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Remastered Star Trek: the Next Generation Blu-ray a Huge Leap Forward
MojoKid writes "There's been no new Star Trek TV series since Enterprise limped off screens in 2005, but the huge success of the 2009 Star Trek movie and the gradual growth of Blu-ray has caught CBS' attention (CBS acquired ownership of the Star Trek franchise in 2006). The broadcast company is preparing to release Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray with substantial improvements (article contains comparison image shots). The DVD boxed sets that exist today were created from the taped broadcasts that were shown in the early 90s. Rather than repackaging that material, CBS has gone back to the original film stock and started from scratch. The difference is enormous. CBS has released a preview Blu-ray titled Star Trek: The Next Generation — The Next Level with three updated episodes; the show's pilot (Encounter at Farpoint), Sins of the Father and The Inner Light."
might have to get a blu ray player for this
What? And leave out the bit where Data gets to use his anatomical completeness on a homosexual-looking Chief of Security who wants to get back in touch with her feminine side while infected with the tequila-virus from space?
They should have done episodes that would really show off the process. I would have picked Best of Both Worlds, Yesterday's Enterprise and either The Pegasus or All Good Things... because they are the best examples of what the series has to offer and would benefit from the effects uplift.
... Yefremov actually did have some talent for writing
I think his work was much better in the original Klingon. :-)
Just remember that if you have a Blu-Ray drive, you need to make sure your entire setup is HDCP compliant or it will downsample as a form of punishment. This is especially troublesome for your typical Slashdot reader who has a home-brewed unusual setup.
But the easiest solution I've found is to rip out the copy protection altogether. There's a (commercial) program for Windows called AnyDVD HD that automatically strips out copy protection from DVDs and Blu-Ray discs on the fly, within a few seconds of inserting the disc into your drive. The program isn't cheap, but this way you don't have to worry about copy protection getting in the way of playing the fucking disc you paid for.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
maybe there was some Camel Toe going on there too and we just couldn't tell on the shitty resolution.
One reason to have hard-earned money is to buy things that entertain you... which also means more entertaining things will appear.
Money is a resource, not a score.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Riker shot first!
Oh, come on! It was self defense! Captain Picard clearly said "Fire at Will!"
I'll concede, though, that Commander Data is way too literal.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You're also forgetting the source material doesn't even look that great so no amount of messing with it will ever produce a bluray image even as good as most recent films and I doubt there would be much difference even at 720p..
You're also also forgetting they're releasing them 4 episodes at a time and being greedy, Paramount will probably want well over $120 for a season.
You're also also also forgetting file-sizes mean nothing. They could fill the black bars on the sides (yes, sides) with uncompressed nothing just to fill up the disc.
I recently went back to them on netflix. There's a ton of them when you look at all 7 seasons together, so you have to be selective. Just make sure:
a) Riker has a beard
b) Zipper is in the back
c) Polaski, anyone named Crusher, and maybe Jordy isn't the major focus of the episode. (Its ok if its Crusher & Picard, Jordy & Data, etc).
d) Watch anything with Lor
e) Watch anything with Borgs
f) Watch anything with time travel/time loops/etc
g) Holodeck episodes are trouble. Is it the old west? Skip. 1800s you can probably keep. Riker playing in a jazz club? Fast forward just a bit.
h) Q episodes generally can't miss.
i) Picards are a must, but not if it involves him trying to awkwardly woo someone. Stay away: Kirk for the ladies, Picard for solving issues without a double fisted hammer blow to the back. (Exception: The episode Q takes him to his past, see rule h. There he does wooing and double fisted hammer blows, but you also get to see one of the most ridiculously obvious stunt double scenes ever)
In general season 1-2 25% watchable, 3 50%, 4-7 90%.
First Bluray is NOT 1080p. It's CAPABLE OF 1080p, but it can contain anything from 480i to 1080p. you are a fool if you think all Blurays are 1080p.
Second all movies on BluRay are not "HD" movies from the 80's are a waste of money on bluray as all you get is more film grain! Woo! A lot of movies were shot on crap quality 35mm film to save money and ended up having a metric buttload of film grain. Want a good example of a waste of money on BluRay? Star Wars 4,5,6.
Second dont try and tell me that a DVD will not have "visible artifacts" DVD's have long been so poorly mastered and have had the movies bitrate so reduced to fit worthless "added feature crap" on them they look like crap and are FULL of artifacts. The ONLY way to get a DVD that is fantastic is to buy "superbit" editions that do away with all the worthless extras crap and use the whole dual layer disc for just the movie at the maximum bitrate possible. I have a copy of XXX on superbit that looks IDENTICAL to the BLuRay version. (which means the bluray version is NOT 1080p worth of video)
Lastly, very little is shot in 1080p. that has changed recently, but all United states braodcast cameras are either 1080i (1/2 the resolution of 1080p) or the more common 720p. and THAT is what is on most Bluray disks as the source materiel.
There are exceptions. Pixar for example re-renders the film at 1080p for perfection on a Bluray. and any film transfers from IMAX also will work at 1080p IF they did the transfer with a 1080p camera. Anything shot digitally in the last few years on digital panaflex cameras, or digital Arriflex cameras can also look fantastic and real 1080p IF they re render the film at that resolution for DVD release.
Lastly BLuRay's mostly ARE H264 on the disk if they are not MPEG2. I suggest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc for more reading on the subject.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm sorry, but this is not correct. Absolutely nobody in that period was working on TV CG at greater than 1080p. The exact resolution would depend on what exactly they were using, and AFAIK, I don't know anybody who worked on TNG to ask about workflow details. But, I do work with somebody who worked on early Flame and a lot of people who were Lightwave artists during the B5/SeaQuest days. It was all done in SD at the time.
Remember, TNG started in the 80's and ended in 1994. During the TNG era, PC's ran DOS. Irix based Flame workstations cost most of a million dollars and had less power than an old iPhone. Amigas were the kings of TV effects. Nobody had the memory or storage to keep rendered HD frames around for no reason. There was no way to broadcast that resolution, no medium to sell it on. Nobody had displays that would show 1080p. At that point, Lightwave had a serial port tape deck control feature so that you could render frame-by-frame directly to video tape under the assumption that you didn't even have the storage space for your few seconds of 640x480 SD. Even the film guys, with much bigger budgets than TV, were a long way from having the available storage to do things like a full Digital Intermediate. (It didn't happen until O Brother Where Art Thou.) As late as 2000, a lot of film projects were doing VFX at less than 1080p resolution, even without trying to do a full DI.
Certainly, in additional to all that the geometry was less detailed than it would be today, and shading and compositing was simpler. It was still amazing for the time, and I'd love to see a "cleanup only" version of TNG which didn't try to add new CG effects. At this point, it really just has to be appreciated as a product of the time in which it was made, rather than trying to recapture the sense of awe you remember from watching it all those years ago by (mis)using modern CGI.
Despite what Hollywood and their senators want you to think, ripping off copy protection from something you legally bought is not the same as piracy.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
maybe there was some Camel Toe going on there too and we just couldn't tell on the shitty resolution.
not if you got up close, like I did.
TNG was shot on 35mm film which has higher resolution than a 4k TV 5380 x 3620. If they do the scan with a 4k scanner and use good software then we should have something good. TNG is not as old as star wars and the film should preserved better than the star wars film. I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
Except that it has Wil Wheaton in it.
By every account I have ever heard, Wil Wheaton is a good guy who deserves your respect. Wesley Crusher, on the other hand, was a Marty Stu character[1] who alienated many fans, and if you want to hate Wesley, go right ahead.
Just keep the two separate. Wil Wheaton didn't write the stories, didn't write his dialog, and in general should be held blameless. I know if I had the chance to be part of a Star Trek series, working with Gene Roddenberry, I would do it even if my character wasn't popular.
There were some episodes with Wesley that many fans accept. I never saw "The First Duty" but I heard good things about it, for example.
And finally... Wil Wheaton has been known to post on Slashdot, and might be reading this thread. Did you write those words with the idea that Wil Wheaton might read them? Remember, he's a real person.
[1] A while ago I went to a lecture in Seattle, featuring a writer who had written scripts for Star Trek TNG. They announced that first they would show an episode he had written, and then he would talk about it. My heart sank when I saw that the episode was one I had seen before, and it was a Wesley episode and it was annoying. When the writer began to talk, I began to feel more sympathy toward him. He told us that the basic idea of this episode came direct from Gene Roddenberry, and it was just his job to flesh it out. He also told us that Gene Roddenberry's middle name was "Wesley" and he made it clear that Roddenberry was the one pushing for Wesley to be this super guy who is constantly saving the ship. So I'm not just claiming this "Marty Stu" thing, I have evidence.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
I would have to agree that you need to consider that some copies are likely in better shape than the originals, but in the case of TNG, I don't think that is the case due to the production system that was used when it was produced.
Star Trek: TNG was originally filmed with 35mm film stock and then transferred to a conventional videotape editing system before broadcast. The original negatives were barely touched and mostly left in their original archived state, where Star Trek was already considered a very lucrative franchise and something worth preserving as well (so it wasn't treated like yesterday's trash heap either).
The largest problem I would see is syncing the audio with the video and getting the correct scenes matching with the stuff that was put into the production version of each episode. That shouldn't be too difficult as such information was recorded when the films were originally edited, but it would take some effort to organize everything, and certainly take time to remaster each episode in this manner.
Really, anyone on slashdot disrespecting Wil Wheaton hasn't got a fucking clue. In the past Wil had a presence (still has a presence?) on Slashdot. Read and learn.