The series was released on VHS cassette tapes, usually with two episodes or a two-part episode on one tape. For some releases the credits of both shows on the tape were combined at the end rather than shown separately. They have subsequently been re-released individually. Three episodes were released on region-free
Blu-ray Disc in January 2012. This was not a
remaster, wherein a new master copy is struck from the same original cut negative as previous master copies, nor is a remaster possible because the show was edited on tape and no such original cut negatives exist. Instead, it was a completely new edit of the show remade from raw film clips, with many shots needing to be replaced due to being natively interlaced, the wrong frame rate (unlike DVD, Blu-ray cannot handle mixed frame rates), or otherwise not convertible to the new format. Five "Fan Collective" DVD collections were released, each including episodes with a particular theme – Borg, Klingon, Q, Time Travel, and Captain's Log – from the first five live-action Star Trek series, including
The Next Generation.
Streaming The digital distribution of the remastered series has been through services such as iTunes and Amazon Video. Seasons 1 and 2 were released on the US, Canadian and UK iTunes stores in early 2013, in both high and standard definition. Seasons 3 and 4 were released on the US and Canadian iTunes stores in the second half of 2013, and on the UK store in March 2014 - again in both high and standard definition. In early 2014, the first four seasons were added to the Australian iTunes Store in both high and standard definition. Both high and standard definition versions of Season 5 were released digitally in the US via Amazon Video and iTunes in early May 2014, and later in the UK, Canadian and Australian iTunes stores. In December 2014, Season 6 was added in both high and standard definition to the US iTunes Store. The complete series was added to the
Netflix streaming service in the US in 2011. In 2015, the series was updated to the high-definition re-edited version of the show. Although the series was available to subscribers on Netflix,
Hulu, and
Amazon Prime for a number of years, after Paramount launched its own streaming service, it stopped renewing streaming rights to the Star Trek series, and by late 2025,
The Next Generation was available for streaming only from
Paramount+. ==See also==