to that effect -- does not make a difference to me at this point. But perhaps you know the music well enough for it to matter.
Is there any way mechanically that you can slow it down? I know of no way at present.

 

[Nick Martin]

Nicholas,
I think this would bother me more if I knew the music well enough to begin with (other than the main theme), which I do not. Since I lack a reference point in this case, hearing something (e.g.) in B-flat rather than A -- or a perceivable number of cents +/- to that effect -- does not make a difference to me at this point. But perhaps you know the music well enough for it to matter.
Is there any way mechanically that you can slow it down? I know of no way at present.

I own two PAL region 2 DVDs, 'Bicentennial Man' and 'Glory'.
I purchased both discs from Amazon UK because of their isolated music score tracks, not available on their region 1 counterparts.
Because the isolated tracks were basically complete scores, I made CDs out of them, and in the case of 'Bicentennial Man', made a DTS 5.1 CD.
I had to take the Dolby AC3 tracks and convert them to WAV format, cue by cue, changing the sampling rate from 48000 Hz to 46033 Hz, then save the files as 44100Hz for CD use.
That changed the PAL speedup pitch without adding artifacts to the sound that a pitch shifting program would have.
Now that is too big a process to do an entire film's audio track, and the encoders out there that just pitch correct the audio compromise the sound quality too much. The same can be said for software DVD players that have a PAL "true speed" option.

 

[Dave Mack]

The PAL Lord of the Rings EE's have been pitch adjusted. I have them and they look much better. On non-pitch adjusted tracks you are getting a 1/2 step increase in pitch. Now, if you know music well, that's a big deal.
Tocatta in D minor at the beginning of ROLLERBALL becomes Tocatta in E flat minor. To a classical musician, (like my in-laws, one of whom Plays that piece on the organ) that's heresy...

 

[Ockeghem]

The PAL Lord of the Rings EE's have been pitch adjusted. I have them and they lppk much better. On non-pitch adjusted tracks you are getting a 1/2 step increase in pitch. Now, if you know music well, that's a big deal.
Tocatta in D minor at the beginning of ROLLERBALL becomes Tocatta in E flat minor. To a classical musician, (like my in-laws, one of whom Plays that piece on the organ) that's heresy...

Yes, a half-step higher for a work of that stature would be annoying to me. I could live with the pitch being somewhat lower, but not higher. As we move back further in time, the 'standard' of pitch becomes more ambiguous, and therefore not quite as imperative to me in works from earlier periods. In other words, we don't know (e.g.) what an 'A' of ca. 1450 sounded like.

 

[seanOhara]

DS9 like many pre HD era TV shows was shot on film but edited on video. Not just the effects. Meaning The masters are on video. The best resolution you will get is 480i. They would have to go back and found ALL the original film footage, rescanned it in HD and redid ALL the FX. What would they do if they can't find all the footage? Just upscale the missing bits? Would look awful and mismatched.

I think the real deal-breaker is the scope of the FX. I mean, with TNG you could do four shots of the Enterprise, and and that'd be half the FX shots for the entire series. There are a few episodes of DS9 that would require as much FX work as an entire season of TNG.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

No it's not. The 4% speedup is hardly noticeable at all. What is noticeable is the poor quality of NTSC with its 480i vertical resolution and horrible 3:2 pulldown effect in motion scenes.

Well, it may be hardly noticeable to you, but a little presumptious of you to say it's hardly noticeable "at all". Clearly there are people who do notice pitch changes (and I'm one of them).
And PAL's extra resolution is irrelevant when the original source material is 480i, as it is with the series in question.
Edit: seems the white-on-black nature of the forum when it was in Dark Knight mode made my post transparent.

 

[Nick Martin]

Quote:

It's interesting that there are so many region-free or region-free capable DVD players, so many multi-system DVD players (PAL, NTSC, SECAM) but nothing that has a setting to adjust PAL DVD speedup.
Aside from the software player WinDVD, with a very poor "PAL Tru Speed" feature, there's nothing available as far as you or I know.

 

[John*Wells]

I don't care if Paramount re releases them. Im not paying again. I shelled out almost 3,000.00 for the Franchise excluding the animated series and I will not do it again. Not in this economy or this lifetime

 

[Osato]

It would be wonderful to see a remastering of DS9 on DVD and Blu ray.

 

[kemcha]

I'm afraid that I agree with John. I have seen the DS9 so many times that I became burnt out on the series. Enterprise and Voyager, I could still watch but there's just something about DS9 ... while I do have them on DVD, I doubt I'd be willing to pay for a new release of the show on home video.

 

[Ockeghem]

I am quite satisfied with my DS9 boxed sets imported from Britain (and in a couple of cases, Germany). There is also no speed-up problem. My British DVDs are also the only DS9 DVDs I own that don't have the voice-synchronization problem in the episode The Sons of Mogh. Before I purchased the DVDs from Britain, the episode was unwatchable. For whatever reason, the problem exists on the North American DVD release, but not on the VHS tape release. If this series ever is remastered, that problem ought to be taken care of, or (for me at least) purchasing such a set would not be possible.

 

[kemcha]

I never said that there was anything wrong with the DVD sets, just that I wouldn't be in a hurry to re-purchase those sets on a different format. I'd probably just take my DVD's and burn them to blank blu-rays.

 

[Ockeghem]

Kemcha,

I have no idea whom you're responding to above. If me, no worries. I wasn't directing my comments toward any post in particular, I was just offering reasons why I love my DVDs.

BTW, I just checked in order to be certain (I've edited my post above to reflect what I discovered). The VHS copy is fine.

 

[Sam Favate]

I'd love to see DS9 on BD. Unfortunately it is unlikely to happen, due to the need to redo effects shots for HD.

 

[Osato]

Originally Posted by Sam Favate /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I'd love to see DS9 on BD. Unfortunately it is unlikely to happen, due to the need to redo effects shots for HD.

Agreed. Everyone is saying pretty much the same for all of the Trek spin off shows. I think I will just start picking up the DVD sets then for those series.
I'll start with Voyager and DS9 first though. Maybe there is still a chance for TNG.

 

[Ockeghem]

Originally Posted by Tim Haxton /forum/thread/279778/star-trek-deep-space-nine-any-plans-for-a-remaster/30#post_3679478
Agreed. Everyone is saying pretty much the same for all of the Trek spin off shows. I think I will just start picking up the DVD sets then for those series.
I'll start with Voyager and DS9 first though. Maybe there is still a chance for TNG.

Tim,
That sounds like a plan. It took me about ten years to complete my Trek library (all series and films on DVD and all available episodes on VHS, and blooper reels on VHS). As far as the series are concerned, I finished TOS first, then TNG, TAS, DS9, VOY, and ENT. Happy purchasing.