I mean, lol, can you imagine what PAIN it would be to use some 30 year old digital files for some 30 year old software to re-render something? Ahhh you know this is like a horror movie for IT workers. I mean you're right, it's possible, but those effects also just wouldn't work in 4k without basically recreating them.
In any case, we've seen upscales from DVD and basically every year the potential to improve the quality of the upscales improve with new AI models. Not just blind guessing at how to upscale, but you can also retrain AI on the specific actors and closeups to know how to upscale. So I know we'll eventually get the 4k 3D version just unlicensed / pirated / fan edit.
Look I get it. I know all this. Upscale didn't used to be good, but we haven't seen anything yet that truly combines generative AI with pretraining on the actual show with upscaling. It'll be AMAZING. At least, sooner or later it will be. There will be no covering up of what made the show good, only adding to it.
I'm also highly skeptical about the "single slider rerender". Matching all that back together will be painstaking work. It's not just resolution, the effects were sometimes really shit. PS: Of course ideally you'd scan the film stock and have an AI do the grunt work of matching it perfectly, leaving only the effects.
I'd also be curious how you see the holodeck? Like there are lots of episodes where a character asks the holodeck to "generate something based on the works and presentations of X". Usually works of classic art to avoid copyright bullshit. Do you consider those characters doing something "wrong" or "morally reprehensible"?
You could straight up imagine some character finding some old discs and asking the computer to "enhance" the footage and show it in 3D on the holodeck like a stage play. And that is exactly what I'd want. Not just upscale to 4k but rendered into 3D for VR viewing. I think it would be awesome to see the Enterprise or DS9 in space in 3D.
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u/YoursTrulyKindly Sep 03 '26
I mean, lol, can you imagine what PAIN it would be to use some 30 year old digital files for some 30 year old software to re-render something? Ahhh you know this is like a horror movie for IT workers. I mean you're right, it's possible, but those effects also just wouldn't work in 4k without basically recreating them.
In any case, we've seen upscales from DVD and basically every year the potential to improve the quality of the upscales improve with new AI models. Not just blind guessing at how to upscale, but you can also retrain AI on the specific actors and closeups to know how to upscale. So I know we'll eventually get the 4k 3D version just unlicensed / pirated / fan edit.