Star Trek "DeMastered" Video Service to Launch

SlashRating©
E
slashdottit! tm

lopy writes "The Star Trek franchise has partnered with the little known DuroSport Corporation to launch a new video download service. The service will offer 'DeMastered' versions of classic Trek episodes. The new releases roll-back the quality enhancements of recent years and attempt to replicate the experience viewers had while watching the original series on TV in the 1960's. Medialoper was given a preview, and they've just posted a scathing review of this odd new service."

Re:

[Scott Lockwood]

What's the E in E=mc^2 mean, then?

Re:

[Short Circuit]

That's only true in vacuum. The parent AC must have been referring to a medium where light travels even faster.

Re:

[nmb3000]

What's the E in E=mc^2 mean, then?

I think they just messed up the case. It should in fact be e. The story obviously isn't so good, what with a rating of 2.718 or so.

Of course I think a better rating for most of these stories would be h [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[jerkface.us]

E = 1110 = 14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Volante3192]

I thought it was Slashrated E for everyone...

Re:

[Dogtanian]

April Fools?! NEVER!!!!

BTW, this story is so bad that even the Digg crowd haven't gone for it; the "Digg it!" box on its page has reached the grand total of 9.

My turn yet?

[Mikachu]

Is it my turn to be modded insightful for no reason?

Re:

[daranz]

Sure, I'll go right ahead and... oh wait.

How to shoot yourself in the foot

[Monsieur_F]

Moderators: Mod this post insightful too, please.

Meta-moderators: Mod the moderation unfair, please.

Re:

[moogs]

Mod me Insightful too yay!

On a topsy-turvy day like April Fool's...

[ChePibe]

It's comforting to see that, in spite of all the strange upheavals on Slashdot, when everything seems to change, people are still regularly modded insightful for no reason at all. It's the one thing that doesn't change on April Fool's.

Re:My turn yet?

[bcat24]

Could I please have one of those delicious-looking insightful moderations?

To make it truly the same experience

[zappepcs]

they need to add to the sound track ... things like:

Hey, you make a better door than window...
Do I have to clean my room NOW?

well, you get the picture

Re:

[Brandybuck]

They way I remember, and the way all those who saw the original broadcasts remember it, is:

"We now interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin..."

Demastered

[dekkerdreyer]

Does that mean Kirk shoots first?

Re:

[andy314159pi]

I laughed, but I must admit that I don't actually get it.

Re:

[bubkus_jones]

Seriously? I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not (damn internet).

Re:

[paganizer]

Kirk ALWAYS shot first; there are some things that can't be altered, the fabric of space-time does not allow it.

Re:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I was having sex with a green alien woman last night, and I must admit, I shot first. So, I do not fault Kirk at all for that.

Re:

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

Kirk: We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill. We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill men!

Re:

[Brandybuck]

The difference between Star Trek and Star Wars fans: Star Trek fans can get laid.

p.s. They get laid with overweight chicks in Klingon costume and makeup who tend to whine quite a bit about their "issues", but at least they get laid. The best Star Wars fans can hope for is a lubricated foam rubber Yoda handpuppet to wield their light saber.

Re:

[fm6]

They get laid with overweight chicks in Klingon costume and makeup

I always seem to end up with bulemic chicks wearing poorly-made spock ears.

Colorblind

[DudeTheMath]

Ooh! Will it automatically switch itself to black and white for those who didn't yet have a color set? It was a long time before my wife knew why "nameless assistant #1" who was the first killed by the monster was referred to as a "red-shirt" ("Did he delay his first year of acting to extend his eligibility?").

Re:

[sharperguy]

you mean a Red Shirted Expendable Crewman? http://www.drfloyd.com/ [drfloyd.com]

Re:

[that this is not und]

The thing is, it wasn't a 'coincidence' or a 'subtle cue' that the landing crew members in the Red Shirt always got killed. It had to do with the people in the Red Shirts being the 'security' staff. Kind of the 'Infantry' of the landing party.

Re:

[sharperguy]

Exactly, they were Red-Shirted Expendable Crewmen!

Re:

[voice_of_all_reason]

I think it had more to do with the practical application of having to recast a major role or two every episode.

Re:

[illegalcortex]

It had to do with the people in the Red Shirts being the 'security' staff.

I would have never guessed Uhura was (will be?) in the infantry...

You know...

[Spazntwich]

This story might have gotten me if it had been Star Wars instead. This sounds like an idea birthed in the depths of Lucas' infernal mind.

My favorite part of this service

[Anonymous Coward]

It gets cancelled every few weeks, and you have to start a letter writing campaign to save it.

Re:My favorite part of this service

[Evilest Doer]

It gets cancelled every few weeks, and you have to start a letter writing campaign to save it.

I would love to see the look on Paramount executives' faces when they notice the "Save Star Trek" bumper stickers someone put on their cars. Or, do we still have to do it to NBC executives just for old times sake? I would only be afraid that Rick Berman would use it as an excuse to make yet another Star Trek series.

how retro

[cyberbob2351]

Those of you who emulate Atari games on your amd64 supercomputers cannot whine.

Sometimes I need that trip to the past, to remind myself how crappy my youth television was.

Re:

[that this is not und]

We admire you. You always, only, look forward to the progress. The new. The newest!

You throw out your furniture and buy new furniture every three years, right? And you lease your car.

I turn television on once in awhile to remind myself how crappy television still is. Like almost everything for television that's ever been produced. But especially so if you make an effort to watch 'new' stuff as it comes out instead of letting time filter the crap out.

There were some good Star Trek episodes. By mistake

Demaster?

[andy314159pi]

is that what you do after you see too much of Uhura [wikipedia.org] in one episode?

Re:Demaster?

[saskboy]

Unmastered versions are popular too with retro fans. It's better to experience unmastered than the demastered remasters.

Re:

[voice_of_all_reason]

+5, Incredible

Wrong country

[Ed Avis]

The article refers to the 'original Moldovan broadcasts' of Star Trek. Surely everyone knows by now that the original Star Trek is Turkish [thewavemag.com]. Why didn't they offer Turkish Trek for download?

Re:

[Brandybuck]

That's not true. Everyone knows that the original Star Trek was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad...

In Soviet Sci-FI

[NeilTheStupidHead]

star treks you!

Re:

[Afecks]

Wow that was a hilarious read. I just had to see that. Happens to be on YouTube, hell it might even be legal too!

video link [youtube.com]

Re:

[CaptainMunchies]

Bah! That's nothing compared to Russia's Cosmos Patrol [stim.com].

E?

[fermion]

What is E?

NCC-1701E was TNG ship.

Certainly we meant 1701.

Re:

[Ashtead]

Either it is that, or it is what the calculator displays when trying to divide by 0. Guess it would have shown as 1701 otherwise.

Re:

[Trogre]

Well 1701 did used to be a popular error message on PCs with old MFM hard drives. Usually when the second, thinner, cable was accidentally left disconnected.

Ahh, where ever did I put that old XT?

Re:

[ari_j]

NCC-1701E was TNG ship.

Yours is the second Geek Card I've hard to revoke this week. The NCC-1701E [wikipedia.org] is, of course, post-TNG, despite being crewed largely by TNG characters.

Noon Rule

[fyoder]

How about implementing the noon rule [bbc.co.uk], where jokes must be played (posted) before noon in the time zone the joker is in. Otherwise the joker (Zonk in this case) is the fool.

April Fool is dead and gone,
You're a fool to carry it on.

Re:

[VJ42]

IIRC Slashdot uses GMT; It's long past noon GMT. On the plus side we've only got about 3 and 3 quarter hours to go http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/ [greenwichmeantime.com].

Warmed over Borat joke for Slashdot demographic?

[Sad Adam]

Is Durosport just a warmed over Borat joke pitched at the Slashdot demographic?

No, I'm not a Moldovan or a Kazakh FYI.

And this Durosport sppof does seem a whole lot less racist (against xUSSR people and Muslims that is).

And for my last demonstration, I will show you t how politically correct and humorless I truly am, here is a link to Moldovan Internet stats:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/european/moldo va/resources/md-general.html [loc.gov]

Actually a shame this is a joke

[istartedi]

Would actually be nice to have the original commercials and stuff. Would actually be nice to see Star Wars without a Jurrasic Park dino snuck into tatoine and those stupid rings around the explosions. Would actually be nice not to have to wonder if there really are subtle differences, or if it's just my memory.

Re:

[voice_of_all_reason]

Would actually be nice to have the original commercials and stuff.

Not only would a television network never *dream* of providing free publicity, but it would likely be a violation of copyright as well. Just saying.

I know it's BS but,

[pair-a-noyd]

I'm all for it. I wish they would do it.
Matter of fact, I'm building my own "way back machine", an HTPC with a few terabytes and loaded with nothing but old TV shows from the 50's & 60's, maybe a few from the 70's.
It will play old TV shows according to a schedule and all the episodes will play in the proper sequence.
I'm editing out all the commercials so they won't be tainted by modern crap. I wish I could find copies of the old commercials of way back then too, that would be pretty neat to mix them in. It may take me a few years to gather all the shows I want but I have time. And I'll never grow tired of watching them over and over. Watching TV on this machine really will be like going back in time.
Lost in Space, Voyage to the bottom of the Sea, ST TOS, Time Tunnel, Green Hornet, Land of the Giants, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligans Island, Addams Family (tos), The Munsters, etc.... Stuff that was on TV when I was a kid. Entertainment without gratuitous violence, sex and cursing. Just good clean fun.

Why? Because I despise 99.9% of contemporary TV programs, they simply suck.
Really. I'm stone cold serious.

Re:

[Paolo DF]

If you look around, you can actually find old tv commercials. I know for sure that there are Atari and Intellivision and Apple commercials around, I even downloaded a compilation of them a while ago (it was atari-related stuff)

Other Shows

[camperdave]

Lost in Space, Voyage to the bottom of the Sea, ST TOS, Time Tunnel, Green Hornet, Land of the Giants, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligans Island, Addams Family (tos), The Munsters, etc....

Throw some of the old British TV shows in there as well. Things like The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, The Avengers, Doctor Who, etc. Having seen a few episodes of each of these, I think it would have been cool growing up watching them.

Re:

[pair-a-noyd]

Ah yes, those too. And I Spy, Mission Impossible, Space 1999, The Saint, I Dream of Jeannie, Hawaii Five o..
On and on and on. There was so much cool stuff on TV back then. It's just impossible to list it all.
Oh and I'll be mixing in some great old movies from Turner Classic Movies and Fox Movie Channel.
Here's a link I found that lists a *few* of the many shows from back then.
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv-shows.htm [fiftiesweb.com]

Ahh, those were the days.

Re:

[LordSnooty]

Nostalgic USians could really do with a site like this [cream.org]

Re:

[Mix+Master+Nixon]

Archive.org has metric tons of old TV commercials for the taking.

If war broke out on April 1,...

[Ltar]

No-one would take it seriously.

And In Other News

[coyote4til7]

The answer for "SlashRating" is not pi, e, avogadro's number... it's 42 Pink Ponies (on the brain), take one down, pass the joint around...

Impressive

[hey!]

They haven't just created a new kind of multimedia service, they've pioneered a novel form faulty inference, which I propose be named the "DuroSport fallacy" in their honor: -(A-->B) --> (-A --> B).