Most VFX shots loop through not one but several software packages. Sometimes even through multiple VFX vendors. Project files are proprietary and become inaccessible over time. And different VFX houses write their own add-ons that are not shared with a vendor like Netflix.

So collecting VFX shots in a pre-rendered state is notoriously difficult. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying. But you'll probably end up with various decomposed elements (models, rigs) and not something you can easily and quickly re-output in 4k, HDR, etc.

Often you can't reliably re-render shots from a few months earlier on the same project due to the pipeline changing so rapidly. Nevermind going back to the tapes for files that probably came off Irix workstations originally. The file formats for assets (models and textures) are backwards compatible enough that you can usually reconstruct models and maybe animation. So having an archive of the original files doesn't mean that you can re-render at higher resolutions without a lot of effort. The originals would need to be redone with more detail in any case to benefit from the higher resolution.

I'm not familiar with modern VFX software. But couldn't you just take a snapshot of the server and then load that onto a box in the future if you wanted to re-render it?

Archive-by-VM has been attempted from time to time. In the case of VFX there isn't a single server, but many different workstations, servers, render blades, etc. So preserving the entire pipeline in amber is a challenge.

And, somebody has to pay for it. The producers of the current project won't allocate any of their budget to preserve something for a (hypothetical) future sequel/re-release - that is somebody else's problem. The only places that I know of that do a decent job with archiving are animation houses like Pixar that own their own IP.

its a question of cost. Sure you can keep a pipeline frozen, but thats very expensive, and there is little need to do it.

its just cheaper and simpler to re-do it from the clean footage, or perhaps get some of the original models.

Possibly but I believe some software packages use a render server to farm the heavy lifting out to

The VFX elements for TNG were mostly kept, so it was mostly new post-production - it was DS9 that got bit hard, since there was much more CGI in the later seasons making an HD remaster too expensive.

I'll bet we see neural network-based upsampling (aka super resolution) being used for HD remasters in the near future.

Nobody's done this yet?

It's an area of active research: https://github.com/nagadomi/waifu2x

Maybe they could find the guy that put this together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lymh5p6UbbU

They may have gone back to them for the Blu-ray release of ST:TNG. If you haven't seen them, the picture quality is amazing - far better than the DVD releases. Word is that CBS/Paramount said the cost was such that they'll never do it for the other Star Trek TV properties.

Never is a long time. I still have hope.

For DS9/VOY and for Babylon 5.

>I'm surprised they don't ask for VFX sources to be archived though. ST:TNG and Babylon 5 both suffered badly from loss of the original VFX.

What do you mean by this? Is it common practice to "remix" a show when it's rebroadcast? I just assumed they more or less press play on a .mp4.

I think it's not about re-broadcasting, but about providing the show in a better format. The originals were shot on 35mm film, and then that was "mixed down" with the visual effects to some lower-definition format (maybe SVHS, but I'm just guessing) and the result sent to TV stations to broadcast.

To make a high-definition format (e.g., blu-ray or HD streaming) they'd go back to the original 35mm masters and re-convert them. But then all of the visual effects had to be re-added on top.

There are various articles that mention quality issues with the remastering:

http://trekcore.com/blog/2015/08/netflix-brings-vfx-fixes-to...

http://trekcore.com/blog/2012/11/review-star-trek-the-next-g...

I'm not sure about Babylon 5, but I believe TNG was shot on film, but the effects were all done at broadcast resolution due to cost. This meant that when they released the DVD version, it was not difficult to create HD versions of all the "real" footage, but the effects were all in standard definition, so they looked awful. For the Blu-ray remaster, I believe they redid all the effects with modern CG, so they no longer look like crap.

Both ST:TNG and B5 took their original source material and brought it down to SD and added the visual effects in at that level. So, we still had higher resolution original source material, but it had no effects in it. And these shows have a LOT of effects. When it came time to release ST:TNG on Blu-Ray, they had to recreate the effects and apply them back to the original material, which was a large and costly undertaking. Since it didn't make enough money, they have no plans to do this things like ST:DS9, unfortunately.

Wikipedia has more details about Babylon 5's transfer issues. They shot the show on Super 35mm film so they would have a widescreen source, which they telecined down to 4:3 for broadcasting. But when the show was remastered for widescreen in the 2000s, the production company did not return to the original widescreen film. They converted a 4:3 PAL copy to NTSC and then upscaled that to widescreen!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5#Mastering_problems

That conversion path hurts to even read :(.

> ST:TNG and Babylon 5 both suffered badly from loss of the original VFX.

Yeah, Star Trek (VOY/DS9) suffers really on Netflix - I wonder what they chose as source - straight DVD rips? The intro of VOY, for example, has weird color artefacts when the deflector dish of Voyager flies by the camera.

They do say it isn't a full list of requirements to to talk to your content specialist. I imagine they'll want those files too.

rec 709 isn't a different colour space...