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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, Interesting) by ledow on Friday February 03 2017, @05:17PM
Can't say I get the fuss at all to be honest.
And could you not just sell the Blu-Ray with the best res you can manage without having to interpolate / whatever, even if that's not 4K? Surely the Blu-Ray player can just upscale it for you. So long as you're honest about it, are people really going to care that much? At least they then get the series available for them on the technology they want to use?
But, I find the whole resolution thing hilarious. Before DVD, I *do* remember thinking that VHS was fuzzy and detoriated and could "blur" the image. But before HD, I can never once remember ever thinking "Oh, if only there were more pixels so I could enjoy this programme". DVD was fine. HD versions were really no better. 4K is just getting into petty ridiculousness in my opinion. If you want to buy it, fine, that's up to you, but really? When you bought your HD TV back in the day, did you really think "Well, this is better but I STILL NEED MORE PIXELS!" - no. You were cooing over it for years before 4K even existed.
It's literally oneupmanship and imaginary advantages. And there are brands of TV that I have confirmed, in proper blind studies, that are WORSE at showing SD content than their SD model equivalent. Literally, they make the SD look worse so the HD looks better by comparison. But put them next to a good SD TV showing the same signal and the SD TV looks better.
Literally - tell me now the res that you want, that you will never improve upon, the refresh rate, every state you can imagine. And when it comes along and then is succeeded again, I'll come and ask if you're happy or want to upgrade. Because the person who says they want to upgrade in that situation is just kidding themselves.
I settled at DVD res. I'm quite happy to watch a movie on a phone or hear an MP3 in the car. Anything "better" is literally a waste, my devices can't show it, or I won't buy the HD version (e.g. Google Play / Amazon Prime, I always watch SD when it's an option) and I'm happy.
What you've done is bred in yourself an unconscious bias that means you're unhappy unless you're spending ridiculous amounts of money on content and devices over and over again.
To me, I probably wouldn't choose to watch a VHS, but if it was the only option I'd be fine with it. Hell, it's probably how I watched whatever it was in the first place.
But anything past DVD, it's a waste.
To me, the only "revelation" in display technology was when I could plug in a VGA cable at 1024x768 and the TV was able to perfectly display it, without need special scaling adaptors or to be knocked back to 800x600 or lower to work properly.
Along with, when I first bought a bog-standard, SD, analogue Hauppauge WinTV PCI card and plugged into my computer with SuperVGA screen and a decent aerial. That felt like 8K TV back then, the picture was pin-sharp and radically amazing con.
Since then, I've never be impressed by any display technology improvement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @05:39PM
I personally CAN tell the difference between DVD quality (I guess 576 lines), 720 and 1080).
Admittedly, there are only particular types of scenes where 720 vs 1080 makes a difference, and it's more on the lines of an "oooh" factor and pure delight at seeing some details, it doesn't affect the storytelling.
If I'm watching something with friends/family, such that there are at least 4 people watching the same regular living room screen (70-80 cm diagonal), I can no longer tell the difference between 720 and 1080.
I agree that for most TV DVD quality is good enough. Especially if they were filmed in the 80s and 90s.
But if you're going to watch something with explosions or waves breaking or similar, the image is significantly better in HD.
To be honest, I'm not sure in what context a resolution of more than 1080p would make sense, for a movie.
I'm of the opinion that stopping the movie to look for details in a snapshot is not part of the movie watching experience (and I think that's where more than 1080p would actually make a difference).