Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD (part2)

TNG was in no way composed for 16:9. VFX shots are obviously not a problem but live-action probably wouldn't suit 16:9 terribly well most of the time. It is true that you can expand the frame to ~15:9 without cropping in some/most circumstances but even then, the frame would be off-centre (since there's more space on one side than the other) and there's no guarantee there wouldn't be equipment and crew members in shot.

I'm sure a 16:9 version will be seen on TV though so I guess we'll see how well it turns out.

 

Puts me to sleep!

 

Regardless of how good TNG might look in 16:9, that statement makes no sense.

 

I understand the premise of the statement, if it were true (which it isn't) that TNG was shot in widescreen, then a 4:3 cropping of it would be the same as a pan-and-scan...

A correct hypothetical that has nothing to do with the facts...

 

Except it wouldn't be. The comparison would be a movie shot "open" and then matted down for theatrical release. A video transfer of the full frame (which some people would probably call P&S, even though it really wouldn't be) would contain *more* information than what was seen in theatres, but it wouldn't be considered the OAR. That isn't to say it would necessarily look bad (although it could in some cases), but historically most movie buffs would still prefer the version with OAR.

 

Didn't say it was shot widescreen, but that it was composed for... not the same thing.

The way it was shot allowed for any kind of framing, either 4/3 for then 4/3 TVs, or wider for foreign movie presentations when it happened. This was the case of most TV shows made on film then.

The actual extraction they make available on Blu-ray is a 4/3 from within a wider 4/3 exposed piece of film. It's cropped. Plain and simple, and it looks bad expecially as some shots or complete episodes are sometime zoomed in worse than originally.

They make the new SFX in 15/9 format. It's pretty much clear they already know that this current release is just there to satisfy the core audience who are adept of 4/3, and that the future will in in widescreen with more left and right image and better framing.

As for OAR, there's no OAR on old 4/3 TV shows. OAR is when you intend a ratio in an environment where you can freely choose how the picture will be displayed in controlled conditions. That was never the case on TV in the 4/3 era. There was the dictatorship of 4/3 over any intent, and the framing would vary from TV set to TV set.

 

Colin, your Picard facepalm is in widescreen...

 

Scott Wheeler who worked on the show had stated it was 4:3 and he should know. For me, I have always know it to be 4:3 and I would never think otherwise. It has always been 4:3 and 4:3 it is.

 

TNG was framed, filmed, and designed for 4:3 presentation - let it go. 4:3 is the only correct presentation for this show on BluRay and it bears absolultely no comparison to settling for Pan and Scan versions of widescreen in the VHS days - none at all.

 

But it does...

What you get in a zoomboxed extraction from inside a larger frame with constant air top and bottom. It's not a good representation, and 4/3 is akin to those horrible Pan & Scan days.

Plus there is all kind of shows from the same era released in widescreen now, including many TV shows previously thought to have been framed for 4/3, all with expanded sides and less air top and bottom making them look much better framed.

To issue this in 4/3 when everything else is changed (music remixed, SFX remade) is short changing the core audience, not wanting to educate them into why 16/9 would be better.

Not that it matters, since I'm guaranteeing you this will be re-released in glorious widescreen with expanded details within a decade, when everybody will have already bought the cropped 4/3 versions.

 

You guys are missing one huge point that Seventeen is making. Yes they are panning and scanning the image to "Make" a 4x3 image of what was originally a larger image. Not nearly like VHS obviously, but they are tinkering a decent bit with the size of the framing and the image area. That much is A fact.

I think what he is trying to say, is that STTNG is a bit unique as in its 4x3 image is NOT the entire image of what was filmed back in the day. The 4x3 "Crop" we saw originally broadcast, and on the new Blu rays, is truly a "crop" of a larger image and while not obviously "Intended" to be a true 16x9 show, it has almost just enough extra image area that something beyond true 4x3, but not exactly quite 16x9 could easily be framed up and still most of the time look acceptable.

Just the fact that they are indeed doing a 16x9 "crop" for TV broadcast at least hints it cant look horrible.

Neither will it be exactly what we saw broadcast back in the day either.

BUT>......

What we saw back in the day, was a bit of a compromise also. There is no "Definitive" framing for this show, and comparing the Blu Ray footage against supposedly definitive DVD releases, and the broadcast image, will show there is a decent amount of leeway between the three.

Is it 16x9 safe......NO

Could it look decent in 16x9, Maybe more so than some of us are thinking.

Is there a Crop in 4x3 that is definitive?....Ive seen about 3 croppings, with various amounts of information if one really cares to see the difference.


Does the difference matter all that much? It depends, but obviously the producers of the show were kinda okay with different framings comparing the Blu Ray and the original DVD release.

I dont think they are nearly as "Set" on one exact framing as some of the forum members seem to think they were.


There are quite a few mild to very noticable framing differences between the supposed Broadcast version and the final Blu Ray image and so far most have not noticed these changes, or in fact have said they didnt care very much.

I get the feeling that changing the "aspect ratio" is a big deal, but changing the actual 4x3 Crop isnt?

 

I think it's all about "Remembrance of Things Past", in french, we say "Madeleine de Proust".

This how audiences discovered and were attached to TV shows, in 4/3 format, (the horrible 1.33:1 TV to boot, not the 1.37:1 much better movie format that was prominent until 1953). So that's how they want to revisit them.

They are ready to accept a 5.1 remix, new SFX, however, changing the framing is not acceptable, and OAR is invocated.

However, there's no OAR on old TV shows, there never was. As Kevin says, those shows had their framing altered over the years and the different video transferts, without anyone noticing, often revealed things not supposed to be seen top and bottom (mikes, camera wheels, cameramen feets etc.).

Unlike movies, TV shows were not shot with a precise intented framing that was 1.33. They were shot to look good on the typical overscanned TV set, and the framing would vary from TV to TV, plus... the square image was ALWAYS extracted from the wider exposed frame.

Now why do you think they exposed wider frame, not seen on TV then? The answer is flexibility of adaptation, be it then movie releases (MAN FROM UNCLE for example) on foreign market, of the that TV technology was always evolving (color was coming, sets evolved over the years etc), and that the shows were then adaptable, giving them life beyond their years.

Transfering them on 15/9 is, to contrary, the only way to preserve the original vertical "intent".


So that's why you get V the mini series in widescreen now, why you get early 90's to final episodes of Columbo in widescreen, why Wiseguy is in Widescreen, why most shows from the 90's had two masters made, one in 4/3 and one in widescreen, and why old UK TV shows like The Prisoner, The Avengers, The Persuaders are clearly all framed with an intended 15/9 common top.

Alas they are now released on video in 4/3 totally misframed / cropped on the sides, revealing all those end of sets top and bottom which were never intended to be seen. But of course, it doesn't matter, because "it's in the original format".

I might add, I did a few supervision of collections, and / or transferts for series over the years (including all the A&E The Avengers release from 1998 on), and today that 4/3 TV is gone, I would transfert them as I indicate on this 16/9 vs 4/3 demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNf7f44pAb4

 

So, there's no OAR for old movies either, and there never was, because they had their framing altered over the years and the different video transferts, without anyone noticing, often revealed things not supposed to be seen top and bottom (mikes, camera wheels, cameramen feets etc.)?

 

Correction: virtually all new TV projects in the United States are done in 16:9 (1.78). No one cares about bizarre, non-standard aspect ratios like 15:9 or 14:9.

Actually, there is. On many production days, film crews would shoot a framing chart so that the telecine operator would frame the film correctly for dailies. That way, the DP, director, and editor would be assured that the image they see on their TV screens precisely matched what was seen in the camera viewfinders during filming. We went to extreme lengths to make sure framing was correct on all the shows we did prior to digital capture.

Here's an example of a 16x9 framing chart (actually, 1.85, which fractionally smaller):



In the case of TV shows done prior to 3-perf and HD -- which TNG certainly was -- everything was standard Academy 1.33, 100% of the time. The first time I ever even heard of 16x9 was when we worked on the pilot of Friends for Warner Bros. in May of 1994. Over the next 3-4 years, every American film TV show gradually made the transition to 16x9, generally using Super 35mm 3-perf or Super 16mm, both of which were natively very close to 1.78.

But all the shows prior to that were strictly 4-perf 35mm 1.33. Anything that changes this is a compromise.

 

I'd love to see this show in 16:9 -- I can appreciate the case Vidiot and others are making, but I'm all about seeing things in a different light.

 

Marc,
I know you know what you are talking about, but I think Seventeen is merely saying that while yes, STTNG was indeed 4x3, there seems to be ( maybe mostly with this particular show) no "exact" crop that is seen as definitive. Yes we all realize it is 4x3 and im sure he agrees also, but the 4x3 crop that they pulled from the original negative, varies a noticable amount, if one compares scenes from the original broadcast VS, the DVD< VS the Blu ray.

I realize its not a super huge amount, but I feel that perhaps they were not as set on an exact cropping so much, but as long as it was something in 4x3.

I know 15x9 or 16x9, may be pushing the size of the image area a bit, but some quick comparisons, depending on the various croppings they "have used" over the years, reveals they were not dead set on one particular image "Size" so much, but as long as it was in 4x3.


We might both be off base a bit, some of the examples ive seen of how it was originally on DVD and broadcast, seem to use A noticably smaller image area, as compared to Blu ray.

That cropping is the one that "could in theory" be more easily made into a compromised 16x9 image.

Not saying 16x9 is right per se, but they seemed to originally use an even smaller amount of the negative, but today on the blu ray are varying the cropping to suit their needs, or are not able to dupicate or dont want to duplicate the somewhat zoomed in look of the original broadcast.

 

Ouch. Just because 1.66:1 is out of fashion, it's not "bizarre", is it?

According to my knowledge
A) It's an aspect ratio designed / engineered by Paramount Pictures
B) It was the "wide-screen" aspect ratio envisioned back in 1987 for the American approach to the future HDTV ("5:3")
C) It's the aspect ratio ILM's VFX for TNG were shot in (according to these screenshots at Comic Con)
C) It has been used (on DVD) for a variety of Walt Disney animated films
D) It's the aspect ratio chosen for the Ten Forward footage from "Menage a Troi" (DP Robert Legato) that was reused in the ENTERPRISE episode "These Are the Voyages" (before some idiot decided to stretch the 1.66:1 image to fill the 1.78:1 aspect ratio of a 16:9 screen).

I just can't help myself to look at these coincidences (that's bizzare, isn't it?) and wonder if Academy Award winner Robert Legato could shed some light on this issue (given his experience as VFX supervisor during Season One and as later TNG DP).

 

As I see it, that's what we had on DVD (and LD and VHS) equals the original master that was sent to the broadcasters including the extra outer areas ("unseen on television" according to Robert Legato in Cinfex # 37) that the overscan of our old 4:3 tube TV sets trimmed away (somewhere between action safe and title safe).

Originally, only people with no-overscan professional monitors saw the full 4:3 picture ("TV transmitted area"), while the audiences only watched what happened in the action safe area, which is OAR in my opinion (as the DPs relied on the overscan of our TV sets to cover the carpet piece near Data in "Encounter at Farpoint", the overhead microphone boom in Engineering in "Where No One Has Gone Before" etc.).

The old SD masters also occasionally reveal additional masking, which is noticable at the image sides in "Farpoint" (e.g. to hide a panel on the Battle Bridge next to O'Brian which I think is 23rd Century stuff, however).

For the BD release they seem to have decided to go for the same 4:3 image area as the DVD release. HD screens with overscan will crop the image at the top and bottom (you might get 1.50:1), HD screens with 1:1 pixel mapping will reveal 1.33:1 - and all the crap at the top and bottom the DPs didn't want you to see in the first place.

 

That is absolutely true. When I was training new colorists, I always told them that they were better off erring on the side of showing a little too much, rather than cutting off a little area. Depending on the size of the specific camera aperture plate used, we might have another 1/2" or so on all four sides of the picture (on a standard 20" SD monitor in the old days). 4x3 only defines aspect ratio -- not the actual amount of image that winds up in the transfer.

The trick is, what we usually do in a new HD transfer is, we grab the original SD transfer, convert it to a file, then load it into the computer to use for a side-by-side A/B comparison on a timeline. At any moment, we can look at the brand-new image or the 20 or 25-year-old transfer on the same monitor. We know exactly how big or how small the original transfer was, and what the relative color and brightness looked like.

My philosophy was to always, always show more image area, simply because I know that crazy DVD and Blu-ray fans on the net will never complain if you show more area. But they'll always complain when you show less area. I have had losing arguments with certain stubborn colorists who insist that they should only show the official SMPTE alignment grid. (I know of a famous case where this happened, and it turned out the older transfer showed a little more... and the fans noticed and complained.)

When we have access to the original camera negative (OCN), there's typically another 1/8" on all four sides compared to an IP or low-contrast print. It's just a fraction, but if you're recomposing the image for 16x9 or another aspect ratio, it gives you more options.

Go back a few months on this thread and see what I have to say on the issue of "cutting off actors at the knees," which is typically what is done for HD 16x9 retransfers of 4x3 shows from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. From the mid-1990s on, there's a good chance that the shows were shot in 16x9, and that's how we were able to redo a show like That '70s Show in 16x9 without compromise. But the older Star Trek shows will have to be blown-up and repo'd for 16x9, hopefully with skill and taste. Seinfeld and Cheers are two shows that have already been done this way for HD syndication. Those are the versions of these shows that will live forever on broadcast TV -- not the original 4x3's.

 

That is the big question mark, isn't it? Unfortunately, those people like Mr. Meyer Burnett who were excited about the CBS test screening of TNG in 16:9 in the beginning seem to have converted to the faith of the One-Dot-Three-Three-To-One gospel.

Your "hopefully" suggests there are known cases of bad reformatting. According to your experience and 4:3 TV series that already had been reformatted into 16:9, do most people know how to properly do it with skill and taste or are those still a minority, instead?

 

It's really a non-issue. Do 'em 4:3. Most people will unfortunately stretch 'em out anyway!

Harry

 

But sadly that is something entirely different.

We are talking pretty much the only "One chance" we will ever have, at least in our lifetimes, of seeing one of our favorite shows in not only HD, but also in Widescreen, and its not merely a matter of stretching what is "there", but going beyond in that extra space the original negative allows, to show more scope or width.

Sure its not the original, sure it may somewhat compromise some close up shots for sure, but What we all saw originally broadcast, we were happy with, but at the time had no idea that there even might be more visual information on both sides.

By the way, most shows I wouldnt even care about this, but my love of STTNG, makes me want to "Know" how it would look.

It might not be perfect, but we will always have the "semi-original" framing of the 4x3 blu ray to see something pretty close to the original, but we might never get a chance again to see STTNG in some type of widescreen.

I think it should at least be given a chance.

Ive watched several "Seinfeld" episodes in HD and widescreen, and while at first my thoughts were that it would indeed be sacrilidge, now I actually do not enjoy seeing it in 4x3 and SD.

Even though the purist in me says the 4x3 is accurate and what we all saw all those years ago, I find much more enjoyment in seeing Seinfeld in wide

For all those that despise seeing STTNG in a pseudo widescreen, why are none demanding that they keep the exact same framing of the DVD's and the same colorations??

Guys, the blu rays look awesome so far from the sample set, but its "Quite different" looking than the DVD's for sure (( almost all in a better way of course)).

 

Most TVs won't let you stretch a 4:3 image that is already in a 16:9 frame (as 1080p HD is).

 

I got the season 1 set a couple of days ago. To be honest, I expected better picture quality, don't take me wrong, it looks fine, but I think (using another example of a TV series) season 1 of Space 1999 looks more film-like in my opinion, and picture is, again, in my opinion, sharper.

 

I'm having a lot of difficulty reading my discs 1, 3 & 4 inner hub IDs for my replacement discs.

Even with a magnifying glass.