DS9: Redefined 2.0 - The Ultimate DS9 Upscale Project
- Thread starter Cryogenator
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DS9 and Voyager are almost unwatchable here in the UK at least on Netflix. The quality is laughably bad, with frequent rainbow coloured artefacting, motion judder issues and awful compression. The DVD's are just about passable, but the colour balance is off. Its incredible that stuff like Blakes 7, Space Precinct and Babylon 5 and Seaquest and Stargate SG1 can get remastered, but not the much more popular DS9 and Voyager series.
If Paramount/CBS wanted to do it on the cheap - check out the SG1, SeaQuest and B5 blu-rays. They aren't perfect, but they are at least a great improvement and quite watchable. SeaQuest and B5 feel a little jarring when they swap out to the low res VFX, but you get used to it. I think Space Precinct is simply an upscale - but its fine.
It'd be so much cheaper to remaster them nowadays, scanning to 4K is faster now. But the powers that be need to release it more intelligently than what they did with TNG. With TNG, they had this massive movie (ST09) come out and it was one of the best selling Blu-Rays ever. And what did CBS do? Released Season 1 of TNG alongside it - way to go and put off a new audience for the material! They should have released TBOBW or any of the TNG two parters as TV movies - hell a TV movie box-set. It's no wonder S1 sold way more than the other seasons, but it's equally obvious the good stuff didn't move in the same numbers. The Star Trek IP has been terribly mis-managed.
I think they should test the waters by remastering Emissary, The Way of the Warrior and then shove them on Paramount + with extra minutes added. They've basically got all these TV movies to release like Dark Frontier from Voyager and all of Voyagers two parters scored great ratings back in the 90's. And then put them out on limited edition Blu-Rays or 4K's at jacked up pricing. Price gouge, because Trekkies will pay for it.
If Paramount/CBS wanted to do it on the cheap - check out the SG1, SeaQuest and B5 blu-rays. They aren't perfect, but they are at least a great improvement and quite watchable. SeaQuest and B5 feel a little jarring when they swap out to the low res VFX, but you get used to it. I think Space Precinct is simply an upscale - but its fine.
It'd be so much cheaper to remaster them nowadays, scanning to 4K is faster now. But the powers that be need to release it more intelligently than what they did with TNG. With TNG, they had this massive movie (ST09) come out and it was one of the best selling Blu-Rays ever. And what did CBS do? Released Season 1 of TNG alongside it - way to go and put off a new audience for the material! They should have released TBOBW or any of the TNG two parters as TV movies - hell a TV movie box-set. It's no wonder S1 sold way more than the other seasons, but it's equally obvious the good stuff didn't move in the same numbers. The Star Trek IP has been terribly mis-managed.
I think they should test the waters by remastering Emissary, The Way of the Warrior and then shove them on Paramount + with extra minutes added. They've basically got all these TV movies to release like Dark Frontier from Voyager and all of Voyagers two parters scored great ratings back in the 90's. And then put them out on limited edition Blu-Rays or 4K's at jacked up pricing. Price gouge, because Trekkies will pay for it.
I actually tend to stream rather than break out the DVDs, partly for convenience but mainly for audio. The DVDs have the dreadful PAL speed-up which makes everyone sound like chipmunks.
The video is poor, but the DVDs aren't significantly better IMO. At least Netflix runs at the right speed.
I've often though similar. Make select remastered episodes an 'event' on P+, with physical releases following.
In an ideal world, a full remaster project would follow, but even some remastered episodes would be better than the none we have currently.
I think if upscaled carefully the difference will be substantial. The LDs are superior to the DVDs when ripped properly.
Yes, that definitely looks worthwhile.
Definitely. Always a hazard to play with no matter what the perceived benefit is.
What extra minutes are there? Deleted scenes, outtakes?
There's undoubtedly a substantial amount of shot but unused scenes across fourteen seasons of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The Next Generation remaster included just a few of many deleted scenes, a few more of which can be seen in the "Patchou's Cabana" rough cut tapes.
Also, the last five seasons of Deep Space Nine and possibly all of Voyager were shot with widescreen protection, meaning they anticipated a future remaster in native 16:9, so they framed the shots accordingly by keeping crew, equipment, and set edges out of the widescreen frame, providing a perfect opportunity for a 4K widescreen remaster.
Also, the last five seasons of Deep Space Nine and possibly all of Voyager were shot with widescreen protection, meaning they anticipated a future remaster in native 16:9, so they framed the shots accordingly by keeping crew, equipment, and set edges out of the widescreen frame, providing a perfect opportunity for a 4K widescreen remaster.
Hey all, just joined the forum. Im watching TOS for 1st time, and loving it and will do a TNG rewatch soon.
That got me thinking id also like to rewatch DS9 and Voyayer.
How to get hands on these Vertag upscale versions?
When will the laserdisc remaster being discussed on this thread possibly come out? Wondering if its very long (pretend more than 6 months from now), if i should just check out the Vertag versions.
Is there a Voyager laserdisc remaster as well forethcoming? or no, and can just dl the existing Vertag copy?
Where to get those online?
That got me thinking id also like to rewatch DS9 and Voyayer.
How to get hands on these Vertag upscale versions?
When will the laserdisc remaster being discussed on this thread possibly come out? Wondering if its very long (pretend more than 6 months from now), if i should just check out the Vertag versions.
Is there a Voyager laserdisc remaster as well forethcoming? or no, and can just dl the existing Vertag copy?
Where to get those online?
The LaserDisc upscale is in its early stages. As I mentioned in the original post, the first five seasons of Deep Space Nine and Voyager are on LaserDisc, and the plan is to eventually upscale those ten seasons from LD.
I've held off on weighing in on the legality of all this, but we are walking a very fine line here. Sharing short clips and screenshots to demonstrate what is possible with today's technology is fine, but when we get into talk of sharing entire episodes and seasons, it becomes a lot more problematic. I suspect Paramount would take a dim view.
We can discuss the project, but I don't want to see anyone posting links to download complete episodes if the project ever makes it that far.
We can discuss the project, but I don't want to see anyone posting links to download complete episodes if the project ever makes it that far.
The extensive work that's going into this project, skillfully merging and improving audiovisual data from multiple copies of long-out-of-print sources (direct RF capture of LaserDiscs combined with DVD data so as to create a far better viewing experience than anything officially available), is sufficiently transformative to qualify it as fair use. As the clips above show, the visual presentation is substantially improved from any official release, which is exactly why the fair use doctrine was established: to allow the public to build upon and value to works still in copyright. This project adds substantial value which did not exist before its inception.
Corporations frequently "take a dim view" of fair use doctrine and the public domain and would rather they not exist at all (hence the extension of copyright terms from 28 years to well over a century), which often results in illegal suppression of the distribution of fair use and public domain content (and even illegally claiming ownership of public domain content and trying to charge creators for using their own works), but taking a dim view of something doesn't mean they have a legal right to restrict the creation and distribution of fair use content (though they get away with it much more often than not).
Even the NTSC DVDs?
I live in the UK.
I seriously doubt "it looks better" would hold up to a real legal challenge.
Feel free to keep discussing the project, but my instructions stand. I don't want to see any links or talk of where to go to download whole episodes or seasons.
With a region-free player, you could watch NTSC DVDs. I live in the US but have DVDs and Blu-rays from all over the world.
Again, a project of this magnitude is sufficiently transformative to qualify as fair use even if corporations claim otherwise. American law as written allows for significantly more fair use than corporations usually tolerate, which frequently leads to illegal suppression of fair-use works. I'm simply calling attention to this unfortunate reality. When you jump to the assumption that something isn't fair use, this only strengthens perception in favor of corporate overreach. Just because a corporation claims something is infringement doesn't mean it actually is. Another great example of transformative fair use is Kenobi: Trials of the Master.
However, I completely understand not wanting to deal with legal attention. You'll note that not only have I neither shared nor asked for links, but the Redefined blog doesn't provide them, either. Rather, a totally legal general workflow guide is provided along with (also totally legal) instructions on how to use a Domesday Duplicator so that if you have the DVDs (easily and cheaply acquired) or LDs (somewhat difficult and expensive to acquire, but they're out there on eBay and other used sites and not completely unobtainably priced) you can totally legally replicate the process yourself. I'm considering trying the process on my official DVD set for my own viewing and might try collecting the LaserDiscs to upscale for myself at some point down the road.
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I'm aware, but you've been saying the NTSC DVDs are a poor source and that the laserdiscs are better, so would it really be worth my while to invest in a region-free player and import the R1 discs for such a minuscule incremental improvement in perceived quality?
The NTSC discs don't have PAL speedup, so voices and movement sound natural, but, yes, the video quality is still very poor and probably indistinguishable from the streams.
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