I just want to admire Kira in extra crispy detail.
Because unlike TOS, they never actually recorded on 35mm film, it was recorded straight to video
They can uprez video (in fact, TNG was recorded on video as well), but it takes time and money that Paramount doesn't want to spend
To expand on this, DS9 (and Voyager) WERE shot on 35mm film, but they were edited on video. So to restore everything they would have to dig up all the old film takes and manually edit it all over again, not to mention redo all the cgi stuff.
They did that with TNG but it took a huge amount of money and labor so I'm not sure profit wise it makes sense to the studio sadly. Who knows though..
Imagine a future where we didn't have to care about profitability in creative works... a communist can dream :thinkin-lenin:
It's so interesting how ephemeral pre-digital media was. You'd watch a show, maybe catch a rerun on syndication, but that was it. It was always on to the next episode rather than even consider preservation for future viewings. Better to save money using video and even tape over older shows like the BBC did with Doctor Who. I lived through it and it's still weird. Home media came in like a firestorm.
The Doctor Who stuff is crazy. So many people who wish they could watch that now.
I believe there are some AI enhanced up-res'd versions floating around...
I would refrain from mocking Musk for literal weeks if he funded this, it's probably the most lib position I have
Star Trek was shot on film and then converted to video to edit. They released the TNG Blu Ray set by upscaling the original film footage and editing it back together and it looks amazing. It also took a lot of time and money and I'm sure they didn't make much money doing it
