Except for VOY and DS9, since some studio refuses to do a proper HD/4K release.
There’s a (pretty good) reason for that: TOS and TNG were mastered on film, which means they can get more resolution by rescanning it with better technology, but VOY and DS9 were mastered directly on videotape. There’s no HD/4K release of those series because high-resolution data never existed in the first place.
My understanding is that if there’s a master in proper film/celluloid, it’s possible to upscale and variably clean up. Whereas, if it was recorded strictly on VHS tape, there’s not a lot to be done quality-wise that won’t butcher it.
AI upscaling does a really good job with things recorded on video tape. I’ve been very impressed lately.
Obviously, the AI is putting data that wasn’t originally there into the image, but the approximation is good enough that you pretty much don’t notice.
Check out, if you can, what Peter Jackson did with WWI footage for the documentary he made. It’s really amazing. Not video tape, but a similar missing data and low quality problem.
I watched that WW1 documentary.
Honestly, I liked that they slowed down the footage (and still don’t understand why that’s not always done when playing old video recorded with a lower frame rate), but the upscaling still looked fake and artificial. I’d rather have film grain out the Wazoo than that.
There’s a (pretty good) reason for that: TOS and TNG were mastered on film, which means they can get more resolution by rescanning it with better technology, but VOY and DS9 were mastered directly on videotape. There’s no HD/4K release of those series because high-resolution data never existed in the first place.
Proper film can be upscaled to the wazoo, but tapes as we saw with Doctor Who, just won’t cut it.
So if the original recordings still existed on film, you’d be able to do it, if you redid the mastering using said film?
My understanding is that if there’s a master in proper film/celluloid, it’s possible to upscale and variably clean up. Whereas, if it was recorded strictly on VHS tape, there’s not a lot to be done quality-wise that won’t butcher it.
AI upscaling does a really good job with things recorded on video tape. I’ve been very impressed lately.
Obviously, the AI is putting data that wasn’t originally there into the image, but the approximation is good enough that you pretty much don’t notice.
Check out, if you can, what Peter Jackson did with WWI footage for the documentary he made. It’s really amazing. Not video tape, but a similar missing data and low quality problem.
I watched that WW1 documentary.
Honestly, I liked that they slowed down the footage (and still don’t understand why that’s not always done when playing old video recorded with a lower frame rate), but the upscaling still looked fake and artificial. I’d rather have film grain out the Wazoo than that.
In this particular case, we’re talking about CG special effects footage being the only thing that needs to be upscaled. It’s artificial to begin with.
They do. But the VFX/CGI do not.
Surprisingly, much of the original CGI source does exist. And the models were overdeveloped and thus basically usable as-is.
But it’s still a lot of painstaking, manual work.
It’s a money problem, not a technical one.
Good to know, that this is only a money problem, so it might be done in the future.