Question about older movies on BD

Pycroft

Hi all...

I've entered the world of blu-ray and have been intrigued to find that many older movies are being re-released. I bought the Goonies (One of my childhood fav's) and I think it looks fine. Obviously the older movies are made with different technology. Can anyone explain, in common terms, how they turn something 25 years old into a blu-ray? Is it all digitally redone? I ask because I just read a review on Blu-Ray.com of 'The Last Starfighter' (Another childhood fav), and it was a poor review. Apparently the video and audio were done poorly, which made me think...what do they actually do?

Thanks,

Pycroft

cheddar

Unless a movie is shot with a digital camera (even new ones seldom are), the movie is shot on film stock. And all movies, even older ones, are high definition because analog film stock actually captures more information than even a high resolution digital camera can. (Think old LPs vs. CDs). When you think about it, it makes sense. People often talk about 1080p vs. 720p differences only being visible on 50" and above screens, with larger screens showing even more detail (as well as faults) in the movie. Well imagine how much detail is needed to make the movie look good on a giant projection theater screen. That said, master prints get old and have a characteristic film grain (many directors purposely use film grain for artistic effect). So although the resolution of analog film may exceed 1080p, it certainly can be a 'dirtier' print than something captured with digital cameras. And with many movie 'purists', that's actually the prefered way to see the film. A few imperfections with all the detail left in.

When any film master, even the newer ones, are transfered to digital, all the imperfections are transfered over too. So all the scratches, dust, and the film grain of the original print come out clearer than they ever did on dvd because of the higher resolution of blu-ray. At this point, a studio has to decide how much money they want to put into cleaning up the image. Methods range from going frame-by-frame trying to 'restore' the print by locating individual imperfections and removing them to just running any number of digital processes over the image to automatically reduce dust and grain and then repairing any softness in the picture by artificially enhancing edges (eliminating even more original detail). It's a difficult balancing act -- scrubbing out the imperfections while retaining the fine detail you want to preserve. And if a studio just wants to get a blu-ray out quickly, they often either leave too many imperfections in or digitally scrub the film to the point that they are also eliminating alot of the fine detail contained in the original print. If it's the 'Starfighter' review I'm thinking of, they were complaining of the latter, that the print was over processed and many scenes were soft.

I would expect that older movies will always be hit or miss depending on their expected blu-ray profits. Big movies will get the expensive restoration, while less known ones will suffer from dirty prints or over processing and soft detail.

Toolfan66

Thanks,

I always wondered this as well,

Thanks for posting this.

Pycroft

Cheddar -

Thanks for the detailed, informative post... The starfighter review didn't use the word 'soft' but complained that the bushes looked like blobs on the screen. I guess whoever cleaned up the master copy did too much cleaning Thanks again for the info.

Pycroft

cheddar

No problem for the post. Many times people will complain about how bad a blu-ray movie looks, blaming the format or the playback hardware when studios just cheap out or rush the transfer process. Early adopters complained about the quality of the 5th element so much that the studio re-released it after cleaning up all the dirt and scratches left on the image. And studios often go overboard thinking they have to eliminate the film grain as well even if it was the intention of the director to leave it in. Movies like 300 even insert digital 'grain' to provide a more film like look vs. the more video like look of the pre-processed CGI image. It's a shame when studios 'clean' a movie too much and it moves in the opposite direction.

One can only hope that long-wait movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings have legions of digital restoration people taking the time to make the movies look the best they can possible look on the format...

Monster Jam

...and for the love of Pete, PLEASE LUCAS, PLEASE give us a fully restored ORIGINAL version of the original trilogy!

Mike LoManaco

Edit.

Retro152

Very informative cheddar, thanks for the info.



Pat.

Sherardp

A perfect example of digital restoration is the movie "Patton". Looks like they smeared grease all over the print, no grain at all. The PQ is very clear, but the grain all removed.