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Robert Meyer Burnett, the producer and editor of the bonus features found on the Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise Blu-ray sets and long time Star Trek fan, explains why Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are not available in HD or 4K Ultra HD and may never be in a lengthy interview.
Unfortunately, this meant, unlike TOS and The Animated Series, there would be no 35mm finished negative of TNG... and the series would only ever exist on videotape at NTSC resolution. The same would hold true of DS9 and Voyager. Enterprise though, shot in 2001, would be future-proofed, shot on 35MM and finished in HD, with the VFX created in CG at 720p, until the fourth season, which abandoned film altogether.
[...] TNG, DS9 and Voyager could not be rescanned and released in Full HD, as the original edited programs only existed on tape at NTSC resolution. With worldwide markets rapidly converting to HD, modern Trek, with the exception of Enterprise, would simply no longer be shown anywhere. With TNG still the most successful Trek series by a wide margin, Paramount and CBS desperately wanted to figure out a way to not let their crown jewel get thrown onto the scrapheap of history. Something had to be done.
So a radical notion was proposed...why not go back to the original negative and REBUILD the entire show, from the ground up, in High Definition? In the history of television, this had never been done before. Essentially, all 178 episodes of TNG (176 if you're watching the original versions of "Encounter at Farpoint" and "All Good Things") would have to go through the entire post-production process AGAIN. The original edits would be adhered to exactly, but all the original negative would have to be rescanned, the VFX re-composed, the footage re-color-timed, certain VFX, such as phaser blasts and energy fields, recreated in CG, and the entire soundtrack, originally only finished in 2 channel stereo, would be remastered into thunderous, 7.1 DTS.
[...] From 2012 through 2014, the seven seasons of TNG, along with 5 single discs (two-part episodes cut into feature presentations) were released on Blu-Ray, with over 50 hours of newly-produced special features. The restoration remains an absolutely astonishing achievement in the annals of television and anyone watching the new versions of the episodes, can only marvel at the vast difference from the originals. Everyone involved at CBS Digital and the various other Post Houses who participated in the project deserve a hearty round of applause from fans the world over. At least the fans who appreciate and understand just how much work was done.
Unfortunately, during this same time, the popularity of streaming services skyrocketed, and popularity of physical media began to diminish. Sales of physical discs dropped 10% a year across the board, the younger generation thought putting discs in machines was too 20th Century and even the loyal Trek fan base asked themselves, "why do I have to buy TNG YET AGAIN?" I bought the VHS tapes, the Laserdiscs and the DVDs, so do I really need the Blu-rays...? I don't even have a Blu-ray player. Won't it all be on Netflix anyway?" The absolutely justified high price-point of the initial Blu-ray seasons also didn't help sales.
Ultimately, the final result of all the effort put into the restoration itself and the newly-created special features were ultimately disappointing. The disc sales didn't match projections and continued to suffer as more and more people turned to streaming, where Star Trek was already widely available. Sure, the newly-remastered episodes of TNG have quietly replaced the original versions, but nowadays, very few people even notice, as they expect HD to look great.
Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager would require at least the same amount of time, manpower and money, but neither show was ever as popular as TNG or TOS. So, how can CBS be expected to shell out probably 20-million dollars per series to remaster them into HD?
It's a lengthy but good read that applies to all pre-HD television shows from the '80s and '90s. It also sadly explains why we'll likely never see Babylon 5 in HD or 4K Ultra HD.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday February 03 2017, @03:37PM
I don't need to eyegasm every time I turn on my TV. DVD quality is just fine.
If, on the other hand, you have a 976" TV where each millimeter contains 25 pixels, sure, DVD ain't gonna cut it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday February 03 2017, @03:46PM
720p looks significantly better than 480p (there is also 720x576 [wikipedia.org]), especially when viewing on a laptop.
720p is a great minimum resolution that ignores two jumps in quality, 1080p and the amazing super duper 4K (ignore NHK fiddling around with 8K).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday February 03 2017, @04:05PM
You are correct, sir!
I gasm over TOS because!
I tried watching TNG, but it is sooooo bad, especially the first season.... Could not do it. Would much rather watch B5 over TNG.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday February 03 2017, @05:27PM
WTF? TNG is a fantasic show. However, you have to skip the entire 1st season and much of the 2nd one too. It's seasons 3-5 and some of 6 that are great.
You're not going to get much argument about the 1st season of TNG. It was truly terrible, and it's amazing how much they were able to turn it around by season 3. We can thank Rick Berman for that. He's the one who saved TNG from Roddenberry. Roddenberry was just like Lucas: great with high-level ideas and overall vision, horrible with execution and details.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday February 03 2017, @11:23PM
Okay, thanks!
When it first came out, i had sooo much hope, 'cause.... Star Trek!!!!!, but then it all went sort of WTF on me, so i stopped watching.
Maybe i'll skip to season 3.... hrmmmm....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday February 06 2017, @04:21AM
Yes, please, skip right to season 3. If you really want, you can watch season 2 too, but be aware that Dr. Pulaski is annoying as shit (which is why she was replaced with Crusher in season 3), and the show still hadn't really hit its potential yet, but it was better than s1. Season 1 was simply awful, especially the first episode (Encounter at Farpoint), and also the 4th (which was horribly racist, really surprising for something from Gene Roddenberry).
3-5 were the "golden years" for TNG. Gene wasn't involved in the fine details any more, golden boy Wesley was on the way out (and wasn't so annoying when he was around), the rest of the characters had really fallen into place, and they had a lot of really great stories. But watch out because after a while they started running out of ideas, and then around season 6 it seemed like every episode was about one of the main characters going crazy. Then there was that totally wacky episode in season 7 where Data gets possessed by a bunch of personalities from an alien computer on a ship that looks like something the Mayans or Incans designed; really really weird and terrible plot but to be fair it did really show Brent Spiner's acting talents.
Also skip the episode where Riker gets stung by a plant on some swamp world and then spends the whole episode having flashbacks. That one is really awful; even the episode's writer said so. I think it was in season 3, but I'm not sure. It was a "bottle episode"; the studio was restricting their budget so they came up with an episode full of flashbacks to save money.
(Score: 3, Informative) by termigator on Friday February 03 2017, @06:16PM
For you it may be fine. At least on 50" screens and larger, DVD is clearly inferior, and I have had family members with less anal eyes than mine notice the difference. Not only is the resolution limitations noticeable, but color range, where DVDs are in NTSC, is limited. Many focus on just resolution when there are other factors that affect overall picture quality. You may need to do a side-by-side comparison to finally realize the difference in quality.
Clearly, there is demand for HD since even streaming services like Netflix has put in the resources to provide HD content. Where the real battle is in level of HD quality between streaming and physical media (like bluray). For the masses, it appears streaming is good enough, where it is better than DVD with the convenience factor of not having to mess with physical media. For many, convenience trumps quality.
For me, I still purchase physical media since I picking about video quality, along with being able to get maximum audio quality and capabilities. However, my purchasing is not as frequent as it was years ago since for many shows, I can live with streaming quality.
I do wonder if the asshat studios stopped putting ads at the beginning of movies on physical media, if sales would improve. Streaming services (like Netflix and Amazon Prime) have no such crap. Since convenience appears to be a major factor in folks decision making, making the physical media experience more convenient may help. IIRC, some of my older bluray movies (I think Time Warner ones like the Matrix) would start playing the movie immediately when popped in.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday February 03 2017, @08:40PM
Streaming services (like Netflix and Amazon Prime) have no such crap.
Actually, for me at least, that has changed for both of these services just in the last week. I've seen commercials before or after shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime now.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by charon on Saturday February 04 2017, @05:04AM