Star Trek DS9 on Blu-Ray -- Remain Ever Hopeful Thread (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

If they were smart they should do it similar to TOS, that is, treat it almost like a new production and release new batches of remastered episodes on a weekly or monthly basis at CBS All Access. There’s probably more financial potential as a streaming exclusive to keep subscriptions active (particularly in the window where there are no new episodes of the current shows airing) than it does in terms of disc sales. I know I would likely keep my AA subscription active during the off season if they were giving us remastered DS9/VOY on a regular basis.

 

[GlennC]

I’d be in for that too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think the streaming and syndication licensing fees for the TNG remasters ended up providing more revenue than the disc sales did. Disc sales alone did not push that project into profitability. So it won’t be disc sales that determine whether or not it happens, it’ll be whether they can find a way to monetize it on a streaming platform.

I really would have started like yesterday if I was them. There’s no guarantee that they’ll have a new season of Picard or Discovery done in time for 2021, when the plan had been for both to return. Lower Decks is still on track to return but that’s ten half hour episodes of an animated show, not a whole lot of content compared to what was expected. But in theory, they could be looking through film cans, sending material to be scanned, and working on new effects while they wait for those other shows.

 

[Nelson Au]

Certainly the remastering effort for DS9 and Voyager would be best used for CBS All Access and or other streaming venues. But I really hope they’d also invest in making both series available on Blu Ray discs too. It’s a good sign they are making Discovery and Picard available on blu ray disc. So as you’ve said, it’s another revenue stream to sell the discs. But I‘d guess the real money is in more subscribers to All Access and licensing fees.

I wonder what the investment to do Enterprise could be, the live action is already HD I believe, at least after the fIray season(?). So would they be able to re-render the effects shot? I do own and seen the Blu Rays some time ago and as I recall, the effects shots were showing their low resolution weakness.

And then to take it further, why not finally get Star Trek The Motion Picture remastered, the theatrical and Directors Edition.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Enterprise is fully HD, it’s just that the effects were done at the dawn of doing HD level work for television. I see no reason to revisit it.

edit: I don’t mean to sound dismissive, it’s just that I think it’s fine.

 

[Nelson Au]

Josh, not to dispute your post. And I think you’re right. . I recalled in the past there was discussion about the effects shots not being in HD. So I was curious to find some info on this. I found this on the Trekcore site. So take it with a grain of salt. ;

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, CG and VFX sequences for the first three seasons of Enterprise were rendered at 720p resolution during the show’s production (CORRECTION: It seems most VFX shots were actually produced at 480p resolution, with shots only being rendered at 720p/1080p if the visual effects team thought aliasing issues were too severe). Rather than re-render these shots at full 1080p (which would have proved prohibitively expensive for CBS due to the reduced market for Enterprise) the shots have been up-scaled. The results seem to be very much dependent on the (admittedly variable) quality of the CG that was produced back in 2001-2002 rather than any upscaling algorithms CBS may have used.

A number of upscaled shots suffer from noticeable aliasing with the smooth lines on the hull of the Enterprise being particularly vulnerable to exhibiting jagged artifacts when the ship is in motion. These are somewhat distracting when you see them for the first few times, but I found myself being less and less bothered by them as I moved through the season. It’s not a huge problem, just a somewhat annoying side-effect of up-converting the original lower resolution CG sequences.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

On the plus side, it does get better the longer the show goes on

 

[Nelson Au]

I’ll be watching. I’m still in the midst of re-watching DS9 and will re-visit Voyager. So once I’m done with those, I’ll get to Enterprise.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Some of the CGI scenes on Enterprise suffered from looking like a video game cutscene.

 

[John*Wells]

Until CBS Decides to make a DS9 continuation with Captain Sisko Appearing, I am abstaining from buying anymore Content in protest

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Until CBS Decides to make a DS9 continuation with Captain Sisko Appearing, I am abstaining from buying anymore Content in protest

And if the NuTrek group made a continuation of DS9, I'd abstain from buying more content in protest.

They've already ruined select TNG and Voyager characters, just leave DS9 alone.

 

[John*Wells]

And if the NuTrek group made a continuation of DS9, I'd abstain from buying more content in protest.

They've already ruined select TNG and Voyager characters, just leave DS9 alone.

Yes Killing Icheb and Picard was ridiculous

 

[Bryan^H]

Well, its being remastered in HD. Whether it arrives on BD, or just Paramount's streaming service remains to be seen.

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[The Obsolete Man]

About that DS9 in HD article... dont believe it until someone reputable announces it.

Why would this news have been broken over a month ago (if you look at the date on the article) by this site and not gained any widespread traction until now? Because it was an "exclusive" from another one of these junk sites no one has ever heard of, has no credibility, and their claims carry about as much weight as if I came on these forums and said the voices in my head said they were remastering the shows.

So, hope for the best, but don't expect it until a real source announces it. If an established site says this is happening with facts not sourced from this one random article, then it's time to be cautiously excited.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s worth noting that this is the clickbait site that just last week created a fake controversy by saying Warner wasn’t going to make physical media anymore, which wasn’t remotely true.

 

[Sam Favate]

I sure hope this is true. If it is being done with an eye towards Paramount+, it will almost certainly show up on blu-ray, since Paramount/CBS has been very good about putting everything out. Next month the first season of Lower Decks comes out, with the third season of Discovery in July.

One detail of the story that should be easy enough to confirm: It says visual effects company FX3X is handling the remaster and that they are currently working on Strange New Worlds. Should be easy to see if they are. While that alone wouldn't prove the larger story, it would lend it some credence.

EDIT: So I looked them up. They have an impressive resume (doing The Suicide Squad this year), but I can't see future projects, of which SNW would be one. They have done several episodes of Discovery though and of Picard, so the connection is there.

 

[Ethan Riley]

It would certainly be nice. The things they're airing on Netflix are trash.

 

[Bryan^H]

I should just stick to Trekcore for my info.

 

[Sam Favate]

That article doesn't seem to know what it's talking about. It says Enterprise won't be getting a remaster any time soon. We all know that Enterprise was filmed in HD and had it's blu-ray release many years ago.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Again, these are the guys who took last year’s legitimate news that Warner and Universal were entering a joint venture to combine their home video departments to produce/distribute physical media, something long established and not controversial, and last week spun it into a piece of clickbait nonsense saying that Warner was exiting physical media and there would be no more discs of Warner content ever again. I don’t see this site as being a legitimate journalistic source of information.