Since remastered versions of DS9 and VOY aren’t happening any time soon, I think the next best thing should be a SD-BD release, kinda like how Discotek Media are doing with some old anime titles
The advantages :
- Better video quality, since higher bitrate
- Better audio quality compared to DVDs
- More episodes per disc
What would you think about such a release?
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Higher bitrate isn’t going to magically get you higher video/audio quality. There’s a point of diminishing returns. You just get a larger file size. For SD, anything more than about 2.5 Mbits is visually indistinguishable.
Yeah, DVD can handle better than what’s on the existing discs. If better quality were viable and noticeable with the copies they’re working with it probably would have been in the previous releases.
The ‘more episodes per disc’ thing is definitely true, though. A dual layer BD is 50GB. A dual layer DVD is 8.5GB. If the existing DS9 release fits a season and special features on seven DVDs, then if the discs are dual layer and completely full we’re looking at two dual layer BDs for that entire season. Potentially one BD, depending on how much free space is on the existing DVDs.
Hey, there was an article a little while ago about some fans who were using AI to upscale the old episodes. Either those fans or people like them succeeded in their task and you can find their work freely available if you know where to look.
I wish I knew where to look…
Nice try FBI
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Another advantage that I just thought about : Shelf consistency
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Here is a summary on why it probably won’t happen…
https://heavy.com/entertainment/star-trek/when-delay-release-ds9-voyager-bluray/
TL;DR TNG was filmed with actual film and converted to tape for vfx and broadcasting in SD. The conversation to blu-ray cost $10 million dollars as they had to redue all the special effects. Both DS9 and VOY were filmed the same way and no one at Paramount is interested in creating a physical remaster on blu-ray for limited sales it seems.
Op is taking about a standard definition release on blue ray, not the full upscale job the article is talking about. An SD re-release onto a larger medium is probably the best we can expect to get, but I’m doubtful even that will happen when looking at studios behavior
Good point, but two of his suggestions for the reason why talked about the quality. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, not sure on audio quality. To my ears DVD audio is already in the realm of diminishing returns unless the mastering was done very poorly. No clue if they were doing 5.1 or any sort of multi channel on the DVD releases either.
The better quality because of more room for higher bitrate makes sense assuming they still have the final cuts pre-dvd-compression laying around. This could get you some crisper, less artifacty output.
But this is also just speculation on my part. I’ve never checked out one of these sd-bluray-re-releases myself.
They might be more interested if the TNG remastered sales were better. The pricing scheme on them was absurd and drove off potential customers, though. IIRC, waiting for the complete series set was actually more expensive than buying the seasons one by one as they came out.
There is an AI upscaled 7k Voyager…but I can’t talk about it here.
