SFXB Forum

For 2025, do you plan the DVD rewatch or the hi-def upscaled version?

Thank you for the kind words.
Its a slow process simply because of other commitments to my time, but it's on my desk so always there, waiting for the next phase.

Trying to find the right sized heat-shrink for the antenna now so that can be done.

I would say that, once the antennae are coated yellow at the top, that should be it done and finished...


Our daughter is very much into Stingray and Terrahawks (and also Fireball XL5).
I was also really impressed by the production quality of Supercar, when I watched a couple of episodes of that on the Supercolourisation Blu-ray a while back.

Thunderbirds did not make quite such a big hit last Christmas because that show plays it a bit more straight and the episodes are a good bit longer, making it better for slightly older children.

Star Fleet was received as a 'counterfeit Stingray' when I tried putting it on a long time ago.
I may try again this year, if I run a bit short of things to watch when we're not out-and-about, but I think it may have the same challenge as Thunderbirds.

If so, I'll give it a watch myself.
I started building up quite a good file of advice and admonishment quotes from Captain Carter and Dr Benn, which I planned on building into X-Bomber the Game's high-score screen.
It would be good to try and get that finished.

I'm trying to get to the end of The Deep, which is a very likeable, modern CGI Stingray/SeaQuest surrogate.
I want to see how the story ends on that.


I sometimes feel that the Star Fleet upscale leaves behind the fuzzy 'charm' that made Star Fleet give off a sense of 'otherness' when I watched it on VHS in the '90s.
I kinda feel like it made the show more mysterious: that it wasn't as easy to tell exactly what everything looked like in-detail, and that your imagination had to do a bit more work to try and fill in the blanks.
I think, in a strange way, that made the show more memorable to me many years later, when it came to starting to write the game.

That being said, the AI upscale is a massive step forward and the AI technology opens up huge possibilities for enjoying sci-fi shows, (which studios seem not to be able to make as good of a job of any longer) in completely new ways.


The AI is doing a lot of extrapolation and you can say that the improvement isn't "genuine" or "authentic" but the result is that you get to watch a fantastic-looking, rather than bleary, show.
I'm not sure that I really care that the detail is arbitrarily filled in by the AI logic.

I would very much welcome someone seeing how far they can push the envelope and doing a 1080p or 2160p AI upscale of Star Fleet.
But I know how much work went into the 720p release and it already looks excellent.

After the antenna, it'll be filling in the gap under the wings/ears. Then mounting the electronics and wiring in the lights.

Still much to do

I tried SF and the GA shows with our kids a few years ago. SF was the only one they watched through to the end but it still wasn't the same as when we'd have seen it as kids ourselves. I remember being gripped by it, but it wasn't really the same for them. I remember the serialization was quite unusual at the time but I guess for kids today it's just the norm.

I use the upscales for my rewatch now. I get the point about the fuzzy/blurry/smeary picture being part of the charm, but for me there's so many aspects of the production which are beautiful and the upscales really emphasize those aspects, whether it be some of the gorgeous matte paintings, or lovely model work, it all just looks so much cleaner and sharper than it does on the DVDs. The use of AI in upscaling is fairly contentious at the moment, thanks to the Jaws 3 4K and some of the 4K Jim Cameron films (Aliens, True Lies), but used in moderation and tastefully and it can have some pretty profound effects. I tested upscaling a few of dym's 720p files through Topaz last year and outputting to 1080p, but the conclusion I came to at the time was that 720p was probably the optimal resolution before things started to look TOO clean and precise. I wanted better than the DVDs, which the 720p files are, but 1080p and beyond is just taking it too far IMO. Plus, the file sizes at that resolution were a bit ridiculous, I think an individual episode was about 3Gb.

Still, just for the giggles I might output one to 2160p when I next dig them out for a watch!

That latest version of PPA is looking great. Obviously plenty of work still to do I'll bet, but that already looks fantastic.