Actually, the plasma weapon is even more interesting now:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWromplasw.html#IV
Original Star Trek Gets CGI Upgrades for HD Syndicated Retur
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Mike DiCenso
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2046
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(This reminds me, I need to update one of the Basics pages on resolutions and screenshots, given that TOR revises the TOS info.)
Well, most of the model footage and of course the live-action shots from TNG were all shot on 35mm film, so they'd have that stuff to work with if they wanted to recomposite it in HD, if the originals are still around.
However, many of the visual effects were created via other equipment. There was an article in one of the first "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Starlog magazines about early TNG effects. One snippet I remember is that at least some effects compositing was done on the Quantel "Harry" system. Some quick research shows that the system only output its effects in interlaced video at NTSC or PAL resolutions, which is to be expected.
I don't know what elements they'd still have available, not to mention which ones were shot on film. For instance, some of the niftiest TNG effects were done at bargain-basement prices, and might've only ever existed on video. That mylar pom-pom shield effect comes to mind, not to mention the computer-generated phaser beams from DS9 and perhaps earlier.
On the other hand, I also seem to recall some interview or something with Okuda noting that some optical effects (specifically stuff like the images/clips they'd overlay on Enterprise/DS9/whatever computer monitors) was actually rendered in much-better-than-TV resolution, so although those things might've been composited in video the originals might still lurk on some drive somewhere. But I bet that'd be a helluva project to go digging up all that stuff, if it even exists.
What they'd probably do for a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD release of TNG-era shows would be to try to up-convert it. I don't know how far they could go with that, or even how the interlaced frames would be made progressive. That is to say, I'm not sure how well up-conversion to 720p or 1080p will work with the effects given the 480i masters . . . they'd basically be trying to interpolate progressive frames that never existed, and would almost certainly lose the information from interlaced frames if the Harry and friends rendered it that way. (Take for instance the image of the Q fireball from "Encounter at Farpoint"[TNG1] on my Basics page . . . as I recall the ghostly half-image of the Q fireball is not the same as what we see in the next frame, though I'd want to check that before stating it with certainty.)
But I'm sure that as upconversion becomes more and more commonplace they'll have the proverbial 'killer apps' to do it with and make it look okay. But still, even an upconversion doesn't actually increase the real resolution of the image . . . it's just artificial augmentation.
Well, most of the model footage and of course the live-action shots from TNG were all shot on 35mm film, so they'd have that stuff to work with if they wanted to recomposite it in HD, if the originals are still around.
However, many of the visual effects were created via other equipment. There was an article in one of the first "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Starlog magazines about early TNG effects. One snippet I remember is that at least some effects compositing was done on the Quantel "Harry" system. Some quick research shows that the system only output its effects in interlaced video at NTSC or PAL resolutions, which is to be expected.
I don't know what elements they'd still have available, not to mention which ones were shot on film. For instance, some of the niftiest TNG effects were done at bargain-basement prices, and might've only ever existed on video. That mylar pom-pom shield effect comes to mind, not to mention the computer-generated phaser beams from DS9 and perhaps earlier.
On the other hand, I also seem to recall some interview or something with Okuda noting that some optical effects (specifically stuff like the images/clips they'd overlay on Enterprise/DS9/whatever computer monitors) was actually rendered in much-better-than-TV resolution, so although those things might've been composited in video the originals might still lurk on some drive somewhere. But I bet that'd be a helluva project to go digging up all that stuff, if it even exists.
What they'd probably do for a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD release of TNG-era shows would be to try to up-convert it. I don't know how far they could go with that, or even how the interlaced frames would be made progressive. That is to say, I'm not sure how well up-conversion to 720p or 1080p will work with the effects given the 480i masters . . . they'd basically be trying to interpolate progressive frames that never existed, and would almost certainly lose the information from interlaced frames if the Harry and friends rendered it that way. (Take for instance the image of the Q fireball from "Encounter at Farpoint"[TNG1] on my Basics page . . . as I recall the ghostly half-image of the Q fireball is not the same as what we see in the next frame, though I'd want to check that before stating it with certainty.)
But I'm sure that as upconversion becomes more and more commonplace they'll have the proverbial 'killer apps' to do it with and make it look okay. But still, even an upconversion doesn't actually increase the real resolution of the image . . . it's just artificial augmentation.
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GStone
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With the fireball, couldn't they just recreate the fireball to look better, cut out what's in the frames and put the new one back in? With the warp traveling shots, the star paths are gonna have to be replaced partially, but it shouldn't be too big of a problem. If things like this were done, it might take longer with all the repairs, but they could just move back the release dates. It isn't a race to get this done.
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2046
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Well, that's the thing . . . they could recreate it, not to mention all the other stuff, but it's gonna be a nightmare.
Even accounting for stock footage, TOS had very few FX scenes. Even "Balance of Terror" was fairly light on visual effects, when you get right down to it. How many times do we see the Romulan ship? Four or five? And in the original they reused the BoP flyover IIRC anyway. And sure they spent a fortune on that ep getting the phaser shots, but that was stock footage and they reused that over and over.
TOS was written to be light on the FX, of course, being a child of its time.
But by the time of TNG, audiences had seen filmed, bigger-budget Trek, and would expect that level of FX work (per the statements at the time). Fortunately the technology had caught up so they could do it with reasonable cost (thanks to stuff like the Quantel Harry, et cetera).
But of course this means that TNG was way more FX-heavy than TOS. Just take a look at the first season of TNG and ponder the many effects there . . . I'd be willing to wager that redoing TOS would, for all 79 episodes, probably be an equal effort to doing season one of TNG. And can you imagine redoing the Dominion War? Sheesh. (Though I'd love to see some Ambassadors flying around, but still.)
I doubt very seriously that we'll ever see TNG-Remastered. They'll upconvert it and it'll hold up fairly well, especially against the bargain-basement effects they're doing for TOS-R. And once you've got a pretty good-looking HDTV copy of the show, you've done all you need to do. HDTV at 1080p is film quality . . . that's what Episode II and Episode III were shot in. You get a digital projector and you could show it in a theater. The upconversion might make it not look quite so good as a new film, but if done right it won't look terrible, and will look helluva-better than if you tried to project 480i on the screen.
So as long as TOS Remastered maintains a 1960's flavor inasmuch as how much detail is visible, then even upconverted Image G orange-screen shots of the "Bulldog" four-foot Enterprise-D model will look as if they're more impressive on HDTV.
That's just my take, though.
Even accounting for stock footage, TOS had very few FX scenes. Even "Balance of Terror" was fairly light on visual effects, when you get right down to it. How many times do we see the Romulan ship? Four or five? And in the original they reused the BoP flyover IIRC anyway. And sure they spent a fortune on that ep getting the phaser shots, but that was stock footage and they reused that over and over.
TOS was written to be light on the FX, of course, being a child of its time.
But by the time of TNG, audiences had seen filmed, bigger-budget Trek, and would expect that level of FX work (per the statements at the time). Fortunately the technology had caught up so they could do it with reasonable cost (thanks to stuff like the Quantel Harry, et cetera).
But of course this means that TNG was way more FX-heavy than TOS. Just take a look at the first season of TNG and ponder the many effects there . . . I'd be willing to wager that redoing TOS would, for all 79 episodes, probably be an equal effort to doing season one of TNG. And can you imagine redoing the Dominion War? Sheesh. (Though I'd love to see some Ambassadors flying around, but still.)
I doubt very seriously that we'll ever see TNG-Remastered. They'll upconvert it and it'll hold up fairly well, especially against the bargain-basement effects they're doing for TOS-R. And once you've got a pretty good-looking HDTV copy of the show, you've done all you need to do. HDTV at 1080p is film quality . . . that's what Episode II and Episode III were shot in. You get a digital projector and you could show it in a theater. The upconversion might make it not look quite so good as a new film, but if done right it won't look terrible, and will look helluva-better than if you tried to project 480i on the screen.
So as long as TOS Remastered maintains a 1960's flavor inasmuch as how much detail is visible, then even upconverted Image G orange-screen shots of the "Bulldog" four-foot Enterprise-D model will look as if they're more impressive on HDTV.
That's just my take, though.
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AnonymousRedShirtEnsign
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I have to agree that they won't be reduing TNG and later any time soon, if ever. And for the time and money required to redo the Dominion War battles, they might as well make a movie about it (by the way, why would you want to see Ambassador class ships, in my opinion it is the ugliest ship Starfleet ever built, but I agree that it shouldn't just be Excelsiors, Mirandas, and TNG era ships).
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2046
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Pardon this super-bump, but I figured the new model of the Enterprise being used for TOR (and reportedly to be used to re-redo the earlier TOR eps) was just too beautiful not to mention:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/weblog/2006/11/t ... he-is.html
http://www.st-v-sw.net/weblog/2006/11/t ... he-is.html
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Mike DiCenso
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I'am still a bit unhappy with the general lack of any attempt at doing interesting new stuff with TOR. The case in point is the remastered "Mirror, Mirror"; it would have been way too cool having the Mirror Enterprise with a variation of the IAMD M-NX-01's "racing stripe" markings. Instead we got the boring Cage/WNMHGB varient of the Constitution class, and the "U" changed to "I". Whoop-dee-fraking-do. Now I'am actually getting a bit worried that the Constellation in the remastered version of "The Doomsday Machine" will just be a CGI AMT model... :-/
-Mike
-Mike
Last edited by Mike DiCenso on Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mike DiCenso
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Never mind that last gripe. I just picked up the second ST:The Magazine, which has an article on TOR. It just so happens the article shows a sneak peak for the remastered version of "The Doomsday Machine"! One picture shows the wrecked Constellation quite clearly redone as a proper "production" version Connie; the damage is essentially the same as what was seen in the original TDM, only "spiced" with glowing plasma energies around where the warp nacelles and their support pylons are blasted open.
The second picture is of the remastered version of the planet killer itself. The new version naturally looks less like a cruddy paper mache model, and the internal glow of the mass-energy conversion furnace looks far more convincing and menacing.
I feel much better now! :-)
-Mike
The second picture is of the remastered version of the planet killer itself. The new version naturally looks less like a cruddy paper mache model, and the internal glow of the mass-energy conversion furnace looks far more convincing and menacing.
I feel much better now! :-)
-Mike