Dammit

I've recently begun renting the series through Netflix (not nearly as annoying a process as I thought it would be). I'm just about done with the first season but wanted to know, does the image quality get better in later seasons? It's pretty bad in the first one. Looks fine on my 27 inch TV but on my HDTV or computer monitor (which I use both more than my 27 inch tv) it looks... well, like crap really. Major artifacts are visible all over the place. Granted, I'm WAY more anal about such things than most people so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people never even noticed (and if that's the case, do yourself a favor and don't go looking for them). But to those of you that do, is it going to get better than this? I hope so.

Also, weren't some of the later seasons in widescreen? I seem to recall seeing a few that way on television but I might have been drunk.

Whenever I watch these on my PC or HDTV, I can't help but think how killer it would be if ever released in HD. Huge process though I guess. As I understand it, shows like this were shot on film which would make HD completely possible. However, they were edited and mastered on video which means a HD transfer would be no small task. If this first season is any indication though, it would be worth the effort. I'm sure the studio wouldn't mind cashing in on them again in the future.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying reliving the series again. TV on DVD is pretty sweet.

adamblast

I recall the reviewers here saying that the images *did* get better over the first few seasons, but I can't confirm that or speak to how much improvement... They look fine on my 27".

No, none of TNG was ever in widescreen. Or DS9.

WhFastus

Next Generation was never in widescreen -- nor was DS9 or Voyager. Enterprise is the first Trek series to have its original broadcasts in 16:9.

Dammit

Well that settles that. I was drunk.

adamblast

You might be remembering those god-awful broadcasts on TNN where they were running a permanent banner under the show and either squishing it vertically or just cutting off the bottom... I never watched them, but boy was everyone in the TV forum peeved about that junk...

Dazed

Yeah TNN (or Spike TV as I think its now called) used to boast about Trek Uncut, and then cut a chunk of the screen off to put a stupid banner

Another reason why most of the TV I watch is on DVD

Dammit

I think you're right. I think I was still drunk as well though.

Mike Lowrey

Two things...well three. Some of which has already been answered, but I'll chime in my my two cents.

OK, yeah, you're right. The image quality of the first season of TNG was pretty bad. In fact, I found that the Tint levels were a bit off. I thought that there was too much Red in the image, so therefore I had to move my Tint levels a few clicks to the Green side. The second season was better, but it still suffered from the early days of TNG production.

Second thing is the "film or video". I may be wrong, and you may be right, but I'm not sure if TNG was filmed with film or not. I guess it was, but it was definately post-production processed on video tape. And that's the source for the DVD transfers, so an HD transfer of this series is highly unlikely. Same thing goes for DS9 and even VOY.

Third thing. TNG in WS? Nope. Not hardly. The only Trek series produced in WS is ENT. It's a wonder JMS foresaw the eventual use of WS when they filmed B5 back in the early '90s.

Dammit

I think Adamblast was right about the widescreen thing. I didn't watch the show religiously on television when it was new. Mostly re-runs and I'm sure some of that was when I was half awake watching Spike.

I was looking closer at them earlier tonight looking for evidence of film grain and actually didn't see any so it might have been shot entirely on video which means no HD, ever. If it was shot on film and post-production processed on video, HD would still be possible. It would just be a much bigger job because they'd have to make new production masters from the original film sources too instead of just creating a new high def transfer. Big, big job. Might be worth it to them though eventually (long time from now). It's a pretty big cash cow so you never know. I'm sure they'd love to sell those box sets all over again. After taking a closer look though, at least the first season doesn't appear to have been shot on film anyway. One can hope (which is all I was really doing). If the image quality does improve a good amount in the later seasons, I won't care too much.

Dazed

Im 99% sure this show was shot on film. IMDB says its on film and everything Ive seen from behind the scenes shows 35mm cameras.

Of course, its printed to video so whether or not they would (or could) go back to the film print for a HD transfer is questionable. Im sure the original negs are not in that great condition.

Somehow I dont think Paramount would bother going to the trouble.

Mike Lowrey

I pretty much agree with that. If indeed the show was originally shot on film, the negatives probably wouldn't be in that great of shape now. Hell, we're talking almost 20 years ago for the first season now. And then again, if shot on film, and post-produced on video tape, wouldn't the film elements not have any of the special effects on them? So they'd had to re-render everything, which actually wouldn't be a bad thing. Some of those early pre-Season 3 composite shots didn't look so hot.

Dammit

It would be a large undertaking. But, in contrast to say, a motion picture, the cost would be only a fraction of that. If HD-DVD or Blu-ray or whatever eventually ends up being the big money maker that DVD currently is, they may decide it's worth it to go through all that trouble.

Film restoration
Recreate the special effects (and improve them at the same time)
Re-edit back together
Create HD master

Much more complicated than simply creating a new HD transfer (which is impossible) but still not THAT big a deal. Depending on how it was composited, it might even be possible to frame it in 16x9 and still look natural.

Likely? No.

Possible? Anything is possible.

I'd buy it if they did it and it came out well. With the extra storage capacity the could most likely get more episodes on each disk too.

Josh-da-man

TNG was shot on film, but it was edited on videotape so that limits the picture quality.

In order to get better transfers, they would have to go back to the original elements and re-edit all of the episodes back together, re-do special effects -- yadda yadda yadda -- it will never happen even if they still have the original film, and if it's still in usable shape, I don't see Paramount sinking that much cash into it.

DrOBoogie1

Seems unlikely these will be updated with the technology as we now understand it. Perhaps there will be some resolution advances in the next several years that would allow easier transference. In any event, I'm content with the DVD releases we have already. I think the show looks great, and has never sounded better.

Chew

I don't mean to steal the topic away from the OP, but I do have a TNG DVD question and rather than start a new thread.........

I've been rewatching the complete series on DVD and am about half-way through season 7. For some reason, I checked TVTome and read the notes under "All Good Things..."

Check this:

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet...37/epid-19164/

So, naturally, I was very excited about getting a half-hour of new (to me) TNG material in the finale. I popped in the last disc from season 7 and checked the runtime: 92 minutes.

Does this 120+ minute edition exist somewhere? I never bought the VHS tapes and can't find any other mention of this extended version.

Has anyone else heard about this?

ZackR

"All Good Things" did originally air in '94 as a "2-hour" movie, though I do not remember how long it actually was. It had the "Old Q" scene and several others that were missing from subsequent airings. I taped it when it first aired in 1994, but the tape recently was thrown away after I got the Season 7 DVD set. I have not gotten up to Season 7 yet (still working on Season 3), but if the DVD has the shortened version of "All Good Things," then I will be very upset. I have only ever really "All Good Things" from my VHS tape, and if the DVD has those scenes missing, I will not be happy. I have seen it syndication and it has always been missing several scenes I had on my tape. The DVD BETTER have those scenes!!! Thanks for the heads up. I will check as soon as I get home!!

DrOBoogie1

This just isn't true. I've seen the AGT VHS come and go and it never included the above. No "extended movie version" was ever released, and no edition of the finale was ever included as part of the movie series.

There may be deleted scenes from this episode and others, but they have not yet seen the light of day. The above is wrong.

Josh-da-man

I sort of remember the scene in question with the elderly Q. I don't know if I actually saw it in the episode, or just a still from a magazine.

As far as I know, "All Good Things" has only existed in two forms. When it was originally broadcast, it was run as a two-hour episode, and then, for subsequent airings (and syndication), it was broken down into a two-part episode.

When Paramount does this, they generally have to drop a scene or two in order in order to cut the episode into two parts.

Josh-da-man

Okay, did a little looking, and there were indeed three different versions of "All Good Things."

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet...137/epid-19164

According to this page at TVTome, the S7 DVD set includes the extended (longest) version of "All Good Things."

Fok

Hopefully all these sets go down in price, then I'll start buying them.

Chew

Yeah, that's the exact link I posted to start this whole tangent.

The only problem is: it's the only place that says it. I'm looking to find where this "2 hour version" appears, because it's not on the DVD.

Mike Lowrey

Well, you must take into account that when sources say "2-hour version" what they really mean is that it was aired in a continuous 2-hour block, instead of being split into two parts to air different days. As Josh-da-man said, when this happens, they usually have to leave out a scene or a few frames to get the two parts to fit in a normal television hour.

Chew

I understand your "2 hour block", but let's go back to the original paragraph from TVTome here. They state "three" versions exist:

1) The originally transmitted two-part (45 mins each) version, which was later released onto VHS.
2) A movie version, tying both parts together (88 mins approx), which was released as part of the movie series.
3) An extended movie version, with all the deleted scenes incorporated (over 2 hours).

Based on these descriptions, it sure seems to me they are not talking about a "two hour" block with number 3 here. If they were talking about the version on the DVD boxset, why not be consistent with number 1 and number 2 by saying 93 minutes approx? Because that's how long the version on my DVD is.

Or am I just crazy and reading into this too much?



On the other hand, don't answer that last bit.

ThatGuamGuy

No, that's wrong. It originally aired as the "movie version". Subsequent airings were the two-part version, possibly with minor cuts to make room for additional credits sequences, "Last time on...", and possibly even more commercials.

Some people in this thread (and at TV tome?) are alleging that the original movie version, as aired, incorporated those deleted scenes. To chime in my two cents, I'm pretty sure they're wrong, because I still have my original tape of that episode, which is the only way I've watched it, and I have no memory of the "old Q" scene. However, I don't have it to refer to and am far from certain, so I wouldn't argue that point myself.

Also, let's just look at it logically; does anybody actually think that they accidentally filmed forty extra minutes of the final episode? It wouldn't happen. I can see filming ten or fifteen extra minutes, either just for cutting purposes or even by mistake, but to accidentally film enough to make it jump from 88 minutes to over two hours? No way. The "over two hours" thing *must* have meant with commercials.

Let's just say, Chew, that searching for consistency on the Internet, even within one block of text like that, is often a fool's quest.

Now a question: where is this "movie series" which is supposed to have 'All Good Things...' in it?

Chew

That I can agree with.