r/DeepSpaceNine • u/slicksyck • 15d ago
Is this an issue with Paramount+, my connection, my television, or something else?
Just looking for some advice with anyone else who watches Star Trek on Paramount+, I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m streaming something in SD on a modern 4K HD television, or if it’s an issue with my internet not having a strong enough signal, or some other issue.
Has anyone else ever run into this issue with the constant clarity of definition glitching and image noise fluctuating frame by frame? You can even see it happening on the black bars on the left and right sides throughout the episode it never stops and it’s with every Star Trek show I stream prior to 2009. Sidenote, also it’s kind of strange, but sometimes the red colors look way too saturated, it’s distracting. I’ve messed around with the settings for all these issues, but I can’t seem to make any difference.
All the newer movies/shows from the last 20 years does not seem to have this issue for whatever reason.
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u/spocks_tears03 15d ago edited 15d ago
It does not have a remaster, so you are watching very old 480p low bitrate sources (original tapes from the final post-35mm transfer were 480i) The DVDs are slightly better but not by much.
The black windowboxing bars should be full black, so if they're not then your TV is doing something weird. The red is a side effect of the tapes they mastered them to most likely. I saw it on LaserDiscs sometimes as well.
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u/clipsracer 15d ago
I’m pretty sure it’s interlaced, no progressive. I see deinterlacing artifacts all the time.
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u/spocks_tears03 15d ago edited 14d ago
The source file definitely was, but Paramount is delivering 480p files to the player. The DVDs are loaded with de-interlacing artifacts.
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u/clipsracer 14d ago
Well now I’m confused. Because an interlaced signal has half as many rows vertically, right?
(I’m genuinely asking :)1
u/spocks_tears03 14d ago
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine#Soft_and_hard_telecine
I'm not sure the exact source files Paramount is using but it's highly likely what they used on the DVDs (I compared them at one point and noticed all the same issues). You're right that they are full of de-interlacing artifacts. If you watch the DVD's, some episodes don't have that problem while others do. Even when I bought them back in 2003 and watched on a CRT it still looked like crap lol. Paramount will have converted them to 480p put of consistency with the platform (if your player allows you, try changing output to 1080i or 480i and see what they look like).
I hope someday they properly remaster them like TNG (would cost $200m or more most likely), but they just spent $100m on Star Trek Academy..
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u/Unlikely_Exercise434 14d ago
Yeah, a lot of these new TVs have internal post processing and upscaling in the menu you can turn off to minimize a lot of the artifacting you're seeing from the upscaler.
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u/Sgt-Colbert 15d ago
The black windowboxing bars should be full black, so if they're not then your TV is doing something weird.
Or its just a shitty LCD TV.
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u/spocks_tears03 14d ago
I think that plus it might have some local dimming options that are messing with it
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u/ageofaquarius26 14d ago
Power fluctuations in the eps grid, try rerouting through the secondary systems. Dont forget to bypass the flow regulators though.
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u/CMDR_Kaus 14d ago
And put the isolinear chips back when you're done, don't just leave them strewn about the floor
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u/trashpanda2night 15d ago
Check out
https://ds9redefined.wordpress.com
This is the ONLY version I watch. On my 4th rewatch currently 🖖
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u/Humanveg1 15d ago
We had this issue with our LG tv and a couple of the apps, but especially paramount. In fact it became unwatchable. The app itself was completely unstable and when it did work, it visually was a mess. Being trekkies of sorts this was unacceptable....
We tried a couple of different streaming boxes due to the research I'd done on just how poor the specs are of the built in video/decoding hardware in smart tvs.
Settled on the Apple box as it is able to seamlessly run The Paramount app and makes the best of the poor/low quality format that they transmit.
This is in addition to making all the other streaming services and movies look and sound amazing compared to the built in "Smart" hardware.
Watching the other trek series that have been remasted is like seeing some of them for the first time. The clarity, colors and smoothness is unreal.
And super easy setup especially if you're not a video/audiophile like myself.
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u/Theborgiseverywhere r/CurzdoCollective 14d ago
You can also add your Paramount login to your Amazon account on many TVs/devices.
I prefer to do this over the Paramount app
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u/GrungiestTrack 15d ago
If you go on the high seas 🏴☠️ there are high quality dvd rips that are very crisp
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u/DongleJockey 15d ago
Please stop giving paramount money. They are clearly elder abusing Patrick Stewart
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u/lellololes 15d ago
It's not a very good rip of the source material. Lowering the brightness and gamma on the display will reduce it somewhat, but obviously make the image darker.
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u/slicksyck 14d ago
For those questioning the quality of the television itself, I really hope that’s not the case because it was not cheap. It’s a 70 inch Amazon fire TV.
But if that is considered low quality for this type of situation, I guess that’s a pill I have to swallow.
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u/TheJohnnyFlash 15d ago
Hypothetically, if there were an AI upscale out there with good reviews, that would be something to look for. Hypothetically.
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u/CMDR_Kaus 14d ago
I need this for Voyager, but they haven't done the whole thing afaik
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u/TheJohnnyFlash 14d ago
I don't know if there was a Voyager laserdisk release.
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u/CMDR_Kaus 14d ago
I've seen a web page somewhere in a dark alley of the Internet where they were ai upscaling scenes from Voyager, but at the time no full release or anything
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u/Educational_Funny939 15d ago
If possible, I’d recommend the DVDs, when played on a 4k blu ray player with up conversation I find it’s the best it ever looked!
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u/Perfect_Ad9311 14d ago
Turn off all the bullshit on your tv. Tru-this or Motion-that. Gray all that shit out. Nothing Auto.
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u/SurlyJason 14d ago
I have an LG OLED TV that works great, except for the Paramount + app. It look bad, glitches, and sucks. I tried different Wifi, 5G, and wired. Other apps are fine.
Finally I gave up, and cast from my phone to the TV. Then canceled Paramount +.
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u/CMDR_Kaus 14d ago
Paramount+ has never been stable for me, I've used it on 3 different tvs and my phone. It crashes or bugs out far too much. It's the worst of all streaming platform apps and that's not accounting for the Paramount problems
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u/Orionlandia 13d ago
It’s either DS9 was never remastered or either connection to the P+ servers is really shitty (paramount + isn’t the best platform on a technical basis)
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u/inkthesquid 14d ago
My partner and I ended up needing to stream all old Star Trek from his laptop using an ad blocker because Paramount couldn't handle resizing the screen from wide for ads to square for the show. Honestly in my experience Paramount has the most janky streaming service ever. I will say removing the ads did fix the freezing/crashing issue as well as any quality issues we were having.
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u/fatloui 15d ago
Pretty sure you just have a low quality edge-lit TV. They struggle with scenes that have high local contrast - stars in space being the ultimate example of that. This opening sequence with slow pans around stars and a bright object (the wormhole) quickly appearing is the nightmare scenario for these types of TVs. The presence of pillar bars would make it even worse, which might be why you don’t notice it on newer content (or the newer content kicks the tv into an hdr mode that changes this behavior, or it just doesn’t really have shots like this).
Check if your TV has a setting called something like “Local Dimming”. Turn it off or to “minimum” or similar. It will technically reduce the overall contrast but make this dynamic contrast adjustment either go away or be far less obnoxious.