5/5 Film is naturally HD
  by Michael Dempsey (East Haven, CT)
To rebut another review, anything professionally shot on 35 mm film, whether from the 1960s or 2007, is natively high-definition--that is, the amount of information that has been recorded on the MASTER is equal to or greater than HD standards. It's only the duplications that, until HD mastering, were of lesser definition. That's the reason studios at first were so hesitant to adopt HD DVDs--it diminished the value of their master if everyone had a copy as good. So when a film is remastered in HD from an original film master in good condition, it's true HD and not "extra pixels filling in empty space." Remastering, of course, can be done well or poorly, accounting for differing quality in the final product. Anyone who's seen these remastered episodes knows how fantastic they are--both for how great they look and, yes, how they show up the wooden sets and cheap costumes, etc. from the period. But that's part of the fun! What's astonishing is how well this show holds up in HD, and how much the new effects extend its original vision. Kudos to the remastering creative team and crew for a Star Trek experience that's reverent to the original yet new again!

5/5 5 stars for the series terrific first season, 2 stars flimsy packaging & for the price (with amazon discount).
  by Wayne Klein (My Little Blue Window, USA)
Advantages:

1) HD-DVD/DVD dual format so fans that don't have HD-DVD can watch and enjoy the show.
2) New visual effects.
3) Beautifully restored high definition transfers
4) Nice packaging (at least for the shell itself)
5) The new visual effects are often stunning(the second season episodes "Amok Time" and "The Doomsday Machine" were the most impressive--not included here but "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and other first season episodes look terrific as well. It should be noted, however, that some fans have had issues with the new visual effects being inaccurate but these are mostly nitpicking).
6) If you decide to get an HD-DVD player you'll be set to roll with this DVD.
7) Newly recorded score, new prints struck from the original elements,some new extras including home movies shot by extra Billy Blackburn, the ability to navigate outside the ship, look at the development of the new visual efects and a couple of new featurettes highlight this set.


Disadvantages:

1)In a format that hasn't proven its staying power yet and you're paying for it.
2)Way too expensive
3)Sort of a double dip
4)Some have complained that the digital visual effects don't have the surface detail of a model or even of the original Enterprise visual effects.
5)Not available in Blu-Ray for those that don't have HD-DVD players.
6)The packaging could become easily damaged in shipping.
7) Dual sided discs which tend to be more easily damaged than single sided discs.
8)HD-DVD only Special Features that will play only on HD-DVD players (not on DVD machines).

Previewed at Comic Con, the new set will please those fans that have HD-DVD although the price for this set won't. Those that enjoyed the recent syndicated run of the series with its new visuals will also enjoy this set.

Conclusion: This is a terrific series and the first season had some of the best episodes however this is way too expensive even considering that it is in a HD-DVD/DVD dual format. Why? Because some fans may not want to commit to the new HD-DVD format since we don't know which format is going to win the high definition format war. The bottom line is that Paramount/CBS has miscalculated pricing this at an insane price. Sure many fans will buy it but I doubt that it will sell in the droves that Paramount/CBS wants it to.

Final Words:As always the series itself is terrific and this, along with the bulk of the second season, was the original series highmark. The new visual effects when they are effective only enhance the original film. Also, it hasn't been reformatted for widescreen so it keeps the original aspect ratio (black bars appear on the sides of the screen).

Ultimately your decision about whether you want to get this depends on how badly you want it given the price. Priced at nearly TWICE the original DVD box sets, my advice is to wait until Paramount lowers the average retail price or grab it at a deep discount while you can.

More info on the set (added): The content has all the first season episodes. I suspect that "The Cage" will probably be held over (as with the original box sets) for the third season as an enticement for fans since that is the worst selling of the three seasons. There are a number of featurettes including "Starfleet Academy" special features are tied into the HD side ONLY as is the tour of the ship. We do get Billy Blackburn's "Treasure Chest" a series of home movies shot behind-the-scenes in Super 8 with comments from Billy who was an extra on the series.

DVD Featurettes:
Birth of a Timeless Legacy
Billy Blackburn's Home Movies
Life After Trek: William Shatner
Reflections on Spock
Sci-Fi Visionaries
Kiss and Tell
To Boldly Go
Trekker Connections
Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier
Preview of online game

Many of these featurettes were available in one form or another on the previous release.

The HD side has seven episodes highlighted; "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Menagerie, Parts I & II", "Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "Space Seed", and "Errand of Mercy". Because "Trek" is presented in its original 4x3 transfer so there are black bars on the side of the screen where you can select more information. YOu can watch a split screen with comments on the episodes mentioned.

There's also the HD tour of the "Enterprise".

Episodes:

The Man Trap
Charlie X
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Corbomite Maneuver
This Side of Paradise
A Taste of Armageddon.
The Naked Time
The Enemy Within
Mudd's Women
What Are Little Girls Made of?
Miri
Dagger of the Mind
The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2
The Conscience of the King
Balance of Terror
Shore Leave
The Galileo Seven
The Squire of Gothos
Arena
Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Court Martial
The Return of the Archons
Space Seed
The Devil in the Dark
Errand of Mercy
The Alternative Factor
The City on the Edge of Forever
Operation: Annihilate



4/5 Video 5 stars, Audio 3 stars
  by Hank Drake (Cleveland, OH United States)
I reviewed most of The Original Series episodes during the initial DVD release which began in 1999. So, the comments here focus on the new edition.

I don't have an HD player or TV, but even at standard definition, the picture has never looked better. The colors pop off the screen, scratches have been removed, and grain, while noticeable, has been reduced to a bare minimum. Seeing the new remastering alters one's perceptions of the series. I had never noticed the tear streaming down the crippled Captain Pike's cheek as Spock reveals his plan in "The Menagerie." Unfortunately, with the improved picture, flaws in the original production are also more noticeable: shadows from boom microphones are detectable, zippers can be clearly seen in many of the uniforms, and a certain hairpiece has never been more obvious. Still, the picture shows the obvious care taken with the lighting and composition (very different from today's flatly-lit, smash & grab style of television filming).

Of course, the primary focus of this new release is the new CGI visual effects. Most of the new space shots are very convincing, remaining in the original spirit of the series. Only a few of the shots are major deviations from the originals, such as when satellites are launched from the Enterprise in "Operation: Annihilate," or the addition of a previously unseen ship in "Arena." Restraint seems to be the watchword here. There was an earlier Enterprise model which was used for a few episodes, including "Miri," and these shots are not as successful as those using a later model. But as the episodes progress, the quality generally improves. I would have liked to have seen a little bit more done, such as the replacement of some very dated viewing screen graphics in "Where No Man has Gone Before" and "Balance of Terror." The enhanced matte paintings of Starbase 11and Eminiar 7 are simply stunning.

There are a number of errors. The opening credits of "Where No Man has Gone Before" contain Kirk's opening monologue ("Space, the Final Frontier") which was not heard in the original broadcast episode and home video versions, and the sound mix for "The Menagerie" is botched, with music from Season Two tacked on, and the Talosian singing plants incorrectly channeled.

The discs also include audio tracks in Spanish and French, although my partner (fluent in Spanish) tells me many of the Spanish translations are not faithful to the English originals.

Bring on Season Two!


5/5 ST: TOS-R - Season 1 Set review
  by The Writer (of the Great U.S.A.!)
Well, blame me for being over-eager if you want.

I've just received my copy of TOS-R season 1 on HD-DVD/DVD. I do not have an HD-DVD player, so imagine my relief when they went with these hybrid discs. Very considerate for those of us who can't spend $[...] on every new gadget every 5 minutes.

There are 10 discs in the set, in a new design clear plastic container. 5 plastic cards list the details of each disc. Side 1 of each disc is HD-DVD, while side 2 is standard DVD. Both sides contain the same features.

When I heard of this set, I was concerned what they meant by 'season 1', since they've been airing the new versions all out of order. This set indeed contains the entire 1st season of TOS, including episodes which have not yet aired in their edited-for-more-commerical-time format. So NUTS TO THE NETWORK!! Thanks to this set, you won't need to worry about the air-dates for 1st season episodes anymore. You get them complete, and uncut, as opposed to network TV, which brutally chops out 10 minutes of footage to advertise the latest fad.

The price is admittedly a little hefty, but Amazon had it for nearly $[...] off the reported $[...] price for pre-orders. I placed mine back in Sept.

The menu is fairly straightforward, set in the transporter room (as opposed to the Enterprise bridge, as the original versions did) with characters from each episode in the chamber. On the transporter console are the listed episodes on each disc, while bonus features on each disc are found under "Additional Data".

CGI remastering can, of course, only do so much for film as old as these episodes, so of course there was some grain in the episodes, but not so much that it deters from the enjoyment of the story. Thanks to the clean-up work though, the images are also darker, a little more realistically shaded, which is, IMHO a major improvement over the blaring studio-style lights of the original versions.

I encourage anyone who reads this to get the set! I will not regret this!
Now I just want to know one thing - when's Season 2 due out?

5/5 40 Years Overdue
  by Home Gamer (Burbank, Ca.)
Make no mistake about it. This is exactly what Star Trek fans, like myself, have been waiting for.
The Star Trek phenomenon speaks for itself. The offspring of the original show--the movies and the series--have been able to keep pace with effects technology. But, the original Star Trek had become an embarrassment.
But, now, that's all changed. Every old effect is gone. They have been completely replaced, including the opening credits (with a newly recorded theme, to boot).
This replacement has not "butchered" the series, as one reviewer complained.
Nor do the new effects need to be compared to the effects of other Star Trek shows.
The fear of re-vamping the old effects to modern standards was whether they would stand out too much compared to the rest of the show. And that is why the new effects are a happy compromise between today and yesterday. The crew at Paramount has done an amazing job of modernizing all the effects, while staying loyal to the original look. The effects are not so modern as to make them look out of place, yet they do not look old or cheesy. There are no longer any "stock" shots of the Enterprise, that are recycled from episode to episode. There are new points of view of the Enterprise, and I get a much better sense of how large the ship actually is. And there are plenty of surprising effects that were never in the original show. It is, quite simply, breath-taking.
In 40 years, I have watched every episode countless times. But never have I been so excited to watch them as I do now.
Besides the new effects, the entire look of the show has been restored--frame by frame. Scratches, blemishes, skin tones, and lighting contrast have all been fixed.
Along with the space shots, there are marvelous enhancements to city scapes, planet surfaces, and even Sulu's chronometer is no longer made of those stupid-looking plastic wheels.
No, the sound is not perfect, but it's better than what it used to be.
Yes, the packaging is horrible. My set was broken when it arrived. But I don't care.
Yes, it's a bit too expensive and will probably come down in price eventually. But I don't care.
I have what I have always wanted...Star Trek the way it should be, the way it always deserved to be.
It is obvious that this restoration was done with love and reverence.
Sure, Paramount is going to make money for this. But they deserve it.
And, as a fan of Star Trek, you deserve to see the show the way it was intended.
You can now let your kids see the show without being too embarrassed. After all, there are still the same charming foibles to see: the sets, the costumes, and some rather silly episodes.
If you love Star Trek as much as I do--and I know you do or you wouldn't be reading this--then purchase this DVD set and go where you have always wanted to go before!