Disco on blu-ray

[7TW] UnkieB

I know some have asked. Pre-orders are supposed to be available starting today with a November 13 release. (Don’t know if that’s US only or other regions as well)

https://mobile.twitter.com/StarTrek/status/1026239062342918145

Admiral Q Baker

Yes can't wait!!

Commander Sinclair

Now if only DS9 & Voyager were on Bluray!

[7TW] UnkieB

Commander Sinclair wrote: »

Now if only DS9 & Voyager were on Bluray!

Unfortunately not likely to ever happen.

Pallidyne

I actually ended up making my own off of rebroadcasts on BBC America HD.
That's how much I think we'll never see DS9 on BD

Commander Sinclair

After a little research, I am answering my own question here. At first, I would have thought DS9 would be next , since they already did TOS, TNG & ENT. I know it takes MANY MONTHS (and a lot of $) to convert the original footage (yes actual film) scanned frame by frame into the ridiculously expensive scanner (technically a composite optical printer) to convert to essentially HD/D1 quality, then translated back into video format.

Each episode is approximately 75,600 individual frames. Multiply that by 170+ episodes.

Apparently in the 80's & 90's they never COMPOSITED BACK TO FILM!!! So all the original episodes are left on degraded Tape format. Meaning, they cannot translate the original because they only exists in NTSC 480i format. They would have to redo post production (all special FX recreated for each episode from scratch) from the original film on each and every episode, then recomposed to a new "original" digital version.

Each show costs USD$20+ Million to remaster. They estimated DS9 could be over $40 Mil because of all the Dominion war episodes/effects. No way they could sell $40 Mil worth of Blurays to break even!

Guess that just isn't going to happen unless I pay CBS $40+ Mil to get it done. I would have to insist they include a life-sized Enterprise while they were at it!

In the mean time, after reading all they went through to remaster TNG, I ordered my BluRay set, and should be here next week.

treknews.net/2017/02/02/why-ds9-voyager-not-on-blu-ray-hd/

[TFA] Cubby

Funny that your handle is Commander Sinclair, I was just the other day trying to explain to someone why Babylon 5 has the same problems with even lower profitability potential.

Jim Raynor

I had a hard time to get into B5 because of the poor CGI (even at that time it was poor) compared to TNG/DS9 which looked way better since they were using models instead of early bad CGI. But today, I have to admit that B5's CGI is part of it's soul. I'm not sure if it would be the same with better or new HD CGI.

Commander Sinclair

Keep in mind B5 CGI was done on Amiga computers with full multi-tasking capabilities and full color graphic GUI, and killer animation & video rendering programs, while Windows was still in 3.x DOS mode.

÷ The Eternal Champion

Just last week picked up a Babylon 5 boxed set with all 5 seasons, all the movies and Crusade. I started watching them all in order on a 50" TV and it definitely looks a little rough, but still an excellent sci-fi show.