Star Trek TNG DVDs

pgudge writes "startrek.com had a post about the paramount release of Star Trek The Next Generation on DVD. Claimed a around $100 for the season pack, including 7 DVD's. And that other season are to be released every other month thereafter. all done in Dolby Digital 5.1. Release date expected 26th march" Good way to watch them without suffering through TNN's ridiculous image squashing technology (Proudly proving that in the future everyone is either a pro wrestler, or shaped like a pear!)

Comments

Months TNG DVDs will be released

[bigdreamer]

A new season will be released every other month

March 2002: Season 1
May 2002: Season 2
July 2002: Season 3
Septemeber 2002: Season 4
November 2002: Season 5
January 2003: Season 6
March 2003: Season 7

I can only afford 1 season. Which one should I get for my Dad? He likes them all.

Re:Months TNG DVDs will be released

[bytor4232]

I would say season 5 has to be one of the best:

1. "Unification" with Leonard Nemoy was great. I love Picard calling Spock a "Cowboy Diplomat.".
2. "Cause and Effect" is great as well, wonderful concept of "causality" loop made for a great story.
3. "First Duty" was another good one, if for nothing but seeing Wes in the hot seat.
4. "I Borg" with the borg "Hugh" becoming an individual was a great episode
5. "The Next Phase" is another good episode, as much of a weenie Geordi was, this was a good one with Geordi as one of the primary stars.
6. "The Inner Light" is my all time favorite episode. This is the one where a probe imprints Picard with all the experiences and trials of an entire society by making Picard live a life of one of the peoples.

There are other episodes as well. I felt this was the pinnacle of their acting and story development. Don't get me wrong thou, seasons six and seven are awesome as well.

Advantages of TNN image squashing

[yerricde]

Can you explain this "image squashing technology" for us non-Americans? Do they change the aspect ratio?

TNN (The National Network, formerly The Nashville Network before Viacom bought it, moved all its programming to CMT, and turned TNN into a TBS/USA clone) vertically scales the image on many of its shows into the top 6/7 or so of US TV's 240 visible scanlines. In the bottom 1/7, TNN displays its logo and unobtrusive textual advertisements. Good points: It lets TNN go longer without a commercial interruption, it moves the captions out of the way of the picture, and it's easily switched off for broadcasting letterboxed feature films. Bad point: It modifies the image.

Re:what about B5, Buffy, Simpsons

[gibodean]

Well, we've already got Buffy DVDs seasons 1 to 3, and Angel season 1 in Australia.

Just get yourself a region free player, and order from here (or New Zealand). I think the UK has them too.

Re:Paramount gets it right.

[servasius_jr]

Is Enterprise still on? Did it even make it past the first six episodes?

Um, yes. This is an honest question.

Yup. New episodes in January, I believe. I think those pouty Vulcan lips will keep the show going long enough to hit its stride and attract a following. With some luck, they'll rethink the music.

Re:Can't they count?

[glwtta]

Actually, syndicated shows are often not show in order (various issues with production schedules and the individual stations broadcasting them) and that order is often corrected when they come out on video.

I certainly don't know if that's the case here, but it's not unheard of.

What I am wondering is why they only put 4 episodes per disc - minus the commercials an episode is what, 40 minutes or so? They gotta be able to fit more on a DVD, or did they leave the commercial in? ;)

Re:Can't they count?

[DarkEdgeX]

A dual layer DVD can (according to DVD Demystified) hold over 4 hours of high quality video-- each episode was 45 minutes (commercial free). 240 minutes / 45 minutes = 5.333. They could have fit 5 episodes per disc, with room to spare for the teaser commercials as a per-disc extra. And actually, the author says "over 4 hours" but not by how much.. if it was 4.5 hours, they could have fit 6 episodes possibly per disc. =)

The only problem is that dual layer discs have that 'layer transition' effect on certain older or low-cost DVD players (the images freezes for a split second while it switches layers).

Re:Can't they count?

[DarkEdgeX]

Shrug, the guy only wrote the DVD-FAQ, and the books been copyrighted for 2001. His FAQ is updated regularly, and has in fact been updated in the past week or so. I direct you to these FAQ entries, and you can decide from there if I'm right or wrong (I really could care less either way, I'm happy ST:TNG is making it out on DVD, be it 3 episodes per disc, 4, or 5)--

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.21 - [1.21] Why do some discs require side flipping? Can't DVDs hold four hours per side?

You might also find this question educational--

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.3 - [3.3] What are the sizes and capacities of DVD?

Yes, there are situations where this is false, after all, it IS VARIABLE BIT RATE encoding; but generally speaking, four hours of high quality video is possible on a single side dual layer DVD. If The X-Files has poor quality, I'd lay this at the feet of poor encoding practices (or simply someone lazy at Fox). As you said, it's definately not something that's easy (encoding MPEG2 properly) but it has been done. Plus, and I've noticed this on a number of DVD titles (movies and TV shows), for whatever reason, MPEG2 ruins dark sequences (which I imagine The X-Files has a lot of-- I stopped watching after the sixth season or so). This might be the nature of the beast, or it might be lazy encoders. =) I'm not going to pretend to know.

X-files DVD collection

[Peter Dyck]

Sopranos, Simpsons, X-Files

I bought X-files 2nd season a while ago but was thoroughly disappointed in it. The package was nice and audio and visual quality was good, but the "usability" of the disc set was abyssmal.

First of all, when you start watching an episode you're forced to watch the equivalents of the "FBI warning" in at least four languages. After the episode ends, you get to see another four warnings before you get back to the main menu.

The main menu is my second gripe. I like to watch TV DVDs like I listen to music. I play them in the background, mostly listening and occasionally watching. What I don't want to do is to click through menus every time an episode ends. I want the all episodes to play consequently without any interaction from me. Unfortunately the X-files collection doesn't let you do that. After watching the episode (and the damn warnings) you have to travel all the way back to the main menu and click on the next episode (and watch the warnings again).