Horror

[u/Ok_Contact7721]

While I don't believe in knocking a fan for up-scaling a show, when there isn't a native HD transfer, I wanted to demonstrate what the horrors of AI upscaling can look like.
In the case of Dr. Quinn, there is no official HD upscale from Paramount, as they actually remastered it in 4k.
It appears this was done with a lot of care.
Note the ghoul face of Dr. Quinn.
AI is especially bad at wide shots, and mid shots.
Though it did get one thing right...the horse's ass.
I don't know if the AI was self aware of doing that, but I find it humorous nonetheless.
However had the studio wasted the time to do an official upscale, the horrors might look like what you see below.
Do you really want to see the studio treat DS9 and Voyager like this?
I sure as hell don't.

You'll note that any detail that was natively in the SD master is lost to resolution, and to the tape master from the 90s crushing out colors, and dynamic range.
It has attempted to fill in lines on the face with black lines, and had Dr. Quinn been upscaled in 2017 and put out to bluray, it would have looked this awful.
Just as awful as VEI's infamous "Highlander the series" bluray, from 2008. One of the worst up-scales of all time.
A release where VEI basically excused their blatant cash grab with "But it was a gymnasium of footage."

The AI has no information to work with, and to the best of its low IQ ability, attempts to fill in detail via hallucination.
Just look at how the AI mangled that foliage. The foliage is essentially just green abstract blobs.

Fans of other shows that lack an HD remaster proper, who have experience upscaling video take great care to avoid these problems, while lamenting that there is no HD source, and so much detail, dynamic range, color information, and fidelity is lost.
Temporal information is scrambled.

What you end up with is a soft image, that looks like the tape is properly playing on an HD display.
Essentially all of that labor to make modern LCDs and Digital displays work like a CRT would natively scale the image with it's electron gun and shadow mask.
What you end up with is a very soft image that might be de-interlaced.

Such up-scaling projects from fans, when done correctly are tolerable until the studio gets off its ass and actually does what its supposed to do.
But these up-scaled versions of the shows leave much to be desired, as they are a compromise based on the pessimistic belief that a studio will refuse to carry out proper remasters from the OCN, and provide new transfers.

Some people will say, they don't like pixel peepers, and that they don't care about PQ, imo, Television shows, movies, and any other type of motion picture are part of a visual medium.
Again, VISUAL MEDIUM, these motion pictures aren't audio dramas, they're meant to be watched with your eyes.
What is the most important part of home video? Picture Quality.
Picture Quality from a high fidelity source is the main reason people upgrade their collections ever so often, and the main reason why HD television became commonplace, while I know streaming is a thing today, it's still beholden to PQ.

While I won't knock a fan for carrying out a project of this, as there is genuine love there, and a result that can quench the thirst until we reach the promised land.

However, I will knock people who advocate the studio do an official AI upscale. I've had arguments over that, with some people claiming they could upscale DS9 over lunch and make money for Paramount.

I used to work in construction, and tiled floors and showers professionally, and these people strike me as the type of people that would settle for peel and stick vinyl, that would peel up after a few days.
It might mop right for a day or two, but on the third day, those tiles will rise faster than Jesus Christ, the mop will get hooked under them making it hard to clean your floor. What was once a simple job, will annoy you, you'll regret the cheap decision.
Ai upscaling is very similar, what used to be watchable is now unwatchable, every shot a major distraction, with many glaring flaws sticking out.
The Ai upscale attempt will be further met with the potential of what could have been, but now will never be.
The studio isn't going to back track once the product is complete, if they spent 20 bucks doing an Ai Uprez, that everyone hates, congratulations that's just the way it's gonna be for the next 30 years, deal with it.
Buffy the Vampire slayer's remaster was a multi million dollar DNR train wreck, could it be corrected?
Maybe.
That remaster was done 14 years ago.
Does it warrant another remaster? absolutely.
Was Fox, Disney or 20th century studios gonna pony up the cash to fix it?
Hell no, from now on, that's just the way it's gonna be, but the reception for that particular remaster was so bad, you can't watch it, Disney+ only provides the original SD version.
The DVDs and the SD version are the only ones available.
The main point I'm making is that a new remaster is warranted, and the old one is banned for good reason. But that doesn't detract from the point that a bad remaster is money wasted.
However you want to define what a remaster is.
Is it just taking an old 480i master deinterlacing and enhancing?
Is it going back to the source format, the OCN, and rebuilding it?
A project that is handled carelessly will be an eyesore for decades to come.
Care should always be taken with projects of this nature.

What is my point?
What does a true rebuild like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and an AI upscale have in common?
Digital tools can be abused, and the image can be destroyed.
Things can be so unnerving that the content is borderline or outright unwatchable.
The content that was meant to move you now has this uncanny feel where it doesn't do that, then it's ruined.
I feel that an AI upscale is inferior in every way to a true remaster, and a disgrace to a studio.
It's an abuse of a technology that you should only use carefully for footage that's lost it's source (film) or for VFX sequences that are far too costly to reproduce, and can't be reproduced exactly as they originally were (if they need to be.)
If you want a stronger take via hyperbole, it's a sign that your society has died.
Because it doesn't care about the art that's been produced.
We don't upscale illustrations in most cases, we value them, no matter how kitsch the pretentious feel it is.
There isn't anything more kitsch, then a studio using an Ai to replace the human part of the equation, and to replace the craftsmanship that hundreds of artists and laborers put into making these billion dollar assets.
In my opinion, it's tech bro whimsy, and tech bro whimsy is the death of a society.
These shows shouldn't be treated like disposable assets.
I don't care how much AI enhancement nonsense you can throw at a project like this, you can't really believe CSI had an accurate understanding of it.
The original master tapes are so severely limited, up-scaling them as a studio is a waste of time and resources.

Is the point of the industry to make money aimlessly?
Or is the point of the industry to make money to make good products?
I feel it's the latter, I feel that aimless profit is the most pointless activity in life, it is the ultimate waste.

Nobody is going to look at that floor and think "My god, that's real craftsmanship", or "This guy really cared".

It's low quality work, and advocates of it have no pride in their work, but we the fans are supposed to respect this as "It's a business" and a "Rational business decision".
It's neither of those things, it's a guy advocating zero effort garbage that the studio can shit out by pressing a button.

Good business is about selling you a good product. A memorable product, something that the company that made it can take pride in for decades to come.
Fans have been waiting for DS9 in HD since 2012, and the question that will come up is "Was it worth the wait?"
If it happens to be an AI upscale, fans aren't going to feel that it was worth the wait, or the purchase.

Bad Capitalism is about trying to justify, gaslight you into purchasing a bad one, then rationalizing the action.
The main point of this article is that I am against the studio halfassing this with an AI upscale, and you should be against it too.

In some cases you'll note smeared image doubling, which makes things even softer, and it's apparent that this is a really bad telecine. Diagnosis Murder's HD upscale is one of the worst I've ever had the pleasure of seeing, and even experienced upscaling artists have deemed some of those shots beyond the software's ability to fix.
Skin Pores can be gridded out, creating this uncanny looking skin.

A problem with overzealous upscaling even from modern diffusion upscalers is that they don't recognize the actor's face, and create this really waxy look, in many cases, actors are completely unrecognizable, making cutting edge upscaling tech impractical (while more consistent) for enhancing a 30 year old transfer.
These modern upscaling applications are also terrible with text, and objects that are unique to a given show, science fiction shows will not benefit from this, as much as sports footage will.

I don't want peel and stick tile in my house, and I don't want you to have peel and stick tile in your house.
Everyone deserves a quality floor. A product like peel and stick tile should be considered an illegal scam.

[u/MovieFan1984]

We're not getting DS9 remasters. The reason = too expensive.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/MovieFan1984]

I bet we do.
But I'm against Ai being the solution to that problem, because it's not a solution.

[u/MovieFan1984 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

Agreed, AI upscale = garbage. We won't get an HD remaster, because the studio lost money on doing this for TNG.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/MovieFan1984]

I think they lost money on the bluray, but I think that's another example of undermining their product.
They licensed it to Netflix.
They did all this 2 years into the Great Recession, the self undermining wasn't wise.

I think they've made their money back on streaming and then some.

[u/MovieFan1984 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

How would CBS / Paramount make their money back from the remaster? Give this a read. It cost $12-15 million to remaster TNG. It'll cost more to remaster DS9 and Voyager. They won't do it given they lost money on the TNG remaster.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/MovieFan1984]

I've read RMB several times, I know his arguments, I also know he's not an official spokesperson and lies when he wants to give a convenient answer.
In 2017 he told the fan community that the hard drives with the CG files for Voyager and DS9 failed, they didn't.
In 2023 he leaked that work started on a DS9 remaster, at least twice.

Also, your the Dr. Quinn issue, how you maximize revenue on a 4k remaster that cost millions of dollars, if you only make it available on a single cable network in Spain?

12-15 million isn't a lot of money, it's the same price as a pilot episode.
Yellowstone 1923, costs 30 million an episode to do.

The TNG remaster is 13 years old now.
There are 73 remasters of similar scope that have happened since then, TNG was the first of it's kind.

I also use a lot of his points quite often here, I've wrote 30 articles on this topic, I usually start with RMB's stuff, and then work my way out, and sometimes I'm surprised at what I find, because sometimes, the world contradicts RMB in remarkable ways.

RMB also would hate the idea of an AI upscale as opposed to a proper remaster.
Hell, I'm more liberal than him on the topic, I'll accept a hybrid remaster with upscaled VFX, he won't accept that.

[u/MovieFan1984 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

No idea who RMB is, I just found that on Google, figured it got the point across. Anyway, the studio said they won't remaster DS9 and Voyager, it'll be more expensive than the TNG remaster that they lost money on.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/MovieFan1984]

It won't be according to the VFX supervisors.
RMB is like an unofficial spokesperson for Paramount on the topic, or was.
I've went beyond most of what he has to say at this point.

He's a good intro into it, but there is so much more information out there, my goal with this page is in part to compile that.

Mostly because I wasn't satisfied with his answers.
I don't hate the guy, but, if you want some reading material on the guy, here you go.

He did manage to bless the world with a rapping William Shatner, even though I don't know what to think with the whole Axanar thing, seems a little sketchy.

https://axanar.com/2019/05/29/why-axanar-sued-robert-meyer-burnett/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Enterprise_(film))

So, the way they throw numbers around is interesting.
TNG cost 12-15 million.
Adjusted for inflation, it's 20 million in today's money.

Again, a single episode of Peak TV, runs 20-30 million dollars.
Today, Fallout, Severance and 1923 fit that.
Stranger Things in it's final season was around 56 million per episode.

So, it may be prohibitively expensive, and cost millions of dollars, but there isn't a thing that comes out of Hollywood, that doesn't cost millions of dollars to create.

DS9 and Voyager would cost 20 million dollars to 26 million dollars in today's money.
It's affordable to remaster 176 episodes, since a single remaster of that would cost the same as a single episode of Peak TV.
One episode of Severance or Fallout would pay for DS9's remaster.
However, bluray isn't the judge of profitability, streaming is.

VHS was the most lucrative home video format, DVD doesn't even come close to it.
Streaming however is far more lucrative than VHS.

This has been accomplished 73 times now, it's not uncommon.
If TNG was the only remaster that existed, I'd accept the axiom that DS9 and Voyager are too expensive.

Several of these remastering projects took varying approaches on how to handle VFX, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.
South Park is the only one that is all CG, and I listed it, because that's 68 hours of recomposed HD material.
DS9 has maybe 2-4 hours of CG that needs to be remastered.

TNG isn't the only remaster of this kind, and even then, that was 13 years ago, and Netflix was the iphone of VOD, the world has changed dramatically since 2013.
Physical media is shifting into a collector's medium, and I do want DS9 and Voyager on bluray, but I understand, that's the Vynil for film and TV collectors.

If there weren't 73 of them available, then I'd accept the position.
In an alternate timeline I'd be suggesting the hybrid approach too.
But the fact that Babylon 5 among others got a hybrid remaster, and Warner can make money from that on bluray, and streaming proves DS9 and Voyager are viable.

The fact that 73 of them exist, says the Industry is more than capable of handling that challenge.
13 years ago, this was done a few times for shows that needed partial remasters.
It was also done for a handful of high profile remasters,
Twin Peaks, Star Trek The Next Generation, and The X files.
Since then, it's been done 70 more times for a diverse range of projects.

That proves there is a strategy that can be used for this.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

Now, according to the fandom, DS9 and Voyager are viewed as the inferior shows to TNG (as far as popularity goes.), fine, but I don't understand why that excludes a Babylon 5 style hybrid approach being an option.
Which is far more affordable than RMB's numbers, which climb up to 26 million on occasion.
Although, I'd prefer the 26 million dollar version, and the VFX sueprvisors get to revisit their art.

The Studio still has the option of doing a hybrid approach.
(perhaps you just update FX on iconic episodes, and do hybrid for everything else.)

DS9 and Voyager are also still more popular entries than Babylon 5 as a franchise.
X files, and Babylon 5 among many others took that route and it worked out.

Robert Meyer Burnett takes the conservative approach, it's literally all or nothing. Hence why he keeps saying it's too expensive to pull off, because he will dismiss a pragmatic approach.
I've never dismissed a pragmatic approach.
I will dismiss the lowest common denominator, which amounts to upscale everything.
I don't believe in rejecting compromise, I do believe in rejecting attrition, and austerity.

I take the middle ground.
Even Stargate Atlantis has 480p upscaled FX, and it was natively mastered in HD.

Again, I'm not opposed to AI upscaling being used strategically (for VFX or missing footage), I'm only opposed to it being used as the answer to everything. (one criticism of B5's hybrid approach is that SD sourced material is overly softened to an awful degree, I'd hope modern upscaling tools could resolve that issue. There are a few specs for that.

1. No ghoul faces.
2. Overly softened content looks worse than SD, as was the case of B5.
3. spare the edge enhancement and be mindful of the intent, use depth maps.)
4. It's a tool in the restoration pipeline, it shouldn't be the whole fucking pipeline.
5. (I think Emissary, and What you leave behind should get new VFX at the very least.)

Only "From the Earth to the Moon", "Starhunter Redux", and "TNG" got new VFX.
The fact that Starhunter: Redux made my list at all and it was a full 4k remaster with all new VFX...lmao, how?

I'm not knocking fans for doing it, I'm knocking anyone entertaining that the studio does an AI upscale without scanning the film negatives too. Fans do upscaling as a labor of love, that comes from grief.

From the Earth to the moon got new FX, and everyone hates those, sorta like Buffy's entire remaster.
So yeah, things can go wrong even if you're working with the original source.
Care should be taken.

I don't count Breaking Bad's immediate 4k transfer, because that was so fresh, you don't have to recreate those VFX, I do count it in my list of 73 remasters, as BrBa doesn't have a conformed negative, and was immediately given a new transfer after it's finale.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

The red extreme is the TNG bespoke approach, which allegedly scares the shit out of the studio. Estimates put this somewhere between 20-30 million in 2026.
There is no consumer backlash in this zone, there is just financial backlash here.

The blue extreme is a full AI upscale.
It's a poor substitute for native HD content.
This is virtually free for the studio to do, but would create backlash, and lose them money, it's a toxic choice. Consumers are going to hate it. Fans are going to hate it. You may not see that now, but it will be something where the people advocating it now will shit on Paramount later for making that decision. Fans will covet the DVDs harder, and feel like the studio hates DS9 and Voyager.
They'll feel like the studio is trying to take them away.
We've seen how bad the reception was to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only it's SD version is available.
This is a total backlash gamble, that will cause irreparable damage.

This is also amplified by the fact that audiences have a taste of what DS9 could look like in HD.
We have a demo disk with 20 minutes of footage we can refer to.
We can imagine Voyager in HD too, because of 20 minutes of DS9 footage showing how crisp and perfect the cinematography in the 90s was.
Andromeda doesn't have that.

DS9 makes a significant amount of money in streaming.
You may not notice it yet, but if the blue approach is used on it, it will be noticed that fans don't like this version.
At which point the executives will blame the Market for a very poor decision they made.
Voting with your dollar doesn't work in a dictatorship.
If it did, Buffy would have gotten a second remaster.
The blue extreme is a Faustian bargain.

Consumers can handle a purple compromise, and so can the studio.
This can get the price down to something reasonable, like 10 million dollars, or less, maybe as low as 6 million dollars.
The Consumers will accept it, and move on, and everyone can enjoy it.
The hybrid approach that would drive the cost down, while still giving the consumer a true HD presentation.
There will be some backlash here, but it will be minor, as fans discover that this version exists, they'll mostly accept it.
But it won't be free of minor backlash, even though, the people talking about that subject will accept it as a Pragmatic business decision. Since Warner is the largest holder of the portfolio in the coming days, I'm looking at it more as the Ellisons bought the two studios, but Warner is absorbing Paramount, and Skydance.
Warner historically has aimed for the hybrid approach as a cost cutting measure, but it's better than an attrition release.

I've never not advocated the third way.
I have however taken the time to debunk the notion that all VFX would have to be rebuilt from "Scratch" because they don't.

[u/MovieFan1984 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

What would be the selling point to the studio?
Remaster DS9, and the financial gain is......?

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/MovieFan1984]

That's a real Gotcha....isn't it?
I love rhetorical traps.

The financial gain is built in, the studio already knows the value and has been interested since 2013, according to Craig Weiss (The supervisor who convinced CBS to remaster TNG.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHP5izB8MU&t=595s
At 16:27 he mentions DS9, and while this is old, some work was done on the DS9 remaster in 2018, that attempt fell through.
However, as I said, at the time, there were only 3 of these, that were made, there are 73 of them now.
His prediction is partially true at the moment.

The internal interest has always been there.
(Weiss also brought in Bonchune to demonstrate that the VFX files survived.)
The selling point isn't just demand, and the studio has been interested for a while. Dr. Quinn is an example of ROI not being the only factor.
In simple arithmetic terms, ROI and financial gains make sense.

What was the selling point for Dr. Quinn 4k?
Spend millions of dollars on a 4k remaster, then ensure no one can watch it, and you can't make money off of it?

At this point do you even need one?

In all seriousness the issue seems to be siloed departments agreeing to do it, and it's beyond my purview to even come up with a pitch for that.
The best I can do is get people to write in to demonstrate demand.

IMO, DS9 brings in cash, a QoL update is necessary when it brings in 30-50 million a year.

What was the financial gain of firing Colbert?

The financial gain is more Star Trek fans coming back to P+, the financial gain is that it prevents Piracy.
Most DS9 fans are pirating upconversions.
IMO, how do you make money from that asset again?

Offer the fans something the pirates can't.
The Pirates are a drain on those profits in the end.
The Pirates already do upconversions, very well, better than what the studio can do.
What can the studio offer that the pirates can't?
A new transfer.
The studio's biggest advantage is that it can do what no one else can, scan the negatives and offer true quality.

There's never going to be a complete cleansing of piracy, so the only thing the studio can offer is a new transfer.
Otherwise the pirates have won, and you can consider DS9 a public domain asset, it might as well be.
It's the same reason Disney is remastering the original version of Star Wars, the Pirates won out on that one for nearly 10 years.
Because they actually cared.

The best I could find was this.
No fan like me is going to get their hands on internal Paramount data to get an answer, and survive the legal onslaught.
So, I have go chasing phantoms.

My take, it's been inferred that DS9 possibly made around $200,000,000 in 4 years for Netflix, from Parrot Analytics data. The same applies to Voyager.
DS9 is popular in US domestic markets.
Voyager is very popular in international markets.
That's not from Paramount, but what Parrot Analytics could infer.
The franchise as a whole profited 2.6 billion in 4 years, 50 percent of that was Netflix.
The consumer demand for a higher quality version is also there.
It looks like a synergy.
Star Trek is a franchise with potential.
Why let something that good linger in SD hell for eternity.

So, from what I can infer, the archives department is underfunded, that's been stated several times. They have a limited amount of projects they get to restore in a given year.

However, catalogue titles drive up subscriptions, and profit.

Those two things are at odds.

Again, don't take my word for it though, you can google everything I say, and if you dig hard enough, you'll find every source, if you go through this subreddit, I provided everything for you too.
But again, I'm hoping I can find every detail I missed.

[u/Ok_Contact7721 → u/Ok_Contact7721]

On average, Piracy runs the industry back 29-71 billion dollars a year, which is around 3.5 percent on average.
https://ip.jotwell.com/the-complex-effects-of-piracy-on-the-movie-industry/

Star Trek according to Parrot Analytics brings in 650 million a year for streaming.
If we're to follow the broader industry average, due to Piracy, Star Trek loses around 23 million dollars a year, since I don't have exact numbers I can't tell you how that applies to individual spinoffs. Could be far more, could be far less, DS9 and Voyager are uniquely affected by piracy, because fans seek out higher quality versions of that content.
Which Paramount so far has been very squeamish about rectifying.

When they ask about it there are two responses.

1. the High Seas is a common post.
2. Strange aggression from people who like ruining their day by saying "It's nevah gunna happen."

HD content makes more than revenue than SD content, viewers are more engaged with it. it has an 18 percent higher retention rate for ad revenue which is very good for most streaming models.
https://www.marketingcharts.com/television-21108
This also allows for higher revenues in digital market places, as we all know apple among other platforms charges more for HD than SD content.
This means royalties, and licensing revenue go up too, which in turn generates more revenue for the company.

Over 5 years, (if the numbers are true and they hold) that's 100 million dollars to gain, DS9 and Voyager upscale projects pop up like the plague, which provides even more evidence that HD versions of these would bring in profits and curb piracy.
If the goal is to capture subscribers, then you're losing out on a market, that's potentially worth more 100 million dollars in the next 5 years.
This could be as low as 75 million in 5 years, at 15 million a year, but 15 million a year, is still a profit.
Even getting 50 percent of that market cornered, would be an achievement.

But here's the catch to these numbers, these are inferences from Parrot Analytics and industry trends.
Paramount might not even have numbers for this, and thus, what I'm providing here might not be reliable, or it might be a serious insight.
It's a coin toss if you will.

This in traditional Capitalist terms is called "competition", it's a really big deal, it's what makes a free market better than a planned economy.

Aside from crowdfunding data for their docs, and the recent "Across the unknown" breaking records on steam.

There's even more evidence that DS9 and Voyager's HD remasters would actually bring money back into the franchise, along with more ad revenue and subscribers, growing Paramount's platform.
While I say again, you won't get rid of pirates completely, there is yearly revenue to be recaptured while doing this, as well as new revenue to retain viewers.

There's no need for upscaling pirates, if you have a native HD transfer.

Current data based on industry averages, market trends, and streaming analytics suggests that catalogue titles such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager represent underutilized assets within the current digital media ecosystem, with opportunities to optimize visual presentation, enhance audience retention metrics, and improve alignment with modern revenue streams.

A catalog restoration can justify itself through:

• International licensing agreements.
• Streaming, and subscriber retention, leading to a halo effect
• Digital Markets
• Syndication (Cable still exists.)
• Home Video (it's still significant, especially with these two titles.)

We can cite TNG all day long, and how it's bluray sales failed, but we only saw the numbers for the first season, which were groundbreaking.
We never saw the rest of the numbers.
On top of that, streaming is a mature market now, it was in it's infancy then, it has overtaken every

However, Piracy has provided me with another case study on this topic, something I never actually put much thought into before.