For anyone that's every wanted DS9 in HD....

Yateball

Watch this glorious random find on YouTube and dream of what could have been.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uDXux7OEYc

Yateball

Also.... this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLmiz-Bs8ZQ

Star Trek Scotland leader

That was epic

Commander Sinclair

Even if you had an extra $20 million cash laying around, and you got CBS to make a deal to put out DS9 on Bluray, the whole thing was shot in digital 480 anyway, so there is no way to upgrade it.

But yeah, those all digital "what couldda-been" vids are great.

Jim Raynor

Commander Sinclair wrote: »

Even if you had an extra $20 million cash laying around, and you got CBS to make a deal to put out DS9 on Bluray, the whole thing was shot in digital 480 anyway, so there is no way to upgrade it.

But yeah, those all digital "what couldda-been" vids are great.

I always thought DS9 and VOY were also shot in 35mm except for the CGI and ENT was the first digital recorded show (it was 1080p or?).

Commander Sinclair

Nope. TNG was the last to be shot with film, (and we are fortunate about that.) The last 2 years of TNG were in the beginning of the professional digital video cameras coming out, so they were experimenting with some of TNG with digital at the end, but went directly to digital on DS-9 & Voyager after TNG was finished. Unfortunately, they were nowhere near even what level optics our phones can record now, so we are forever stuck with those 2 series in "medium" quality. They "say" they were shot in HD, but "HD" then is not the same as HD now. Even if they were shot in today's version of HD (2K/4K), the broadcast signal back then wasn't HD yet, so all the content of what we saw on TV was rendered down to SD, even though it was in widescreen format. The studio would have to go back to all the original content and re-render every frame of every episode, and re-do all the special effects from scratch, costing many many millions of $ which they would never recoup. Therefore, from a business aspect, is too cost prohibitive to do it.

Yes, Enterprise was shot in 2K, so that was a pleasant surprise, and quick and easy to go straight to BluRay.

I am personally enjoying the heck out of the new TOS series on BluRay! After this , I will have to rewatch DS-9 DVDs (which I have never opened yet), because I am missing a lot of DS-9 references in the game that I just plain don't remember.

Dirk Gunderson

Commander Sinclair wrote: »

Nope. TNG was the last to be shot with film, (and we are fortunate about that.) The last 2 years of TNG were in the beginning of the professional digital video cameras coming out, so they were experimenting with some of TNG with digital at the end, but went directly to digital on DS-9 & Voyager after TNG was finished. Unfortunately, they were nowhere near even what level optics our phones can record now, so we are forever stuck with those 2 series in "medium" quality. They "say" they were shot in HD, but "HD" then is not the same as HD now. Even if they were shot in today's version of HD (2K/4K), the broadcast signal back then wasn't HD yet, so all the content of what we saw on TV was rendered down to SD, even though it was in widescreen format. The studio would have to go back to all the original content and re-render every frame of every episode, and re-do all the special effects from scratch, costing many many millions of $ which they would never recoup. Therefore, from a business aspect, is too cost prohibitive to do it.

Yes, Enterprise was shot in 2K, so that was a pleasant surprise, and quick and easy to go straight to BluRay.

This. The estimated the cost of redoing every single special effects shot is more than they would ever get from CBS All-Access, Netflix, or Blu-Ray box sets...maybe a crowdfunded project could get it done but I don’t see a major media conglomerate going that route even if it could at least break even.

[7TW] UnkieB

Jim Raynor wrote: »

Commander Sinclair wrote: »

Even if you had an extra $20 million cash laying around, and you got CBS to make a deal to put out DS9 on Bluray, the whole thing was shot in digital 480 anyway, so there is no way to upgrade it.

But yeah, those all digital "what couldda-been" vids are great.

I always thought DS9 and VOY were also shot in 35mm except for the CGI

They were shot on 35mm and then scanned and "finished" (editing & VFX, etc.) on videotape.

Enterprise was shot with film through season 3 and digitally starting with season 4. (Storm Front was the first episode in the franchise to not use film) The CG/VFX for Entrprise's first three seasons were generally rendered at 480p, & only at 720p/1080p if the effects folks thought it necessary, and then upscaled for HD.

Jim Raynor

Now I'm confused. Sinclair says they were shot digital, UnkieB that they were also shot on 35mm and finished on tape, just like TNG, or am I getting something wrong here?

Dirk Gunderson

Jim Raynor wrote: »

Now I'm confused. Sinclair says they were shot digital, UnkieB that they were also shot on 35mm and finished on tape, just like TNG, or am I getting something wrong here?

The live scenes were shot on film but the digital effects were done *after* it was scanned to videotape rather than before, as was the case for TOS and TNG. That’s why every digital effect would need to be created from scratch, which would be frightfully expensive.

Jim Raynor

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

Jim Raynor wrote: »

Now I'm confused. Sinclair says they were shot digital, UnkieB that they were also shot on 35mm and finished on tape, just like TNG, or am I getting something wrong here?

The live scenes were shot on film but the digital effects were done *after* it was scanned to videotape rather than before, as was the case for TOS and TNG. That’s why every digital effect would need to be created from scratch, which would be frightfully expensive.

Yes, but Sinclair said it was completely shot digital, not just the CGI and therefore we will never see DS9 in HD, even if they throw 20 millions on it since there is no film footage, only digital footage. My knowledge was that TNG, DS9 and VOY were all shot on 35mm but were edited on tape and that all CGI was only done on tape. So it would be necessary to recut all shows on the tape and redo the CGI (which they did with TNG without getting the money back via sales). If they had done the cutting on tape, it would be way easier and they could focus solely on the CGI. The could do the same but DS9 and VOY started to use CGI even for the ships, so it would be way more effort to get everything done and taking the lower popularity of the two shows, it doesn't make any sense.

Jim Raynor

double post, can be deleted

Dirk Gunderson

Jim Raynor wrote: »

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

Jim Raynor wrote: »

Now I'm confused. Sinclair says they were shot digital, UnkieB that they were also shot on 35mm and finished on tape, just like TNG, or am I getting something wrong here?

The live scenes were shot on film but the digital effects were done *after* it was scanned to videotape rather than before, as was the case for TOS and TNG. That’s why every digital effect would need to be created from scratch, which would be frightfully expensive.

Yes, but Sinclair said it was completely shot digital, not just the CGI and therefore we will never see DS9 in HD, even if they throw 20 millions on it since there is no film footage, only digital footage. My knowledge was that TNG, DS9 and VOY were all shot on 35mm but were edited on tape and that all CGI was only done on tape. So it would be necessary to recut all shows on the tape and redo the CGI (which they did with TNG without getting the money back via sales). If they had done the cutting on tape, it would be way easier and they could focus solely on the CGI. The could do the same but DS9 and VOY started to use CGI even for the ships, so it would be way more effort to get everything done and taking the lower popularity of the two shows, it doesn't make any sense.

I was a little off earlier: TNG used the same scan-the-uncut-film-to-tape method but they actually plunked down the cash to remaster all of the effects shots. But all three were definitely shot on film first and the same is true for the first three seasons of Enterprise as well; only ENT season 4 (barring the opening scene of In a Mirror, Darkly) was shot directly on tape with no film involved whatsoever.

Jim Raynor

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

I was a little off earlier: TNG used the same scan-the-uncut-film-to-tape method but they actually plunked down the cash to remaster all of the effects shots. But all three were definitely shot on film first and the same is true for the first three seasons of Enterprise as well; only ENT season 4 (barring the opening scene of In a Mirror, Darkly) was shot directly on tape with no film involved whatsoever.

Ah ok, thx for the clarification!

Commander Sinclair

Keep in mind, when I refer to "digital", it was still "digital-to-tape" as a medium, rather than optical/analogue to tape or film. What we know now as "digital" is much different than "digital" back in the 90's.

Travis S McClain

So... It turns out William Shatner's web store has the Backers Edition of What We Left Behind in stock, priced at $22.95! I wasn't at liberty to back it at the Blu-ray threshold, so I missed out on it. I'm stoked that I've now got my grubby little paws on one! The going rate on eBay is considerably higher than Shatner's price.

https://www.shatnerstore.com/collections/dvds-and-blu-rays/products/what-we-left-behind-backer-edition-region-free-dvd-plus-blu-ray-set