This youtuber says the show was filmed in UHD and HFR, which made it easy for him to re-upconvert these scenes.
Picard Season 3 Blu Ray Coming
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Looking forward to buying PIC Season 3 in 4K one day. The whole series really, but especially Season 3. I also plan to eventually buy the first 10 movies in 4K. So I'll be able to go from those to Picard without the resolution skipping a beat.
I very much doubt that that's accurate, especially for the CG, and especially for HFR. It increases your overhead; HFR means there's four times as many frames, UHD means every frame is four times the size, so that's 16 times the load on your computers rendering and editing and color-correcting when you're just going to throw it all away. And they'd have to have thrown it away, because if they made a UHD master, the show would be streaming in UHD, just like SNW, and if there was an HFR master, someone in a position of authority would be drunk, because people hate watching high frame-rate footage except for weird gamer-types.
The YouTuber's rationale for thinking this seems to be that it's within the technical capabilities of the cameras they used to shoot UHD and HFR, but that doesn't mean they were actually used that way. Shooting in UHD for an HD final did probably happen, but only so they could adjust framing after the fact without losing quality by cropping in a little (and it would've been downconverted to 2K fairly early in the pipeline, so they'd need to remaster it to release it in true 4K and not upscaled), but shooting at more that 24 frames per second for a 24 FPS deliverable would be stupid and wasteful (with certain exceptions, like shots with slow- or fast-motion effects). It'd just make extra work somewhere else for no gain.
In fact, I can prove it was shot at 24 FPS, thanks the the miracle of dog-mouthing: In this behind-the-scenes photo from this tweet, in the upper-left corner of the camera viewfinder, you can see it's recording at 23.976 frames per second. Case closed.
All that being said, a 4K Blu-Ray release for PIC would be worth it for the HDR and higher bitrate. Especially the HDR, and especially in the third season.
I would wonder though, if the cameras in question are capable of those higher qualities and FR's, why wouldn't they just do that? Are they even still using film?
Some productions still use film, but it's rare (Oppenheimer, for instance, was shot on film; there was a small bit of news going around about Nolan specially commissioning black-and-white IMAX film, which isn't quite as impressive as it sounds, since color film is essentially just three layers of black-and-white film smushed on top of each other, it's just no one had ever wanted it before). I don't see the point, myself, digital cameras can be adjusted and graded to match the quality and response of any kind of film, and it all ends up being edited and mastered digitally (unless you're Christopher Nolan), anyway.
As for why they don't max out the quality from their digital cameras, time, money, and creative choices. They'd need more drives on-set to record the footage, more storage in post-production and more powerful computers to keep pace, and everything would be slower to finish. Higher framerates would make the picture grainier and/or require more light on set to get the same picture, and people don't like the "soap opera effect."
Many effects heavy films in the last decade have also only been finished in 2K thanks to the cost of 4K special effects.
There's likely no reason they'd get rid of the raw footage, so in theory they could repeat post production and put it out in 4K. Some GAME OF THRONES seasons and BREAKING BAD had this happen to create new 4K masters. So it could very well happen... but... a long shot.
So I was reviewing the UK version of the season 3 Blu-ray and it turns out "The Last Generation" opens with the original European version of the Enterprise-D flyby, not the (IMHO superior) American one. This is very strange because the streaming services here like Amazon Prime updated to the American one with a day or two of the original release, and it was widely assumed that the original European version was an unfinished/scrapped version that was released accidentally.
YouTube comparison video for people who don't know what I'm talking about:
EDIT: turns out the copy I was supplied by my friend was the US version, not the UK version. Curiouser and curiouser…
YouTube comparison video for people who don't know what I'm talking about:
EDIT: turns out the copy I was supplied by my friend was the US version, not the UK version. Curiouser and curiouser…
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It looks a bit too flat and unfinished to me. The lighting is off and the scene cuts away too quickly. The deflector dish in particular looks weird.
Turns out this is the US version, I was just sent it by someone in the UK, hence my confusion. I have corrected my original post.
after Bill Hunt from the Digital Bits tweeted something out about the different opening shot I checked out my copy that came today as part of the complete series. And yeah, it’s different. But it doesn’t look bad.
If they were to offer a replacement disc I’d still take it because I like the “US” version better.
If they were to offer a replacement disc I’d still take it because I like the “US” version better.
Other people have started noticing (TrekCore: "VFX Error Found on STAR TREK: PICARD Season 3 Blu-ray Disc"). In a way I'm glad it's not just me...
Brian Tatosky posted an oblique general observation on the nature of VFX production on Mastodon.
There are rare occasions you get to revisit a #VFX shot to polish more before screening. If you get it, you take that opportunity.
But when that happens, it can also result in the powers that be revisiting the entire concept of the shot.
So, say if the original goal was to match an older series' look, it could largely change to be something fitting current dynamic show styles.
And then you just hope the post work that comes after cuts it in properly.
No reason why I'm posting this today.
But when that happens, it can also result in the powers that be revisiting the entire concept of the shot.
So, say if the original goal was to match an older series' look, it could largely change to be something fitting current dynamic show styles.
And then you just hope the post work that comes after cuts it in properly.
No reason why I'm posting this today.
Ahh I was going to wait a while to pick this up in case a 4K UHD was announced (I'm out of the US for at least two more months so no rush). But now the canon purist in me wants the shot with the authentic warp effect.
I like the artwork for the regular edition release more, but reports have come in that it has stacked discs. So the steelbook it is.
I like the artwork for the regular edition release more, but reports have come in that it has stacked discs. So the steelbook it is.
Most likely. Some in the physical media space are already speculating that the US is having a quiet recall of outstanding stock.
Now I'm glad I didn't have a chance to pick it up yet!
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