What an AWFUL idea. That gets a big NO SALE from me. That's not remastering at all, that is tampering. GL would be proud -rolleyes-

To me the value of putting these on HD would be more episodes (and xtras) per disc, and a better overall presentation...NOT trying to make them into HD when they weren't created that way in the first place.

Welcome to last year. The changes have been ongoing and airing on late night TV for quite some time now. You should be able to find a thread on the subject over in TV Talk without too much effort.

Saying they weren't created in HD is debatable. They certainly were never aired in HD of course. But they were shot on film which is much better than HD. So the argument could be made that they actually were created in HD. But it's just in recent times that the average consumer had the technology to view them at home in anything better than SD.

And I would add: unlike the "tampering" with the original trilogy that Lucas did, the updates to TOS have been as faithful to the original as possible. The FX crew even had arguments about accurate star maps.

People concerned about this should really seek out a weekend showing (if available to them) and watch a few episodes before complaining sight unseen.

It's honestly not that big a deal to me, but it would have been nice if they included the original effects as an option. It's the librarian/archivist in me.

A bad idea is a bad idea, doesn't matter to me if it was discussed last year or not.

Well 'HD' was the reason given for the poor idea of redoing the FX, it's not my argument it's theirs.

As far as watching any of these butchered eps, for free or otherwise, no thanks. I don''t have to taste dog crap to know I wouldn't want to eat it ;)

I agree 100% with this.
The combo would have been the perfect vehicle to provide one, definitve set, with the unaltered shows in 480i, the way they were 'meant' to be viewed(as per porieux), and the new cgi additions in HD, the way they were meant to be seen.

It would also allow those of us who already owned the unaltered eps in single discs or sets, to sell them off to subsidize the purchase of this new one, while still having access to the material.
Now if I ever want to see the unaltered shows for any reason, I need to keep twice as many sets, and take up twice as much shelf space doing it.

I think Parmaount botched this whole enterprise (pardon the pun) up on several levels- price being just one.

What a singularly closed-minded point of view. You certainly don't have to watch the new versions and the old versions are readily available. And you can keep a small screen 480i TV around so that you can view them as they were meant to be seen; you certainly wouldn't want to view these old TV shows upscaled on a large HD screen because they weren't meant to be seen that way.

However, Paramount was looking ahead: big screen HD displays are becoming the norm. And the special effects of TOS were not up to the standards of today's displays; they look like "dog crap", to borrow your inelegant analogy. So they went to great trouble and expense to update the effects of TOS in the hope that they could continue to get some more mileage out of what turned out to be cult favorite TV series. I don't have a problem with that; the originals are still available for the purists.

While I don't see it happening, I'd like to see the effects of Babylon 5 redone so that that series could be released in HD or, at least, a better SD version. But the popularity of that series is tiny compared to Star Trek: TOS so it isn't likely to be cost effective for Warner Bros. Nevertheless, some fans of B5 hope for a better looking release someday.

I agree with your post, but FWIW, I doubt we'll ever see an "upgraded" version of B5, but not because B5 had a smaller fan base.

According to JMS, they had intended to upgrade the effects of B5 for eventual DVD release. Unfortunately, the digital files used in the earlier seasons were unintentionally destroyed and it would be, not just too expensive, but impossible to recreate them. My understanding is that it wasn't just the CGI alone, but a lot of FX composite pieces such as green screen shots with actors (some now deceased), who can't come back all these years later and reshoot.

I don't see why it's impossible to recreate them. They've already recreated a lot of the CGI models for the upcoming "Babylon 5: Lost Tales".
http://www.cinemablend.com/dvdnews/B...Fans-5354.html
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_...?story_id=3971
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_...?story_id=4102

It depends on if the original film elements still exist, or if at least the live action part of the composites exist in HD.

I don't see this being a problem provided they edited the mattes/green screens, etc. on film. Though they probably didn't. In that case, all you've got to work with is 480i video masters. Or you go back and recreate all effects with CGI.

So, without turning this into a format war kind of thing, does anyone think the time until this gets released on BD will be much help to HD-DVD?

Personally, I never was a Star Trek fan, so even if I didn't already have an HD-DVD player, it wouldn't be a big deal for me. But I know it might be for some people, just like the Close Encounters announcement piqued my interest in Blu-ray a bit more.

I must say, while I disagree with some of Paramount's moves with this one, they MIGHT come out of this with some big bucks by making this a combo release, potentially bringing some people who don't have an HD player to the stores.

But of course, with that high pricetag, it also could blow up right in there faces.

I guess anything that might bring some more people to the next-generation formats can't be THAT bad.

Wonder when the BD announcement will come ...

I'm expecting it to blow up in their faces.
the reaction I'm seeing on ST boards is almost entirely negative. Not enthusiastic, or uncommited, merely entirely dismissive.

Paramount has to remember that the overwhleming bulk of the material on these sets has been owned and purchased time and again by its base.

My understanding (at the time) was that it was considered too expensive to totally recreate from scratch every CGI element for the first 2 to 3 seasons. That factor might be different today.

However, there are green screen elements (not finished composite scenes), some done with now deceased actors, which were shot on video (not film) for digital FX compositing. These elements exist only in the video quality of the time and can't be made to match the higher quality CGI of today. The CGI could be downgraded to match the actor footage, but it would not be a significant improvement over what already exists. So why bother going to the trouble and expense?

Or at least that's my understanding of what JMS said at a convention sometime ago.

While you may well be correct, my sense is that these new versions of TOS were intended to interest a new generation of viewers, as opposed to the rabid fans of decades past. TOS has been a valuable syndication property for Paramount over the last 40 years. But as we enter the High Def world the old series just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Hence the remastered HD version with redone effects.

Even if the discs don't sell well, the expense of the new effects and HD remastering will be recovered through the continued syndication of the series on HD cable, satellite and broadcast HDTV. Dismissive fans notwithstanding, it seems like a reasonable business decision for Paramount, IMHO.

I agree that re-creating the effects from scratch for Babylon 5 may be prohibitively expensive. However, you wrote that it would be "not just too expensive, but impossible to recreate them." It was the "impossible" part of that statement that I challenged.

Forgive me, but that doesn't make sense. Everything I've read says that all the live action footage for Babylon 5 was shot on film, and that the CGI and compositing was done in NTSC with the understanding that they could go back and re-do them later in HDTV. I doesn't make sense for them to shoot green-screen live action on video in a resolution that was lower than what they expected the show would be reworked into in the future.

Sorry for not being more clear, but my use of impossible referred to shots with deceased actors who, obvisously, could not come back to shoot replacement footage.

You're right and, again, I'm sorry for any misunderstanding. I've been going from memory, paraphrasing the reasons JMS gave as to why the existing video quality of early B5 on DVD is the way it is, and why it would not see any improvement.

In the middle of replying, I paused to do a little research and found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

Scroll down to the DVD releases section to where it says "Mastering problems." It gives a simple explaination of what happened and basicly rehashes what I've heard JMS say, excepting any reference to deceased actors and the unlikelyhood of B5 being released with improved CGI.

With modern technology, nothing is completely impossible. If they really wanted to, the studio could manipulate other existing footage of the deceased actors and CGI it to what they want.

The problem with Babylon 5 is that the process would be prohibitively expensive, and the show doesn't have a large enough fan base to justify the money required (unlike Star Trek, which does).

I was just reading over at digitalbits that the obnoxious $217 price tag was the butt of many jokes during a recent 40th Anniversary panel.

Apparently, out of the 500 uber-Trek fans in attendence, only three said they would spend that kind of cash on the set. :lol:

<b>Four</b>, counting me.:D

You are making a straw man argument. There is nothing wrong with watching classic, unaltered, non-tampered with TOS episodes on a widescreen TV. That is not 'tampering'....but redoing the FX shots is. That's inarguable, whether you think it is a good thing, a bad thing, or indifferent.

it's inarguable if the sole value of the property at this point is as an historic artifact. I agree that any release of a classic property that has been given a 21st century cgi makeover, MUST include the original content as well.
Even though I don't think these two cases are nearly the same, after all the shit the Lucas has endured, any other studio is out of their minds to not pay heed to the original work. If nothing else, it has nostalgic value.

That said, I don't have nearly as big a problem with this project. Especially when so many of the effects were origially concieved as merely establishing shots.
The ship is in orbit; the ship is in deep space; the ship encounters another ship, etc.. The life blood of the material is still in the character interaction and the philosophical conflicts that are usually explored independent of extravegant special effects sequences.
And, besides that, from what I've seen they have been respectfully done in many cases keeping the same familiar compositions, and have shown enormous restraint overall. What was previously a matte painting seen for 5 seconds hasn't suddenly become a 30 second cgi sequence of rapid camera movements.
I don;t think lines of dialogue or activity have been cut to make room for more seconds of CGI fly bys.
Almost none of what I've seen even feels like 80s film era Trek. It just plays like the 60s material done on a far, far greater budget.

I would love to own the set...even if it meant having to have another seperate set for the unmolested versions.
But the price is the sticking point- all the moreso because you need two seperate sets to have the full experience/appreciation of the show.

Another point is that the SD sets aren't being taken out of print. If you'd like the series in HD, buy this. If you want it in SD, it's already available.

not to beat a dead horse but what a joke digitalbits is now...All within three paragraphs: "but if the Trek HD-DVD news was something of a mixed bag, there was a MAJOR Blu-ray Disc announcement from Sony that came as a bit of a surprise"....."someone in the audience finally asked them directly about Blu-ray Disc during the Q&A session that followed and, interestingly, there was a smattering of cheers and applause from the audience when the question was raised"..."It's hard to deny that the fact that Spielberg would chose (or at least allow) Blu-ray to be the format of his first high-definition release is not insignificant in this format war".....

How are even staunch Blu-Ray supporters not a little embarrassed of what Bill Hunt is doing over there? I'm a fan of films and as a result a supporter of both formats but digitalbits really needs to leave that mentality among the ankle-biters...it's grows tiresome just being mildly cognizant of it.

Sure the MSRP may be high, but how many retailers really sell it at that price on release date? Amazon will most likely be offering it for no more than $152 (30% off MSRP) which is still respectable for one season on HD DVD combo discs.

Me too one day. When the BD comes out and there's a price drop.

:)