Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD

As requested here is the repost of my comments on remastering Star Trek: TNG in HD:

It is quite possible to remaster TNG in HD. As previously stated it was shot on 35mm film. Re-transferring and re-editing from film is not as difficult as it sounds. Even though the series was edited on video tape care was often taken at that time to reference KeyKode (the film equivalent of timecode) either by retaining this information in the extra timecode bits on the video tape or by transfer logs which match the videotape EDL to the film negatives' KeyKode. This makes finding the shots and re-cutting them quite easy. Even if this type of match-back is not possible there are many talented online editors who can eye-match the shots (although this does consume much more time than the match-back).

Many TV series have been remastered in HD by one of these two methods, although for distribution reasons some affiliates are not airing them in HD yet. Seinfeld was recently remastered in HD and re-cropped to 16x9 for syndication in HD. A show like Seinfeld however is very simple because it does not include any visual effects (with the possible very rare exception). All that needs to be done is a match-back and re-transfer/re-crop in HD, followed by colour grading and relaying the titles at HD resolution.

A show like Star Trek: TNG posses a bigger problem however mainly because of it's heavy use of visual effects. Now, I want to make a distinction here: to say that TNG's visual effects were done on video is not entirely true. The effects were composited on video, meaning the various filmed elements were layered together. However the actual elements themselves were shot on 35mm motion picture film just like the rest of the show.

The ship itself was a 7 foot miniature (a newer 3 foot miniature from season 3 on) shot in multiple passes with motion-controlled 35mm cameras. The film was transferred to videotape (Beta SP I believe) and then composited together into the shots you see in the final show. Now the original film negatives contain ample resolution for an HD transfer, so the actual shots of the ship do not need to be re-done with a computer generated version like they did with the original Star Trek. Re-transferring and re-compositing the miniature at HD resolution would be much faster and much cheaper and certainly look much better than CGI. The miniature work on TNG was some of the best even by todays standards, and even though CGI has all but replaced miniatures in Sci-fi TV (and most but not all sci-fi movies) this is simply because it is cheaper, not because it looks better. Compare shots of the Enterprise D in TNG (especially in the later seasons or ST:Generations) to any shot of the NX-01 in the Enterprise series and you can easily see how much more realistic TNGs effects were, despite their age.

And the ship was by no means the only effect shot on film. All cities and planet scapes were either large minatures or very detailed matte paintings which should hold up nicely with an HD transfer. Even effects like the transporter where shot on film. It was a fish tank full of glitter swirled around and again shot on 35mm film. All of these can be re-transferred and re-composited. Now I won't discount the possibilities that they may try to re-do some of the effects, mostly to in their minds add to the value of the re-release and to correct some problems (mostly seen in the first season). But those problems seem to be mostly due to time and budget constraints and often were problems with compositing rather than the actual elements.

As far as the time goes, the figure of ten to fifteen years is immensely absurd and I have no idea where that comes from. I have both worked on and supervised re-mastering projects for film and TV. Granted they have not been on the scale of ST:TNG but then again TNG may be the biggest remastering project out there, at least in TV. But I know first hand that re-masterings usually take a small fraction of the time that it took to originally transfer and edit the show in the first place. So considering that ST:TNG was produced at a rate of one season per year, and the remastering would only involve re-doing a small part of the work with tools that are much faster and easier than those available back then it would only take a fraction of the time. If I had to venture a guess I would say it would take a year or two. That largely depends on what kind of cleanup is needed. In fact TNG should take less time then the original one because the film elements are likely in much better shape (requiring less cleanup) and much more organized than the original series as well as requiring less effects to be re-done. FYI: Seinfeld is rumored to have taken less than 4 months to remaster all 10 seasons.

HD remastering of both films and TV are becoming quite standard these days, and there are companies who are dedicated to this kind of work. The only thing standing in the way of ST:TNG in HD is simply Paramount or CBS or whomever writes the cheques deciding that there is enough demand for both HD syndication and Blu-ray releases of the show. There has already been one TNG episode remastered in HD (although I'm not sure which one). It was done by the same team that did the original Star Trek remaster as a 'test' to show to execs. There are rumors floating around that the remastering of the whole series is already beginning but as of right now that is just a rumor.

Other shows have some big hurtles when it comes to HD remastering. Don't expect a HD version of Babylon 5 anytime soon if ever. Even though the live action was shot on 35mm and wisely composed in 16x9 (rather than TNG's 4x3) meaning that portion can be very easily remastered in HD, all the effects were done digitally and rendered only at 4x3 SD resolution. Making things worse the original models and project files were supposedly lost meaning they would have to be completely re-done rather than just re-rendered. The widescreen DVD release in fact was made from a HD re-transfer of the live-action elements, with the original 4x3 effect shots cropped to 16x9. Obviously there could be a Blu-ray version made from this but the upscaled FX shots would likely look terrible in HD, especially put next to the HD versions of the live action.

Obviously shows shot on SD video cannot be re-transferred in HD because nothing higher res than the SD video exists.


Finally to dispel a few myths:

As was already mentioned the original Star Trek was shot on 35mm not 70mm. I have never heard of any TV show being shot on 70mm since this would just be a complete waste. 35mm film contains resolution well above HD let alone SD. 16mm is about on par with HD as far as resolution, but shows a lot of grain. A lot of TV series were shot on 16mm and some that are produced for broadcast in HD these days still are shot on 16mm.

Quote:What about TNG though? It was shot in that cheap terrible 1980's TV film (think its 30 or 35mm film), and blown up on my 52 inch Bravia looks pretty bad.

First of all there is no such thing as 30mm film. And 35mm is not cheap or terrible. It is what most major hollywood blockbusters are shot on these days. The reason TNG looks bad on a big TV, is that the 35mm film lost most of it's resolution when it was transferred to the video tape of the era. I believe the best tape format available at the time was Beta SP and that's probably what they used.

Beta SP is analog and is only equivalent to about 330x486 pixels in digital terms. Digital Beta did not come along until the early 90's and delivered a digitally stored 720x486 pixels (which is suitable for DVD mastering). This is why most films were re-transferred before they came out on DVD. Even though DVD is SD it still has superior resolution to the older broadcast video tape formats and required a re-transfer to Digital Beta. In the case of feature films this is easy because they were edited on film and seamless theatrical prints exist that can be re-transferred in one session rather than having to match-back or re-edit. You can see the difference if you watch an older film from the 80s on DVD (probably made from a re-transfer) and the same film on TV (networks often seem to use the older transfers they have had kicking around for years rather than the new ones made for DVD releases).

Because TNG was edited on analog video tape a D-Beta remaster does not even exist. Everything that has been released so far has been made from the original analog video tapes from the 80s. And that will remain the case until a full re-master like we are talking about here is done.

I'm so glad we're starting over again with this thread.

I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation back when it was on TV. I actually got hooked on it for a while. I would LOVE to see it in HD but it would probably cost a small fortune so I wouldn't be able to get it. Unless it went on some crazy sale.

EDIT: Thanks again for all that useful information above Chef. Very informative.

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[Post edited by Falcon01 on Dec 22, 2008 - CST 7:37 PM]

Quote:I would LOVE to see it in HD but it would probably cost a small fortune so I wouldn't be able to get it. Unless it went on some crazy sale.

Yeah at $179.99 per season, or whatever that crazy price was when the DVDs first came out, I cringe to think how much they would try to charge for Blu-ray. It would probably be as outrageous as the Sopranos on BD. $300 a season? Yikes.

Yeah i was one of those stupid guys that bought every deason on dvd... It was expensive...

I can only imagine it in HD though. My DVD upconverted look alright already, so to tell you the truth I cannot evaluate spending a few hundred to double dip on these stardate adventures. The Movie son the other hand, I probably will...

Quote:My DVD upconverted look alright already, so to tell you the truth I cannot evaluate spending a few hundred to double dip on these stardate adventures.

agree. unless a restore/remaster is invoved, this is it. enjoy crappy late 80's film stock.

Quote: It would probably be as outrageous as the Sopranos on BD. $300 a season? Yikes.

Chef, I was in Sam's Club last week and saw The Sopranos: The Complete Series boxset for $295 on DVD. I don't imagine that the bluray version would be too much more money than that. Maybe like $350-$400 MSRP?

Actually for me I might prefere it be standard definition because that's how I came to enjoy it. It might not have that ST:TNG feel in HD. If you ever had an old warn color faded blanket that you loved so much and someone came along and waved a magic wand and made it look and feel new you would feel like you lost something.

Quote:If you ever had an old warn color faded blanket that you loved so much and someone came along and waved a magic wand and made it look and feel new you would feel like you lost something.

Well, that makes me think that I like the old, worn-out Star Trek of the late 60's. I never much liked TNG. To me, long gone are the human emotions and interactions that made the old Star Trek fun to watch -- TNG was all about "the science" and you needed to be the biggest geek-a-zoid to understand what was going on. Sure, I can see they designed TNG to accommodate the most brainiac ST nerd, but they missed the mark by not catering to people that wanted some simple, exciting adventure . . . you know, entertainment?

Quote:TNG was all about "the science" and you needed to be the biggest geek-a-zoid to understand what was going on.
Ah man come on Tim. The same could be said about people who grew up with SciFi movies before ST came to TV. "I don't know about Star Trek, it looks like a bunch of futuristic non-sense that I'll never understand"

Quote:Ah man come on Tim. The same could be said about people who grew up with SciFi movies before ST came to TV. "I don't know about Star Trek, it looks like a bunch of futuristic non-sense that I'll never understand"

I guess it all depends on what you find entertaining. In old ST, Scotty would tell Kirk the engine room can't handle it and she's going to blow at any moment. In TNG ST you would get the detailed, scientific reason the engines are going to blow, and from actors that have very little charisma, if any. The difference is, I don't need all the in-depth details to understand that there is a situation of peril. Entertainment, for me, comes within the human interactions of the characters, which I always found TNG lacked.

I could go on all day with all the subtle to major differences between each generation, but the bottom line is the chemistry between the old crew was far more enjoyable and entertaining. We didn't have to know or care what Warp Speed really was, we just knew it was freaking fast. If I want a science lesson, I'll watch the Discovery Channel or search the web for a topic that interests me. When I watch SciFi, I simply enjoy a good story, characters I can connect with and of course all the cool CGI.