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Sci-fi Channel's Star Trek Special edition (a WIP) — Page 8

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Hi, guys. I’m late to the party, but I’ve found that I may have every one of the SciFi Special Editions on old 8mm video which I’m transferring over to digital. Quality is not the greatest though. Does anyone have the original air dates for the SciFi editions? I think they started in September 1998, but I’d like to include the actual airdates in the file titles if available. Thx!

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tonyaldr said:

Hi, guys. I’m late to the party, but I’ve found that I may have every one of the SciFi Special Editions on old 8mm video which I’m transferring over to digital. Quality is not the greatest though. Does anyone have the original air dates for the SciFi editions? I think they started in September 1998, but I’d like to include the actual airdates in the file titles if available. Thx!

The 79 original episodes and then The Cage ran in their original airdate order, with Shatner hosting, on weekdays from Tuesday, September 1, 1998, to Thursday, December 24, 1998, skipping for various reasons on October 30, November 26, and November 27.

The first 60 episodes then ran again in original airdate order, with Nimoy hosting, on weekdays from Monday, December 28, 1998 to Wednesday, March 24, 1999, skipping for various reasons on December 31, January 1, and March 19, before they pulled the plug in favor of a “reboot” of the channel, with Star Trek no longer airing in the Special Edition format.

This is based on newspaper listings, but is consistent with the tapes I have.

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Did nothing ever come of this?

Looks like there are two full episodes at the Spleen, otherwise it’s just the old clips at YT.

There’s a Facebook group, but I skimmed it quickly and it looks like it’s just the same clips.

SilverWook said:

I don’t think anyone has preserved the 25th anniversary special yet.

There are two copies on YouTube right now (obviously uploaded after this post), both are low-res and heavily compressed.
I’ve got a copy of the official tape, but my capture card isn’t fantastic.

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I (same person as TrekSE1998, don’t have that account handy) posted what I have on YT for the last 40 of the 80 episodes, with Insights and Shatner or Nimoy introductions (80 videos total). Search for Star Trek Insights and a number from 41 to 80 to find the YT account that I used to post them. The first 40 episodes, which in general are more readily available from other sources, I will get to eventually.

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trekorama said:

I (same person as TrekSE1998, don’t have that account handy) posted what I have on YT for the last 40 of the 80 episodes, with Insights and Shatner or Nimoy introductions (80 videos total).

Do you think you could post full episodes somewhere? I’d love to watch these, commercials and all.

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Maybe. The captures I have been using to pull out the intros and insights are around 7 gigs each for the full episodes, but at least I do have them in that continuous form. For me those are safety captures because getting the best captures of these tapes with my equipment requires messing with the tracking a lot. I remembered recording these in SVHS-ET mode, but it turns out that was wrong because that feature was pretty new back then and I didn’t have recorders with it yet. So, although I recorded with reasonably good equipment and a pretty good cable feed (unusual for me), they are still pretty low grade EP recordings, mostly on 8 hour tapes.

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lol, I didn’t even know you could do 8 hour tapes.

At that recording quality, you could probably compress them a bit more and not really lose anything. Single-layer DVD size, or maybe even MKV? (or whatever people use these days)

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Any update on this?

It would be great to get all the available Special Edition sections (Shatner and Nimoy introductions) in better quality than is available on YouTube. And also the ones on YouTube are missing quite a few episodes.

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Hi, my first post here. - I remember this Star Trek Special Edition. I got really into this. Saw the ads on Sci-Fi channel. Each episode was cleaned up, cast and producer’s comments during the show. I used a Sony HiFi S-VHS ET mode during recording. Everything on timer since I worked a lot of evenings.
5-6 years later I transferred each episode to DVD with a Toshiba dubbing machine. I knew video quality degrades with VHS tapes over time. Made custom inserts for the CD cases. I had a lot of free time.
I haven’t read through this whole thread, but each night during the showing of the episode, Sci-Fi Channel web site had this thing called the “Spock Market” - Take off of the Stock Market obviously, but before each episode you use your stock credits to buy say Kirk stock or Uhura stock etc… for each character as much or little as you wanted. Stock prices went up/down during the show based on what happened to each character during that episode. I wasn’t very good at it. You could chat during the show each night with everyone else watching. It was pretty fun.
I enjoy watching the commercials - long distance calling cards were big back in the late 90s, ads for the Sc-Fi Channel store, Dell Computers.
and then Sci-Fi Channel rudely canceled it in the middle of Nimoy’s run. Wonder if current SYFY Channel will ever rerun these?

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Because of huge changes in personal life a few years ago I was forced to basically abandon my online activities and all other fan activities, but I’m slowly getting back.I noticed a few people here claiming they have video taped these episodes, is anybody willing to put them somewhere?

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pittrek said:

Because of huge changes in personal life a few years ago I was forced to basically abandon my online activities and all other fan activities, but I’m slowly getting back.I noticed a few people here claiming they have video taped these episodes, is anybody willing to put them somewhere?

Hi all… really late to the party. I recorded all of the SciFi Special Edition episodes with greater or lesser success on VHS. I may have missed bit here and there but I gave it my best effort at the time. I will GIVE anyone here those tapes in exchange for any digital yield they end up getting from them.I just don’t have the time or equipment to digitize them myself but I would love it some this material can be saved. I have not checked the tapes recently but I will before sending them out just to make sure they are still viable. Let me know if this is still a thing you are interested in.

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Wraith64 said:

pittrek said:

Because of huge changes in personal life a few years ago I was forced to basically abandon my online activities and all other fan activities, but I’m slowly getting back.I noticed a few people here claiming they have video taped these episodes, is anybody willing to put them somewhere?

Hi all… really late to the party. I recorded all of the SciFi Special Edition episodes with greater or lesser success on VHS. I may have missed bit here and there but I gave it my best effort at the time. I will GIVE anyone here those tapes in exchange for any digital yield they end up getting from them.I just don’t have the time or equipment to digitize them myself but I would love it some this material can be saved. I have not checked the tapes recently but I will before sending them out just to make sure they are still viable. Let me know if this is still a thing you are interested in.

Do you remember if they were the Shatner versions or the Nimoy versions? I unfortunately have no way how to digitize NTSC tapes, but it would be cool to have these preserved

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Wraith64 said:

pittrek said:

Because of huge changes in personal life a few years ago I was forced to basically abandon my online activities and all other fan activities, but I’m slowly getting back.I noticed a few people here claiming they have video taped these episodes, is anybody willing to put them somewhere?

Hi all… really late to the party. I recorded all of the SciFi Special Edition episodes with greater or lesser success on VHS. I may have missed bit here and there but I gave it my best effort at the time. I will GIVE anyone here those tapes in exchange for any digital yield they end up getting from them.I just don’t have the time or equipment to digitize them myself but I would love it some this material can be saved. I have not checked the tapes recently but I will before sending them out just to make sure they are still viable. Let me know if this is still a thing you are interested in.

Hello. If you still have the tapes and would like me to digitize them, I can do it. Sorry I haven’t seen this before now. Let me know! 😃

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Greetings from Tokyo!

New to the forum.
I too remember the great days of the Sci-Fi Channel and their airing of TOS Special Editions with interviews, ‘Crew Bio’ graphics and groovy sound effects, all making a really nice viewing experience. I was in college at the time, in snowy Massachusetts and we all gathered around the lounge and watched these back in the day. I hadn’t remembered that they abruptly cut the Nimoy run, probably because real life got in the way. Parties, girls, graduation, etc.

I have a couple of the episodes recorded onto VHS (of course) w/ commercials and all (Which I happen to love, but I know some don’t.) These are really precious now, especially since many of the people who did the interviews, including Nimoy hosting, are no longer with us. I would urge anyone out there who has these recorded to digitize them AND…do not throw away the VHS tape. I repeat, do not toss it. Keep it, seal it in ziplock and keep it, if possible, upright, on other words, not stacked. But stored on end. Magnetic tape degrades faster, much faster, when stored vertically.

It would be great if folks here and elsewhere were able to reconstruct the entire run, both runs, Shatner’s full run and Nimoy’s partial, onto Blu-Ray or merely .mp4s of high quality to be enjoyed again and again.

Cheers,
Robbie in Tokyo

Hi all… really late to the party. I recorded all of the SciFi Special Edition episodes with greater or lesser success on VHS. I may have missed bit here and there but I gave it my best effort at the time. I will GIVE anyone here those tapes in exchange for any digital yield they end up getting from them.I just don’t have the time or equipment to digitize them myself but I would love it some this material can be saved. I have not checked the tapes recently but I will before sending them out just to make sure they are still viable. Let me know if this is still a thing you are interested in.

Hello. If you still have the tapes and would like me to digitize them, I can do it. Sorry I haven’t seen this before now. Let me know! 😃