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TNG Season 1 Blu-Ray: Press Release & Final Artwork

Blu-ray (TNG)

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April 30, 2012

TNG Season 1 Blu-Ray: Press Release & Final Artwork

TrekCore has been able to obtain the full press release from CBS/Paramount for the upcoming release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 1 on Blu-Ray. The press release is included in it’s entirety below alongside high-resolution artwork of the finished Blu-Ray cover.

CELEBRATING ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY, LEGENDARY SERIES
MAKES ITS FULL-SEASON BLU-RAY™ DEBUT

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
THE FIRST SEASON BLU-RAY

New High-Definition Transfer With Staggering Before/After Results Boasts
Exclusive Special Features Including Never-Before-Seen Archival Footage,
Brand New Interviews With Key Players, Gag Reel And More!

Available July 24, 2012

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (April 30, 2012) – The enduringly popular sci-fi favorite STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – THE FIRST SEASON makes its Blu-ray debut on July 24 from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution. Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2012, the beloved series continues to enthrall fans with its exciting and socially relevant tales of space exploration in the 24th century.

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – THE FIRST SEASON has been retransferred from original film elements to produce stunning high-definition images, including amazing visual effects that have been painstakingly recreated from the source material, creating before/after results that fans will love. The six-disc Blu-ray set also features 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and a wealth of exclusive bonus material, such as archival footage, a gag reel, and an inside look at taking The Next Generation to the next level of high-definition. Featuring numerous behind-the-scenes interviews, the new material also features Star Trek experts Mike and Denise Okuda, consultants throughout this ongoing project, who offer special insights into the countless man-hours dedicated to the upgrade of The Next Generation.

Featuring one of the most endearing ensemble casts in television history, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION took fans on the remarkable continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn), Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton).

The STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – THE FIRST SEASON Blu-ray set will be available in 1080p with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English Stereo Surround, French Mono, Japanese Mono and German Mono (with the exception of “Encounter at Farpoint” which is in German Stereo). The discs also include English SDH, French, German, Castilian, Italian, Japanese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles. The Blu-ray is not rated in the U.S. and rated PG in Canada.

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TNG S1 Blu-Ray: Small Preview Pics & Video

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April 30, 2012

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TNG S1 Blu-Ray: Small Preview Pics & Video

The official site has released a selection of preview pictures from the first season Blu-Ray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unfortunately, they are incredibly small (as seems to usually be the case with the initial pre-release images), but you can get a general idea of the improved color timing and effects shots:

Furthermore, Entertainment Weekly has released a (heavily compressed) clip from “Where No One Has Gone Before”. Click here to watch the clip at EW.com.

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TNG-R Season 1 Blu-Ray Further Preview Pictures

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April 30, 2012

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TNG-R Season 1 Blu-Ray Further Preview Pictures

The HD Room has released a larger collection of higher-resolution images from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Blu-Ray set. Click on our thumbnails to view the larger images:

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Missing footage from ‘Sins of the Father’ found

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April 11, 2012

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Missing footage from ‘Sins of the Father’ found

Reports have surfaced that the missing 13 seconds of original film elements from Season 3’s “Sins of the Father” has now been located. We originally reported on the missing footage back in November when the remastering team were forced to use upconverted SD material to fill the void in the episode which was featured on January’s “Next Level” sampler release.

Answering a question on his Facebook page, Robert Meyer Burnett (responsible for creating documentaries on the 1st Season TNG Blu Ray set) has stated that the remastering team have now tracked down the missing elements which will be edited back into the episode for the release of the Season 3 Blu-Ray boxset. According to Burnett,

“It was indeed found and replaced. For the season three box set, SINS will be intact. We deal with this in a documentary for Season One.”

This is indeed excellent news – we remain hopeful that any further missing elements will have a minimal impact on this project. We have been unable to validate Burnett’s statements with CBS, but it would seem as though they are credible given the source.

We also have word that CBS are starting to prepare for pre-release publicity for the first season, so expect official news to start emerging soon!

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First TNG-R Season 1 Images Surface

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April 10, 2012

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Free Enterprise director Robert Meyer Burnett may be a familiar name to those of you who have been scrutinizing the internet for news on the TNG Remastered project. Burnett tweeted a number of comments last year regarding the aspect ratio debate, mentioning how he thought TNG looked fantastic in a widescreen 16:9 ratio transfer. Fast forward to 2012 and Burnett is now working on creating documentaries for the TNG Season 1 Blu Ray set and has been tweeting once more, this time from the TNG Blu-Ray edit suite. He has released two separate stills from the Season 1 set – the first showing a remastered Crystalline Entity in “Datalore” and the second a still from Ligon II in “Code of Honor“.

The most impressive shot out of the two is clearly the new digitally rendered Crystalline Entity. The work on show here is truly impressive, and the newly created Entity looks arguably far more realistic than the original version we are all used to. Compare this shot to the SD DVD screencap of the same scene – somehow the remastered version looks far more realistic: the reflection from the crystalline shards and the beautiful blue-purple palette brings it to life. Other tiny details also surface such as the tri-color stripe on Wesley’s uniform, muddied and lost in the original SD version but brought to life again in HD.

The shot from ‘Code of Honor’ once again draws our attention to the huge differences in color timing between the original SD version and the remastered HD. Details in the outfits of Yareena and Lutan pop off the screen, and smaller elements such as the golden goblets and jug in front of Lutan seem to come to life for the first time. The superior color timing seems to bring the sets to life like never before – the Ligonian courtyard somehow buzzes with a new found realism and grandeur with stunning onyx/marble floors and sumptuous furniture all set in a twilight oasis. I can’t believe I’m actually excited about seeing “Code of Honor”!

TrekCore will of course keep you up to date with any more stills that Robert releases alongside all the latest news from far and wide!

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TNG-R Season 1 Release Date Confirmed & Pricing

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April 7, 2012

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TNG-R Season 1 Release Date Confirmed & Pricing

After the initial frenzy around the “Next Level” sampler release back in January, news has died down somewhat as the team at CBS have been beavering away with the preparations for Season 1. Yesterday saw the first glimpses of news on this much-anticipated release as Amazon.co.uk has published a release date of July 23, 2012. Based on previous Star Trek releases, we can expect that a North American release date will be around the same time (give or take a few days). This is far sooner than a lot of fans were hoping for – a little over 3 months away!

UK store Sainsburys have advertised on their website an initial price of £50.99 (GBP), equivalent to around $81.00 (USD). If this is representative of the price-point for these sets, then they seem very competitive indeed. Most TV-on-Blu-Ray sets retail for around the £50.00 price mark when first released, so it’s good to see that CBS are pricing the sets sensibly.

No word yet on specifications, finalised cover art or bonus features – but TrekCore will bring you all the latest news as soon as we have it!

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TNG-R First Season Blu-Ray Trailer Appears Online!

Blu-ray (TNG)

TrekCore Archives

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January 29, 2012

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TNG-R First Season Blu-Ray Trailer Appears Online!

Amazon’s German site – Amazon.de – have released a new trailer for the complete first-season Blu-Ray set scheduled to be released this year. The trailer features new footage from the first season including several interesting scenes showcasing new digital effects. We’ve got hold of a higher-quality version of the trailer you can watch below through our YouTube channel. The audio is in German, however we’ve provided a translation for you below the video!

Watch at TrekCore’s YouTube channel | Download original mp4 file (8.14 MB)

English translation:

Experience Star Trek The Next Generation in a quality that no one has seen before. Remastered in full HD.

Mike Okuda: We love the approach that CBS took for this project. We take the original film elements and put them together in a new way. The material still has all the details and they are beautiful. And the new visual effects are really the old visual effects but a lot more beautiful than you have ever seen them.

Craig Weiss: Now, with HD TVs, the resolution is really incredible and so the fans will now finally be able to see all the details as they were actually intended to be seen.

Rod Roddenberry: If my father could see what is possible today and in what quality he would be thrilled and would say “It is finally how we’ve always imagined it to be.” I believe he would shake everyone’s hands and thank them.

All episodes of the first season, remastered from the original negatives with 7.1 surround and the original stereo sound track and new bonus features.

Star Trek The Next Generation the fully remastered first season on blu ray.

Also available Star Trek: The Original Series – all three seasons on blu ray.

A few points of analysis:

The fact that new interviews with Okuda, Weiss and Roddenberry are included is a good indication that the team are already preparing new material for bonus features to be included on the first season set.
The new cover art featured in the trailer is different to the Region 1 artwork we previously released. It should be noted that ALL artwork is provisional at this time. TrekCore has been in touch with CBS/Paramount who have confirmed that the red artwork we posted last week is not the final version. We will post the finalised artwork once we receive it!
Breaking down the clips included in the new trailer: The exploding Batris and the reaction shot of Tasha are both from “Heart of Glory“. The reaction shot of Data is from “The Naked Now“. The shot of Worf getting up is from the floor is from “Conspiracy“. The shot of Geordi on the bridge whilst the Enterprise is taking fire has already been featured and is from “The Arsenal of Freedom“.
Perhaps of most interest is the shot of the Batris exploding in “Heart of Glory“. This explosion has been completely redone and looks far more realistic than the trademark small cloud-like explosions associated with TNG.

We shall have more analysis and coverage of the blu-ray project this coming week. Stay tuned!

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Exclusive – ‘Sins of the Father’ & ‘The Inner Light’ HD Preview Screencaps

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January 23, 2012

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Exclusive – ‘Sins of the Father’ & ‘The Inner Light’ HD Preview Screencaps

In the second of two new exclusives, TrekCore is taking a look at the new TNG Blu-Ray with brand new HD Screencaps from the remaining two episodes, “Sins of the Father” and “The Inner Light”. As with “Farpoint”, we’ve taken a selection of screencaps showing different scenes from the episode and present them without watermarks and in full 1080p HD resolution. Check out our comments and thoughts on these shots below!

TrekCore Comments: In comparison to the pilot episode “Encounter at Farpoint”, the other two episodes on the sampler are pretty ‘ordinary’ visually speaking. There were no specific scenes which jumped out to us as being of special importance when grabbing screenshots. That said, we’ve tried to include a varied selection to once again give you an idea of how the remastering team have responded to specific challenges.

The shot of the Enterprise orbiting the Klingon homeworld Qo’noS has only been seen before in a heavily compressed YouTube video, so it’s nice to be able to look at it here in full HD. The CGI Qo’noS is spectacular to look at, with seas, continents and even clouds visible – it’s going to be quite impressive when you see this shot in motion. Upgrades like these are necessary due to the original planet effects – like phasers and photons – being done only on video, and not being stored on film.

A note about the SD scene in “Sins of the Father”. This seems to last a few seconds longer than we previously indicated. In our earlier report, we described how the scene ends when we cut to a view of an LCARS display on the bridge terminal, however from the new screenshots, it’s clear that the LCARS display itself (a readout on the USS Intrepid) is also in SD. We’re not sure why this particular part couldn’t be recreated in HD, but thankfully the shot is still relatively brief.

The familiar streaking effect on the “Star Trek The Next Generation” logo seen in the fifth season has been recreated for “The Inner Light”. Love it or hate it (personally, I’m a fan!) it’s back with a vengeance in all it’s HD glory!

We wanted to get a screenshot of the font used for the episode titles and credits to see if the team have managed to recreate it. Looking at the shot, the first thing that jumps out is that the quotation marks are far too big and clunky compared to the style used in the original version. The team have clearly used a different font set here, giving the titles a somewhat bulkier look to what we’re accustomed to. Perhaps we’re being overly analytical, but when we saw this we were slightly dismayed that the team couldn’t have reproduced the original font more closely.

The remaining shots are very much standard fare. Another blue-screen composited shot of Data against the viewscreen shows again just how well these shots are being handled and what a huge improvement over the original they represent. The final two shots illustrate nicely that the makeup on TNG holds up very well indeed against the scrutiny of high-definition. Kudos is definitely owed to the makeup team for doing such wonderful work on a TV show’s budget!

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Exclusive – ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ HD Preview Screencaps

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January 22, 2012

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Exclusive – ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ HD Preview Screencaps

In the first of two new exclusives, TrekCore is taking a look at the new TNG Blu-Ray with brand new HD Screencaps of the pilot episode “Encounter at Farpoint”. We’ve retaken those screencaps already published by review sites but present them here without annoying watermarks so you can get an unfiltered view of the beautiful remastering that’s taken place. We’ve also included a selection of new screencaps of key scenes which haven’t yet been made public.

TrekCore Comments: We were especially interested to see how the remastered HD version coped with composited visual effects. Screenshots of the security guards held in the turbolift behind Q’s energy forcefield and Riker walking into the holodeck simulation both illustrate an excellent standard of compositing – far far superior to the original version, and a lot more convincing at the same time. We’ll be posting detailed comparisons after the official release, but any fan who remembers these two particular scenes will undoubtedly be impressed at the way the HD version handles over the original SD transfers.

Another interesting shot is the view of Farpoint station. The HD transfer shows the station surrounded by verdent gardens and trees – something completely lost in the original! Little details like this are lovely to behold, and add new life to a show which is now 25 years old.

The transporter effect has so far only been available in a small thumbnail, so we wanted to bring you a full HD resolution copy of this. It would appear as if this effects sequence has been redone using CGI but at the same time remains very faithful to the original. The extra vibrant shimmers, swirls and sparkles bring a whole new dimension to the transporter sequence – such an improvement over the original SD print, dulled down in the transfer to videotape.

The shot of the Enterprise delivering the energy transfer beam has been fixed! In the original the beam is shown unusually emanating from the Captain’s Yacht. It’s a nice touch, and we’re glad that – whilst remaining true to the original – the remastering team are happy to fix up these small errors.

TrekCore will be bringing you a full selection of hundreds of HD screencaps for all episodes on the sampler disc after the official release, matching the standard we’re proud to maintain across the whole site. We’ll also be adding new comparison features between the HD and SD versions, so watch this space!

Part 2 of our exclusive look at the sampler disc will be released tomorrow with coverage of “Sins of the Father” and “The Inner Light”.

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TNG-R Season 1 Blu-Ray Cover Art

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January 21, 2012

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Whilst all attention is still focused on the sampler Blu-Ray “The Next Level”, TrekCore brings you a first look at the cover art for the Season 1 Blu-Ray Collection out later this year. The cover art is featured in the preview to Season One, included as a bonus feature on the new sampler disc.

The cover-art takes on the same design format as the sampler disc, but this time in red instead of green. It features a slimeline design, with Picard, Riker and Data in the center of a TNG-era commbadge and the Enterprise-D gliding gracefully underneath.

Obviously the design is still subject to change given the release timeframe (still only announced as “2012” so far).

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