Star Trek TNG Seasons Remastered on Blu-Ray - Page 24

It's been a while since I visited this thread... Only 689 posts? COME ON

Maxwell, I think you mixed up TV trasmitted/ TV safe with academy aperture. A double-system show that doesn't deliver to film has no reason to use an academy aperture. Also, Super35, 3perf etc. pertain to widescreen shows and were not prevalent at the time ST:TNG was shot. Panavision has a long history of supplying cameras for 4:3 TV shows and it would be untypical oversight to use the wrong gate or ground glass.

So how was TNG originally shot? Truth is, there's a myriad of frame formats for film, and some of them (like Super35) aren't even industry standards and have slight differences between camera vendors. It's also worth noting that Paramount had its own version of Super35 with a common top instead of centered. (see this Panavision document of current common GG formats.) The gate determines the exposed image area, and the ground glass guides the DP in composing the shot. This is why on film shows we shoot a framing chart, where we basically trace the ground glass. It's the only exact way for post-production to know the DP's intent.

(More information from IATSE 600, Hollywood's cinematographers union, on film framing.)

Also keep in mind that things might have changed between seasons and DP's. Full frame, academy, TV safe, hard matte, soft matte, who knows. Maybe inconsistencies were the reason CBS stuck to the common known clean frame of 4:3.

I was (over)thinking all this until I realized I have a bit of actual film from TNG. Here's a rough scan:



Thanks to Curt McAloney from StarTrekHistory.com, who pointed out Paramount released some film clips of TNG dupes. Look for them on eBay.

From this film clip it's obvious they used 4-perf full aperture, as expected. Now I have no idea which episode this is from (the package only says "On the Bridge of the USS Enterprise-D), but if you could find it in video it could give a decent reference of what was shot and what was delivered.

PS: for all the 'beta' references: ST:TNG was never mastered on Betacam (and predated DigiBeta). It was mastered on 1" Type C and later on D-1.

Nice post, thanks

Really? Are you sure about that?

I would like the Blu-rays to be 1.66 but.... no evidence is pointing towards it at the moment.

Here is the frame from the DVD:



And here it is outlined (approximate) on the image you posted (thank you by the way!):



Looks like a full app (Super-35) exposure with a "TV Transmitted Area" extraction for broadcast.

So is it possible we could get the full frame for the BD? Or are the BD's most definitely going to be the TV extraction area even though everything is re-scanned?

If they're going to do 1.33:1, they'll give us the "TV Transmitted Area." Here's an example from the film scan:



For syndication or other types of digital distribution like Netflix, they may do a 16x9 extraction:



Or, they could do about a 1.63:1 aspect ratio, which would preserve the intended vertical framing:



Here's what a bad 16x9 crop of the "TV Transmitted Area" would look like:

Are you certain? Or are you guessing? Just curious as to why that is the case for certain, since we have examples like SW The Phantom Menace which has more picture info on the BD compared to the DVD even though they are the same aspect ratio. I know that's a film and this is TV (albiet film), but...

By the way out of all those comparisons I think the 1.63:1 looks the best!! And the 16x9 crop of the TV 1.33 - thats shocking!

Looks great to me!

Thanks for your post.

Not certain. Let's call it an "educated guess."

That's the way it was framed in-camera by the directors, DPs and camera operators from '87-'94, that's the way it was edited, broadcast, put on DVD, etc. The press release said that, "CBS is going back to the original uncut film negative - all 25,000 plus film reels of it - and cutting the episodes together exactly the way they originally aired."

There's a slight chance they might give us "Academy Aperture." But that is 1.37:1. It's in-between those two red rectangles.

The other thing that only people who look at all the frames of film know... is how much "bad stuff" is outside that TV safe area?

Boom mikes, set issues, any number of unwanted things could exist outside the TV safe area since they would never have intended to show outside their frame... so IF there is a lot of that, then it creates a problem with opening up to show more from the film.

So, even if we all might would be fine with 1.67:1 or something in between that and 1.33:1... its entirely possible that looking at the actual film would reveal that you'd have a LOT more work to do to try and get rid of unwanted things... and that would add to the budget of cleaning up this thing for HD transfers.

IF they stick to the TV safe area, then they know they are safe.

16x9 crop from full frame looks a bit unbalanced with all that black space on the left. Doubt this was the intended composition. As was pointed earlier, even if you can change the AR it doesn't mean you want to do it.
Anyway Maxwell, I guess I brought forth the proof that I was wrong It's just that the extraction pattern doesn't match any ground glass I've seen, so I don't know if there was any widescreen consideration when this was shot. (My guess: no.)

Yeh true but if they did go to the work of removing unwanted crap (if there is any), and released it as 1.66 or 1.78, then they would have another selling point for the Blu-ray - 'more picture'.

I know a lot of us Blu-ray enthusiasts enjoy watching 1.33:1 content on Blu-ray of older stuff but the general public probably thinks 1.33:1 is a bit old-hat these days - and in this case I do tend to agree. Besides the way I see it, watching 1.33:1 films is one thing - since it's only 2 hours of time, but watching 7 seasons of a show in 1.33:1 in the year 2012+ when you're paying a massive premium for it, well yer.....

I don't have anything against the 1.33 presentation of this show... its just I wouldn't mind something new in that regard that's all. But if CBS have indeed chosen not to do that well fair enough they probably have their reasons.

Yeah, there's no way. They just left it un-matted in camera per the usual practice -- the extra area is just ignored. Since the standard 35mm Panavision camera has the lens mounted off-center relative to the film frame, all their careful compositions would be undone.

For instance, a shot like this:



Becomes this (simulated in Photoshop):




Really? Isn't it just Panavision's standard 4:3 TV area? I used their published specs to create this image:



You can see it here on this page (marked "1.33:1 35mm TV transmitted area")

http://www.paul.thurston.net/film_formats.htm

Sigh. Look how these stupid OAR complainers are ruining this format for the majority of us. It looks like the proper versions of these episodes are only going to be released on crappy low bitrate services and the cropped versions are going to be put on Blu-ray.

You just can't win.

That's the thing - people here are obsessed with....

Original Intent

Which is fair enough - I totally agree with original intent with everything except maybe this whole thing with TNG - since TV from the 80s/90s is a very grey area in this regard. If they were to release DS9 or Voyager the same for those as well.

For example I always avoid Blu-rays that are open matte 1.78 when they should be 2.35:1 - unless it's director approved or initiated (ie. Avatar). But what's funny is that even in cases like that I don't really trust the director sometimes - for example with Narnia Voyage of the Dawn Treader - the Blu-ray is 1.78 (directors choice by the way!!), yet the framing is pretty terrible compared to the 2.35:1 trailer - and the Blu-ray is pretty lame in other regards too - even the trailer has better colours and contrast versus the BD. The Blu-ray is an inferior experience in my opinion to the theatrical run which was 2.35:1 AND had 7.1 audio too - Fox was too lazy to put the 7.1 on the Blu-ray as well.

So if people are arguing that 1.33:1 TNG is the absolute best presentation possible (TV Transmitted area).. well I'm not so sure...

In this case, the "cropped version" is actually the intended version. It's how TV was filmed back in 1987. See my above post.

So I'm just curious... if they are indeed releasing these as 1.33:1 TV broadcast area, would the people at CBS had to manually crop down the original film they have scanned afterwards? Since the original film has the full frame as opposed to the 'safe' TV area?

Yep. The trailer CBS digital did implied that they were doing a 35mm Full Aperture scan... probably at 2k or 4k... so they'd have to crop it down to the smaller 1.33:1 area.

No big deal, I'm just glad you posted that image!

By the way, if you have some more free time one of these days, I think all of us would love to see a 4096×3112 full ap scan of your film sample... with the clear areas masked off to eliminate the optical flaring from the scanner's light source.

It would still be a lower source than the negative and it would still have all the dirt and scratches, but this wait is killing me.

Right ok. That's what's making me think there's still a chance there might somehow be more picture in the end result on the Blu-rays - if they save themselves the effort of cropping

Hope that boom mics, sound stage ceiling girders, etc are consistent with your vision of the 24th century... Also, it might be therapuetic if your head naturally tilts to the left as you'll be tilting it to the right constantly as the focus will typically be right of center.

Now that would be funny if they released it like that

Star Trek TNG - the Unseen Experience

Oh crap I think I've been watching too many Lost Blu-rays

Any film transfer requires cropping at some point, it's just part of the process of calibrating the telecine/scanner. Or you can add the sprocket holes to your widescreen edition.

Here's one. It's for an Arri BL, but shouldn't be much different from Panavision's ground glasses:



Here it is on top of your film scan. Pretty close to what was telecined, I think.
The DVD shows a little more on the bottom relative to the "TV" area on the ground glass.

Hopefully 4K

I think it will be very interesting to see how the PQ of these are. There is probably the potential there for it to look fabulous - like TOS.

I think one of the biggest problems in arguments like this comes from the masses not really understanding or being told how technology works.

I wager most consumers don't even look at the aspect ratios on the movies they buy. Sure, we all do... but I suspect most consumers just pick things up and buy them without looking... then they watch what they get.

Then factor in the lazy salespeople who just tell people that HD = 16x9... and then a lot of people run with that... instead of really understanding what that oversimplified statement means.

As has been discussed in this thread... 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 theatrical films are shot on the same size/shape film as a 1.33:1 movie is... it's just that during the shooting, the director makes sure he frames his shot for the inevitable crop to the "viewing safe" area he has decided to use for his end-product.

We don't usually hear people arguing that a 2.35:1 theatrical movie should be released as a 1.67:1 full-exposure of the whole negative just to show "all the lost information"... but frankly, that's just as valid an argument as that going on in this thread asking for Star Trek to be opened up to show more.

So, the argument is honestly (as others have pointed out already) less about director's vision or wanting to see "more"... but people wanting to fill their specific TV screen ratio.

We fought the battle to get widescreen movies on 4:3 TVs... and now are fighting the opposite battle to keep 4:3 shows on widescreen TVs. The irony should not be lost on anyone.

That's why OAR is really the only consistent argument and position to take. OAR will be OAR and will always be what was intended regardless of how TV sizes/shapes might change.

The only exception, to me, is when you find out that a 4:3 broadcast show was actually shot/framed to protect 16x9 because they wanted to show it that way but couldn't given the time it aired... and so now they can show what they always intended. In those cases, I'm fine with going away from OAR because you know they planned it from the start to show more than they could in the past.

Just for informative purposes, the film cell in the posts above looks like its from "Encounter at Farpoint", shortly after Riker completes the manual docking of the saucer section. If I'm right, that moment is where Picard says, "I'm not a family man Riker, but Starfleet has given me command of a ship with children aboard."

In most cases I would agree with you, but I can see it from the other side in this case. Star trek TNG was made in a time when most people didnt have very large displays. That effected how the creators framed a certain scene. Since they knowed that an closeup had to be a closeup so the people with their 28 inch displays could actually see the details like the actors eyes or eye color.

Now when we have 32 inch as a minimum standard and 50 inch as fairly common size, they could frame to movie a little different. They can even preserve the OAR, but for my taste they could actually open it up a bit if we take the posted frame as an example. The DVD framing isnt made for todays HDTV standard.

Seeing that film-cell and what I could be in store for has whipped me into a Fanboy Frenzy!!!!!

DrewL and Maxwell, thanks for those posts. Even though the studio says they will release them on Blu-ray as they originally aired (1.33), it's good to know that folks that want a new updated version (1.66) may get what they want, albeit another format perhaps. Let's face it, if they are restoring all that film at 4K and redoing all the special effects, it probably won't be too challenging or too much extra work to remove a boom mic here and there outside the original framing. After all, we know they tried to sell Barrett Burnett on the 16:9 version, so they obviously believe they could do it.

I want OAR for certain, but I would also like to see a couple episodes opened up before I pass judgement on 16:9. Probably won't get the option, but whatever, just give me my HD TREK!

Story time:
Some family friends of mine made the switch to HDTV last year (they're about 65 years old) and jumped in all the way: Blu-ray, 7.1 surround, and a 63" 1080p Samsung ToC PDP and even paid for professional calibration in their home. They spent about $5,000 when all was said and done.

Two days later they called me up all upset because the movies they bought (2.35) still had black bars on the top and bottom. "Why doesn't it fill the screen?" They were ready to return EVERYTHING. I tried explaining how movies are filmed and what different aspect ratios mean... all fell on deaf ears. The wife said she was going to just stick to her fullscreen DVDs on her old CRT TV.

The only reason they didn't return any of it is because they found the "aspect" button on the TV remote. So now they can stretch and zoom their perfect collection of Blu-rays to their hearts content.

I can't be sure, but I think they bought the Patton Blur-ry and love it. Point is, sometimes perfectly intelligent and otherwise thoughtful, awesome people just don't give a sh*t about aspect ratios.