Trek News - TNG Remastered Like TOS

[News Bot]

TNG May Be Remastered Like TOS
     

CBS team working on the original series for HD may tackle the second generation of Star Trek next.
     

http://www.trektoday.com/news/290707_02.shtml
     

[Geekyfanboy]

Rumor: CBS Moving Forward With Star Trek: TNG In HD Project? May 9, 2011
by Anthony Pascale

The remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD is something that has been talked about ever since CBS gave the original Star Trek series the HD treatment in 2006. Now a new rumor has surfaced that CBS is moving forward on the project. Details below.

Rumor: TNG in HD project moving forward?

The latest news of Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD comes from our friend Bill Hunt at Digital Bits, who has a "Rumor Mill" post which cites sources "hinting that TNG Remastered IS moving forward." According to the report this remastered TNG would first show on Netflix in the fall (in addition to their TNG SD offering) and possibly on EPIX as well. TrekMovie recently reported that Netflix had confirmed that all seven seasons of TNG will begin streaming in July in standard definition, with only the Star Trek original series and Enterprise available in HD.

Digital Bits report also states:

We believe a high-definition film scan of The Next Generation is very likely in the cards for the entire series run, along with the requisite digitally-upgraded effects. Of course, in addition to syndication and streaming, the end result of all this might be a Next Generation: Remastered Blu-ray release down the line.

TrekMovie has not yet been able to confirm this report, however we have previously reported that CBS has been considering a remastered TNG project for years. We first reported on this from Comic Con 2007 when CBS revealed they had done tests on an "upresed" version of TNG. And last Summer CBS's VP of Consumer Products John Van Citters told TrekMovie confirmed that there were still conversations going on at CBS about TNG-R, but he noted that, at the time, there was no specific plan or budget for the project. It is worth noting that it took CBS two years to remaster all three seasons of original Star Trek, so if a project has started using similar techniques, it is hard to imagine it could deliver all seven seasons of TNG in HD by the fall of this year. 

Last summer Van Citter stated that there were significant technical issues that made remastering TNG in HD more problematic than remastering the original Star Trek series. One of the main issues is that the special effects for TNG were done in video, and redoing all the effects would be much more expensive than with the TOS Remastered project. Mike Okuda, who was one of the producers for 2006-2008 project to remastered the original Star Trek series, once told TrekMovie a particularly problematic issue is with the USS Enterprise D bridge screen. Unlike the original series, characters often stood or walked in front of the screen and so to swap out new digital effects, they would have to manually rotoscope out all the moving actors. However, last summer CBS' Van Citers also noted that he was "optimistic" CBS would eventually figure out how to deliver Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD.

Shot from  pilot "Encounter at Farpoint" shows how live action and effects shots are more often intertwined in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" – making it harder to remaster in HD

If the DigitalBits rumor is true, then it could be that CBS has resolved the technical (and financial) issues for TNG-R. TrekMovie asked CBS to respond to this report, but we were told  they have no comment on rumors. We are also awaiting a response from Netflix, but a source at EPIX cast doubt on their being involved as they currently don't have a deal with CBS and only show movies (not TV shows).

TrekMovie will keep an eye on this potentially very exciting project.

[Rico]

Wow - a blast from the past thread with good old News Bot!  Thanks for posting this update Kenny.  Hopefully someday they will be able to make this happen.

[Dangelus]

Awesome! Please let this be true! :)

[turtlesrock]

please please please not be a late april fools joke from our friends at CBS!

[Dangelus]

They're a TV network, they don't have a sense of humour! ;)

[turtlesrock]

true, true ;D

[Jobydrone]

I thought Kenny was our news bot!

[stonut]

TNG on HD Blu Ray would be so sweet. All my fingers and all my toes crossed. Now we just need a netflix uk to open and we will be able to add things, like all the podcasts seem to.

[Rico]

Looks like this will probably be happening.  Reports out of Comic Con indicate CBS is doing a test set of episodes for a possible Blu-Ray release for TNG for 2012.  Woo-hoo!

http://trekmovie.com/2011/07/26/report-tng-on-blu-ray-coming-in-2012/

[ChrisMC]

Damn you Paramount! BluRay collections are expensive! I'm all over this, the TOS episodes look so great in HD. I know that TNG will be much more challenging to do, will be interesting to see how it turns out, new effects and all.

[Rico]

It pretty close to official, but it seems we have the names of the first four episodes coming out on hidef. Blu-Ray for TNG.  I wish two of them were "The Best of Both Worlds", but these will do fine.  I'm sure we will get them all at some point.

The Digital Bits site reported back in July that sources at Comic Con had confirmed CBS were working on a high-definition transfer for The Next Generation and that 4 'test episodes' were being worked on with the aim of releasing a 'sampler blu ray' sometime in 2011.

On September 2, LeVar Burton, TNG's Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge, tweeted that he had stopped by CBS Paramount Television City to 'see how the TNG conversion to HD for Blue Ray was coming along...' and followed up his tweet with the hashtag #mindblown.

Now, the Digital Bits has confirmed through sources at CBS Paramount which episodes will be featured on the blu-ray sampler disc:
'The disc will include FOUR episodes, two of which will include Encounter at Farpoint, Parts 1 and 2. We're told that the other two should be The Inner Light and Sins of the Father...'

more here:
http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/

[billybob476]

Well if there's any episode that needs some effects work, it's be Farpoint!

Can they fix Troi's acting too? Pain...PAIN!!

[Roddenberry]

Well if there's any episode that needs some effects work, it's be Farpoint!

Can they fix Troi's acting too? Pain...PAIN!!

I'd rather listen to Troi saying "Pain...PAIN!!" on a loop, for 45 minutes, than ever have to watch the 'Casino Royale' episode ever again.

[Dangelus]

Well if there's any episode that needs some effects work, it's be Farpoint!

Can they fix Troi's acting too? Pain...PAIN!!

Yes they're fixing that by re-dubbing her saying "No....NOOOOOO!!!!". ;)