star trek deep space nine remaster – Trekking with Dennis

Dear Paramount: If You Won’t Remaster DS9 & Voyager, Fans Will (And You Won’t Make Any Money)

Spoiler Warning: Beware of minor spoilers for the following Star Trek productions: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Picard, and Prodigy.

For years, I’ve been publicly calling on Paramount Global to finally remaster Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Two of the franchise’s best-loved shows are languishing in DVD quality even on Paramount Plus, turning away a potential audience and making it harder for Star Trek to convert sometime viewers into fully-fledged Trekkies. With massive story connections in Prodigy and Picard in particular, you’d have thought that remastering these shows would’ve been a great idea… but alas.

It often feels like Paramount Global is being run by morons; short-sighted corporate idiots who said “make me my own Netflix” without any idea about streaming, the internet, or the technology required to make something like that happen. It’s nothing short of a miracle, perhaps, that Paramount Plus works as well as it does! But even as Paramount Plus has continued its painfully slow international rollout and brought in new subscribers, executives seem content to overlook one of the biggest requests from Star Trek fans… even if it would be easier and cheaper than ever before and would surely bring in new subscribers and make money.

Tom Ryan, CEO of streaming at Paramount.

We could talk all day about how Paramount executives have misunderstood Star Trek and the kinds of shows Trekkies wanted to see – and perhaps one day soon we’ll have to do that (again!) But for now, suffice to say that a remaster of Deep Space Nine and Voyager is something that fans have been calling for for well over a decade – but those calls have continually fallen on deaf ears. It’s high time to change that!

Technology gets better and better all the time – including in video production, special effects, and upscaling. With readily available AI tools – pieces of software that already exist today – it’s possible to upscale old television programmes from DVD quality all the way up to full HD, 4K, and beyond… and churn out creditable results. Two full years ago I made the case for Paramount taking advantage of this technology to massively reduce the costs involved in remastering Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and the case for doing so grows stronger by the day.

Programmes like *Topaz Video AI 4* are already on the market.
*Image Credit: Topaz Labs*

Unlike when The Original Series and The Next Generation went through the process in the late 2000s and early 2010s, selling Blu-ray discs is no longer the objective. The Next Generation only “underperformed” on Blu-ray anyway because the move away from optical discs in favour of streaming was already happening when it was released. Remastering Deep Space Nine and Voyager today wouldn’t have to come with the same cost – and the same sales target – as those other shows. Instead, it could be all about giving Paramount Plus a (desperately needed) boost.

And unlike when whole sequences from The Original Series and The Next Generation had to be remade and reimagined from the ground up, artificial intelligence can fill in a lot of the gaps. I don’t want to do people out of work, nor encourage greedy corporations to utilise and rely on AI any more than they are already… but if cost is a concern, there’s no denying that remastering can be done a heck of a lot cheaper in 2024 than it could’ve been a decade or fifteen years ago. Taking advantage of these technological advancements just makes sense.

*The Next Generation* has already been remastered.

At present, fans only have access to Deep Space Nine and Voyager on DVD or VHS. But even with those limitations, it’s incredible to see what some tech-savvy Trekkies have already been able to create. Remastered and upscaled scenes are available to watch right now, with fans having put in a lot of hard work on their own, for free, to bring these shows into the 21st Century. And that work will undoubtedly continue.

The entirety of Deep Space Nine – all seven seasons – are already available in 720p thanks to AI, and the show can be… shall we say “acquired” through certain unofficial channels by anyone who knows their way around a computer. While arguably imperfect, this is still one of the best ways to watch the series – and Paramount isn’t making a single penny from it. If Paramount would commit to doing this work, it could be a nice little earner, driving new subscribers to Paramount Plus and giving existing subscribers a reason to stick around.

Screenshot of a website offering a torrent of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. — AI-upscaled versions of *Deep Space Nine* are already available to fans who know where to look.

Here on the website, we’ve argued back and forth about piracy before. Here’s my take: if a film or series is available to rent or purchase, I’m firmly in the camp that says “pay for it.” But if Paramount won’t remaster these fantastic shows and make them available… I don’t see anything wrong with fans doing it ourselves and sharing it within the community. Paramount is the only loser in that situation, and the corporation has inflicted that loss upon itself!

An interesting example of a fan-made project like this comes from the Star Wars franchise. I’ve talked before about Project 4K77, and how a dedicated group of Star Wars fans were able to get hold of a high-quality copy of the original, unmolested Star Wars from 1977, and how they were then able to digitise it, preserving it for future generations. That project was incredibly successful; a testament to the hard work and determination of Star Wars fans. And it has quite literally saved and resurrected the original version of the film that spawned the long-running franchise – a version of the film that George Lucas and the Walt Disney Company wanted to throw in the dustbin.

Still frame from Star Wars (1977) showing the Millennium Falcon in the Death Star's hangar bay. — Project 4K77 preserved the original version of *Star Wars*.

Now, it’s true that Deep Space Nine and Voyager haven’t been abandoned in the same way as the original version of Star Wars was. And I agree that DVDs are still perfectly watchable – especially on smaller displays and screens. But I also think it would be a terrible shame to leave Deep Space Nine and Voyager behind as Star Trek – and the media landscape in general – moves on. The simple fact is that returning to DVD-quality video after enjoying full HD and 4K feels like a significant downgrade, and the fact that those shows only exist in that way is going to be offputting to old fans and potential new fans alike.

Think of the younger audience that Paramount tried to appeal to with Star Trek: Prodigy. Prodigy leaned heavily on the legacy of Voyager, bringing in a holographic version of Captain Janeway and telling a story that was, in many ways, a sequel to the events of that series. But any of those younger viewers who wanted to see Voyager for themselves would’ve found a decidedly sub-par product either on DVD or Paramount Plus… and that may well have put them off. Had Voyager been remastered and ready to go in full HD, a better connection with Prodigy could’ve been possible.

*Prodigy* reintroduced characters from *Voyager*.

Even now that Prodigy has been cancelled, though, remastering Voyager and Deep Space Nine is still worth doing. The fact that fans are already doing it, using only DVDs and consumer-level software, should show Paramount that there’s not only the technological ability to do this, but an audience that wants it, too. Trekkies want to be able to watch our favourite series and episodes in the best quality available, and right now, Paramount isn’t offering that. The corporation could offer it – and many folks would jump at the chance to re-watch Deep Space Nine and Voyager that way. But if not… we’re going to continue to see fans using better and better programmes and AI to make their own versions.

There’s a quotation about new technologies that I think about a lot whenever AI is being discussed: “this is the worst it will ever be.” What that means is that technology improves all the time, and next year or in five years’ time, some of the issues will have been worked out and AI’s capabilities will only have grown. If fans are able to achieve such great results already… who’s to say what will be possible a few years down the line?

Screenshot of YouTube showing an AI-upscaled clip from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. — Fans are already making – and sharing – AI-upscaled and remastered scenes and clips.

What that means, in my opinion, is that Paramount has a pretty limited window of opportunity. If Deep Space Nine and Voyager are ever to be remastered, now is the time to do so… because at the rate AI is growing and improving, in five years from now any Trekkie who wants to could well be in a position to use AI to watch those shows in 4K or 8K from their old DVDs or even VHS tapes – without needing to sign up for Paramount Plus. Paramount won’t make a penny in that situation.

So the time is now, Paramount! Act fast, and finally give these shows the official remaster that we all know they deserve. With no need to print huge numbers of Blu-ray discs, and with the benefit of new technologies, remastering Deep Space Nine and Voyager won’t be anywhere near as costly as remastering The Original Series and The Next Generation was. Adding those shows, in all their 4K glory, to Paramount Plus will be a significant boost to the platform, and I have no doubt that people would sign up just to watch them – or stay signed up for longer. Remastering will be an expense, sure… but it’s an affordable one, and one that will pay off.

But if you won’t do it… don’t expect fans to wait around. The technology to make it happen is already here, already accessible, and already being used by Trekkies to make our own versions of these great shows. Continuing to ignore this request is going to prove costly in the long run, because if a fan-made version is available in better quality than anything on Paramount Plus… why would anyone sign up for Paramount Plus? Pushing your biggest fans toward piracy isn’t a great business model!

In most jurisdictions around the world, piracy – defined above as the sharing of copyrighted material over the internet – is not legal. Trekking with Dennis does not endorse, condone, or encourage the sharing of copyrighted material. The Star Trek franchise – including Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and all other properties discussed above – remains the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Could AI be the key to a Deep Space Nine and Voyager remaster?

Thu 18.03.21Sat 07.05.22Dennis

The most popular article I’ve written here on the website is about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, and how neither series has been remastered. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, The Original Series and The Next Generation were given a complete overhaul and rebroadcast, then re-released on Blu-ray (and HD DVD, if anyone remembers that failed format!)

For a number of reasons, though, The Next Generation in particular didn’t see great sales numbers on Blu-ray. Because of the significant cost involved in upscaling and remastering it, and the lack of a significant return on that investment, ViacomCBS hasn’t been willing to spend money on Deep Space Nine or Voyager. As a result, both series remain in “standard definition,” a.k.a. DVD quality. On today’s ever-larger television screens, the difference between a remastered episode of The Next Generation and a non-remastered episode of Deep Space Nine is incredibly noticeable.

Captain Picard in *The Next Generation* remaster (left) and *Deep Space Nine* DVD quality (right). Even allowing for image compression, the difference in quality is easy to spot.

Star Trek has been one of the big franchises that ViacomCBS has used to push its rebranded Paramount+ streaming service. Paramount+ is now the digital home of all things Star Trek – yet two of its flagship series that many folks remember with fondness from the 1990s don’t look great. As I noted last time, that’s a problem. It makes Paramount+ look cheap, as though ViacomCBS simply can’t be bothered to put in the effort.

Netflix runs some shows in DVD quality, but by far the majority of its content is in high definition. As Paramount+ attempts to position itself as a competitor to Netflix, Disney+, and other platforms in a very crowded market, having two big flagship shows in low quality standard definition is not a good look, and it’s something that needs to be addressed.

But last time the company made a significant investment in remastering Star Trek it didn’t pay off, so how should they proceed?

*The Next Generation* did not sell particularly well on Blu-ray.

There are a few factors at play here. The first is that ViacomCBS (and its predecessor, CBS) measured the success of the remastered Star Trek series purely by Blu-ray sales. The problem with this approach is that, even by the early 2010s, optical media in general was in decline. Fewer people had made the switch to Blu-ray than DVD, and with the rise of on-demand streaming platforms it seemed only a matter of time before Star Trek would be available to watch. I owned a number of The Next Generation stories on VHS, I’d also bought the entire series on DVD, and in the early 2010s I just wasn’t prepared to spend that money all over again on the same show – especially when it seemed inevitable that eventually the series would be available online. I was right.

Physical media sales are a poor measure of success in the days of on-demand streaming, and the value in investing in any project – be it a remaster or the commissioning of a new series – is less about pure sales numbers and more about the number of subscribers it will drive to your streaming platform. ViacomCBS has invested in Paramount+, so why not go the extra mile and remaster these classic shows for the service too?

One of the commercials for Paramount+ focused on Star Trek.

That’s the first aspect of this issue – the business side and how to calculate a return on investment. Raw sales numbers are less and less valid as a metric of success in a world that’s moved on to streaming, so making that calculation isn’t easy. But I bet that remastering Deep Space Nine and Voyager would drive new subscribers to Paramount+, as well as convince wavering subscribers that it’s worth sticking around. Both of those things are what any streaming service needs to survive.

The second point to consider is that the cost of remastering any television series is dropping all the time. There is software that uses AI that can produce creditable results from DVD-quality sources, such as the existing versions of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Consumer-grade versions of this software exist, and can be bought for less than $100. You can even find homemade upscaled clips of Deep Space Nine and Voyager on YouTube and elsewhere online – and they look pretty darn good.

There are many fan-made upscales of clips from *Deep Space Nine* and *Voyager* online.

As software continues to improve and come down in price, the cost of a project like this drops dramatically, and we may only be a few years away from fans being able to fully upscale their DVD collections at home. In some ways, we’re arguably there already. Rather than ViacomCBS having to spend huge sums of money recruiting new artists and animators to recreate whole sequences from scratch, it’s going to be possible to run entire episodes of the show through software and just have a small team of people make tweaks on the resultant upscaled version to knock it into shape. It’s far less of a project than it was ten years ago – so there are fewer and fewer reasons not to do it.

With ViacomCBS having the original tapes of these shows, it should be even easier to get a good result than it is for someone using the DVD version. I’m not saying it can all be done from home for a few dollars – the project will still cost money – but it’s a far less significant expense than it was last time the company chose to send Star Trek to the remastering suite, and waiting even just a couple of years could see those costs fall yet further.

Sisko and O’Brien in *Emissary*, the *Deep Space Nine* premiere.

I really hope that ViacomCBS will consider giving both shows a proper remaster at some point in the future. It’s something that would undoubtedly provide Paramount+ a boost, especially if the service were the only place to access the newly-upgraded shows. And it surely would be, because why bother with a Blu-ray release? Physical media continues its decline, with fewer people than ever upgrading to the latest 4K Blu-ray standard, so there’s almost no point. Remaster the shows, stick them on Paramount+, and enjoy a nice subscriber boost.

I truly believe AI and software offer a path to remastering these shows – and a lot of others, too. There are a few other series from the ’80s and ’90s that are yet to be properly remastered, and the same solution potentially exists for those as well. I’m not a tech expert, but I think the results speak for themselves. When I’ve seen upscaled clips online, created incredibly inexpensively by amateurs using commercially-available software, it really feels like ViacomCBS is missing a trick. Maybe upscaling the series this way wouldn’t be as good as spending huge amounts of money to do it from scratch, but it would be something – and the result would almost certainly be a better-looking show than the currently-available SD version.

Paramount+ would get a boost if both shows were remastered.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the most popular article I’ve written is about Deep Space Nine and Voyager needing a remaster – so there is clearly huge interest there from both Trekkies and casual fans. People who watched the shows years ago may want to rewatch them. New Star Trek fans who’ve joined the fandom since the release of the Kelvin films or Discovery may want to go back and watch older Star Trek shows. And of course us Trekkies would love nothing more than to see the two series get an overhaul. There’s a sizeable audience out here asking for a remaster, an upscaling, or whatever you want to call it. AI could be a good solution – saving money while giving fans what we’ve been asking for for years!

At the very least, I think it’s worth considering. And if ViacomCBS never does it… maybe someone else will. These pieces of software get better and cheaper all the time, and we could be in a position in a very short span of time where fan-made remasters of whole episodes, not just clips, will be widely available.

Deep Space Nine and Voyager were a big part of Star Trek’s most successful era to date, and a lot of casual viewers and Trekkies remember them with fondness. While there’s nothing wrong with the DVD versions, as screen technology improves and televisions get larger, what viewers expect from their programming has changed. For a lot of people in 2021, standard definition isn’t good enough – especially on a streaming service that costs $9.99 per month. If ViacomCBS is serious about continuing to invest in the Star Trek franchise, a portion of that investment needs to be directed backward, to remastering these two shows that have been sidelined. Part of the marketing for Paramount+ highlighted that it was the place to watch every episode of Star Trek – some fans will have been disappointed to learn that over 300 of those episodes don’t look great.

AI and software offer a solution to this problem, one ViacomCBS should take advantage of as soon as possible.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are available to stream now (in SD quality only) on Paramount+ in the United States, and on Netflix in the UK and other countries and territories. Both series are also available on DVD. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.