http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/ Engadget HD Comments for Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 HD DVD review roundup http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
After seeing "The Menagerie" at the theater I have changed my mind. They showed how the episodes were restored. A lot of the original negatives were in bad shape. The touch up work needed to replace the lost information from scratches and defects must have taken a lot of time, and a lot of it was done manually.

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http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=26455]]>Nov 19th 2007 2:51PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
Star Trek isn't my thing but I like how they released this on a combo and didn't release it on DVD. They need to advertise it well to avoid any confusion.]]>Nov 19th 2007 2:46PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
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And what he said was that he was initially underwhelmed, but that the set deserved a better review as soon as he can make the time.

The review links above say some fo the exact same thing Bill HUNT said: It was visually impressive most of the time, but not all of the time.]]>Nov 19th 2007 3:29PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 19th 2007 3:42PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
That's like saying "(insert favorite supermodel here) looks perfect, but I wonder what she'd look like with a darker tan?"

He was operating from the premise that additional bitrate would improve the transfer - but forgets that it's impossible to improve on perfection.]]>Nov 19th 2007 3:47PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 19th 2007 3:51PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
There's still a feel to the original special effects that places the series squarely in the late 1960s -- and there is NOTHING wrong with that. Of course, there's a peculiar charm to Scotty burning through a wall with his phaser but without the beam. :)

This set would have been far more appealing if Paramount offered the original versions and newer modifications via seamless branching, even if the originals were direct ports from the previous DVD release. Yes, I know, that would have been a problem with the HD DVD version, but it still would have been nice to preserve the unaltered content without the need to purchase the previous, "non-Special Edition" DVD releases.

Oh, well. I'm still probably going to buy it, and I'll probably be wowed by the modified scenes. But I'm still a bit disappointed by the whole "screw the past, bring on the CGI" thing.]]>Nov 19th 2007 4:00PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
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NFinity, I didn't see where Hunt called you an idiot, or said that you were taking money to support HDVD, so I guess you've decided to change your rules already?

Fact of the mater is that all Hunt said was "I was expecting to be blown away by remastered TOS on disc, and at times I was. But I was also expecting the quality to be significantly improved from the high-def broadcasts, given how much better the video bit rates should be on disc, and I wasn't so much. I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason why that would be - because it shouldn't be - other than that the video may have been compressed a little too much to fit these episodes on to the HD-30 portion of the combo discs."

Now if speculating that a limit in quality, is due to a limit of the format makes him an idiot, and saying that the format has no limits becasue it only cost you $99 makes you something more than that, then I'm just missing something. The fact of the mater is that hdvd has less capacity than BD, and collections like this, where you want to fit more per disc is where it's likely to show up. I'm surprised they didn't utilize all the space and bandwidth, limited as it may be, as best they could and just use more discs.

Also, you forget to mention what idiots the people at DVD Review, IGN and HighDef Disc news are, since they all gave it 8 of 10, 8.5 of 10 and 3.5 of 5 stars for video quality. If you want, I'll ignore the PS3 Center review, since they must be on the Blu-Ray payrol (although they did give the video better rating), but in any event, they must be idiots so we'll trust you on that one.

Aside from that, at over $200 list (or about $140 at a discounter) and all the work they did on it, I too would have expected better than broadcast quality. ]]>Nov 20th 2007 2:01AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 20th 2007 2:07AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
Use Coupon Code "PRICEGRABBER" to get the 20% discount.

Coupon code expires this Sunday (11/25).]]>Nov 20th 2007 12:05PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
ROFL!!! Paranoia! Love it! :D

I hope not all HD-DVD fans sit down in their basements with tin foil wrapped snuggly around their heads? Nfinity obviously does because EVERYONE seems to be on Sony's payroll one way or another!!!]]>Nov 20th 2007 5:45AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
From what I'm reading, the remaking of Star Trek takes away some of the charm of the old 60s show. I saw it all the first time it was aired. It was great stuff back then! But I guess not I'm stuck with recording the HD broadcasts on my TiVO, moving it to my Mac and burning it to a Blu-ray disc when I get a burner. Not as good as the real thing, but I'll have it.]]>Nov 20th 2007 10:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 20th 2007 11:50AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 20th 2007 3:31PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/Nov 20th 2007 3:41PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
You're trying to defend a man who says the exact same thing on EVERY HD DVD review; "It could have been better if it had more capacity...higher bitrate". I'm not leading a campaign against the man, but let's not pretend he's being objective in his reviews.

From the sum of all the reviews thus far, this release is of high quality. As my wife is a TOS fan (knows episodes by the first 30 seconds)and this includes both SD and HD, this is a likely Christmas gift.

I hope season 2 has the same quality. ]]>Nov 20th 2007 10:31PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
Some have complained the new effects look cheesy. Well, I can't see how that's any different from the original effects. The ship never moved realistically before, now at least you won't be seeing through it half the time, you know? I grew up with the original series back in the day - I'm a vintage fan, born far before any Next Generation stuff and this doesn't offend me at all. At least their hearts are in the right place. They aren't changing story content. I saw The Menagerie on the big screen - the restoration is impressive and clearly expensive.

I'm counting my blessings and I'm thankful Star Trek is the first show to be given the HD treatment. Speaking of HD, my understanding about Next Generation is that it was actually shot on film, but all the episodes were edited on video - so the negatives would have to be reconstructed and new effects shots made for every episode before any HD mastering could be done - a colossal chore by any measurement - as all the originally edited elements are in SD - while the source material is still uncut without any HD-resolution effects. ]]>Nov 20th 2007 11:13PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/19/star-trek-the-original-series-season-1-hd-dvd-review-roundup/
They should've just restored/fixed the original film and not re-do the effects. Are they also going to fix the bell-bottom and mini-skirt uniforms? I don't think so.
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On disc #1 when playing the "Charlie X" episode it gets to a specific point (about at minute 34) and the sound goes off, the picture is distorted and does not play properly for about 2 minutes.

We returned the first set and received another new set today. The second set had the same defect at the exact same spot.

I would return it for another new set, but am afraid that it is a manufacturing defect on all of them.
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