HDTV Frank

[HighPlainsDrifter]

I finally broke down and bought a HDTV. Last night I put in the Pilot for Millennium and I was blown away!!!!! Wow, I am impressed. I am thinking of going Blueray DVD. I wonder if the Millennium series is on Blueray?

[ethsnafu]

Hi Joe,

I was reading a topic on the subject of Millennium on DVD over at the Blu-ray.com forums and the conclusion was that it was highly unlikely that Millennium would make it to that format. Apparently it takes a lot of work, and therefore money, to ready a TV show from that era suitable for a Blu-ray transfer and given Fox's hesitancy to release Millennium on DVD it's unlikely to risk the investment on a Blu-ray release. Bear in mind that cost or upscaling an entire season of the show could land the boxed sets in the $250 region then Fox is unlikely to ever consider Millennium as a candidate for such a release sadly.

Eth

[The Old Man]

I have to say that Millennium looks great up-scaled by my DVD player to my TV. Well worth a few quid to replace your ageing DVD Player/Recorder for an up-scaling model in my book.

[ethsnafu]

I wish I could remember (or even understand) what I read over at the forum. The discussion was pointing out the difficulties faced when shows are filmed on video as opposed to film there was all sorts of technical jargon to support this but I couldn't quite follow it. If they are shot on film it is a relatively easy task to ready them for Blu-ray but if they are shot on video then not so much. Apparently both the X-Files and Millennium were shot on video. The article mentioned that the original Star Trek series was shot on film which is why it has since seen a Blu-Ray release.

Eth

[SadEyes]

An old topic, I know, but I recently read a very interesting article (it's in german, sorry) about why so many tv shows of the 90's aren't released on Blu-ray or at least in an HD format.

As you might know, most of the tv shows from the 90's were shot on film, not on video. The original film negatives could be transfered to HD, that's possible and has happened already, for example THE X-FILES being released on Blu-ray, since the film negative has an HD resolution. But here is the thing: Even popular shows like all the STAR TREK shows from the 90's were shot on film, but were transfered to video afterwards, because it was easier to deal with in post-production. Of course nobody thought about HDTV in the 90's, yet alone UHD. The video format has just an SD resolution, no HD possible. So in order to release a show like STAR TREK VOYAGER on Blu-ray you would have to hunt down the original film negatives, if they still exist that is, restore them, clean them up and do it again for every single episode.

The next issue are the special effects. By the mid-90's most special effects were done with CGI. These effects were of course only produced and rendered in the 4:3 SD format, since this was the tv standard back then. When Paramount produced the Blu-ray set for STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION they re-created every special effect shown in the episodes, simply to get it to the HD format. A lot of effort and a lot of money were put in this project, but the sales were disappointing.

Quote

“Ultimately, the final result of all the effort put into the restoration [of THE NEXT GENERATION] and the newly-created special features were ultimately disappointing. The disc sales didn’t match projections and continued to suffer as more and more people turned to streaming, where Star Trek was already widely available. Sure, the newly-remastered episodes of TNG have quietly replaced the original versions, but nowadays, very few people even notice, as they expect HD to look great.”
– Robert Meyer Burnett

Robert Meyer Burnett also said that an HD remaster of STAR TREK VOYAGER would mean four years of work, with costs around 20 million dollars. So this won't happen anytime soon, especially after the disappointing sales of THE NEXT GENERATION.

The article also mentions BABYLON 5. The show was also shot on film in the 16:9 format, but the effects were also just produced for the 4:3 SD format. When they released the show in the 16:9 format, they couldn't re-create the effects, because the original effect datas got lost over the years. So they simply zoomed into the picture every time there was an effect shot, which resulted in blurred images.

Which leads us back to MillenniuM. The show was also shot on film, even in the 16:9 format, including season one. You can see some scenes from the first season in the 16:9 format in seasons 2 and 3. The reason why it isn't out on Blu-ray yet might simply be that no one at 20th Century Fox thinks that it's worth the effort to go back to all the original film negatives, restore them, re-create all the effect shots and setting up all the used fonts again. They did it with THE X-FILES, as you can clearly see that all the headlines and fonts in the credits look slightly different from the old versions. And the effects look smoother than they did in the old material. They put the effort into THE X-FILES, because it is still a popular show. But I'm not even sure that the sales of the Blu-ray set did perform that well either. So unfortunately there is a big chance that we will never see MillenniuM in HD.

 

[Walkabout]

thanks for the info .  had no idea it was that complicated .  I know they have spent millions saving classic movies found deteriorating in film vaults , many my faves and Academy award winners .    

[Earthnut]

Yes, it is very complicated.  Now that 20th Century Fox is owned by Disney, we don't have a clue what's going to happen next, and doubt if they care how we feel anyway.  As I stated in another forum, Disney might come out with an animated MLM, and of course it would be in HD.   Oh joy.

[The Old Man]

Alex makes some great points there. I think based on the comments about ST:TNG with its much larger international fan base, MM has little chance of HD Blu-Ray release, let alone 4K. I'd love to be wrong, perhaps if there was a larger potential buy and rent streaming market, but everyone in the industry is going to know about the failure from a business perspective of a large multi season series like TNG. I want like to believe writers are in it for the stories, the characters and the audience, but big studio execs are certainly business people, with thousands of international shareholders to placate.

TNG was great when it maturedand the cast and crew became a family (just like Riker matured when he grew that beard, but let us quickly forget the awful cheesy pilot), I'd also love to see Voyager in HD and DS9's stunning battle scenes and excellent Dominion War story arc played out in HD. Honestly, in the 90's, I could never imagine a time when new Star Trek would be gone from mainstream television. The new reboot movies by comparison are just overglorified, quickly forgotten, big budget effects blockbuster style movies, they're just awful, disposable films with no soul, or character, that betray everything we held dear. Grrr.

Once more, I digress. 

Millennium movies, Blu Ray, 4K, they're nice to think about as pipe dreams but in all reality, they're almost guaranteed never going to happen. I'd much rather hope and hold out for unrealistic HD and 4K releases than risk an under-budgeted TV movie, that's got the potential to detract from MM and what we hold most dear about the series, as much as it has potential to enhance the series.

The MM DVDs look quite crisp upscaled to 1080p HD but I've not seen them upscaled to 4K. I do have a 4K main PC monitor now so I must try it sometime, but they may appear grainy upscaled that much.

[Earthnut]

2 hours ago, The Old Man said:

Alex makes some great points there. I think based on the comments about ST:TNG with its much larger international fan base, MM has little chance of HD Blu-Ray release, let alone 4K. I'd love to be wrong, perhaps if there was a larger potential buy and rent streaming market, but everyone in the industry is going to know about the failure from a business perspective of a large multi season series like TNG. I want like to believe writers are in it for the stories, the characters and the audience, but big studio execs are certainly business people, with thousands of international shareholders to placate.

TNG was great when it maturedand the cast and crew became a family (just like Riker matured when he grew that beard, but let us quickly forget the awful cheesy pilot), I'd also love to see Voyager in HD and DS9's stunning battle scenes and excellent Dominion War story arc played out in HD. Honestly, in the 90's, I could never imagine a time when new Star Trek would be gone from mainstream television. The new reboot movies by comparison are just overglorified, quickly forgotten, big budget effects blockbuster style movies, they're just awful, disposable films with no soul, or character, that betray everything we held dear. Grrr.

Once more, I digress. 

Millennium movies, Blu Ray, 4K, they're nice to think about as pipe dreams but in all reality, they're almost guaranteed never going to happen. I'd much rather hope and hold out for unrealistic HD and 4K releases than risk an under-budgeted TV movie, that's got the potential to detract from MM and what we hold most dear about the series, as much as it has potential to enhance the series.

The MM DVDs look quite crisp upscaled to 1080p HD but I've not seen them upscaled to 4K. I do have a 4K main PC monitor now so I must try it sometime, but they may appear grainy upscaled that much.

Trust me, some of us are just thankful just to have a DVD copy of the series.  I proudly say I have two, one set is divided into the 3 season, the original, and the other set is combined in a box set.

[voidprime]

On 8/21/2018 at 5:13 AM, SadEyes said:

Which leads us back to MillenniuM. The show was also shot on film, even in the 16:9 format, including season one. You can see some scenes from the first season in the 16:9 format in seasons 2 and 3. The reason why it isn't out on Blu-ray yet might simply be that no one at 20th Century Fox thinks that it's worth the effort to go back to all the original film negatives, restore them, re-create all the effect shots and setting up all the used fonts again. They did it with THE X-FILES, as you can clearly see that all the headlines and fonts in the credits look slightly different from the old versions. And the effects look smoother than they did in the old material. They put the effort into THE X-FILES, because it is still a popular show. But I'm not even sure that the sales of the Blu-ray set did perform that well either. So unfortunately there is a big chance that we will never see MillenniuM in HD.

 

The only way Millennium would come to blu-ray if Disney licenses it out to another company to release it on blu-ray and Disney will probably be looking for ways to get returns on the $52 billion they spent to acquire 20th Century Fox, FX, FXM, FXX, 30 percent stake in Hulu which adds to the 30% that Disney have which makes Disney major shareholder in Hulu.  Hopefully it is a label like Shout Factory or Kino Lorber (and not Mill Creek Entertainment) because you might extras for the show like a retrospective featurette or two and maybe the FOX TV spots

Edited January 30, 2019 by voidprime