I have heard that 24: Season 6 this year will be officially released on Blu-Ray as well as SD-DVD.

But that is a different question.
Star Trek has been issed on many different media and 4k Digitial is just another extension. I find the repackaging of todays offerings on more 'high-tech' media not only possible, but almost guaranteed.
We have gone from Reel to Reel video tape, VHS/Beta, Laserdisk, DVD, HD-DVD(BluRay). Upcoming are Holographic, 4K, 8k, 16k (I think you see the trend)
The question was kind of sarcastic. How much double (triple, quad, etc.) dipping are we going to tolerate. Even HD-DVD and BluRay are still not to the point of a large format film resolution. The display media will keep advancing regardless of broadcast resolution. But then, that's why we love this stuff.


(My point being, HD-DVD (or BluRay) releases of Star Trek will not be the last time they are released on a new media. They will be offered on BrainFlash media within 78 years, with TruImmersion 2085, and we will rebuy them.)

It might be repackaged in some new media form, but I don't see a resolution hike accompanying that media form any time soon.

The first five of those were all designed to work with the same resolution TV sets though, and the last two were designed around the most recent broadcast resolution standards. There's yet to be a media format that was higher resolution than broadcast standards allow, so I see it doubtful it happening in the near future.

I'd say, as long as the newer releases offer something the older releases can't. Even on DVD some films experienced double or triple releases, and people bought them.

That's highly debatable. So far, TV resolution hasn't exceeded that of what has been set as broadcast standards. Before the FCC set HDTV standards, no TVs above NTSC resolution was being produced for consumer sale in the US.

I find those deadlines much more likely than the "4k discs in 5 years" projection in your initial post on the subject. Heck, HDTV isn't even 2k, and NTSC's still a working broadcast format until 2009.

I'm not saying that a 4k home video format is never going to happen, just that it's a good way off in the future, much further than 5 years from now.

Criterion doesn't agree with you. From their page for their release of Robocop:

"RoboCop is presented in its director-approved aspect ratio of 1.66:1."
http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=23

Compare that to their description of nearly any other of their releases, like Seven Samurai:
"Seven Samurai is presented in its original aspect ratio...."
http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=2

If Criterion felt that 1.66:1 was Robocop's OAR, their description would've said so.

Other studios have done this too. I believe the DVD for Stephen King's IT mentions the aspect ratio has been changed, despite the DVD showing the director's preferred ratio, and what he claims he always "intended" the film to be seen in.

Many other people don't use "director's intent" to describe OAR: they use the aspect ratio it was originally displayed at. For example, when The Recruit was released on DVD, people complained that it wasn't in OAR, despite the DVD being in the "director's preferred" aspect ratio. In fact, a thread was created here entitled "The Recruit on DVD: no OAR"
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=283472

I feel that when one tries to define OAR as "how the director intended the film to be seen" instead of "how the film was originally shown," you take something that should be able to be objectively determined and make it something subjective and changeable.

Take Kubrick. Most of his films were originally shown theatrically in a widescreen aspect ratio, yet were opened up for home video under his wishes. Under your definition, his film's OARs changed when they went from theater to video, and may change again in the future when they "discover" he meant it only for 4:3 TVs. To me, it seems incredibly wishy-washy for something that claims to be the "original" version of something to be changeable like that.

You're reading way too much into the semantics of their phrasing.

RoboCop played simultaneously in America at 1.85:1 and Europe at 1.66:1. Which one of those is the "original" ratio? RoboCop has two "original" aspect ratios, so they went with the one the director approved.

It seems highly doubtful it was released simultaneously. IMDB lists the US release as being first, with European releases starting months later. It's doubtful it was even playing simultaneously as you claim.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/releaseinfo

Unfortunately for alot of shows done in the late 80's-90's (Buffy, X-files, Angel, (except S5 I believe), Trek TNG, DS9 etc...) these shows although shot on film were edited on (and all the FX done) on SD video. The masters for these are at 480i and on video, (although Buffy has PAL masters at 576 but AFAIK the FX were done at 480 and upscaled). Getting them up to HD quality would mean finding all the original FILM elements, rescanning them in HD, re-editing them and (in the cae of sci-fi-horror genre type shows) re-doing all the FX, (unless they really went on the cheap and simply upconverted the old FX shots, but the drop in PQ would be very noticeable) Not impossible but not easy either.... It's taking CBS-digital two years to do the new FX work for 3 seasons of the original TREK...