# Star Trek: TNG getting HD conversion even though it's impossible



## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

For all the Star Trek fans:

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/09/star-trek-tng-g.php


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

This is being discussed all over the Internet, with many people assuming that the FX are being redone like done with the re-release of the original series. But there's been nothing official about the FX being redone. I have a feeling that this will be the most disappointing Bluray release in history...


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I thought I read somewhere that the original film masters were destroyed.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> This is being discussed all over the Internet, with many people assuming that the FX are being redone like done with the re-release of the original series. But there's been nothing official about the FX being redone. I have a feeling that this will be the most disappointing Bluray release in history...


The other rumor is that they will crop the 4:3 originals to get a 16:9 picture.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

JYoung said:


> The other rumor is that they will crop the 4:3 originals to get a 16:9 picture.


That seems to be what is happening with some HD conversions of old shows. Seinfeld and Cheers were both done that way for HD broadcast. Now, WGN broadcasts a 4:3 crop of the 16:9 crop of the 4:3 originals for Cheers on their SD feed to DirecTV. It looks ridiculous.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> I thought I read somewhere that the original film masters were destroyed.


I didn't think that was it but rather they never shot with film.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

DavidTigerFan said:


> I didn't think that was it but rather they never shot with film.


So there really isn't HD footage then.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

According to wiki it was shot in 35mm film so hd footage is available. But the effects would indeed need to be done because the compositing etc was done in SD


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

DavidTigerFan said:


> I didn't think that was it but rather they never shot with film.


The principal photography was done with Panavision Panaflex 35mm cameras. It, however, was edited and mastered on standard definition broadcast videotape, so they would have to re-scan the film masters, re-edit the show to the same edit points, and reproduce all the VFX.

This is video of the "Reading Rainbow" episode where they show the making of TNG. The episode was recorded during the first season of TNG. I've cued it up to the point in the show where they are talking about editing the show down:
http://youtu.be/cCsD5PRoX7I#t=394s

The task is not impossible - just improbably difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> The principal photography was done with Panavision Panaflex 35mm cameras. It, however, was edited and mastered on standard definition broadcast videotape, so they would have to re-scan the film masters, re-edit the show to the same edit points, and reproduce all the VFX...


That sounds like what I read about the Seinfeld HD conversion. Shorter episodes and no FX to deal with, though.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Well, maybe this isn't as slapdash as I thought.

http://www.startrek.com/article/the-next-generation-blu-rays-launch-in-2012



> CBS is, in fact, returning to the original film negatives, a mother lode of material encompassing 25,000-plus reels of footage, and editing the episodes together precisely as they were when they originally aired between 1987 and 1994. Visual effects will not be upconverted from videotape, but instead will be recompositioned. The freshly cut film will ultimately be transferred to high definition with 7.1 DTS Master Audio. And all of the work is being done in conjunction with respected, longtime Star Trek figures Denise and Michael Okuda, who are on board as consultants.


No word yet if they'll leave it at 4:3 though.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

I'm all over this if it's 16X9 and not excessively cropped to do so...


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Bierboy said:


> I'm all over this if it's 16X9 and not excessively cropped to do so...


Why would you want it 16X9? That will take a fair amount of cropping, won't it?


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

Wow, that's a lot of work, these will NOT be cheap Blu-Ray sets. I'm imagining a minimum of $150 per season. And I'll likely buy them if they're as good as they sound.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

DougF said:


> Why would you want it 16X9? That will take a fair amount of cropping, won't it?


Did you read my comment? I said I'm all over it _*IF IT'S NOT EXCESSIVELY CROPPED...
*_
I wouldn't waste my money if the cropping leaves out critical stuff....


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

Bierboy said:


> I'm all over this if it's 16X9 and not excessively cropped to do so...


I would prefer original aspect ratio, I don't want it to be cropped at all.


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

Bierboy said:


> Did you read my comment? I said I'm all over it IF IT'S NOT EXCESSIVELY CROPPED...


Cropping a 4X3 film to 16X9 would crop out the same percentage of video regardless of the program. So whether it's Hogan's Heroes, Cheers or ST:TNG, it will be excessively cropped to get it to 16:9.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Fleegle said:


> I would prefer original aspect ratio, I don't want it to be cropped at all.


I can live with the cropping as long as we don't miss critical material...the trade-off would be worth it IMO.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Fleegle said:


> Cropping a 4X3 film to 16X9 would crop out the same percentage of video regardless of the program. So whether it's Hogan's Heroes, Cheers or ST:TNG, it will be excessively cropped to get it to 16:9.


Depends on your definition of "excessive". One person's "excessive" might be another person's "not excessive"...


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Fleegle said:


> Cropping a 4X3 film to 16X9 would crop out the same percentage of video regardless of the program...


Same percentage, yes. But it's what is INSIDE that cropped area that determines for me whether it's excessive or not...if it's non-critical video material then I'm OK with it.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

The show was framed for 4:3 aspect ratio, and as such, I would not want them to alter this. Changing it to 16:9 creates a different visual image than what the director intended.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

I think they should stretch it.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

DavidTigerFan said:


> I think they should stretch it.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

JYoung said:


> Well, maybe this isn't as slapdash as I thought.
> http://www.startrek.com/article/the-next-generation-blu-rays-launch-in-2012


I don't understand why they would release a Blu-ray with just a selection of episodes. A true fan might decide to purchase the season sets, but if they're going to release all the seasons, why would you want this "Next Level" disc?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Amnesia said:


> I don't understand why they would release a Blu-ray with just a selection of episodes. A true fan might decide to purchase the season sets, but if they're going to release all the seasons, why would you want this "Next Level" disc?


I think it's a test to see what the demand is. Plus, they'll want to see the reaction to the conversions.

They have seven seasons to do. I'm sure they'll want some kind of gauge of interest before going to that expense.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Bierboy said:


> Did you read my comment? I said I'm all over it _*IF IT'S NOT EXCESSIVELY CROPPED...
> *_
> I wouldn't waste my money if the cropping leaves out critical stuff....


Yeah, I read it. But, the same percentage is cropped out. In some shots it might be critical, in others it won't.

Regardless of that, why would you want it 16X9? Just to fill your screen?


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

DougF said:


> I think it's a test to see what the demand is.


I just don't see how the test could gauge demand. I imagine most fans will want to wait for the set and not spend $22 on content that they'll just get in the season sets.

So what then would low sales indicate? That no one is interested in season sets? Or that there are tons of people waiting for the season sets?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Amnesia said:


> I just don't see how the test could gauge demand. I imagine most fans will want to wait for the set and not spend $22 on content that they'll just get in the season sets.
> 
> So what then would low sales indicate? That no one is interested in season sets? Or that there are tons of people waiting for the season sets?


I don't know. My guess it that a fair amount of fans will fork over $22 to get a look and see how the conversion came out. If enough do that and reaction is good, they may decide to go ahead with full season sets.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Amnesia said:


> I just don't see how the test could gauge demand. I imagine most fans will want to wait for the set and not spend $22 on content that they'll just get in the season sets.
> 
> So what then would low sales indicate? That no one is interested in season sets? Or that there are tons of people waiting for the season sets?


I think it'll work sort of how a survey works, in that it will be a "sampling" of the fan base. They probably know that it will be low for exactly the reason you suggest... but there will be a subset that will be so eager to see it in HD that they will buy it anyway. Based on how large that subset is that ends up buying it will help them determine how much demand there is for the final box sets.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Plus, Star Trek geeks are known for buying anything with the words "Star Trek" on it. There was a wedding on Cheers once (Rebecca and Robin Colcord?) where Frasier and Lilith gave the couple a set of Star Trek steak knives as a gift. Sure It was a gag and I have no idea if those things ever existed, but it worked because there was some truth to it.

I think a fair amount of people will buy this and a decision on the season sets will come from the sales figures, reviews, online chatter, etc. I think they are being cautious because the TNG love just isn't like the TOS love. Converting to HD for TOS was all but a sure thing for making some money.


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## marksman (Mar 4, 2002)

Scifi nerds will buy anything!


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> The principal photography was done with Panavision Panaflex 35mm cameras. It, however, was edited and mastered on standard definition broadcast videotape, so they would have to re-scan the film masters, re-edit the show to the same edit points, and reproduce all the VFX.
> 
> This is video of the "Reading Rainbow" episode where they show the making of TNG. The episode was recorded during the first season of TNG. I've cued it up to the point in the show where they are talking about editing the show down:
> http://youtu.be/cCsD5PRoX7I#t=394s
> ...


I've read (for what it's worth) that it's even slightly worse than you describe:

From what I've read, the 35mm camera negatives were scanned directly to videotape, via a scanner that reversed the negative image back to a positive.

The rest is then exactly as you describe, all editing was done in the videotape format and all FX were created directly to video.

So, yeah, they'll have to re-create the show from the raw camera negatives (possibly without good notes as to exactly which takes were ultimately used, etc. having to determine that through trial and error, essentially) and do the FX from scratch.


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

Fish Man said:


> I've read (for what it's worth) that it's even slightly worse than you describe:
> 
> From what I've read, the 35mm camera negatives were scanned directly to videotape, via a scanner that reversed the negative image back to a positive.
> 
> ...


Like I said, a LOT of work which will make for one heck of an expensive Blu-Ray set...


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

DougF said:


> Yeah, I read it. But, the same percentage is cropped out. In some shots it might be critical, in others it won't.
> 
> Regardless of that, why would you want it 16X9? Just to fill your screen?


Yes I would want it in 16X9....again IF the video material that is cropped is not excessive. How many times do I have to repeat myself, class? 

And, BTW, I am not a Star Trek nerd. I've watched each series and movie, but am not obsessed as some are....


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Changing it to 16:9 creates a different visual image than what the director intended.


This isn't exactly accurate. The directors of these episodes didn't exactly have any other option. And it's not like they were visionaries bringing their message to the screen. These were all studio directors running through the system.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

IndyJones1023 said:


> This isn't exactly accurate. The directors of these episodes didn't exactly have any other option. And it's not like they were visionaries bringing their message to the screen. These were all studio directors running through the system.


Well, I know it's a different director on a totally different show, but here's Joss Whedon's comments when he was asked about releasing Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 16:9:


> "It's not a widescreen show. We shot it in a TV ratio, and I am very, very specific with the way I frame things. To arbitrarily throw - and I love widescreen, but Buffy was never a widescreen show. It was an intimate, TV-shaped show. To arbitrarily throw wider borders on it, to make it more cinematic when I very specifically framed it... See, that is not the way I framed it. That's not the way it was meant to be seen, and therefore that's not the way I shot it. I'm preserving what I shot. The DVD is there to preserve what we made, for eternity. What we made, very specifically, was a certain shape. So I'm sure there'll be widescreen copies and there'll be arguments about what's better, but I'm not interested in - and I mean, I love widescreen. I'm a widescreen fanatic, when something's wide. When it's not, then I want to see it the way it was meant to be seen."


I'm guessing that there would be at least a few of the directors on TNG that would feel the same as Joss does about his show. Although 4:3 was at the time their only choice, just as Joss did when he made Buffy, they made certain choices within that restriction that would be affected by a change to 16:9.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Bierboy said:


> Yes I would want it in 16X9....again IF the video material that is cropped is not excessive. How many times do I have to repeat myself, class?
> 
> And, BTW, I am not a Star Trek nerd. I've watched each series and movie, but am not obsessed as some are....


No need to be rude. I was simply trying to ask why you would want it in 16X9. It seems most hardcore HD people were also OAR people when it came to buying VHS tapes, laserdiscs and DVDs. I can't see why someone wouldn't want it the same for 4X3.

You keep seeing you want it in 16X9 (if it's not excessively cropped, I get it), but you have never said why, at least that I've seen. If it's none of my business, just say so. Save the rolleyes for someone else.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Sci Fi, in general by the nature of the genre, is MADE for widescreen. Now, whether STNG will adapt well to it is another issue altogether...


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

DougF said:


> No need to be rude. I was simply trying to ask why you would want it in 16X9. It seems most hardcore HD people were also OAR people when it came to buying VHS tapes, laserdiscs and DVDs. You keep seeing you want it in 16X9 (if it's not excessively cropped, I get it), but you have never said why, at least that I've seen. If it's none of my business, just say so. Save the rolleyes for someone else.


See my previous post...

I did not intend to be rude...if it came across that way I apologize.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Bierboy said:


> See my previous post...


Ah, yes. I see now where you said specifically why you wanted it in 16X9 and didn't just say once again that you want it in 16X9 but only if it's not excessively cropped. My apologies.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

LoadStar said:


> I'm guessing that there would be at least a few of the directors on TNG that would feel the same as Joss does about his show. Although 4:3 was at the time their only choice, just as Joss did when he made Buffy, they made certain choices within that restriction that would be affected by a change to 16:9.


Yes...directors of that period wouldn't arbitrarily leave dead space at the tops and bottoms of the frames just in case it would some day be cropped to 16:9. In close-ups (of which there are many in most TV shows), you will lose the tops and bottoms of the characters' heads, e.g.

It's interesting to watch the Babylon 5 DVDs. JMS was very forward-looking, and decreed that they should be shot open-matte (an aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9), and be framed so that it could be cropped a little one way for the regular broadcast, and a little the other way for eventual 16:9. Some directors got it, and some didn't. And you could always tell when they didn't very easily...chins and foreheads got cropped in the close-ups.


DougF said:


> Ah, yes. I see now where you said specifically why you wanted it in 16X9 and didn't just say once again that you want it in 16X9 but only if it's not excessively cropped. My apologies.


Wow, sarcasm. THAT'S original!


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> ...Wow, sarcasm. THAT'S original!


Yeah, and probably uncalled for. Apologies to Bierboy.


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Well, I know it's a different director on a totally different show, but here's Joss Whedon's comments when he was asked about releasing Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 16:9:


Yeah, that was one man, one showrunner's vision. Not a bunch of different directors run thru the mill.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yes...directors of that period wouldn't arbitrarily leave dead space at the tops and bottoms of the frames just in case it would some day be cropped to 16:9. In close-ups (of which there are many in most TV shows), you will lose the tops and bottoms of the characters' heads, e.g.


It's more than just whether space was left on the top/bottom of a frame.

Again, going back to the Buffy example (just because it's where I recall another major debate happening about releasing a 4:3 show re-edited for 16:9) this is (as DVDTalk.com transcribed) from the commentary from the Buffy episode "The Body.":


> "We're actually coming up on one of my favorite shots that I ever composed, and it's very simple, which is this: very simply, it's an over where I squeezed her in the frame as much as possible so that it's like she didn't have room to maneuver... A normal over would have been her with a tiny slice of his shoulder. Instead, I let his shoulder own the frame. I took his eyes out of the frame to show the experience of literally being trapped, being blocked off from reality. It's an obvious thing, not great filmmaking, but when I did it on the day when I saw the over and thought, 'he's a little too much in the frame. Oh, keep pushing it...keep pushing. Give her less room...give her less room.' It excited me."


Again, there were probably more than a few directors on TNG that wouldn't have a particular "artistic vision" like Joss did on Buffy. But there may have been some that did.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

LoadStar said:


> Again, there were probably more than a few directors on TNG that wouldn't have a particular "artistic vision" like Joss did on Buffy. But there may have been some that did.


Right, but my point was just that regardless of the level of artistic vision, they would have used all of the 4:3 frame. Ergo, cropped chins and foreheads.

The kind of care Joss talks about in that example is just bonus cropping suckage on top of the normal cropping suckage.

Now, maybe Bierboy is less sensitive to that kind of stuff. But I know there's a movie theater here in Minneapolis (sadly, the one closest to me) that routinely overscans (that's probably not the right technical term) movies. And it doesn't take any necessary visual information out of the picture (unless there are subtitles, the bottom line of which usually are off the screen), but the (mis-) framing of the image drives me crazy, to the point where I can't enjoy the movie. So I don't go there any more (they also like to lower the brightness of the bulb, which makes the movies darker and murkier than they were meant to be).


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Fleegle said:


> Like I said, a LOT of work which will make for one heck of an expensive Blu-Ray set...


Yeah and that gives me pause because it seems obvious to me that CBS Video did not spend enough money to get the TOS HD release correct.



IndyJones1023 said:


> Yeah, that was one man, one showrunner's vision. Not a bunch of different directors run thru the mill.


TNG had showrunners who set down edicts as well though.
Seasons 1 & 2, it was primarily Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley.
Season 3-7, it was Michael Pillar and Rick Berman.

And I think that most (if not all) of the directors would have framed for 4:3 during TNG's run as that was all that was really out on the market.

As Rob points out, in 1994, it was _very_ forward thinking for JMS to be shooting with 16:9 in mind.

(Although I recently noticed that in 2001, the headrest displays in the Pan Am spaceclipper appear to be 16:9.)


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

IndyJones1023 said:


> This isn't exactly accurate. The directors of these episodes didn't exactly have any other option. And it's not like they were visionaries bringing their message to the screen. These were all studio directors running through the system.


Regardless how badly any given director might have _wanted_ to shoot in widescreen, the fact is that when ST:TNG was in production, TV was 4:3.

The directors were stuck with 4:3. It was never going to be anything but 4:3 as far as they knew.

Therefore, they _composed the frames to look correct in 4:3._

To change the aspect ratio would be to alter their intended composition. Period.

It's not a matter of whether you (meaning anyone reading this, not only Indy) or I or the director _preferred_ widescreen (generally speaking, I indeed do). It's a matter of the source material being composed by the cinematographer to look right in 4:3. It will look "less right" in any other ratio.


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

I've been keeping this in mind as I've been rewatching the series. There's no way it would do well with a crop to 16x9. Some of the framing is super tight (almost too tight for 4x3 IMO) and would just be awful cropped.

I sure hope they don't crop anything. The show was shot for a 4x3 frame, it should be preserved that way. I see no benefit to cropping it.


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## SimonGoodwin (Sep 29, 2011)

Woooow.... Bring back ST:TNG 
Let's just hope they get the GFX right!


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

I still haven't seen anything that actually explains what "recomposited" means, and if it's a good thing or not for the FX. We know that it won't be a CGI redo, like with TOS. The best explanation that I've read is that the FX shots were shot on 35mm and composited on video, so they can go back to the original 35mm film, get the base FX shots, and rebuild them.

But there doesn't seem to be a concensus on whether or not those FX shots do exist on film.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

The Digital Bits is reporting that the Blu-ray will contain the episodes in the original 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a trailer for set...


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Interesting...



> By the way, we're told that the show's original 1.33:1 aspect ratio will be preserved (and that's what you'll get on Blu-ray), but 1.78:1 versions may be created for use in certain distribution venues.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

> By the way, we're told that the show's original 1.33:1 aspect ratio will be preserved (and that's what you'll get on Blu-ray), but 1.78:1 versions may be created for use in certain distribution venues.


IIRC CBS digital used almost identical wording in some copy about the HD remastering of ST:TOS "[widescreen] versions may be created for certain distributions", or words very close to that.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Amnesia said:


> The Digital Bits is reporting that the Blu-ray will contain the episodes in the original 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a trailer for set...


The trailer shows camera negatives being loaded into the scanner, and then it morphs a negative image into a positive.

So, yeah, the only high resolution medium that exists of the show is the camera negatives.

Wow! That is really a lot of work!

I'll buy it just to see how well they did with the conversion.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> It's interesting to watch the Babylon 5 DVDs. JMS was very forward-looking, and decreed that they should be shot open-matte (an aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9), and be framed so that it could be cropped a little one way for the regular broadcast, and a little the other way for eventual 16:9. Some directors got it, and some didn't. And you could always tell when they didn't very easily...chins and foreheads got cropped in the close-ups.


For what it's worth I prefer if remasters don't screw with the aspect ratio. I've got those Babylon 5 on DVDs and, IMHO, reframing them fpr 16:9 didn't turn out all that well. (Now some of that is that JMS's plan to redo the CGI fell through, so all the space scene's are cropped down from 4:3, but even the normal stuff doesn't work as well)

And like you said that's a show where they at tried to frame thing for the possibility of later widescreen conversion, so they don't have to crop much, mostly just show more content to the side. I can't image what a mess it would be to take something that wasn't framed to go wider and just make it shorter to fill out a TV. Ug.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> I still haven't seen anything that actually explains what "recomposited" means, and if it's a good thing or not for the FX. We know that it won't be a CGI redo, like with TOS. The best explanation that I've read is that the FX shots were shot on 35mm and composited on video, so they can go back to the original 35mm film, get the base FX shots, and rebuild them.
> 
> But there doesn't seem to be a concensus on whether or not those FX shots do exist on film.


I'm not sure either.

I was hoping that someone like Bryan or Indy would have more insight on what they mean by "recomposited".



Amnesia said:


> The Digital Bits is reporting that the Blu-ray will contain the episodes in the original 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a trailer for set...


Good to know.
Thanks.



Fish Man said:


> IIRC CBS digital used almost identical wording in some copy about the HD remastering of ST:TOS "[widescreen] versions may be created for certain distributions", or words very close to that.


Interestingly enough, the new CGI for TOS was rendered at 16:9 but was also supposed to be 4:3 friendly.

Of course then you still have to crop the live action for 16:9..


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

Amnesia said:


> There is also a trailer for set...


Can someone tell me what "trailer for set" means? I'm following the technical discussion fairly well but I'm not familiar with that term.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

scooterboy said:


> Can someone tell me what "trailer for set" means? I'm following the technical discussion fairly well but I'm not familiar with that term.


There is a trailer [for the] set [of episodes they are releasing.]

A few words got dropped.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

LoadStar said:


> There is a trailer [for the] set [of episodes they are releasing.]
> 
> A few words got dropped.


Ok...thanks.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

scooterboy said:


> Can someone tell me what "trailer for set" means?


Yes, should have been "trailer for *the* set". Little editing mistake...sorry for the confusion...


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> The trailer shows camera negatives being loaded into the scanner, and then it morphs a negative image into a positive.
> 
> So, yeah, the only high resolution medium that exists of the show is the camera negatives.
> 
> ...


The correct name for what you are calling a scanner is "telecine".


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> The correct name for what you are calling a scanner is "telecine".


"Telecine" is a device that converts film to video.

The component that went directly from film _negatives_ to (positive) video was referred to by several tecs who worked with it as a "negative scanner" according to articles I've read, to differentiate it from traditional "telecine".

The equipment to go directly from _negative_ to video was quite new and relatively novel in 1987. According to several articles (contemporary to the first season of ST:TNG) it was the first TV series to use this technique (negatives, direct to video, and then edit in the video domain) in production. As opposed to going all the way to a finished product on film, and then converting that finished film to video via telecine, which is common right up to today.

(ST:TNG's "negatives to video" technique never really caught on.)

Again, the whole point is, had they gone all the way to finished product on film, then used traditional telecine (as, indeed ST:TOS did, and Hogans Heros, and Sienfield, etc. etc.) we wouldn't even be having this discussion.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> "Telecine" is a device that converts film to video.
> 
> The component that went directly from film _negatives_ to (positive) video was referred to by several tecs who worked with it as a "negative scanner" according to articles I've read, to differentiate it from traditional "telecine".
> 
> ...


A traditional telecine will scan negative film just as well as positive prints. Never seen one that won't. It is a very simple electronic process to convert from negative to positive within the telecine. Telecines were around and well implemented in the television production environment way before ST:TNG ever started production. In fact, Rank Cintel was on about their 4th generation of flying spot scanner telecines by then, so your statement, "The equipment to go directly from _negative_ to video was quite new and relatively novel in 1987" is completely inaccurate.

I think part of this confusion is the digital revolution has taken over what was once the telecine business, and the modern digital scanners are much faster at scanning film, either positive or negative, because you only have to scan the film through once, store it digitally, and do all your post processing with computers and with the film back in the storage vault. This is different from the previous traditional methods of transfer, where the adjustments and color correction, etc. require multiple passes of the film through the transport., constantly starting and stopping to do scene by scene adjustments.

I suspect the articles you were citing were written by industry professionals used to the new digital scanners, who applied the current generic name to the older process of traditional telecine film transfer to video. It would be interesting to find someone who was involved with the transfers back then and see what machine the film was actually transferred on. I'm willing to bet it was a Rank-Cintel telecine, as they were the dominant force in the industry back then.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

Yeah, I think they're trying to distinguish the old analog telecine process from the new digital scanning process. The end result may be the same (film -> video) but the process is totally different.

How will it look? I dunno. Some of the effects in the first couple seasons were not very good, though the ILM-produced effects for the pilot (and reused as stock footage) were pretty good.


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## lordargent (Nov 12, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> It's interesting to watch the Babylon 5 DVDs


Mmmmm, Babylon 5 with new CGI


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

lordargent said:


> Mmmmm, Babylon 5 with new CGI


That was the big miscalculation JMS made (the little one was assuming his directors would understand the concept of framing open-matte film for both 4:3 and 16:9): He assumed that by the time 16:9 was commonplace enough for the 16:9 version of B5 to be needed, the price of FX would have dropped enough to be able to cheaply fill out the 16:9 frame, so to save money they only did the FX on the 4:3 portion of the image. Oops.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> That was the big miscalculation JMS made (the little one was assuming his directors would understand the concept of framing open-matte film for both 4:3 and 16:9): He assumed that by the time 16:9 was commonplace enough for the 16:9 version of B5 to be needed, the price of FX would have dropped enough to be able to cheaply fill out the 16:9 frame, so to save money they only did the FX on the 4:3 portion of the image. Oops.


Well he might have been right, but IIRC their FX studio went under and the various digial models and files were lost. Recreating the models would have been prohibitively expensive. Rerender the CGI if they still had all the files _might_ have been affordable.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Fish Man said:


> "Telecine" is a device that converts film to video.
> 
> The component that went directly from film _negatives_ to (positive) video was referred to by several tecs who worked with it as a "negative scanner" according to articles I've read, to differentiate it from traditional "telecine".
> 
> ...


I read that with "Seinfeld" they had to back to the film masters and re-edit as the editing had been done on video. I don't have a source as I can't remember where I saw it.


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

Jonathan_S said:


> Well he might have been right, but IIRC their FX studio went under and the various digial models and files were lost. Recreating the models would have been prohibitively expensive. Rerender the CGI if they still had all the files _might_ have been affordable.


I thought I heard they used viewer created models for the last movie.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Jonathan_S said:


> Well he might have been right, but IIRC their FX studio went under and the various digial models and files were lost. Recreating the models would have been prohibitively expensive. Rerender the CGI if they still had all the files _might_ have been affordable.


My understanding is that if Warners had to choose between spending $20 on redoing all the B5 FX and $20 having lunch at Wendys, they would have gone to lunch.

Which is to say, they weren't going to spend ANYTHING on those DVD releases.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> My understanding is that if Warners had to choose between spending $20 on redoing all the B5 FX and $20 having lunch at Wendys, they would have gone to lunch.
> 
> Which is to say, they weren't going to spend ANYTHING on those DVD releases.


Well, you can tell that they spared no expense with the B5 DVD sets.
(/sarcasm)

It seemed to me like they didn't even do basic cleanup on the transfer.


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## Bob_Newhart (Jul 14, 2004)

DavidTigerFan said:


> I think they should stretch it.


Or scan and pan it.

Or both FTW.


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

EW has a video showing old and new side by side. One thing to note is that the aspect ratios aren't different between the two in this video, the new version is still 4:3. No idea if it will look that way in the final product or not.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/05/star-trek-tng-hd-exclusive-video/


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

Azlen said:


> EW has a video showing old and new side by side. One thing to note is that the aspect ratios aren't different between the two in this video, the new version is still 4:3. No idea if it will look that way in the final product or not.
> 
> http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/05/star-trek-tng-hd-exclusive-video/


Pretty impressive. I might have to eat my words about this not being possible. I do wish they had more shots of the Enterprise, though.

Regarding the aspect ratio, though--it is a 4x3 show. The HD release is going to be 4x3.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Azlen said:


> EW has a video showing old and new side by side. One thing to note is that the aspect ratios aren't different between the two in this video, the new version is still 4:3. No idea if it will look that way in the final product or not.
> 
> http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/05/star-trek-tng-hd-exclusive-video/


I hope the blue ray sticks with 4x3, or at least has a menu option for that.

When the show was in production, all the cinematographers and directors were working with the knowledge that the final product would be 4x3 so they composed their shots for that. Cropping them would not show the director's intended composition and would remove part of the frame that they composed.

That being said, if this remastering effort leads to HD releases of the series for broadcast (on SyFy channel, etc.) I assume they'll release a "cropped to 16x9" version for broadcast, just as has been done with Seinfeld, Hogan's Heros, etc. etc.

Edited to add: I was *really* impressed with that sample clip! If they maintain that sort of quality for the entire series... Wow! I'm going to be blowing some money on some BlueRay sets...


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Wow.  That is truly impressive. It would be hard to believe from the "new" version that you were watching a 25+ year old episode.

I wish they would have left it an "old" side and a "new" side. I wanted to see the whole thing, side-by-side. I was going a bit mad trying to follow it as the line kept scanning side-to-side.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Wow.  That is truly impressive. It would be hard to believe from the "new" version that you were watching a 25+ year old episode.


I had the exact same reaction. Then I got to thinking and became less and less surprised (albeit, still impressed!) 

Originally, the camera negatives were telecine'd directly to Type C videotape.

Type C is slightly more lossy than the earlier Quadraplex that it replaced, and while Quadraplex could actually be edited by cutting the tape (the tracks were perfectly perpendicular to the tape edges, allowing cutting between them) Type C is editable only by dubbing.

So, the edited episode is at least a second generation dub from the tape containing the telecine'd camera masters. They'd then dub several "duplication masters" from that edited master (third generation), from which they'd dub many "distribution copies" (fourth generation) that would be distributed to the TV stations (remember, this show was syndicated).

Alternatively, one of the "duplication masters" was probably transmitted by satellite for the TV stations to make their own Type C dub (or possibly BetaCam dub). Fourth generation again, and this time with an analog satellite transmission adding further murk to the image.

I may well even be missing a dubbing generation. There is quite possibly another dub involved in adding the finished soundtrack (with music, effects, etc.), for instance.

We didn't notice in 1987 watching on our 1987 or earlier vintage TV sets connected to a snowy, poorly maintained cable TV system.

I assume they used a forth (or worse) generation tape, like the above, as the source for the "old" in the demo.

What various cable networks are currently showing might be digitized off of the third generation "duplication masters", or maybe, but probably not, off the second generation "edited master".

Still, the HD directly from the camera negative is going to look great no matter how you slice it.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> I had the exact same reaction. Then I got to thinking and became less and less surprised (albeit, still impressed!)
> 
> Originally, the camera negatives were telecine'd directly to Type C videotape.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I too was thinking much of the quality loss is from multiple videotape dubs, and not just that the original was in SD.

Throughout our TNG Rewatch, I've often noticed how *bad* the quality is... I figured it was just a really bad dub to from videotape to DVD, which Netflix then compresses down further for streaming, but I hadn't really thought about it possibly being the result of multiple generation loss.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> ...When the show was in production, all the cinematographers and directors were working with the knowledge that the final product would be 4x3 so they composed their shots for that. Cropping them would not show the director's intended composition and would remove part of the frame that they composed....:


 We've heard/read this argument ad infinitum....


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> Type C is slightly more lossy than the earlier Quadraplex that it replaced, and while Quadraplex could actually be edited by cutting the tape (the tracks were perfectly perpendicular to the tape edges, allowing cutting between them) Type C is editable only by dubbing.


No one edited Quad by splicing after about the early to mid 1970's, after Hi-band color recording became commonplace. After that, Quad was edited electronically just like every other format. Physical splicing was too crude for color video stability at the edit points, as well as physically damaging to the thinner heads used for Hi-band color recording.

Also the video tracks on Quad are not perfectly parallel to the tape edge. The 15 ips tape speed past the head on Hi-band results in the video tracks being recorded at an angle to the tape edge of around 12 degrees if I remember correctly. The older black and white Lo-band quad format, which was commonly physically spliced, ran at 7.5 ips and therefore had a much lower angle to the edge of the tape.

Quad was long obsolete in the production industry years before TNG.


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

Bierboy said:


> We've heard/read this argument ad infinitum....


Why the rolleyes? It's the correct position to take.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Bryanmc said:


> Why the rolleyes? It's the correct position to take.


There are people who can see the difference, and people who can't. To me, mis-framed stuff is painful to watch, but I've known people who find black bars painful to watch and are happy to see brutally-cropped video.

Oddly enough, people are different. Sometimes I think, especially during election season, the world would be a much better place if we all just figured that out. (Which is not intended as a slam at either you or Bier, more like a gentle dig at both.)


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> There are people who can see the difference, and people who can't. To me, mis-framed stuff is painful to watch, but I've known people who find black bars painful to watch and are happy to see brutally-cropped video.
> 
> Oddly enough, people are different. Sometimes I think, especially during election season, the world would be a much better place if we all just figured that out. (Which is not intended as a slam at either you or Bier, more like a gentle dig at both.)


That's very pious, but why would the preference be an incorrectly framed shot?

Our world of different frame sizes makes black bars inevitable, it would be a tough world to exist in if that really was bothersome.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Bryanmc said:


> That's very pious, but why would the preference be an incorrectly framed shot?
> 
> Our world of different frame sizes makes black bars inevitable, it would be a tough world to exist in if that really was bothersome.


I agree with you completely.

People who disagree aren't wrong. They just have different priorities.

(And you may be the first person in the history of the universe to call me pious! )


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

I can't imagine why anyone would get excited about them literally rebuilding this show from scratch to create the ultimate HD edition...and then complain that they aren't chopping parts of the screen off to make it 16x9.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> I can't imagine why anyone would get excited about them literally rebuilding this show from scratch to create the ultimate HD edition...and then complain that they aren't chopping parts of the screen off to make it 16x9.


Thank you!

"Let's make as perfect and pristine a presentation of the show that the best available mastering source material available allows, and then f**k it up again by removing part of the picture!"

NO THANK YOU!


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> Quad was long obsolete in the production industry years before TNG.


Agreed. Sort of. Depending on how you define "long".

ST:TNG debuted in 1987.

Quad was still in common use into the first half of the 80's. (MTV used it until 1990 or so for their music videos since the only practical "videotape jukebox" available, the Ampex ACR-25, used Quad. MTV had special custom-kludged ACR-25s that supported stereo sound.)

Several soap operas were still using Quad as late as the _late_ 80's and Saturday Night Live was using Quad to tape-delay for the west coast up to '84 or '85 or so.

But you are correct, Type C had taken over as the exclusive distribution medium for syndicated shows by about 1980.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Bryanmc said:


> Why the rolleyes? It's the correct position to take.


It's been hammered away again and again...we get it...

I don't disagree with the position. I disagree with continually bringing it up...


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Bierboy said:


> It's been hammered away again and again...we get it...
> 
> I don't disagree with the position. I disagree with continually bringing it up...


It was only brought up because someone in the thread asked about it. It's not just being brought up out of the blue to be argumentative.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

One additional point:

As sloppy and non-caring as they appeared to be with picture quality during the show's original production, it was one of the first episodic TV shows to feature a *Dolby Surround* soundtrack.

I listened to the audio of the show through a "Dolby Surround" decoder (known these days as "Pro-Logic") during the series' original run and the audio was absolutely state of the art.

Decoding this "Dolby Surround" (Pro-Logic) soundtrack and up-converting it to DD 5.1 or DTS would be a great idea, and still sound really good, even by today's standards, I suspect.

I assume the BlueRay's soundtrack will be an upconvert to a discrete digital format (namely 5.1 or DTS).


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Fish Man said:


> Thank you!
> 
> "Let's make as perfect and pristine a presentation of the show that the best available mastering source material available allows, and then f**k it up again by removing part of the picture!"
> 
> NO THANK YOU!


However I'm in the camp that if they can open up existing soft mattes and ADD to the image, the result is acceptable for 16x9 as long as there's a 4:3 option for purists.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> However I'm in the camp that if they can open up existing soft mattes and ADD to the image, the result is acceptable for 16x9 as long as there's a 4:3 option for purists.


There was no soft matte in ST:TNG. The master source is a 35mm camera negative formatted to 4x3, and presented full frame in the final TV production. (With the occasional rare exception of a particular shot cropped in post-production to get rid of a visible boom mic or something.)

Your point is valid for sources that were soft matted, however.


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## DLiquid (Sep 17, 2001)

Wow, that video looks much better than I expected. I started rewatching a few years ago and only got about 1/3 of the way through. I'm looking forward to watching the rest in HD.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> Agreed. Sort of. Depending on how you define "long".
> 
> ST:TNG debuted in 1987.
> 
> ...


As you state, quad was still in *common* use as an air playback media into the 1980's, due to the specialized use in the Ampex ACR-25 that was still in common usage, but that hardly counts as "production" usage. (i.e. original production recording and editing) After the mid 1980's, even TBS had stopped using quad for anything other than air playback (ACR-25's) and a spare machine to play back library programming.

Also, the "kludge" you spoke about for stereo audio on the ACR-25 was not really a "kluge". It was designed and implemented by Ampex at MTV's request, and later incorporated into the last line of Ampex's production quad machines. We had several stereo AVR-3 quad machines in the production department at TBS. It really only required them to design and build a stereo audio head stack; the second audio channel was just another set of standard audio cards like the first channel. The way it recorded on the tape was to simply split the mono track space into two separate parallel tracks. This allowed mono compatibility when the stereo tape was played on a mono transport.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

DLiquid said:


> Wow, that video looks much better than I expected. I started rewatching a few years ago and only got about 1/3 of the way through. I'm looking forward to watching the rest in HD.


I was also very impressed by the increase of quality in the HD side of that demo. but I don't remember the SD side looking nearly as bad as it did in that demo. I wonder if the intentionally made the SD side look slightly inferior to heighten the contrast between the two?


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> I was also very impressed by the increase of quality in the HD side of that demo. but I don't remember the SD side looking nearly as bad as it did in that demo. I wonder if the intentionally made the SD side look slightly inferior to heighten the contrast between the two?


Recent showings on the SyFy channel-HD have looked at least that bad to me, I dare say worse than that. Of course, I have no idea what their source was or what codec or bitrate they used to digitize it into their servers.

I tend to agree that they picked a source for the "old" that was probably not the best that's theoretically available from CBS/Paramount (but seems typical of whats generally "available" to us drooling masses).


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## sonnik (Jul 7, 2000)

One thing that struck me in the EW sample - bringing the HD picture quality up certainly exposes "old school" special effects shortcomings that I may have not otherwised noticed.

In 1987, these were great effects for a syndicated program. 

The shot I'm referring to in the EW clip is the one where the "female" Farpoint entity is unearthing itself. The ground is supposed to be collapsing in as the Farpoint entity is rising. In the HD version, you can actually see the grain of the sand they used for this shot. In the original version, this was kind of blurry and a bit more believable.

That said, I wouldn't say that new CGI for all effects shots is really the way to go either.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

sonnik said:


> One thing that struck me in the EW sample - bringing the HD picture quality up certainly exposes "old school" special effects shortcomings that I may have not otherwised noticed.
> 
> In 1987, these were great effects for a syndicated program.
> 
> ...


If they're not going to do the 16:9 cropping, then the only other question in regards to quality will be the effects shots.

My understanding is that those were all shot in 480p video, therefore there is no HD version.

Sure, they can clean it up and upscale but that's arguably not the same quality wise.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> Alternatively, one of the "duplication masters" was probably transmitted by satellite for the TV stations to make their own Type C dub (or possibly BetaCam dub). Fourth generation again, and this time with an analog satellite transmission adding further murk to the image.


Of the three TV stations I interned at during college, two carried ST:TNG, and that's how they did it, even after it was out of first-run -- there were some national commercials included with each episode, so satellite distribution was the only good way to be able to have the commercials be time-sensitive. (Both stations recorded it off the satellite transmission onto 1-inch-wide videotape reels, which I assume was Type C, although I never heard that term.)


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

JYoung said:


> If they're not going to do the 16:9 cropping, then the only other question in regards to quality will be the effects shots.
> 
> My understanding is that those were all shot in 480p video, therefore there is no HD version.
> 
> Sure, they can clean it up and upscale but that's arguably not the same quality wise.


No, they were shot on 35MM film, not video. The special effects were all done on videotape, though, which is why they're having to be re-done. They're remastering the video from the original 35mm negatives.

I think the biggest difference for me was the detail on the Enterprise. That old girl never looked so good!


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

They said they were "recompositing" the effect shots, which means they are going back to the original film shots of the elements and rebuilding them in HD, instead of on videotape as originally done.

Two ways of saying the same thing.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

trainman said:


> (Both stations recorded it off the satellite transmission onto 1-inch-wide videotape reels, which I assume was Type C, although I never heard that term.)


Yep, that's Type C.

How time change. When I was shown around my local FOX affiliate recently, they have *no videotape format whatsoever* set up to play directly over the air.

They had a Type C machine in the back of a closet. The engineer told me they could conceivably drag it out, re-calibrate it and realign it if need be, (and pray it still worked at all) but they hadn't used it in years.

They showed me a dubbing station with a BetaCam player. A few _ extremely old_ syndicated reruns that they air come _in the mail_ in Betacam. (This station runs "Perry Mason", for instance, at 3:00 AM.) The station is set up to dub the contents of the BetaCam tapes into the digital servers for airing. Most syndicated shows, more and more in HD every day, are dubbed directly from satellite feeds to the servers (and yep, they have national ads), or increasingly, even downloaded via a secure link online.

Local ads apparently all come in these days on DVD's or even CD's formatted as *data* format, containing a file of the video. (A CD-R can hold a couple of 30 second spots, in 1080i, at a decent bit rate. The engineer showed me some HD local commercials that they received on CD-Rs.) They simply pop it into the CD/DVD drive of a PC, run it through a software converter to get it into their on-air codec, and dump it into the server.

They also had a rack of many consumer formats of videotape players, also set up to dub to the digital servers, that they used for amateur video that caught a newsworthy event.

Finally, in the engineer's "bullpen" area, they had the pieces of a ACR-25 (Quad "video jukebox") dissembled and laying all around, with a few of the Quad "cassettes" that it used. Its the closest I've ever come to seeing an ACR-25 in person (as opposed to photos and videos, there's a neat YouTube video of one operating). It had been used for commercials and retired in the early 80's.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> However I'm in the camp that if they can open up existing soft mattes and ADD to the image, the result is acceptable for 16x9 as long as there's a 4:3 option for purists.





Fish Man said:


> There was no soft matte in ST:TNG. The master source is a 35mm camera negative formatted to 4x3, and presented full frame in the final TV production. (With the occasional rare exception of a particular shot cropped in post-production to get rid of a visible boom mic or something.)
> 
> Your point is valid for sources that were soft matted, however.


Thanks! I could have sworn in the thread someone had mentioned ST:TNG was soft matted in addition to B5.


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## Gary McCoy (Jun 4, 2003)

dianebrat said:


> Thanks! I could have sworn in the thread someone had mentioned ST:TNG was soft matted in addition to B5.


Nope. For those of you who have forgotten recent history, *ST:TNG *was broadcast in NTSC video 1987-1994. ATSC (American HDTV standards) were first released in 1997 which is when we became aware that 16:9 was the shape of things to come. Slowly over 1997 to 2006 series began to be soft matted. But even today much programming is still shot in 4:3 hard matte as it is intended for broadcast on ATSC subchannels.

Pre-1997 programming released as 16:9 is being cropped from a hard 4:3 matte.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> Finally, in the engineer's "bullpen" area, they had the pieces of a ACR-25 (Quad "video jukebox") dissembled and laying all around, with a few of the Quad "cassettes" that it used. Its the closest I've ever come to seeing an ACR-25 in person (as opposed to photos and videos, there's a neat YouTube video of one operating). It had been used for commercials and retired in the early 80's.


This reminds me of when I started working at TBS in 1981. I was fascinated by the ACR-25's in Master Control. (I was hired as a Production engineer) They had three of them at TBS and 2 more downstairs at CNN. I would stand there and watch tape after tape thread up as it was sucked up the vacuum columns while threading. The machine would spin out some slack from the cassette, the vacuum column negative air pressure would pull the loop up the transport (I still remember the "pop" sound the tape would make when it hit the top of the vacuum column), the vacuum capstan (no pinch roller) and head shoe/guide would come up out of the base plate, and the tape would be cued in just seconds. And with just the momentum of the tape only (no reels), the machine was literally almost an instant roll for playback. It would lock up in something like 5 frames. There were two independent transports, which shared a common cart carousel (24 carts) and cart threading mechanism, so one deck was playing back while the next commercial was cueing in the other transport. A properly operating machine could run 10 second spots back to back with out any problems.

A fascinating, Rube Golbergesk design, but it worked quite reliably, though the engineers that worked on them really had to stay on top of them with maintenance. One of the biggest pains was the light bulbs in the vacuum column which sensed the tape position (or the top of the slack loop) were constantly burning out. The guys came up with a modification to replace all the light bulbs with LED's, and it was so successful, all the ACR-25's at Turner were retrofited.

They used one ACR-25 for local broadcast, one for satellite broadcast, and the third was used as a carting station for putting commercials on cart (and also served as a spare air playback when one of the other two machines was down for maintenance).

They ran those systems at TBS until they were replaced by Sony Library Management Systems (LMS) equipped with Sony D2 machines, with 5 D2 machines in each system. And, of course, today everything is run off dual redundant servers with a really incredible amount of storage capacity, They have something like 12 full height racks of hard drives on each server.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

That was a really cool read, and the YouTube video have me the rest of the story. Thanks for sharing that (both of you)


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Gary McCoy said:


> Pre-1997 programming released as 16:9 is being cropped from a hard 4:3 matte.


except in certain cases like B5 which I referenced, it was shot with soft mattes starting in 1994


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Fleegle said:


> No, they were shot on 35MM film, not video. The special effects were all done on videotape, though, which is why they're having to be re-done. They're remastering the video from the original 35mm negatives.
> 
> I think the biggest difference for me was the detail on the Enterprise. That old girl never looked so good!


Right, I knew all the live action was shot on film but I don't know about the Speciall Effects elements.



mrdbdigital said:


> They said they were "recompositing" the effect shots, which means they are going back to the original film shots of the elements and rebuilding them in HD, instead of on videotape as originally done.
> 
> Two ways of saying the same thing.


Yeah, I've been wondering what they meant by "recompositing".
My question has been, were the original effects elements shot on video (like they were for DS9 and Voyager) or were they shot on film?

You seem to be saying that all the effects shots were done on film.

Something I would find a little hard to believe when you consider that some of the original ILM footage was used in Generations and I could tell that the resolution on the big screen wasn't up to the quality of newer effects shots for the film.

I guess my point is that I've never heard it said conclusively whether or not the effects shots elements were first shot on film or not.


----------



## Gary McCoy (Jun 4, 2003)

As I recall, *ST:TOS* was shot on 35mm in 4:3, and then optical effects were used, just as in older movies. Then a Telecine converter was used to create an NTSC video master.

*ST:TNG*, *ST: DS9*, and *ST:Voyager* were shot in 35mm 4:3, then digitized and SD video effects were inserted in the SD digital master. Then a final NTSC analog master videotape was created for each episode.

*ST:Enterprise *was shot in HD digital video in 16:9 and HD video effects were inserted into the HD master, then a digital distribution file was created.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

JYoung said:


> Right, I knew all the live action was shot on film but I don't know about the Speciall Effects elements.
> 
> Yeah, I've been wondering what they meant by "recompositing".
> My question has been, were the original effects elements shot on video (like they were for DS9 and Voyager) or were they shot on film?
> ...


My understanding--and this is something that would have gotten Paramount a lot better press had they actually defined what "recompositing" meant--is that the FX elements for TNG (as well as the others, although I think Voyager was the first ST series to have a lot of CGI FX--but I could be wrong) were filmed on film. The elements were then put onto video tape and composited (each Enterprise shot, for example, was usually 3 or more different duplicate shots with different lighting, and then you've got other elements to add in).

"Recompositing" means that they are going back to the film--so for an Enterprise pass, they'll go back to the 3 or more individual film shots and digitizing each one. Then they're compositing all of those FX shots digitally.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> My understanding--and this is something that would have gotten Paramount a lot better press had they actually defined what "recompositing" meant--is that the FX elements for TNG (as well as the others, although I think Voyager was the first ST series to have a lot of CGI FX--but I could be wrong) were filmed on film. The elements were then put onto video tape and composited (each Enterprise shot, for example, was usually 3 or more different duplicate shots with different lighting, and then you've got other elements to add in).
> 
> "Recompositing" means that they are going back to the film--so for an Enterprise pass, they'll go back to the 3 or more individual film shots and digitizing each one. Then they're compositing all of those FX shots digitally.


I've been wondering for months what the hell they meant by "recompositing".

If they do actually have the film passes, it isn't as bad although I still see some softness in that web video (though it could be because it's a highly compressed web video).
And as I mentioned before, I did see a quality difference when I saw Generations on the big screen.

Voyager played with CGI from Season 1 and DS9 in Season 3 as both the Defiant and and Voyager models were scanned into a computer for effects work.
(The CGI model of Voyager has lighted windows under the Shuttle Bay doors, something the physical model couldn't do as that room was taken up by the motors that moved the nacelles.)

DS9 went primarily CGI with Season 6 (the better to show those massive fleets in the Dominion War) so I'd guess that Voyager probably did as well in Season 4.

I have the sneaking suspicion that those effects were all rendered at 480p though.


----------



## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

JYoung said:


> I've been wondering for months what the hell they meant by "recompositing".
> 
> If they do actually have the film passes, it isn't as bad although I still see some softness in that web video (though it could be because it's a highly compressed web video).
> And as I mentioned before, I did see a quality difference when I saw Generations on the big screen.


The model primarily used through seasons 3 and on in TNG was a 4 foot model, and that 4 foot model was even more detailed than the 6 foot model they started with. But neither were built for the big screen. Apparently a lot of the footage for Generations was new, made with the 6 foot model with some tweaks to try to make it more "big screen friendly". But ultimately, it was still a TV model, and I'm sure they had to work carefully to hide any issues it may have had.

One of the reasons they crashed the D at the end of Generations was because the model wasn't conducive to theater viewing, so they had a chance to update it.



> I have the sneaking suspicion that those effects were all rendered at 480p though.


You are probably correct. And while there are fans that would probably love to see a DS9 HD version, I can't imagine anyone is clamoring for a Blu-Ray pass at Voyager.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

I think it's pretty obvious from what we are seeing in the HD demo video that the effects were shot on film and then transferred to video for compositing. You simply cannot get the quality improvement that is shown in the HD demo by upconverting effects previously done on SD video tape. They had to have gone back to original film elements to get the quality shown.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

mrdbdigital said:


> I think it's pretty obvious from what we are seeing in the HD demo video that the effects were shot on film and then transferred to video for compositing. You simply cannot get the quality improvement that is shown in the HD demo by upconverting effects previously done on SD video tape. They had to have gone back to original film elements to get the quality shown.


I would agree. But why on earth didn't Paramount make a big deal about that earlier? Many of us (myself included) have basically said "TNG FX were done on tape, there's no way this will look good and they've said they're not CGI'ing anything."


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

doom1701 said:


> I would agree. But why on earth didn't Paramount make a big deal about that earlier? Many of us (myself included) have basically said "TNG FX were done on tape, there's no way this will look good and they've said they're not CGI'ing anything."


I think they were too busy yakking about how they were going to use all the 25,000 original camera film elements for the actor scenes to think about the fewer effects shots. I guess they also assumed that most people knew the meaning of "recomposited" in regards to said effects.

I may actually buy this series. I already have my pre-order in to Amazon for the preview disc.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> The model primarily used through seasons 3 and on in TNG was a 4 foot model, and that 4 foot model was even more detailed than the 6 foot model they started with. But neither were built for the big screen. Apparently a lot of the footage for Generations was new, made with the 6 foot model with some tweaks to try to make it more "big screen friendly". But ultimately, it was still a TV model, and I'm sure they had to work carefully to hide any issues it may have had.
> 
> One of the reasons they crashed the D at the end of Generations was because the model wasn't conducive to theater viewing, so they had a chance to update it.


I'm aware of that (I think they had the same issue with the sets) but with Generations, they actually took Enterprise footage that was shot for "Encounter at Farpoint" and used it in the film.

Off the top of my head, look at the flyby during Picard's log entry just before the scene in Stellar Cartography and the saucer separation scene (although there, they added "debris").

I noticed the difference in quality between those and the new effects shots on the big screen.
(But then, I was one of the few people around here complaining about the first round of TOS CGI upgrades for the first Enterprise model.)



doom1701 said:


> You are probably correct. And while there are fans that would probably love to see a DS9 HD version, I can't imagine anyone is clamoring for a Blu-Ray pass at Voyager.


CBS Video/Paramount probably doesn't see enough potential revenue to do a full HD conversion on DS9 and Voyager.
If released in HD, they'd probably get the "Farscape" treatment.


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## sonnik (Jul 7, 2000)

Did I miss an answer to this?

Are we talking about two different types of effects shots? 

For example "big entity or enemy floating outside the Enterprise" ala the "Q" cage. That seemed like a purely digital effect to me, and I don't see why that would have ever been on film.

However, the Farpoint exterior shots (a model in a literal sandbox) - or the Borg carving a section from the saucer section could have been done on Film...


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

sonnik said:


> For example "big entity or enemy floating outside the Enterprise" ala the "Q" cage. That seemed like a purely digital effect to me, and I don't see why that would have ever been on film.


That shot was WELL beyond CGI capabilities of 1987. (At least, well beyond what could have been rendered on a budget and schedule of a television episode. Yes, I realize that this was the pilot, that almost always has more budget and more time than an episode...)

But, in any case, there was no CGI in Next Generation, ever. They didn't have that technology available (not affordably, anyway).

So, the shot you speak of was indeed model work, on film. But then, the individual film elements "composited" together in the video domain.

Remember, the movie Tron, only a few years earlier, only has a couple of minutes of footage that's actually digitally rendered (despite all the "digital imagery" hype that accompanied that movie). And, that couple of minutes took many months of processing on the Foonly-1 (a super-duper-charged PDP-10 clone). The rest was optical trickery made to look like digital rendering.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> But, in any case, there was no CGI in Next Generation, ever. They didn't have that technology available (not affordably, anyway).


Not correct, per http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/CGI. ILM, Rhythm & Hues, Santa Barbara Studios, Digital Magic, Amblin Imaging and the Post Group all contributed CGI to TNG on a limited basis, mostly in the latter half of the run. The page linked above references several examples of CGI used on TNG.

I'm pretty sure, but not 100% positive, that the Q force field in "Encounter at Farpoint" was an ILM provided CGI effect.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Not correct, per http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/CGI. ILM, Rhythm & Hues, Santa Barbara Studios, Digital Magic, Amblin Imaging and the Post Group all contributed CGI to TNG on a limited basis, mostly in the latter half of the run. The page linked above references several examples of CGI used on TNG.
> 
> I'm pretty sure, but not 100% positive, that the Q force field in "Encounter at Farpoint" was an ILM provided CGI effect.


Interesting read.

The most intriguing, I thought was that the "crystiline entity" was CGI. I did not expect that.

However, I highly doubt the Q force field was a CGI effect for several reasons:


It was produced in 1987. Lightwave 3D (mentioned in the linked article) became available in 1994 and the article said that most of the, _very limited_ CGI in next-gen was toward the end of the series, when CGI started to become affordable and fast enough for epsodic TV.
Look at the "force field" effect. It looks to me like the "cage pattern" was printed on a blue (or green) fabric "flag", with that flag made to wave in a light breeze (e.g. via a fan). Since the flag was mostly blue (or green), the rest of the shot (space, enterprise model) could then be composted in using blue (green) screen effects. That's how it looks to my eyes that shot was done. (Actually 2 shots of the "flag", one compisited in front and one behind the enterprise would be necessary.)
The "Tholian web" from TOS was done in a very similar way (and obviously not CGI). Shimmering light (made to shimmer via some sheer fabric waving between the projection lens and the wall it was projected on) was projected on to a dark wall, and that wall double-exposed into the shot. Two composites of the "shimmering light pattern" were composited in. One in front and one behind the enterprise.


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

Maybe Lightwave was a separate product starting in 1994, but it was a part of the Amiga Toaster long before that.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

IndyJones1023 said:


> Maybe Lightwave was a separate product starting in 1994, but it was a part of the Amiga Toaster long before that.


Yeah, you're right.

The video toster (bundled with Lightwave) came out in 1990 or 1991, IIRC.


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

That's what they rendered _SeaQuest DS_V on.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> Look at the "force field" effect. It looks to me like the "cage pattern" was printed on a blue (or green) fabric "flag", with that flag made to wave in a light breeze (e.g. via a fan).


This is the most telling thing to me. Perhaps they could have CGI'ed the field, but the tech at the time couldn't have handled the wavy, ripply effect that the full field had.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Not correct, per http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/CGI. ILM, Rhythm & Hues, Santa Barbara Studios, Digital Magic, Amblin Imaging and the Post Group all contributed CGI to TNG on a limited basis, mostly in the latter half of the run. The page linked above references several examples of CGI used on TNG.


Some interesting stuff in the article:



> The relative low capital lay-out (essentially only office space and computers), however, was also partly responsible for the high turnover in number of CGI companies, especially in the early days. As easy as it was to startup a company, it was also as easy to close down companies in such situations as slow business (Amblin, Foundation) or hostile take-overs (Digital Muse). In case of bankruptcy, a specific problem arises, as Lebowitz showed in response to being asked if Star Trek: Voyager could be transferred to High Definition. "When Foundation closed down, the servers  along with the content  were auctioned off. Much of the content may have been saved by artists who worked on the series, but it would have to be tracked down. No matter how you slice it, it would be a considerable amount of work to re-integrate the entire Voyager visual effects server and re-render the FX in HD. In addition, although the series was shot on film, the entire post-production process was finished on NTSC video; to create an HD episode of Voyager, Paramount would have to go back to the vaults, re-transfer the film and re-built the episodes from scratch using the original editing data  if THOSE files still existed."[4] In a similar, earlier case with Digital Muse, Paramount had good sense to retain ownership of the contents, and the entirety of the contents from Digital Muse's server was transferred, one-on-one, to the servers of its successor, Eden FX.


Sounds like a lot of the Voyager (and probably DS9) CGI effects were lost and if they went to HD would have to be recreated from scratch.
I can't imagine Paramount/CBS Video would be willing to foot the bill for it.

Which is also the reason why we won't be seeing an HD version of TMP: The Director's Edition anytime soon.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

JYoung said:


> Some interesting stuff in the article:
> 
> Sounds like a lot of the Voyager (and probably DS9) CGI effects were lost and if they went to HD would have to be recreated from scratch.
> I can't imagine Paramount/CBS Video would be willing to foot the bill for it.
> ...


That seems incredibly short sighted that Paramount would contract out work and fail to retain ownership of all work product. That seems like it would be common sense for anything contracted out.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

Yes, you would think, but these projects are so big that a lot of stuff slips through the cracks and people don't plan for all contingencies. It's sheer luck that a full color copy of TOS's original pilot "The Cage" was found at all (found while cleaning out a film lab in 1987).


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Fish Man said:


> Interesting read.
> 
> The most intriguing, I thought was that the "crystiline entity" was CGI. I did not expect that.
> 
> However, I highly doubt the Q force field was a CGI effect for several reasons:


I'm relatively certain it is CGI. When it first forms in Farpoint, we see it from behind, looking back at the Enterprise. It's clearly made of three-dimensional elements. You can sort of make that out in this crude animation:










It's not simply a 2D surface with the effect on it. The bars seem to have all the hallmarks of early CGI to me. They're texture-less, and have very flat lighting.

And all it would take to create the waving action is a simple transform of the individual bars in a single direction. Not difficult at all.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> That seems incredibly short sighted that Paramount would contract out work and fail to retain ownership of all work product. That seems like it would be common sense for anything contracted out.


1. I think the producers' main focus was getting the show out on time so as alansh says, some of this may have slipped through the cracks.

2. Studio Executives haven't exactly been the most forward thinking when it comes to PC technology. In fact, I'd gather that most of them don't "get it" at all. So it's quite possible that they didn't consider all of the ramifications.
Even when you own the company, things can get lost (see JMS and Douglas Netter).


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

Does anyone know exactly what they did to produce the HD version of TNG? Just cleaned up the films, leaving the special effects in place, or did they re-do the effects too?

On YouTube there was a video of Farpoint that showed several scenes split, one side being the original, the other being the re-do, and they'd move the divider back and forth so you could see the difference.

Thing is, except for slightly better color and sharpness, there didn't seem to be any difference. The ship, the giant alien "jelly fish" creature, everything looked identical.

Did they actually do any new CGI?

_________________
Old plastics, new sandwiches.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

gastrof said:


> Does anyone know exactly what they did to produce the HD version of TNG? Just cleaned up the films, leaving the special effects in place, or did they re-do the effects too?


Try reading the entire thread.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

mrdbdigital said:


> Try reading the entire thread.


You're so helpful, you of the 131st post.

There are five pages.



Anyone out there willing to give an actual answer?


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

gastrof said:


> You're so helpful, you of the 131st post.
> 
> There are five pages.
> 
> ...


My answer would be the same as his. Why should someone repeat what's been talked about this entire thread? It shouldn't take long to skim 5 pages and find the basic info you're looking for.

ETA: Of course, I'm the guy who thought people should read the 100+ page thread for each Lost episode before smeeking for the 57th time, so take that for what it's worth.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

scooterboy said:


> My answer would be the same as his...


:down:

And my reply would be the same as well.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

gastrof said:


> :down:
> 
> And my reply would be the same as well.


So I guess you ought to get readin'...


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

scooterboy said:


> My answer would be the same as his. Why should someone repeat what's been talked about this entire thread? It shouldn't take long to skim 5 pages and find the basic info you're looking for.


Thanks for the support.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

gastrof said:


> You're so helpful, you of the 131st post.
> 
> There are five pages.
> 
> ...


They did already.
It's in this actual thread and has been discussed at length, _in this very thread_.

It's not their fault that you're too lazy to take a few minutes and actually read it.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

JYoung said:


> It's not their fault that you're too lazy to take a few minutes and actually read it.


This. :up:


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

You're a great bunch. I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.

Keep that in mind yourselves in the future when you want someone to update you without you having to spend excessive time learning something from scratch. You're being LAZY, by your own definition.

I disagree, but you made your bed...


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

gastrof said:


> ...


Sorry, I didn't want to read your whole post. Can you tell me again what it was about?


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

gastrof said:


> You're a great bunch. I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.
> 
> Keep that in mind yourselves in the future when you want someone to update you without you having to spend excessive time learning something from scratch. You're being LAZY, by your own definition.
> 
> I disagree, but you made your bed...


honestly I don't think we really know the answer about the effects yet

but the live shots are made from cleaned up NEGATIVES which are converted on a NEGATIVE scanner. Emphasis on the NEGATIVES instead of the usual film transfers that they would do on an older show or movie.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

gastrof said:


> You're a great bunch. I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.
> 
> Keep that in mind yourselves in the future when you want someone to update you without you having to spend excessive time learning something from scratch. You're being LAZY, by your own definition.
> 
> I disagree, but you made your bed...


Oh, Boo! Hoo!

I've generally found it to be good policy to read a thread on a subject I'm interested in to "catch up" on the subject before I jump in. I also generally don't ask questions that are answered in the first page of the thread.

I guess that in your case, participating in the thread means not reading that which was discussed before you entered. It would have taken you maybe 10 minutes to have read the entire thread, even with moving your lips.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

gastrof said:


> You're a great bunch. I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.
> 
> Keep that in mind yourselves in the future when you want someone to update you without you having to spend excessive time learning something from scratch. You're being LAZY, by your own definition.
> 
> I disagree, but you made your bed...


Wow, a few minutes of reading is "excessive" time?
Please.



You were being excessively lazy and you got called on it.
Instead of going back and doing a little reading, you decided to whine about it and blame everyone else for your failing, taking up even more of your "valuable" time.

Just man up already and admit you were being lazy.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

gastrof said:


> I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.


Of course, if you'd looked through the thread you would have realized what a silly statement this is...


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## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

There are 3 pages!!!


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

There.....are....four.....lights!


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

nataylor said:


> I'm relatively certain it is CGI. When it first forms in Farpoint, we see it from behind, looking back at the Enterprise. It's clearly made of three-dimensional elements.


I'm virtually certain of it. It's 3D, but there's no shadowcasting, and no interaction between between the mesh and the anything else, so it's rock-simple rendering with a low polygon count. I could have done that at the time with DBKTrace on our 7.16 MHz Amiga at the time (although each frame probably would have taken several hours, primarily due to excessively poor floating point performance without an fpu)


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

gastrof said:


> You're a great bunch. I ask for a simple answer which would have taken less time to give than all your posts did, and you want to fillet me for daring to ask.


But that's just it - it's *not* a simple answer. You didn't ask for one specific nugget of info that might have been buried in a thread about a much broader subject. You asked for a synopsis of the subject _that the entire thread was about_.

So you're asking someone to do that work for you instead of just reading the discussion and catching up.

But you're right - _we're_ the lazy ones.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

scooterboy said:


> But that's just it - it's *not* a simple answer. You didn't ask for one specific nugget of info that might have been buried in a thread about a much broader subject. You asked for a synopsis of the subject _that the entire thread was about_.
> 
> So you're asking someone to do that work for you instead of just reading the discussion and catching up.
> 
> But you're right - _we're_ the lazy ones.


In other words, gastrof, to answer your question would take a post as long as the entire thread!


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

LoadStar said:


> gastrof said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...






gastrof said:


> Does anyone know exactly what they did to produce the HD version of TNG? Just cleaned up the films, leaving the special effects in place, or did they re-do the effects too?
> <snip>
> Did they actually do any new CGI?


Here's a link that will answer your questions.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475879

OK, being a little less of an ass, here's a post I made after I got a good understanding of what they're doing.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8891034#post8891034


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> In other words, gastrof, to answer your question would take a post as long as the entire thread!


At least I wasn't too lazy to type all that.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> Here's a link that will answer your questions.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=475879
> 
> ...


In truth, posts #9 and #11 gives him the basic stuff.
But I guess he couldn't be bothered to read that far.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

First review in on the sampler set.

Some very interesting screenshots in there.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

JYoung said:


> First review in on the sampler set.
> 
> Some very interesting screenshots in there.


It's too bad that gastrof won't have time to read this, since it confirms they went back to the original film elements for the effects.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

HFC. That's beautiful.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

JYoung said:


> First review in on the sampler set.
> 
> Some very interesting screenshots in there.


Very nice.

Mine's been on pre-order for some time now.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Must admit that does look really incredible.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> ....since it confirms they went back to the original film elements for the effects.


Yeeeaaahhhh, about that......

I was looking at this shot from Sins of the Father










I'm sure that this a new effects shot, replacing the opening shot (which itself is reused from A Matter of Honor and a recomposite of a shot from The Search for Spock).

And I would guess that they used new CGI for this.

The Digital Bits weighs in on the sampler.

Although this was of some concern:


> Concern has also been raised that a few shots in the other episode included here, Sins of the Father, are in upconverted standard-definition because a little bit of the original camera negative couldn't be found. But fans shouldn't fret. The shots are very quick - about 12 second of footage in all, of Dr. Crusher and Riker speaking and of a computer screen. They're so quick in fact, and so quickly return to HD, that they really aren't that troubling. And there is always the hope that, as the remastering effort continues, the missing film footage will still be found.


I hope that there isn't a lot of missing footage.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

I think that shot is legit film footage. Like you said, the original shot is from Star Trek III (and it always bugged me that it got the scale wrong--a bird of prey should have been a tiny ship compared to the Galaxy class). The Enterprise-D portion of the shot has all the markings of the 6ft model--less hull texture than the later 4ft, no window lighting on the sensor rails, and no pronounced lifeboats. Also, as it goes into the distance, the front of the saucer gets a little fuzzy--something less likely to happen with CGI.

I think that shot is a great example of how good the original FX passes are. Since I've always been more of a purist and I love the use of real models in SciFi, I'm getting really jazzed about this release.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> I think that shot is legit film footage. Like you said, the original shot is from Star Trek III (and it always bugged me that it got the scale wrong--a bird of prey should have been a tiny ship compared to the Galaxy class). The Enterprise-D portion of the shot has all the markings of the 6ft model--less hull texture than the later 4ft, no window lighting on the sensor rails, and no pronounced lifeboats. Also, as it goes into the distance, the front of the saucer gets a little fuzzy--something less likely to happen with CGI.
> 
> I think that shot is a great example of how good the original FX passes are. Since I've always been more of a purist and I love the use of real models in SciFi, I'm getting really jazzed about this release.


Agreed, that shot is cinema quality model work (albeit with the scale error), not CGI. Shows what can be done when they've got the 35mm negatives to work from.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

I dunno.

Take a look at the original effect shot:










Now, the new shot:










As you can see, the Bird of Prey has been clearly replaced. No doubt with a CGI model.

The angle of the Enterprise is also different and I don't remember the 6 foot model being filmed from that exact angle.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

Interesting. Those are different shots, and the Enterprise shot has different windows lit. I'd just be surprised if they put that kind of detail into a CGI model--if you look close at some of the windows, there's little artifacts that I assume are internal lighting hardware.


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

Now that I've completed my STTNG viewing, I realized how little the Enterprise actually does in space. There's probably a total of 10-12 different shots used throughout the entire series (with some notable exceptions like exploding the ship or the future 1701-D).

So I wonder how much trouble it really would be, once they've got a good CG Enterprise made, to replace the shots with CG.


----------



## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Bryanmc said:


> So I wonder how much trouble it really would be, once they've got a good CG Enterprise made, to replace the shots with CG.


Not hard at all. They did it for the original Star Trek series.


----------



## dtivouser (Feb 10, 2004)

Bryanmc said:


> Now that I've completed my STTNG viewing, I realized how little the Enterprise actually does in space.


Yeah even the HD version looks like a cruise ship to me... that bird of prey looks great though!


----------



## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

JYoung said:


> I dunno.
> 
> Take a look at the original effect shot:
> 
> ...


If that is indeed the same shot, those are two completely different Enterprises. Just compare which lights in the rooms are on/off... totally different pattern between the two.


----------



## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

nataylor said:


> Not hard at all. They did it for the original Star Trek series.


Of course in the original series I think they only had 3 different Enterprise space shots to recreate.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Those are totally different FX shots, maybe they did recreate it in CGI.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I vote for new CGI, they even got the shadowing consistent with the enterprise and the bird of prey, there is no evident shadowing on the old shot.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

JYoung said:


> The angle of the Enterprise is also different and I don't remember the 6 foot model being filmed from that exact angle.


I'm not sure about the angle being different, though. The angle looks identical to me--the newer shot is just pulled further back.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

doom1701 said:


> I'm not sure about the angle being different, though. The angle looks identical to me--the newer shot is just pulled further back.


Yeah, if both ships are moving those two shots could be just a few frames apart...


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

When they said recompositing, I immediately thought they had stored film stock of the FX passes on the models... but I'm actually now thinking that it is indeed CGI.

(Wow. Who would've thought that we'd be in a world where they could generate CGI so good that you cannot tell whether it is real or from a computer?)

Edit: Hmm. Went back and looked at the "full size" image... I'm back to thinking it might actually be filmed FX footage, not CGI. If it is, I'm almost 100% positive that it isn't the same footage used in the episode. The Klingon ship is in a totally different angle, and as noted the lights that are on in the windows are in a different pattern from the original. IMO, there is way more detail seen on the "new" Enterprise than in the original, even more than could be attributed to simply the difference between SD and HD.

Wonder if they're mixing and matching, using FX film footage that happens to be somewhat close to the original?


----------



## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

I would just find it surprising that they could have been redoing FX with CGI all this time without leaks. During the TOS upgrades, there were updated still frames of FX shots released almost weekly.

I don't doubt that they may have augmented some shots with some CGI, but I'm willing to bet that's the exception, and not the rule.


----------



## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, if both ships are moving those two shots could be just a few frames apart...


Going back to the episode, the shot is virtually motionless. It's the establishing shot at the very beginning of the episode "Sins of the Father," during which the Captain's Log is read. The only movement in the shot is stars moving by in the background. Both ships are completely static in the shot.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

doom1701 said:


> Interesting. Those are different shots, and the Enterprise shot has different windows lit. I'd just be surprised if they put that kind of detail into a CGI model--if you look close at some of the windows, there's little artifacts that I assume are internal lighting hardware.


They built a pretty good CGI HD resolution Enterprise D for the Star Trek: Enterprise finale (although I haven't seen it in HD).

And CGI seems to get better every year.



doom1701 said:


> I'm not sure about the angle being different, though. The angle looks identical to me--the newer shot is just pulled further back.


There's a bit of additional roll on the Enterprise in the new shot.



doom1701 said:


> I would just find it surprising that they could have been redoing FX with CGI all this time without leaks. During the TOS upgrades, there were updated still frames of FX shots released almost weekly.
> 
> I don't doubt that they may have augmented some shots with some CGI, but I'm willing to bet that's the exception, and not the rule.


I suspect that this is the case as well. 
For some reason, (maybe some film elements were damaged or unavailable or simply not up to snuff) they substituted this shot though.



LoadStar said:


> Going back to the episode, the shot is virtually motionless. It's the establishing shot at the very beginning of the episode "Sins of the Father," during which the Captain's Log is read. The only movement in the shot is stars moving by in the background. Both ships are completely static in the shot.


There's actually a small amount of lateral movement on the Bird of Prey.

Reading over at trekmovie.com, I was amused by this quote by Marina Sirtis about the episode selection for the sampler.



> "I think they made a really nice choice of episodes, though I still can't watch the pilot because I was really amazed that they let me keep my job after that. I describe my performance in that as ' Sophie's Choice meets Star Trek'. It was just way too emotional. It was awful, and I thought for sure that I was going to be fired. Aside from that, I can watch the other two."


----------



## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> When they said recompositing, I immediately thought they had stored film stock of the FX passes on the models... but I'm actually now thinking that it is indeed CGI.
> 
> (Wow. Who would've thought that we'd be in a world where they could generate CGI so good that you cannot tell whether it is real or from a computer?)
> 
> ...


Totally agree with this.

I think it came from camera negatives of model work, but not the same ones used in the original scene of that episode.

As we have been discussing, in the original production of ST:TNG, they had a selection of stock shots of the Enterprise D (against a blue background), various alien ships (against a blue background), star fields, planets (against a blue background), etc. For any given shot, they selected the elements needed to create the shot and composited them together. When originally producing the series (on video, in SD), they used their "library" of components over and over, mixing and matching them in different ways for the different shots.

It makes sense to me that the people working on the new HD remastering have a library of camera negatives of the various above-mentioned elements. Since the same components of the space shots were used over and over and over again, those camera negatives aren't "tagged" to any particular episode. If anything, they're cateloged as "Enterprise front shots", "Enterprise rear shots", "Klingon bird of prey shots", Romulan ship shots", etc, etc. So, to re-create any particular shot, they go to the camera negative library of "space shots" and pick out components to re-create the final shot. They may not even be able to find the exact combination used in any given instance.

We already know that some non-effects shots are lost (camera negatives could not be located), and have to be upconverted from the video. Since there's little doubt that the components of the "space shots" were a hodge-podge library, it's likely some of them are lost too.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

Fish Man said:


> Totally agree with this.
> 
> I think it came from camera negatives of model work, but not the same ones used in the original scene of that episode.
> 
> ...


I agree with you. It's really amazing to go back years later and be able to find every little snippet of a former production. Things do have a habit of walking away in this business.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Well, after studying that shot of the Enterprise face to face with the Klingon ship even more, I've flopped back the other way.

I think it's an all new, entirely CGI shot, made for the remastered edition.

Here's why:

In the new shot, the apparent light source illuminating the two ships is *absolutely consistent.* It is perfect.

In the "new" shot, the main light source illuminating both ships appears to be to the right of the frame and somewhat forward of our perspective. The shadows on the two ships are absolutely consistent with respect to them being illuminated by a common light source. (A distant one, like the distance from the Sun to the earth, so that the rays are effectively parallel.)

In the original, the Enterprise appears to be lit by a light source in the same position as in the new shot (to the right of the frame and "forward" of our perspective), but the Klingon ship appears to be lit by a light source behind the camera (or, put another way, behind our perspective). Light seems to be hitting the Klingon ship directly from its front.

This inconsistent light source direction was a common problem throughout ST:TNG. Because, like I mentioned in my previous post, they had a library of stock shots of ships they would composite together. Often (more often than not) the light sources used to film the shots was not the same. They might have endeavored to get the light sources consistent for an _original_ shot, but then they'd mix and match elements of previously done FX shots to make new shots, and voila, inconsistent lighting (like what we see in the "original" shot of the two ships).

So, *IF* they went to their library of camera negatives and re-composited a new shot of the Enterprise facing off against a Klingon ship, they did an incredible job of finding two shots with consistent light source directions.

Or, they could have done the easier thing: Make a CGI shot and get it exactly right. CGI excels at light sources. The light position(s) and intensity is simply a parameter in the rendering.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

That's essentially what I was trying to say in post 169, but I only tried to say it in one sentence.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

I've read a couple of different articles this week that said there was some CGI touching up being done but for the most part the effects are from the original film elements


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Trekmovie.com is running a two part interview with the Okudas about the Blu-Rays.

So, straight from the horse's mouth:



> Mike Okuda: Over the course of the series, many different techniques were used. For example, some phasers and photons were film elements, others were purely video creations. For example, the beautiful shot of Deneb IV ("Encounter at Farpoint") was actually a matte painting done by Industrial Light and Magic, and that was done on film. The planet is pretty much dead on with what was done in the original shot. Whereas in "Sins of the Father," the planet existed only in video resolution, and so Max Gabl at CBS Digital actually did a new planet.
> 
> TrekMovie: Speaking of "Sins of the Father," I noticed that the opening shot of the Enterprise and the Klingon ship looked a bit different. Was that computer generated? And how do you choose when to use a CGI version of the Enterprise or other ships?
> 
> Mike Okuda: Virtually all the ship shots are the original film elements. Occasionally a film element wont be found or will be unusable for whatever technical reason. In that particular case, that was not a CG Enterprise, that was actually a new matte painting. However, they do have a digital Enterprise, because we know it will be needed at some point.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

JYoung said:


> Trekmovie.com is running a two part interview with the Okudas about the Blu-Rays.
> 
> So, straight from the horse's mouth:


Matte painting, hmm? Interesting. I'd think that'd be much more work than simply using a computer generated Enterprise.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> Matte painting, hmm? Interesting. I'd think that'd be much more work than simply using a computer generated Enterprise.


If the painting already existed and was ready, maybe not?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Pre-order at amazon for $14.99

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064NLQYG


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Part 2 of the Trekmovie.com interview with the Okudas.

This should settle the debate about 16:9 vs. 4:3.



> TrekMovie: That brings up an issue that has been brought up by some fans who are wondering why this set is not being done in widescreen. Some believe the original film elements have more information on them and it could be done in widescreen without cropping. Is that possible?
> 
> Mike Okuda: First of all, it is our very strong desire is to respect the original work by the original directors and cinematographers. By cropping and letterboxing, we change the composition. You make things appear bigger and more crowded. It is true that in some shots  not all  but in some shots there is additional information on the film. But then again you are changing the original intention.
> 
> Denise Okuda: And in a lot of cases there are things that arent intended to be seen  sandbags, light stands, whatever  on the sides. The major thing is that we want to preserve the composition and the look of what the original filmmakers wanted to offer.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

JYoung said:


> This should settle the debate about 16:9 vs. 4:3.


It _should_, but will it?


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

In my Netflix watching I saw quite a few boom mics in the shots that would never have been seen in an overscan television world. I expect they will clean up those issues for the BR release.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

Bryanmc said:


> In my Netflix watching I saw quite a few boom mics in the shots that would never have been seen in an overscan television world. I expect they will clean up those issues for the BR release.


Those weren't boom mikes. Those were positronic neutrino relays.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

kaszeta said:


> Those weren't boom mikes. Those were positronic neutrino relays.


I thought that they were self sealing stem bolts.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

scooterboy said:


> It _should_, but will it?


No way!


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

My copy was waiting when I got home. Popped it in right away. Only watched a few minutes, but boy does this look good!


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

You can actually see a person walking around in the conference room from the exterior Enterprise shot at the end of the opening credits.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

nataylor said:


> You can actually see a person walking around in the conference room from the exterior Enterprise shot at the end of the opening credits.


I heard on a podcast that was actually Patrick Stewart filmed and inserted into the conference room windows.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

nataylor said:


> You can actually see a person walking around in the conference room from the exterior Enterprise shot at the end of the opening credits.


That's always been there.
It's just that now, you can see it better.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

nataylor said:


> My copy was waiting when I got home. Popped it in right away. Only watched a few minutes, but boy does this look good!


This. I won't have time until this weekend to do any extended, dedicated viewing. Running "Farpoint" while I do some other things, so I get to look every now and then. Very nice.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Man, this is so tempting. Ideally, what they should do is include a $10-20 coupon for the eventual season 1 box set. If they did that, I'd probably bite.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

I'm supposed to have mine Thursday. (Didn't pop for overnight shipping...)


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## terpfan1980 (Jan 28, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Man, this is so tempting. Ideally, what they should do is include a $10-20 coupon for the eventual season 1 box set. If they did that, I'd probably bite.


I like that idea, but they could just as easily offer a rebate that requires sending in the proof of purchase from this new "teaser" and achieve the same thing without having to do any extra printing now.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

"The Inner Light" is running now. This one is a major improvement. While the episode is excellent, I always thought the "outdoor" shots looked terrible. Much better now.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Very impressed. The grain kind of bugs me a little but its so vastly superior to SD it blows your mind! I'm curious to see when in 2012 the 1st full season comes out and how much it costs.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

The only weirdness I've seen so far is the saucer separation sequence in Farpoint. The lighting looks flickery and the back of the saucer looks pixellated. I wonder if that's upconverted SD material composited with other HD material, because the engineering section looks fine.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Kamakzie said:


> Very impressed. The grain kind of bugs me a little but its so vastly superior to SD it blows your mind! I'm curious to see when in 2012 the 1st full season comes out and how much it costs.


I'm going to guess an MSRP in the $150 range, and a street price around $100.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

LoadStar said:


> I'm going to guess an MSRP in the $150 range, and a street price around $100.


Ewwww.. I'll have to wait a while then..


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> I'm going to guess an MSRP in the $150 range, and a street price around $100.


That's pretty much exactly my guess.

And me with a kid starting college (meaning money's really tight)...


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> That's pretty much exactly my guess.


Pretty much exactly your guess? Right around there, more or less exactly?


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

176 episodes at $100 would be $.56 per episode for a Blu-Ray version. Seems very fair to me. I'll be getting it if that's the price.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

I assume the in 2012 means probably not until towards the end of 2012?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Kamakzie said:


> I assume the in 2012 means probably not until towards the end of 2012?


http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/31/tra...eason-1-blu-ray-seasons-2-7-release-timeline/



> In an interview with the official StarTrek site, CBS Home Entertainment General Manager Ken Ross talked about the TNG HD project. He said the release of the first season on Blu-ray is coming "late summer or early fall" of this year.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Bryanmc said:


> 176 episodes at $100 would be $.56 per episode for a Blu-Ray version. Seems very fair to me. I'll be getting it if that's the price.


If these are priced similarly to the DVDs, then they will be $100/season or around $4/episode.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Bryanmc said:


> 176 episodes at $100 would be $.56 per episode for a Blu-Ray version. Seems very fair to me. I'll be getting it if that's the price.





DougF said:


> If these are priced similarly to the DVDs, then they will be $100/season or around $4/episode.


Yeah, I meant season box set, not series box set. Sorry.


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## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

Ah, well that changes things entirely, doesn't it.

No way will I be getting it at $100 per season.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

DougF said:


> http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/31/tra...eason-1-blu-ray-seasons-2-7-release-timeline/


Thanks for the link. Sounds about right.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Well after mild criticism by me about the grain I remembered that my PS3 was set to gaming mode which uses standard color settings. After switching to my calibrated scheme you really can't notice the grain and it looks amazing!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Well, I'd say YOU owe ST:TNG an apology!


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

This is what is being discussed, right?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Next+Ge..._sku=4551184&ref=06&cmp=RMX&loc=01&id=2326210

I have some best buy gift cards to use, so I'll probably get it from there..


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

BrettStah said:


> This is what is being discussed, right?
> 
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Next+Ge..._sku=4551184&ref=06&cmp=RMX&loc=01&id=2326210
> 
> I have some best buy gift cards to use, so I'll probably get it from there..


Yuppers.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

I've got a friend who is already complaining that the disc is in 4:3.


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## terpfan1980 (Jan 28, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> I've got a friend who is already complaining that the disc is in 4:3.


OAR for the win.

If it had been done 16:9 to begin with, then it should be that, but it wasn't and we'll have to live with it as it was.

I'm guessing they'll do the same thing they did with the T.O.S. set and make good use of the space around the sides for trivia and other nice bonuses.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> Pretty much exactly your guess? Right around there, more or less exactly?


Precisely. More or less. 

HORRAYY!!! My "first look" arrived today! 

Awwwwww! I'm busy tonight and probably won't have time to start watching 'till Friday night.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

Just got mine last night when I got back from Vegas at my doorstep. Looking forward to watching.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

Kamakzie said:


> Well after mild criticism by me about the grain I remembered that my PS3 was set to gaming mode which uses standard color settings. After switching to my calibrated scheme you really can't notice the grain and it looks amazing!


Which setting? I'm watching The Inner Light and it's fairly grainy to me but I don't know if it's the source or not.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Finished watching The Inner Light last night. I'm really impressed with this set. Everything looks fantastic. No one has mentioned the sound yet, but the 7.1 track sounds wonderful and seems much more immersive than the original stereo mix. Even at $100/season, I'm totally in for the whole series.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

mrdbdigital said:


> I've got a friend who is already complaining that the disc is in 4:3.


Did you bonk-bonk him on the head?


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

smark said:


> Which setting? I'm watching The Inner Light and it's fairly grainy to me but I don't know if it's the source or not.


My ISF calibrated scheme in my TV. Not the PS3 itself.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

mrdbdigital said:


> I've got a friend who is already complaining that the disc is in 4:3.


You're friends with Bierboy?


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Watched "Sins of the Father" today. The SD footage was certainly very noticeable, but passed quickly and didn't take me out of the moment as badly as I thought it would.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Just finished watching my "sampler" today.

Overall, I'm very, very impressed.

The 13 seconds of missing footage in "Sins of the Father" is curious. It's one shot in a longer scene. Interesting that that particular camera negative was missing.

I also find in interesting that some departments working on the production seemed to be going for cinematic quality, while other's seemed to actually be thinking, "Meh, it's only TV, I can phone it in."

Case in point:

In "The Inner Light": The matte painting of Kamin's (Picard's) village and the valley below (seen near the beginning when Kamin/Picard goes exploring the country side) is phenomenal. The detail is amazing, absolutely cinema quality (although clearly a matte painting, with some tiny moving people matted in). You can see the "seam" between a hillside to the left of the picture (real) and the long shot of the valley with the village rising up in the right of the shot (matte painting), but I had to freeze-frame even to see that. It was extremely well done.

However, the makeup job of aging Picard/Kamin and his wife is really, really half-aresed. The rubber appliances and the blotchy application of different colors to simulate aged skin is almost high-school-play level. It really looks like the makeup artist was thinking, "It's only TV, it really doesn't have to look that good."

Again, though, overall I'm extremely impressed. I'll probably be spending $100 (or even more) on each season as they come out.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

It really does look great.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

JYoung said:


> Did you bonk-bonk him on the head?


That's proved in the past to being one of those "Don't waste your time or annoy the pig" scenarios.


----------



## Win Joy Jr (Oct 1, 2001)

Just finished watching the sampler as well. Yes, it looks nice. But "Encounter at Farpoint" has not aged well IMHO. Actually, cringe worthly is more like it. "Sins of the Father" was my favorite sine I loved the development of the Klingons and Worf. Never was fond of "The Inner Light".

Since it is only going to be season sets, I will not be getting them. IF they get released to iTunes/Amazon as singe episodes I will get the Klingon/Borg/Scotty/Cliffhangers.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

Win Joy Jr said:


> Just finished watching the sampler as well. Yes, it looks nice. But "Encounter at Farpoint" has not aged well IMHO. Actually, cringe worthly is more like it.


If by that you mean that very quickly, the characters developed in ways that made their actions and behaviors in "Farpoint" out-of-character for them, then I 100% agree. But, of course, this is common of series pilots in general. Within the first season the actors and writers "find" the characters and develop them in ways that creates what essentially amounts to "continuity errors" in the pilot episode.

That being said, the entire series "looks dated" and can easily be pegged to the late 80's early 90's by hairstyles, fashions (even when the costume designers were trying to make them look "futuristic" or "alien"), and even social attitudes. TOS is easily pegged to the 60's in the same way.

(There's lots of talk of this "datedness" in one of my favorite "guilty pleasure" blogs, Fashon it So)


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## Win Joy Jr (Oct 1, 2001)

Fish Man said:


> If by that you mean that very quickly, the characters developed in ways that made their actions and behaviors in "Farpoint" out-of-character for them, then I 100% agree. But, of course, this is common of series pilots in general. Within the first season the actors and writers "find" the characters and develop them in ways that creates what essentially amounts to "continuity errors" in the pilot episode.
> 
> That being said, the entire series "looks dated" and can easily be pegged to the late 80's early 90's by hairstyles, fashions (even when the costume designers were trying to make them look "futuristic" or "alien"), and even social attitudes. TOS is easily pegged to the 60's in the same way.
> 
> (There's lots of talk of this "datedness" in one of my favorite "guilty pleasure" blogs, Fashon it So)


I will agree to a point. In the case of TNG, the entire first season was sold without a pilot. But you are right, the characters were able to grow as the writers, actors and producers found their way. To me, except for an odd episode or 2, it started to take off in Season 3 and peaked in season 5.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Fish Man said:


> I also find in interesting that some departments working on the production seemed to be going for cinematic quality, while other's seemed to actually be thinking, "Meh, it's only TV, I can phone it in."
> 
> Case in point:
> 
> ...


I've been thinking about this and I don't think it's a case of "It's only TV, it really doesn't have to look that good." and more a case of "We don't have time to make it look good!".

As you know, TNG had a very time sensitive production schedule and this type of makeup takes a lot of time to apply (usually hours).
And every minute that Patrick Stewart is in the makeup chair is time he's away from the set and unavailable to shoot footage.

Which is a real problem scheduling wise when Stewart is in practically every scene in the episode.
It's not like they can just shoot around him here.

So I would think that the makeup department wanted to make it look better but just didn't have the time to (money may also have been a factor).


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Which is even more surprising from a show that had to do lots of makeup work for each episode.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

vertigo235 said:


> Which is even more surprising from a show that had to do lots of makeup work for each episode.


But not on the lead...


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

JYoung said:


> Did you bonk-bonk him on the head?


Anyone that wants a cropped version is a Herbert. Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!

If you want that, you can just use the zoom or stretch settings on your player.

Helpful image from the thread over on AVS Forums, showing an actual TNG film frame with the 4:3 TV aspect marked out. (click to embiggen)
[media]http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/605/sttngframegroundglass.jpg[/media]
Yes, in theory you could make a slightly wider image by using the top and bottom of the TV box while expanding the sides to the full frame. But since the director never intended this, there may be studio equipment visible outside the normal safe area. Plus, the TV image is extracted from right of center -- note the crosshairs are right on Picard's nose. If you use the full frame width, he'll be off-center.

Again, you could play around with a combination of selectively cropping the top or bottom and using the expanded image where it's not too noticeable, but you're just reinventing pan and scan. There's going to be shots you can't fix.

Anyway, I just got my copy and have watched "Farpoint". It really looks terrific, though the show itself still needed work (I posted over in the "Farpoint" thread about it.)


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

vertigo235 said:


> Which is even more surprising from a show that had to do lots of makeup work for each episode.





Rob Helmerichs said:


> But not on the lead...


As Rob said, not on Stewart.

Of the regulars, only Michael Dorn's Worf needed more complex than standard makeup and he'd come in early in the morning for that.

Initially it took hours to put on but with practice and casting pieces ahead of time, they got down to about an hour.
http://peteranthonyholder.com/cjad31.htm

Plus since it was rare for Dorn to be in every scene of an episode, they had the option to schedule his shots for later, effectively shooting around him.

With The Inner Light, this was a one off makeup job for Stewart that they hadn't practiced and no doubt took hours to do. 
(When they aged Kirk, McCoy, and Scott for The Deadly Years, the actors spent anywhere from three to six hours in the makeup chair.)

Which again, can be a scheduling issue when Stewart is in almost every scene of this episode.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

These are excellent points that people are making about the probable scheduling issues in putting on Patrick Stewart's age makeup for The Inner Light. Heck, he's essentially in *every frame* of this episode!

I hadn't considered that factor. I take back some of the negative remarks I made about the makeup in this episode.

They've got 6 days to make the typical episode from start to finish (but occasionally allow themselves to run over a little bit on particularly complicated episodes, which this may have been one of).

I'd read in several places about how they'd gotten Michael Dorn's makeup time down from around 4 hours to 1 hour. Practice makes perfect. Good points as well that he rarely had the screen time Patrick Stewart did (with exception of some of the "Worf-centric" episodes, like "Sins of the Father").


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Fish Man said:


> These are excellent points that people are making about the probable scheduling issues in putting on Patrick Stewart's age makeup for The Inner Light. Heck, he's essentially in *every frame* of this episode!
> 
> I hadn't considered that factor. I take back some of the negative remarks I made about the makeup in this episode.


Just as a (I think) humorous capper to this discussion, I just saw this over at Memory Alpha.


> This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Great points indeed.


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

I watched my 'sampler' over the weekend and was overall, VERY impressed. It really looked better than I have ever seen this show look (obviously). When TNG was on originally, it was my favorite show and to this day is still in the top five. But, it's been SO long since I've watched any as the quality really reveals itself on modern viewing gear. 

The sampler really fired me to re-watch the entire series. It's going to be hard to justify the costs of each season's Blu Ray, but I'm seriously considering making the investment. I was just as excited watching these three episodes as I was the first time I saw them. They looked gorgeous and the ole Enterprise 1701-D has NEVER looked better.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Two quick thoughts:

1) When we finally get season 7 released, will we even be using BR anymore or will we be on to the next format?

2) To those who wished this was in 16x9.....you can always zoom your tv if you really want to (though I stand on my OAR pulpit).


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

jlb said:


> (though I stand on my OAR pulpit).


Amen!


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## Hmm252000 (Dec 11, 2008)

DougF said:


> Watched "Sins of the Father" today. The SD footage was certainly very noticeable, but passed quickly and didn't take me out of the moment as badly as I thought it would.


I just watched it over the weekend and forgot to watch for the SD footage. It passed by without me even noticing it! I'll have to go back and watch it again to see if I can spot it.

Overall I was very impressed. Especially with the special effects. With them being redone, they hold up very well. I was stunned when thinking about how those core components were shot in the 80's. I'll probably buy a season set or two after they've been out for awhile and have a price drop. I never considered the DVDs when they initially came out at that price, but these Blu-rays will be very tempting!


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

From my understanding, the effects (notable the "jellyfish") weren't redone. Given how different it looks, I wonder how good the original SD video transfer was. It's not just low-res, it's muddy and low contrast. Either the original scan, or the post-production processing, seems to have really fouled up the image compared to the original 35mm images.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

Interesting thread bump. Good timing--the next episode for us to watch is Sins of the Father, which I believe is on the DVD Sampler. I'm going to try to pick it up this weekend.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

http://trekmovie.com/2012/04/11/new-crystalline-entity-for-star-trek-tng-in-hd-revealed/



> The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray is due this summer. One of the elements that has been recreated using CGI is the Crystalline Entity...





> Also in a Facebook conversation, Meyer mentioned that those missing thirteen seconds from "Sins of the Father" which had to be upscaled for the Star Trek: The Next Generation  The Next Level release in January have been found, so the season three release (in 2013) will included the remastered element.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/04/30/star-trek-tng-blu-ray-season-1/

Not too much new information there, but there is a clip from "Where No One Has Gone Before" that looks really good. The best thing about the article is the comments section.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Startrek.com has announced the release date of the first season..

July 24.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

I was just browsing Amazon and saw they had pricing. List price for Season 1 is $129.99 and they have it available for preorder at $78.86.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Not as bad as I thought it would be.


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

Wow, that's a lot less than I expected.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

I think I'll pass. Yeah, they look and sound incredible, but $80/season just isn't worth it to me. Felt the same about the DVD sets when they came out at $100/season.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

At just about $3/episode it's totally worth it to me.


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

DougF said:


> I think I'll pass. Yeah, they look and sound incredible, but $80/season just isn't worth it to me. Felt the same about the DVD sets when they came out at $100/season.


Considering the amount of work that went into creating these HD conversions, I think the price is justified. I always considered the $100/season DVD set pricing unreasonable and I never bought them. If I have the mone, I'll probably buy these.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

On 7/23, there's going to be an in-theater event where they will show the HD versions of "Where No One Has Gone Before" and "Measure of a Man", along with some behind-the-scenes material. It's $12.50.

It's similar to what they did for "The Cage" as part of the TOS remastering project.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

alansh said:


> On 7/23, there's going to be an in-theater event where they will show the HD versions of "Where No One Has Gone Before" and "Measure of a Man", along with some behind-the-scenes material. It's $12.50.
> 
> It's similar to what they did for "The Cage" as part of the TOS remastering project.


Link:
http://www.startrek.com/article/tng-25th-anniversary-event-in-theaters-july-23


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Sweet! I just might have to attend this.


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## Martyp (Jan 6, 2004)

damm you guys are making pay the $12 for this dvd


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

Martyp said:


> damm you guys are making pay the $12 for this dvd


Or you can pay $80.00 for the first season: 

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Generation-Season-Blu-ray/dp/B0083TUEHY/ref=zg_bs_2958935011_56

While your at it buy me a copy please. 

Just brought Lord of the Rings for $48.00.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

nataylor said:


> You can actually see a person walking around in the conference room from the exterior Enterprise shot at the end of the opening credits.





doom1701 said:


> I heard on a podcast that was actually Patrick Stewart filmed and inserted into the conference room windows.





JYoung said:


> That's always been there.
> It's just that now, you can see it better.


As it turns out, it's not Patrick Stewart.

Startrek.com has the details of that shot straight from the Okudas.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Anyone else going to the theater showing of the two episodes tonight? I'm looking forward to it!


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Nearest theater participating is in Kenosha... too far to go to.

I'm not sure why Marcus Theatres (who owns 99% of theaters in SE Wisconsin) isn't participating.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

nataylor said:


> Anyone else going to the theater showing of the two episodes tonight? I'm looking forward to it!


I've been thinking about it all day! I'm considering wearing my Starfleet uniform for the occasion. Someone said they might not let me in. 

Greg


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## Hmm252000 (Dec 11, 2008)

I'm going! Looking forward to it.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

No one here in uniform, but there is a pretty good turnout. Looks like most of these people were born after TNG aired, though.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

nataylor said:


> No one here in uniform, but there is a pretty good turnout. Looks like most of these people were born after TNG aired, though.


That's pretty wild that there is that much of a following from the younger generation.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

The Next Generation: The Next Generation.


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## terpfan1980 (Jan 28, 2002)

I realize I should already know this, but I surrender any hope at geek/nerd cred and ask those that I am sure can quickly answer: when was the last Trek film (Next Gen) released? and how long has it been since Enterprise (the last TV series) was on the air?

Mostly a curiousity question, but the comments above ('bout "the next generation") have me thinking it can't be far off since it has been such a long (that one I do know) time since TNG was originally aired.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

terpfan1980 said:


> I realize I should already know this, but I surrender any hope at geek/nerd cred and ask those that I am sure can quickly answer: when was the last Trek film (Next Gen) released? and how long has it been since Enterprise (the last TV series) was on the air?
> 
> Mostly a curiousity question, but the comments above ('bout "the next generation") have me thinking it can't be far off since it has been such a long (that one I do know) time since TNG was originally aired.


TNG ended on television in 1994. It immediately went to movies, and "Generations" was released in November 1994. First Contact was released in 1996, Insurrection was released in 1998, and Nemesis in 2002.

In other words, if you are younger than 15 or so, you probably would not recall ever seeing a first run TNG story.

Enterprise ran from 2001 to 2005, so yeah, that wasn't that long ago, but you'd still have to be at least 9-10 to really remember seeing any of it first run.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I ended up winning tickets, so I went. The theater was about 2/3 full, but the whole thing seemed like an after thought by the theater. They started 20 minutes late do to "technical difficulties" (namely forgetting to start the projector) and when it ended they never turned on the house lights. I had to use the led flash on my phone to light the way out for people. In my theater I think the average age was somewhere in the 30s. I didn't see really see any teens or kids there except for those who's parents dragged them along. 

As for the show itself, here's my thoughts. First off theater screens aren't HD (except for IMAX which this wasn't) so the quality didn't exactly wow me, but I could tell the difference, especially on the effects. The episodes themselves weren't really anything special, the really interesting thing was the hour plus of commentary and behind the scene footage. They showed a kind of making of which showed how they converted to HD as well as recent interviews with the cast and their screen tests which are some of the extras from the Bluray plus introductions from the Okuda's specifically for the theater showing.

Speaking of the extra about the HD conversion, Rod Roddenberry said this was the version his father meant to make and that Gene would have fully endorsed the conversion. That doesn't quite mesh with what Richard Arnold (Gene's friend and assistant) said at a Star Trek con in June. The actors said they were impressed by it though.


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## Hmm252000 (Dec 11, 2008)

The theater was packed here and sold out when I arrived. People of all ages where there and about 10 in costumes (one in full Klingon makeup). The audience reaction to some of the behind the scenes and "acting" in the two episodes was great. Only things I didn't like were the Star Trek trivia questions they had about 20 minutes before the start. About 5 minutes of questions, so they repeated several times. Plus they played the opening theme on a constant loop. I heard it over a dozen times before they actually started the episodes.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

morac said:


> I ended up winning tickets, so I went. The theater was about 2/3 full, but the whole thing seemed like an after thought by the theater. They started 20 minutes late do to "technical difficulties" (namely forgetting to start the projector) and when it ended they never turned on the house lights. I had to use the led flash on my phone to light the way out for people. In my theater I think the average age was somewhere in the 30s. I didn't see really see any teens or kids there except for those who's parents dragged them along.


Unfortunately, I've seen this quite a few times with Fathom Events. There was one RiffTrax Live that I went to where the theater ran their in-house pre-show instead of the Fathom pre-show (which is annoying in itself, because Rifftrax does some funny stuff during the preshow)... but then forgot to send someone in to flip over to the satellite feed. Eventually 20 minutes into the show, someone from the audience finally wrangled a projectionist to get their butt into the projection room and fix the problem.



> As for the show itself, here's my thoughts. First off theater screens aren't HD (except for IMAX which this wasn't) so the quality didn't exactly wow me, but I could tell the difference, especially on the effects.


Theater screens themselves are just screens - there's nothing really special about them. They're all easily capable of the 1080p that these are. The problem is you're blowing 1080p up to be theater sized, which greatly diminishes the visual impact of the HD.

Plus, I would be *highly* surprised if Fathom is really transmitting live over the satellite at 1080p. My guess - you're looking at 1080i at best, but 720p is more likely IMO.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> Plus, I would be *highly* surprised if Fathom is really transmitting live over the satellite at 1080p. My guess - you're looking at 1080i at best, but 720p is more likely IMO.


I'm fairly certain this wasn't transmitted over satellite since even though it started 20 minutes late, it started at the beginning (including the ads). Something like this wouldn't require a live feed anyway, plus some theaters had two showings (one at 7 PM and one at midnight). They likely just received a Bluray or whatever they store digital video on for theaters.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Yeah, I'm going to guess this was on a Blu-ray.

Our theater was also about 2/3rds full. I thought it looked really good, considering how blown up the picture is compared to my TV at home.

I'd never watched a TV show on a big movie screen before. It makes you appreciate the differences in framing between TV and movies. The close-ups seemed way too close.

The audience had some laugh-out-loud moments during the episodes. A few that I remember are the first appearance of a man wearing one of the skirt uniforms. And there's one point in Datalore where Wesley gets up from his station and goes to the turbolift and some no-name person at the tactical station gives him this really goofy look. And then there was Wesley telling his mom "I've heard you know how to turn them on."

We had a really good time. It'd be cool if they did one of these for each season's release. I'd love to see Best of Both Worlds with an audience.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Gotcha. I was just assuming that it would be satellite delivered, since that's how I believe the Rifftrax Live events are. (I don't think those are delivered on disc... could be, but I kind of doubt it.)


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

They should be showing this on a on 4K or at worst 2K projectors, much more pixels available than 1080p.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> They should be showing this on a on 4K or at worst 2K projectors, much more pixels available than 1080p.


The problem is not the projector they're using. The problem is that the source material they would be showing for this event is at most 1080p.

(If you run 1080p material through a 4K or 2K projector, it will probably look *worse,* since it would have to interpolate the "missing" pixels.)


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

nataylor said:


> The audience had some laugh-out-loud moments during the episodes. A few that I remember are the first appearance of a man wearing one of the skirt uniforms. And there's one point in Datalore where Wesley gets up from his station and goes to the turbolift and some no-name person at the tactical station gives him this really goofy look. And then there was Wesley telling his mom "I've heard you know how to turn them on."


We had about 30 or 40 people in our showing, nobody in costume. I thought about wearing my uniform but chickened out, primarily because it was >100 degrees outside.

The skirt got a good laugh too, having seen these episodes fairly recently, I don't remember him being onscreen for that long before.










Everyone laughed pretty heartily at Kazinsky (or was it Kozinsky?). I got a laugh out of his name every time it was spoken, mainly because of a certain book I also read recently.

For some reason people were ooh'ing and aah'ing over the crystal entity. Granted, it was newly created, but still, it's not THAT impressive. You've seen CGI before, people. Get over it.

Of everyone in the cast, I think LeVar Burton's aged the best. People acted like they hadn't seen Wil Wheaton, because everyone gasped at how much older he'd become. I thought Denise Crosby didn't look the greatest but she looked like she wasn't wearing makeup.

I was most interested in the Season 2 Blu-ray preview. The Borg scenes looked FABULOUS.

Greg


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## Allanon (Nov 2, 2005)

Side by side comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MlklrWYsDLY#!


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

LoadStar said:


> The problem is not the projector they're using. The problem is that the source material they would be showing for this event is at most 1080p.
> 
> (If you run 1080p material through a 4K or 2K projector, it will probably look *worse,* since it would have to interpolate the "missing" pixels.)


That is true, my statement was in response to the poster above who said the screens were not HD (except IMAX)

They are greater than HD, although I suspect it is possible that some theater might have displayed it using one of those crappy preshow projectors instead of the main projector. That would certainly not wow me either.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Allanon said:


> Side by side comparison:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MlklrWYsDLY#!


Here's another:





A couple of interesting things about this clip... 
1) the aspect ratio of the HD isn't always the same as that of the SD version. You can see many times when things don't line up properly on both sides. Not sure why that is.
2) more interestingly, there is one section where Ensign Redshirt gets frozen that they used a completely different camera angle. In the SD, it's a head and shoulders shot; in the HD, it's a wider shot of the torso on up. In the HD version, you can clearly see them blasting the guy from off camera with a fire extinguisher or something similar.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> That is true, my statement was in response to the poster above who said the screens were not HD (except IMAX)
> 
> They are greater than HD, although I suspect it is possible that some theater might have displayed it using one of those crappy preshow projectors instead of the main projector. That would certainly not wow me either.


I'd be surprised if the projector where morac was watching *wasn't* in HD of some kind. It probably just didn't look like HD to him, because this presentation took what was at best 1080p resolution and blew it up to theater size. This wouldn't look all that spectacular, even if the projector were a 4K unit.

I'm wasn't too bothered that I wasn't able to see this presentation exactly for this reason.


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## DLiquid (Sep 17, 2001)

I remember watching the Battlestar Galactica Razor TV movie in a theater and thinking it looked kind of pixelated. I was wishing I sat further back. Coincidentally, I just saw The Dark Knight Rises in digital (DLP) on that same screen, and it looked fantastic.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

LoadStar said:


> I'd be surprised if the projector where morac was watching *wasn't* in HD of some kind. It probably just didn't look like HD to him, because this presentation took what was at best 1080p resolution and blew it up to theater size. This wouldn't look all that spectacular, even if the projector were a 4K unit.
> 
> I'm wasn't too bothered that I wasn't able to see this presentation exactly for this reason.


That could be it. Plus the fact that the theater wasn't well designed. It was narrow and long, with normal seating in the front and stadium in the back. I was in the back, so I was a good ways away from the screen. Like I mentioned, there was a difference, but not a Wow factor. I normally don't go to this theater.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

Some Fathom events are via satellite -- at the last Rifftracks live, I saw the DirecTV logo when they switched it on.

Anyway, I did enjoy it, despite the first season scripts. I did see one guy in uniform, and one guy with a tribble. My theater was pretty full -- the ushers asked people to move in to make space.

Yeah, the poor guy in the "skant" got a laugh in my theater too.

The second season preview did look really good.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

alansh said:


> Some Fathom events are via satellite -- at the last Rifftracks live, I saw the DirecTV logo when they switched it on.


The reason you probably saw the DirecTV logo was because the theater probably has a DirecTV tuner as one of the possible sources they can project. A lot of theaters will do this so that they are ready in case they want to buy rights to show a big game on the big screen. That doesn't mean anything about Fathom or Rifftrax.

(If Fathom Events *are* delivered via satellite, they're definitely not coming in from a DirecTV bird. My guess is that they would be likely on an encrypted Ku- band feed.)

ETA: yes, NCM Fathom does deliver via satellite. My guess is that with the TNG event, it was transmitted in advance, and just saved to some sort of storage at the theater for later playback.


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

A little Googling turned up this theatre's setup


> For the NCM Fathom service, four new components were added:
> -- DishTV VIP722 DVR satellite receiver and recorder
> -- ECI-60 Electronic Cinema Interface with Dolby Digital decoder
> -- TOSLINK switch for selecting digital audio sources
> -- Slingbox SOLO for Internet connection to NCM Fathom control center


Really, at the Rifftrax show it did look like they were tuning to a private satellite channel, though apparently it's Dish and not Directv. Didn't note the channel number, unfortunately, but I'm sure it's only authorized to the NCM clients' receivers. Since the receiver is a DVR, they can record shows for playing later.


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## mrdbdigital (Feb 3, 2004)

LoadStar said:


> (If Fathom Events *are* delivered via satellite, they're definitely not coming in from a DirecTV bird. My guess is that they would be likely on an encrypted Ku- band feed.)


DirecTV does, or at least they used to, provide corporate feeds for individual companies. They have a business division for these services, which do not show up on consumer menu's. We had such services when we used DirecTV for game feeds when I was the video engineer at Philips Arena in Atlanta.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

I sit corrected.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

mrdbdigital said:


> DirecTV does, or at least they used to, provide corporate feeds for individual companies. They have a business division for these services, which do not show up on consumer menu's.


Still do -- and actually, the private corporate channels do show up on consumer devices when they're active, they're just not tunable. For example, right now, I can see "9545 Seminole Tribe," but I get the "not subscribed" error when trying to tune to it.

In checking this out, it turns out that I _can_ see Channel 9547, a looping message from DirecTV CEO Mike White, intended for DirecTV employees, talking about the Viacom agreement. ("We should all be extremely proud of what we've accomplished together.")


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Didn't search, so I don't know if this got posted yet. Season 1 is only $59.99 at Amazon, which I believe is a price match from Best Buy.

They do look amazing. I'm starting to rethink my earlier "not worth it" stance.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Some people are saying there are audio sync issues with 7 of the episodes on the Blu-rays.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Kamakzie said:


> Some people are saying there are audio sync issues with 7 of the episodes on the Blu-rays.


I haven't noticed any audio sync issues, but I only watched Encounter at Far Point and the bloopers. Supposedly it's only affecting some players. There is another audio issue which honestly I didn't notice. The only thing I noticed was the audio appeared to be soft.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#072512a


> Okay, just a quick update re: CBS's Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season One Blu-ray set. There is a confirmed audio issue that affects 7 episodes in the set - Encounter at Farpoint, Hide and Q, The Big Goodbye, Datalore, 11001001 and Too Short a Season. (Naturally, none of the episodes I watched prior to my review!) The impact is that in the DTS 7.1 mixes for these episodes, character dialogue that should normally be in the center channel is also mixed into the front left and right channels. The other episodes are unaffected. However, there's a secondary audio issue being reported as well in which the PCM audio for some of the extra features on Disc One and Disc Six plays out of sync on at least some models of Blu-ray player. CBS has begun investigating both issues. As soon as we get some kind of official word from them as to what they find to be the cause and how they're going to fix the problems, we'll let you all know.


Someone mentioned the audio syncing issues (other than the one in Haven) aren't consistently reproducible, which could be a player firmware or receiver problem:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1269677/star-trek-tng-seasons-remastered-on-blu-ray/1860#post_22254177


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

http://www.startrek.com/article/tng-blu-ray-audio-fix

Audio issues affecting several episodes in the Star Trek: The Next Generation -- Season One Blu-ray set are being dealt with promptly. CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution issued a statement today describing the problems and the steps they're taking to resolve them. The instructions below are for US fans. Instructions for international fans are forthcoming. The statement reads as follows:

Dear Star Trek Fans,

We have discovered an anomaly in the English 7.1 DTS Master Audio track in our Star Trek: The Next Generation Season One Blu-ray Box set. There are some episodes that inadvertently had their front channel designations incorrectly mapped, resulting in an undesired playback experience when listening to them in a 7.1 or 5.1 Surround Sound environment.

We are quickly working to remedy the situation. Replacement discs (Disc 1, 3 and 4) will be made available free of charge. Please email [email protected] for details regarding the replacement program. You may also call 877-DELUXE6 (877-335-8936) between 8am to 6pm Pacific, Monday-Friday.

We strive to provide our fans the best Blu-ray experience possible and sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I called in and requested replacement disks. They just need the character code on the inner ring on the back of any of the disks (the one that begins with "SL"). The code is hard to read unless the light hits it at the right angle. Once I got the code though, the rest was easy. Just call the number, wait on hold (about 15 minutes), tell the operator you want replacement disks (say "yes" when asked if you have problems with the audio) and give the code and your address. That's it. There's nothing to mail in. I was told disks will be mailed out within 5 days after Aug 10th.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=9223


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## alansh (Jan 3, 2003)

Just saw the Season 2 in-theater presentation. They showed "Q Who?" and "Measure of a Man", along with some making-of material, more of the cast reunion, and some bloopers.

"Measure of a Man" was the extended cut. Melinda Snodgrass related the story behind it. Because the script was so dialogue-heavy, it ran much longer than they expected. They didn't realize this until they completed the rough edit and found it was about 10 minutes too long. So the broadcast version had some of the scenes cut. However, it sounds like the cast and crew really loved this episode, and someone snuck her a VHS copy of the rough edit (no music or effects).

Using her copy as a guide, the restoration crew recreated that edit. Fortunately they've been pretty good at finding all the original camera negatives, and fortunately the original crew didn't realize how long the script was until after they shot all the scenes.

There's one notable scene where Picard is trying to get Data to tell Picard about himself to build his case, and Data tells him his service history is in the computer. Picard asks Data to tell him anyway, but just gets a factual list of Data's service. Picard says he could get that from the computer. "Isn't that what I just said, sir?"  Picard, of course, wants something deeper.

This is definitely one of the best episodes of the series, and it holds up very well. I'm glad they were content to stick to the Data story and not insert a "danger to the ship" B plot.

The other episode was the big effects episode, "Q Who?" with the introduction of the Borg. The 1080p transfer looks fabulous. They showed a bit of the behind-the-scenes. The actual Borg set was pretty small, they made it look bigger by having the actors go past the same section multiple times. And it was used as an insert into the fabulous matte painting of the Borg ship interior.

In the cast interview, Gates was quite frank that she was fired for complaining about scripts in the first season. She singled out "Angel One" and I have to admit I agree with her.

The blooper reel looked like it was taken from the full 35mm frame, and yes, there was a lot of them with studio clutter around the edge that wouldn't have been visible in the TV frame but makes them unsuitable for any wider aspect ratio. TNG was shot for 4:3 and that's what it'll be. Deal with it.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

alansh said:


> The other episode was the big effects episode, "Q Who?" with the introduction of the Borg. The 1080p transfer looks fabulous. They showed a bit of the behind-the-scenes. The actual Borg set was pretty small, they made it look bigger by having the actors go past the same section multiple times. And it was used as an insert into the fabulous matte painting of the Borg ship interior.


Did you notice they also added some CGI Borg wandering around on the other side of the frame? I also saw some movement deep into the painting as well, small touches.

My favorite bloopers in the reels have always been when Michael Dorn giggles. Seeing Worf giggle has to be one of the most entertaining things in the world.

Greg


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Season 2 is being blasted online as being a sub-par conversion, especially when compared to season 1. Apparently CBS farmed out the conversion to a 3rd party studio (HTV-Illuminate).


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

alansh said:


> In the cast interview, Gates was quite frank that she was fired for complaining about scripts in the first season. She singled out "Angel One" and I have to admit I agree with her.


While it's certainly a plausible explanation, it seemed that she was considered pretty much persona non grata by the producers afterwards.

This is glaringly obvious in First Contact.


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

The moment that is sure to spark the imaginations of Trekkies everywhere isnt seen, its spoken  by the seeming villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch (i.e. Benny Batch). You think your world is safe, he intones darkly over shots that start out on Earth. It is an illusion, a comforting lie told to protect you. Enjoy these final moments of peace. For I have returned. To have. My. Vengeance.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/12/06/star-trek-into-darkness-teaser/?xid=email-top25-today-%27Star+Trek+Into+Darkness%27+teaser%3A+Benedict+Cumberbatch+is+out+for+vengeance+%2D%2D+VIDEO


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

What did that have to do with TNG or the blu-ray release?


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

LoadStar said:


> What did that have to do with TNG or the blu-ray release?


More Star Trek is good for you.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

"Redemption" also getting released as a single, feature-length episode.

http://www.startrek.com/article/feature-length-tng-redemption-saga-coming-to-blu-ray


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

FYI, Seasons 1-5 are available in HD on Amazon Instant Video. Free to Prime subscribers. I've watched a few and they look really good.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

DougF said:


> FYI, Seasons 1-5 are available in HD on Amazon Instant Video. Free to Prime subscribers. I've watched a few and they look really good.


They do look great on Amazon. I'm in the process of showing them to my kids for the first time. We are almost done with the second season. It's been quite a while since I watched most these episodes. Many of them, I haven't seen since they first aired. I had forgotten just how bad a majority of the season 1 and season 2 episodes are. Wesley is even more annoying than I remember. IIRC, the show really starts to come into its own in season 3.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

DougF said:


> FYI, Seasons 1-5 are available in HD on Amazon Instant Video. Free to Prime subscribers. I've watched a few and they look really good.


I actually started watching this show a year or two ago. I might have even finished season 2. Then they announced this HD thing and I stopped watching. Figured I wait to watch it in HD. So glad to see they are putting it on streaming. I wasn't about to pay the prices they were asking for the Blu-rays.


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## DLiquid (Sep 17, 2001)

DougF said:


> FYI, Seasons 1-5 are available in HD on Amazon Instant Video. Free to Prime subscribers. I've watched a few and they look really good.


That is awesome!


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## TiVo'Brien (Feb 8, 2002)

I thought they were supposed to be 16:9. "The Inner Light" is only 4:3. 

The HD is nice, though.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

TiVo'Brien said:


> I thought they were supposed to be 16:9. "The Inner Light" is only 4:3.
> 
> The HD is nice, though.


No...none were shot in 16:9. They were all shot on video and then remastered for the blu ray release. Sadly, none will ever be in 16x9 unless they are cropped.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DavidTigerFan said:


> No...none were shot in 16:9. They were all shot on video and then remastered for the blu ray release. Sadly, none will ever be in 16x9 unless they are cropped.


No, they were shot on film, but framed for a 4:3 picture. The effects were composited in video. That's why they have to redo the effects for this HD release. They had to digitize the film shots, create new effects shots, and re-composite and re-edit everything.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Thanks, I knew it was something like that. Sorry for the confusion.


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

Hoffer said:


> I actually started watching this show a year or two ago. I might have even finished season 2. Then they announced this HD thing and I stopped watching. Figured I wait to watch it in HD. So glad to see they are putting it on streaming. I wasn't about to pay the prices they were asking for the Blu-rays.


Would they look any better on Blu-rays disk? I don't think Amazon can stream Blu-rays.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

DougF said:


> FYI, Seasons 1-5 are available in HD on Amazon Instant Video. Free to Prime subscribers. I've watched a few and they look really good.


I wonder if Netflix is going to get the HD episodes.

I'm watching "Best of Both Worlds, Part II" and it looks great.


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

Kindle edition of "Redshirts" is $5.00:

http://www.amazon.com/Redshirts-John-Scalzi-ebook/dp/B0079XPUOW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408411170&sr=8-1&keywords=redshirts


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

I was watching TNG on BBC America HD this afternoon, and noticed that the episodes were the HD remastered versions. Apparently, beginning in June, BBC America HD started to show the remastered first season episodes:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/BBC_America

I'm not sure if they have the rights yet to any other remastered seasons.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

LoadStar said:


> I was watching TNG on BBC America HD this afternoon, and noticed that the episodes were the HD remastered versions. Apparently, beginning in June, BBC America HD started to show the remastered first season episodes:
> http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/BBC_America


i appreciate the heads up - i finally caught a few of the se1 eps, and, wow!, cannot believe the detail - amazing hd quality for a 27yo show.

here's hoping bbca picks up other remastered seasons.


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

NorthAlabama said:


> i appreciate the heads up - i finally caught a few of the se1 eps, and, wow!, cannot believe the detail - amazing hd quality for a 27yo show.
> 
> here's hoping bbca picks up other remastered seasons.


Interesting... did not know about this. Too bad that isn't much in season 1 worth watching. 

I second the hope.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

DavidTigerFan said:


> .....Sadly, none will ever be in 16x9 unless they are cropped.


Sadly? Shouldn't we be happy that they have maintained the original aspect ratio?


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

NorthAlabama said:


> here's hoping bbca picks up other remastered seasons.


Looks like they've now gotten season 2 in HD.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

LoadStar said:


> Looks like they've now gotten season 2 in HD.


thanks for posting, i just caught it yesterday, and scheduled a season 3 recording just to see if it they went any deeper. :up:


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Caught the last half 15 or 20 minutes of "The Measure of a Man" on BBCA last night. After the decision is announced and Data tells Maddox that he refuses to undergo the procedure, it went to end credits. The rest of that scene and the last scene with Data and Riker were skipped. I know they cut more and more over the years for commercial time but this was really noticeable.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

DougF said:


> Caught the last half 15 or 20 minutes of "The Measure of a Man" on BBCA last night. After the decision is announced and Data tells Maddox that he refuses to undergo the procedure, it went to end credits. The rest of that scene and the last scene with Data and Riker were skipped. I know they cut more and more over the years for commercial time but this was really noticeable.


Yeah, I can't watch any Trek anymore on a commercial station. If I can't watch it on DVD, Netflix or Amazon, I don't bother watching. It's ludicrous how much they slice and dice it for commercials.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Yeah, the BBC America broadcasts are edited, and *really* badly. They lop off pretty substantial portions of scenes - or even entire scenes, like the in "Measure of a Man." 

I think it'd be possible to edit the episode to fit the additional commercials without it being that obvious, but it would require a *lot* of work per episode to do lots of tiny cuts throughout the episode. I get that they wouldn't want to spend that kind of time and money on each episode.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

For many British shows, BBC America will actually remux parts of the episode,to play them at slightly faster speeds than normal (about 5 to 10%) in order to get extra time for commercials. I'm not sure what's worse, having them chop out entire scenes or see Benny Hill versions of shows.


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## Turtleboy (Mar 24, 2001)

Netflix just switched over to the HD versions.


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## MikeekiM (Jun 25, 2002)

Turtleboy said:


> Netflix just switched over to the HD versions.


Nice! Thanks for the heads up!


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

very cool thanks


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