DS9: Redefined 2.0 - The Ultimate DS9 Upscale Project

[Ray Hardgrit]

You had me going crazy trying to figure out what episode of Deep Space Nine that was!

That's an unusually bad looking shot for the PAL version, the rest of Caretaker looks more like the NTSC release. In fact, when I compared PAL and NTSC versions of Trials and Tribble-ations, it was the PAL version that looked sharper (and grainier).

 

[Cryogenator]

You had me going crazy trying to figure out what episode of Deep Space Nine that was!

Haha!

In fact, when I compared PAL and NTSC versions of "Trials and Tribble-ations," it was the PAL version that looked sharper (and grainier).

Hmm... PAL is higher resolution, but I think the PAL releases were upconverted from NTSC, so they shouldn't contain more detail. Can you post screenshots? If not, I own both PAL and NTSC boxsets of Deep Space Nine, so I can compare them myself.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

NTSC on left, PAL on the right (both with their aspect ratio corrected, so they've been stretched a bit).

I don't own the NTSC set, I found that online, so I can't absolutely promise that's what the discs look like. But the picture on the right is from my own DVDs. You should still check for yourself though, see if I'm wrong or if I did something wrong.

 

[Tosk]

The image on the right is clearly artificially sharpened though. Details have digital breakup around them, and there's no extra grain, just extra noise.

 

[Cryogenator]

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[Michael]

Wow, looks like we really got short shrifted with the DVDs. It’s incredible how much better it looks on the LaserDisc, and yet it’s still in SD! Would love to be able to at least watch one episode on an actual LaserDisc setup at some point.

 

[Cryogenator]

SD upscaled to HD.

Also, the direct RF captures from the Domesday Duplicator have more detail than even the most expensive LaserDisc player can provide, and stacked captures eliminate the frame dropouts which would be present if playing a physical disc or single RF capture.

Someone from the upscaling team said that regular LaserDisc playback doesn't look any better than DVD.

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[Cryogenator]

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[JoseNoodles]

It's a shame that the LaserDisc versions of DS9 and Voyager only go the the end of season 5 for both shows.

 

[Cryogenator]

It actually doesn't matter.

Only the first three seasons of Deep Space Nine and first four of Voyager look better as RF LaserDisc captures because they were edited using a composite workflow and LaserDisc is composite, whereas they were poorly converted to component for DVD. The later seasons actually look better on DVD because they were edited with a component workflow and DVD is component.

However, only DS9 1x01-3x14 and 3x26 plus "Caretaker" were released on LaserDisc in America, so the best available source for the remaining composite episodes are the Japanese LaserDiscs which use a source with slightly more generation loss, and the episodes with hardcoded subtitles introduced additional generational loss. All of these still look markedly better than on DVD when captured with a Domesday Duplicator.

There are 166 episodes which look better when RF captured from NTSC LaserDisc (72 DS9 and 94 VOY), 62 of which are on American LaserDisc (61 DS9 and 1 VOY). All of the rest are on slightly lesser Japanese LaserDisc.

 

[Tosk]

The later seasons actually look better on DVD because they were edited with a component workflow and DVD is component.

Maybe generally so, but is that true in all ways? The DVDs have some occasionally nasty compression issues and some odd...detail smearing/warping here and there.

 

[Cryogenator]

According to the project blog, yes, the component seasons look better on DVD in all ways except chroma information, and that can be transferred from the LDs or manually corrected using the LDs as a guide (the DVDs are greenshifted and we’ve become accustomed to this over decades since the more natural color is available only on LaserDisc). Their extensive analysis determined that the component seasons definitely have more detail on DVD than from RF LaserDisc captures and so they’re using the DVDs as the source for upscaling (and derainbowing, dedotcrawling, framerate correcting, et cetera) those seasons.

 

[Tosk]

Hrmm, my LaserDiscs (back in the day) never had shifting detail the way the DVDs do sometimes. (To be fair, not often but once you notice it it's crummy.)

 

[Cryogenator]

Maybe, but they’ve found that their extensive restoration process works best with RF LaserDisc captures for the composite seasons and DVD remuxes for the component seasons. This makes sense since it eliminates composite to component conversion for the early seasons and component to composite conversion for the later seasons.

 

[James Cole]

Only the first three seasons of Deep Space Nine and first four of Voyager look better as RF LaserDisc captures because they were edited using a composite workflow and LaserDisc is composite, whereas they were poorly converted to component for DVD. The later seasons actually look better on DVD because they were edited with a component workflow and DVD is component.

Interesting that VGR stuck with composite editing for three years longer than DS9 did.

 

[JoseNoodles]

It actually doesn't matter.

Only the first three seasons of Deep Space Nine and first four of Voyager look better as RF LaserDisc captures because they were edited using a composite workflow and LaserDisc is composite, whereas they were poorly converted to component for DVD. The later seasons actually look better on DVD because they were edited with a component workflow and DVD is component.

However, only DS9 1x01-3x14 and 3x26 plus "Caretaker" were released on LaserDisc in America, so the best available source for the remaining composite episodes are the Japanese LaserDiscs which use a source with slightly more generation loss, and the episodes with hardcoded subtitles introduced additional generational loss. All of these still look markedly better than on DVD when captured with a Domesday Duplicator.

There are 156 episodes which look better when RF captured from NTSC LaserDisc (72 DS9 and 84 VOY), 62 of which are on American LaserDisc (61 DS9 and 1 VOY). All of the rest are on slightly lesser Japanese LaserDisc.

I had thought the Japanese LaserDisc were superior. Apparently the LaserDisc version of The Trouble with Tribbles from a Japanese set was used as a reference for recreating Space Station K-7 for Trial and Tribble-ations, because of how high-quality it was. Didn't know the LaserDiscs for the latter seasons of other shows weren't as good.

 

[Cryogenator]

Where did you read that? I'm sure that was just because there was no DVD release to reference back then, and maybe the Japanese disc was all they had available.

The LaserDisc format is superior to VHS and Betamax but inferior to DVD.

The composite seasons look better on LaserDisc only because of incompetent DVD mastering.

 

[trekfan_1]

The comparison videos are great but hard to judge on how they compare to the naked eye with other existing upscales from a few years ago ( namely Queerworm and Joybell). . That's what I'm most curious about. Those previous upscales I thought already had some noticeable improvement vs the R1 DVDs

 

[Cryogenator]

This is a huge improvement over all previous upscales.

 

[trekfan_1]

^^^That's great to hear . I'm no tech expert, but to my naked eye the DVDs have always looked substandard even in terms of a typical DVD release.. The previous upscales probably elevated the quality to "decent DVD quality " and even bordering on low end HD level of quality with the later seasons. . If this new enhancement project elevates it even higher - Something closer to full HD or equivalence , I'm excited on the possibilities even if no propper restoration using the orginal film elements is ever done.

Not really related to this specific topic, but I wonder if theres a consensus out there in the tech world if advancements in technology is expected to continue to improve when it comes to enhancing SD content. Could it be even better in 20, 30 years? Or is there a ceiling on how much something from a SD source can be improved artificially? End of the day I do realize you are limited to the data/pixels available from the SD source.