Thank you 🖖
Special mention to the picard maneuver and stamets. ❤️
I was going to summon you but of course you're already on top of it. I swear you're like 1/2 of all posts and comments
Every breath you take And every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take I'll be watching you -- The Picard Maneuver probably
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I'm starting to consider watching it because it's about half of what I see here lol
Edit : I am enjoying TOS so far, not very far in though.
If you do decide to take the plunge, much of trek has been remastered, TNG (the series that came after Shatner’s Kirk in the Original Series) for example was redone and got a Blu-ray release.
Unfortunately this hasn’t been done for others like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which came after TNG’s run. So the community stepped in to fill this need.
I’ve gone thru many AI remasters and they have gotten better and better. Utr/Joybell used to be the best for DS9 until somewhat recently, but they have all been a little rough around the edges.
Enter DS9, Redefined; this project in my opinion is many steps above in terms of quality. The person running that project has finished a remaster for all of DS9 and is currently working on Voyager (almost done with s1 I think). If you click that link, you can check out some of the footage and screenshots they provide (shown with a slider so you can easily compare source with remake)
Join their discord, and go to the #instructions channel, there is an ftp server for all completed episodes; you don’t need to run the workflows yourself on the source eps yourself
Enjoy old trek in a more clear and vibrant experience, the first time :)
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Unfortunately this hasn’t been done for others like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, which came after TNG’s run.
The reason for that, by the way, is that while TNG was shot on film (from which more detail could be extracted using new technology), DS9 and Voyager were at least partially mastered directly on videotape (especially the CGI effects) and thus there was no higher-quality source to pull from to begin with.
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Yeah, there's a real doughnut-hole in the '90s-2000s between when stuff was old enough to be remastered and stuff was new enough to be digital/HD to begin with. Also, I double-checked, and according to this article what I wrote before wasn't entirely accurate: apparently the raw footage is on film, but the cut and edited product only exists on video. In theory, they could go back to the raw film and re-do the entire editing process, but it would be cost-prohibitive compared to how much consumer interest in an HD remaster they expect there to be.
There's a really good Technology Connections video on the topic, by the way.
Finally, I'm not sure if "VHS" is strictly accurate. There are other varieties of videotape that might have been used.
Yeah no way they would eat that kind of cost for not much value overall. The fans would love it but no way they make their money back.
Thanks for the neat info tho!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
a really good Technology Connections video
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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Have you compared it to other upscales? there is a 720p from icecracked that looks excellent and to my knowledge even beats redefined by a noticeable margin.
That looks pretty good at first. I am a huge DS9 fan. But upon closer examination with those sliders, it looks like it's just brighter. That's it. Am I wrong?
It does look minimal and honestly the source files weren’t that bad. It’s just an attempt to upscale the image so it looks better on bigger screens. If you look at previous AI up scales and such there are lots of artifacts and things like that and this project is the cleanest I’d seen, but also things like stars and other small details are more clear or newly visible also
I like to watch trek on my big tv and the original source files are frustrating in that regard, so for you it may not be the same value and doesn’t make sense to replace an existing collection but for newer watchers may as well start at an improved version
But bottom line, it is more than that. Here is the workflow to see exactly what is being done: https://discord.com/channels/774116592409378816/774119166931894272/1066138918128468060
It's a fun series! The fandom has been going strong for nearly 60 years at this point.
If you have literally no experience at all, I'd pick and choose some great standalone episodes to get started with.
Some ideas: TOS: Balance of terror/Space seed. TNG: Drumhead/Darmok. DS9: The House of Quark/Trials and tribulations (harder to find good standalone episodes as so many of the best are part of the main plot. VOY: Eye of the Needle/The Void.
The 2 parter DS9 and voyager opening episodes are both also pretty good places to start.
I started with the Voyager pilot, it's so great. It sets up an incredible premise that is so much more compelling than "we are explorers", at least in my opinion. The whole series has an arc that is integral to every episode in a way that truly doesn't get old.
I mean... I started with that, my best friend in my first year of high school showed me the first few seasons, and then I pretty much didn't watch more until now, mumble years later, when I decided to go through the whole of Voyager. It's genuinely a very good show. There's some stuff in there that I'll put down to TV restrictions - low budget and tight schedules mean you can't close every plot hole - but it's got a lot of heart. It shows people being mature and dealing with their problems, and just openly saying how much they care about each other on a regular basis, which I love.
Just like... be aware that there are things that haven't aged well. The three biggest I can think of are:
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Chakotay's character being played by a non-indigenous person and the indigenous consultant actually being a fraud, which leads to some extremely awkward pastiches of indigenous culture.
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Kes being "born sexy yesterday".
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The generally exploitative way women are dressed and treated in the whole show. Kes is put in a catsuit, then soon after replaced with 7 of 9 in a catsuit. Plus in general they'll just shove women in bikinis on screen at their first chance, or even when no chance presented itself at all. For a show that does a lot of openly-feminist stuff with its female captain that insists on being called "captain" over "sir" or "ma'am" and who generally kicks butt, it has a lot of sexism that seems even more dated than the 90s era it was made in.
Even so, amazing show.
The Next Generation and then Deep Space 9. You could start with the Original series but it's not necessary to understand the events of the TNG/Voyager/DS9 era of time.
TNG has some absolutely awful episodes in the beginning and the first two seasons aren't really considered very good by most, but once they find their footing it's pretty consistent with only the rare complete miss. Deep Space 9 is a really good one though, I passed it up for years because it didn't take place on a starship but that only allowed for a completely different style of storytelling with recurring characters and interwoven plot lines.
The easy way to start is with TNG. And you can skip the bad episodes. Especially in the first two seasons. It takes until the third season to really find its fitting.
Right at the beginning. Chronological. Don't skip anything, even the shit episodes
If you can't stomache the old stuff, any of the new trek series are pretty darn good to be honest. I'm especially fond of Strange New Worlds. It captures the adventure of the week style well, just like the old series.
Honestly yes, even if im not into it and thend to ignore those posts i still feel good at the fact that they are having fun and are active on lemmy.
However it would be nice if we could get more fandoms into lemmy, since it has become easyer to use, but i would argue it is still a hard sell due to the fame lemmy its been getting as a tankie shithole even if those are just some instances and not the whole platform.
Part of the reason I started posting a lot was because I wanted there to be more content for people like me, who just want to enjoy some of their favorite fandoms/interests and chuckle at memes without feeling like they're drowning in aggressive political takes everywhere.
Star Trek is one of my favorite things, and I love the community that has gotten going here.
It wouldn't be a tankie shithole if it started being filled with non-tankies. 🤷🏻♂️
The Monkeys Paw curls a finger and sends a mass of regular ol' Nazis to join up
Come on, man. If you're going to use inclined rocks and talk about Star Trek, at least use the right inclined rocks...
I don't care about the show (and let's now shame others for their interests) but the lemmy instance https://startrek.website/ keeps making top quality posts.
Well that's funny, I'm typing this from the newly installed Connect app, since on Liftoff I couldn't find an easy way to block an entire community.
Yeah, I changed the app I use just to finally get rid of Star Trek stuff from my feed.