2 questions on film restoration.

[eyeangle]

Question 1:
I keep seeing Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays coming out that say “scanned with the original film negative” which is great because it’s first generation but at what resolution will they stop scanning the original film negative? If they keep scanning the original film negative every time a new format comes to market they’ll eventually damage the negative. Original negatives are very fragile and constant exposure to air or fluids (wetgate scanning) can only further damage them in the long run.

Question 2:
It’s a lot of work to keep digitally restoring a film after every scan. Just look at the documentary about restoring The Wizard Of Oz to 1080p. Will they have to keep digitally restoring it at every resolution standard such as 8K and 16K?

[Marv Inc.]

You can only scan 16mm and 35mm up to a certain resolution before you max out how much detail you can extract.

With 35mm i think its 6K and with 65mm you can higher than 8k. As for damaging the Negative if the OCN is in too bad a shape they would not use it in the first place.They'd opt for an IP.

[shinobipopcorn]

For #1 I read that a lot of places do a 2K scan and then upscale to 4K, perhaps because of cost or film limitations. I think Disney's big library scan was 4K.

For #2, no I don't think most studios care to keep scanning the films at those ultra high resolutions. Oz is a special case, WB does that one whenever they get bored it seems (or at least they did before the merger). But the other studios would have to justify the expense and with home video sales declining, I don't know if they would do it.

8K is quite niche as far as home media goes, the sets have just come out and they're ridiculously expensive; plus I'm not even sure you can see a difference compared to the best 4K HDR. For example, a lot of the smaller studios are not jumping into UHD because they see it as a poor seller. Now can you see the film owners going through the trouble of a 8K/16K scan if no one even wants to use the 4K scan?

[miribeau]

Originally Posted by eyeangle

Question 1:
I keep seeing Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays coming out that say “scanned with the original film negative” which is great because it’s first generation but at what resolution will they stop scanning the original film negative? If they keep scanning the original film negative every time a new format comes to market they’ll eventually damage the negative. Original negatives are very fragile and constant exposure to air or fluids (wetgate scanning) can only further damage them in the long run.

Question 2:
It’s a lot of work to keep digitally restoring a film after every scan. Just look at the documentary about restoring The Wizard Of Oz to 1080p. Will they have to keep digitally restoring it at every resolution standard such as 8K and 16K?

There is a limit to what the human eye can perceive. Before that limit is reached, there is a point of diminishing returns where changes in clarity make little difference. It is unlikely they would keep going, once they hit a point where the change is not significant enough to motivate the average buyer to upgrade both equipment and films, based on both of those limitations. Additionally, with streaming being what it is, there is also a limit to how much data they would wish to send with each film streamed. Even though our data capacity will keep growing, so will the consumer base, along with the population, so exponentially increasing data streaming would likely be vetoed as an option. And, of course, Blus being what they are, with such a huge increase in cost to produce, over DVDs, and then 50GB costing so much more than 25GB, and 4K discs costing so much more than a standard 50GB 1080, there is a similar diminishing return from the production end.

In our home, one 4K setup was installed, only to have pretty much everyone say, given how close the TVs are to the places we sit, it just didn't make as much difference as they thought it would. Everyone expressed displeasure at the cost of 4K media, in light of that lack of improvement for us. In a friend's home, who spent thousands and thousands showing off all his money and upgrading practically on day one, and demanding I stop in my least favorite city to see the thing, and in a relative's home under similar circumstances, the 4K televisions were both large enough and far across the rooms, that the viewer could marvel at the quality, as compared to a 1080p. How many people have a living room or bedroom large enough for a television of even higher resolution than 4K to be positioned at distance, so you can process the entire screen in a stable gaze, and to be of sufficient size to make a huge portion of the population jump at the newer, better resolution. I just read in another thread where a guy watched a big-budget action film for the first time the other day... on his phone.

The restoration artists working for these home media companies are unlikely to be in a position to scan enough times to damage the celluloid, even if they actually get to, as example, an 8K resolution, given all of these limitatons. There is a limit for the average person and family and corporate interest, for that matter.

As to the sound improvement accompanying the 4K revolution, there is a similar limitation in what the ear can perceive and what a company would be willing invest in a new release.

In short, don't worry about the celluloid. They are excellent at preserving it now, when the spirit moves them to do so.

[AlexIlDottore]

Originally Posted by shinobipopcorn

Oz is a special case.

Indeed, it is special. Oz is 35mm technicolor three strip. It should look fantastic upgraded to 4K with the bells and whistles.

[oddbox83]

I do wince when films get needless new scans from negatives. Hello Screenbound and Blood on Satan's Claw. However, reputable restorers will be very careful and modern technology is much more kinder than full speed telecines were. You shouldn't be adding lacquers either, I know of examples where a lacquer was added to "protect" a negative, which has reacted to a wetgate scan and rendered the negative unusable. This is why it's also important to have good quality back up materials like inter-positives on negative quality stock.

Wizard of Oz should be fine though. The previous scan had the foresight to scan at 6K IIRC so it can be reused for 4K.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by eyeangle

Question 1:
I keep seeing Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays coming out that say “scanned with the original film negative”

It may not always mean a fresh scan of the film source, perhaps it could be a previously done scan which had been done with sufficient quality levels to be suitable for the new format, now with less of the compromises required while downsizing the master to lower specifications.

[shinobipopcorn]

Originally Posted by AlexIlDottore

Indeed, it is special. Oz is 35mm technicolor three strip. It should look fantastic upgraded to 4K with the bells and whistles.

Honestly I'm surprised they waited this long for a UHD, considering they already had a 4K scan from back when they did the last remastering. But the new disc will be based off the 8K scan so it has to be looking good.

[AgentOrange]

How many cases are there of a film owner doing a 2K scan off the original negative for blu-ray, and then another 4K scan of the original negative for UHD? I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that is a very rare occurance. I don't think your concerns are warranted that scanning original elements "too often" is something studios make a routine of, if anything for most of the blu-ray format lifespan the problem was studios couldn't be bothered to do new scans at all...off of ANY element. They would just use whatever they used for the DVD. At least Warner Archive seems committed to new 2K scans off of IP elements. Even in 2019, that's far better than dropping some ancient DVD era master like Universal or Paramount made a habit of through the years. Sony and Fox are pretty good with 4K restorations, but they mostly only license them out at this point.

Presumably if a studio did a 4K scan in the last 5+ years or so, that would be good for a UHD release as well. Some of their top cash-cows already went beyond that with 6K or 8K scans, so they should be good to go for spectacular UHD releases.

[babybreese]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

I do wince when films get needless new scans from negatives. Hello Screenbound and Blood on Satan's Claw.

The old HD master is positively ancient, please odd one.
The potential problem here is Screenbound cocking something up.

[HD Goofnut]

It really comes down to the following when you're talking about making digital intermediaries:

2K Digital - 2K minimum scan
35mm film or 4K Digital - 4K minimum scan, but 5K or 6K is preferred
65mm film - 8K minimum scan, but the studios aren't ready to pay for that yet

[Adam4Rizzel]

Originally Posted by eyeangle

Question 1:
I keep seeing Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays coming out that say “scanned with the original film negative” which is great because it’s first generation but at what resolution will they stop scanning the original film negative? If they keep scanning the original film negative every time a new format comes to market they’ll eventually damage the negative. Original negatives are very fragile and constant exposure to air or fluids (wetgate scanning) can only further damage them in the long run.

Question 2:
It’s a lot of work to keep digitally restoring a film after every scan. Just look at the documentary about restoring The Wizard Of Oz to 1080p. Will they have to keep digitally restoring it at every resolution standard such as 8K and 16K?

1. 4K is the standard for scanning a 4-perf 35mm negative, according to what I've gathered from Criterion and WB's MPI. The goal is to restore once. Lawrence of Arabia may have been restored and finished in 4K, but they scanned the negatives in 8K so they'd already have the files on hand in case they wanted to come back and restore in 8K. Imagine that 8K projection becomes the standard in the next 10 years and the 65mm negatives for Lawrence had sustained another 10 years of fading...

Film scanners today are also extremely delicate and many scanners can handle damaged film. The WB MPI policy is also that 35-mm 4-perf negatives have to be scanned in 4k for archival reasons. There is no reason to risk any possible damage to a negative with a 2K scan. Remember that these elements aren't just being scanned for a 50 GB BR disc, they're also being scanned for digital archival use and possibly even the creation of new film element(s) via film recording. According to Universal, following their restoration of the negative of Jaws, they recorded a new 35mm negative from the restoration to put back onto the shelf.

2. Again, the goal is to restore at the highest resolution and output to whatever the resolution of consumption is. Wizard of Oz will never be in 16K because there's not enough information; an 8K scan is already pushing it. If you ever see The Wizard of Oz being advertised as 16K, know that it's an up-convert. The only film size I can imagine that comes anywhere close to 16K would be the 15-perf IMAX film stock, which is gigantic compared to an average 35mm frame.

[DrCushing]

The higher the resolution scan, the better resolving of grain can occur when rendering for lower resolution outputs. It all comes down to scanning equipment and who does the encode at the final stage.