"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by mark antony

Taxi driver was "restored" by Columbia a couple of years ago with the supervision of Scorsese....no additional work is necessary.

This is true. But, Lawrence of Arabia went through a big restoration effort in 1989, and again recently.

I almost didn't post because of this, but what we don't know is whether the Taxi Driver restoration was sufficient for BD. Remember, several years ago SPHE was judging things on CRTs, and this resulted in substandard early BD encodings.

The true classics of cinema may be subjected to extra special care when it comes to BD's from Sony.

Gary

[savage1984]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

The true classics of cinema may be subjected to extra special care when it comes to BD's from Sony.

Gary

As proven by the movie in your avatar...

[mark antony]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

This is true. But, Lawrence of Arabia went through a big restoration effort in 1989, and again recently.

I almost didn't post because of this, but what we don't know is whether the Taxi Driver restoration was sufficient for BD. Remember, several years ago SPHE was judging things on CRTs, and this resulted in substandard early BD encodings.

The true classics of cinema may be subjected to extra special care when it comes to BD's from Sony.

Gary

There are two seperate things to note when talking of film "restoration," Are we talking about restoration of film elements or a restored transfer?

In the case of both film's, they have both been preserved (which is the key word) on film, in the case of LOA it has two preservation 65mm negatives. When films are preserved it means they will be viewable generations from now, in something approaching their original quality.

LOA also had some additional work done to it for the 40th anniversary, I believe the soundtrack had some additional clean-up done to it.

Both these preserved films have had duplicate film elements made which can be used to transfer to hi-def for any medium be it BD, DVD or broadcast.

Once the transfer has taken place, at either 8K, 4K, 2K or any other resolution then the clean-up can begin. This removes scratches, dirt and colour corrects. Any film that was shot on film, whether last year or 40 years ago will need to go through this clean-up stage.

This master is then ready! So as both films have undergone both these stages, no additional work is necessary. In the case of Taxi Driver the most recent dvd showcase this new hi-def transfer, albeit downconverted to standard resolution. Similarly LOA was transferred in HD years ago and this master was colour corrected by Robert Harris and cleaned up for the superbit dvd release - the most accurate yet.

Dependent on the age of the film the director or DP or both may supervise the transfer and/or colour correction. Once they've signed off on it, which may include additional grain reduction as necessary, then no other work will be done or needed - that's the film, and that's how they want it to look HD or not. Hence the recent "furor" over Bram Stoker's Dracula - like it or lump it Mr Coppola likes it that way.

Judging by what Penton Man has said, whatever film it is, the process will involve film restoration and preservation followed by a transfer from these new elements and clean-up...

M

[WickyWoo]

Whatever happens, we want them to take their time, get it accurate and get it right

Hiring Mr. Harris is an excellent first step in this process

[Rob Tomlin]

..

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Penton - thanks for the heads up well in advance. I've posted on "other" forums that our (blu-ray.com) insiders confirmed it and we never doubted you

Next time, tell em neither have …………..
1. Stephen Nickerson
2. Chris Cookson
or
3. Ken G.


We all know that the persistent vocal nay-sayers and doubters are residual stalwart red ants anyway……..if you check their past posting history.
And then of course you have the policy on some *other forum* where *thou shalt not start a thread solely based upon Insider news – until there has been an “official” announcement from the respective company
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1008775 - or it will get locked pronto.

……exception of course being anything concerning or related to BD50 replication at Cinram.

In that case, all one needs to do to initiate an acceptable thread on that topic is say things in the first couple of posts like………
“I just got word from”…………………………….
or
“Just insider info, nothing formal from Cinram on this yet.”………………
and the thread won’t get locked or discarded at all.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=996975

^ ^ ^
Thanks (I think?) goes to a Blu-ray.com forum member for providing the links for me and keeping me informed as to what is still transpiring on other internet forums in terms of moderator antics.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Possibly. But why bother if the reduction is so subtle you need the original and split screen to see minor differences? Usually this stuff is used to have some impact. And that can easily translate to benefits (less noise/grain) and costs (artifacts).

The ultimate goal here is to produce a motion picture that has seamless or consistent texture(grain) throughout the entire picture…..exception of course being special situations like flashback scenes, *mood* scenes, etc.

If for instance, the motion picture is *gritty*, then you want to maintain the same *grittiness* throughout the entire film. If the motion picture is relatively *clean*, then you want the same *cleanliness* throughout the entire picture. It is generally not desirable that the grain becomes visually distracting from scene to scene(due to different film stock or exposure)thus calling attention to itself rather than the storyline or action. So, what I was referring to with my “mild grain reduction” comment was to isolate certain groups of scenes that need work, rather than noise-reduce the entire picture. Nothing captured by a camera comes out 100% consistent for a typical major film.

At the D.I. stage, one is sometimes confronted with cases of obvious variance in the amount of grain between captured scenes.
If the real-time grain/noise reduction is done carefully and judiciously then I believe the visible artifacts will be subtle to all but the most astute moving picture watchers if they are engrossed in the movie.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Thanks, Penton.

Am I remembering correctly that Technicolor may be doing Universal's BD authoring and compression work?

I’m not saying they will be or they won't be. But in regards to your query about grain/noise reduction and such on home video (Blu-ray), Technicolor uses the Thompson AVC encoder which handles grain well.
For historical purposes, Deluxe did the vast majority of HD DVD encoding/authoring for Uni.

In regards to any post house’s acquisition of a DVNR 2k system (such as the one you linked) and their potential to detrimentally alter the PQ of Blu-ray movies to the experienced eye of film purists………I guess time will tell.

Keep in mind though, don’t feel too upset……….. be thankful because we dodged a large pitfall regarding the potential for over zealous DNR use just by Blu-ray having had won the format war rather than HD DVD.
Why?

Because the superior bandwith and space of BD50 compared to HD DVD30 does not so easily lead to the temptation of a *low bit rate philosophy* and a concurrent viscous cycle involving grain/noise reduction to that end. Michel (mhafner) actually made a very insightful post regarding this pitfall back during the format war.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

Thanks, Penton.

Reassuring to say the least, though tracking meta data has never been high on the list. Maybe I'll voice my thoughts at the next HPA get together I attend (don't attend many as that's not my main focus).

I think that all V.P.’s of Asset Management are cognizant of the significance of metadata and some from Hollywood even speak at conferences and such……………
http://www.digitalassetsymposium.org/program.htm
^
if you be in the Big Apple on 4/25.

[Penton-Man]

For the record, the title that I’ve alluded to i.e.- which is due for a full blown digital restoration with all the trimmings has been mentioned/posted here so there is no longer any need for new guesses. It could have been one of the early guesses…….or one of the last guesses………or anything in between.

All you have to do now is chew on which one of the stated guesses is correct.
Good luck.

[Penton-Man]

Oh, the highlight of NAB so far for me as a TeeVee watcher has been the announcement by Sony and CBS that the “Survivor” reality show would go HD starting with the upcoming shoot this summer…….using Sony's XDCAM stuff.

I think that makes the first non-studio based reality show to go high-def ?
Anyway, I can’t wait to watch those bikinis slipping in HD during reward challenges in mud pits and such.

Seriously, the beautiful locales (above and underwater) selected for “Survivior” have begged for high definiton production quite awhile now.

Later folks.

[PeterTHX]

"Cops" has been HD for a while.

[Bruuce]

I hope it's Rocky Horror. I can't wait to upgrade my DVD.

[ErikR]

Taxi Driver
North by Northwest
The Birds
The Magnificent Seven

The above were the guesses.

On Page 125 post #2500 Penton stated:

For those without the ring, I already gave a big hint on the previous page as to what classic film is due for a full blown digital restoration with all the trimmings by the Asset Management Dept. of a major Hollywood studio. This process easily could take from 1-2 years.

More hints may follow in due course……..as papers haven’t even been signed yet.
B.T.W., tomorrow it’s off to the Digital Cinema Summit and NAB for yours truly.

So, later folks.

On Page 124 (The previous page) post #2467 Penton said:

To all the naysayers and doubting Thomases on other internet forums…………….

ENJOY YOUR CROW.

My guess of the above is The Birds!

[WickyWoo]

Apparently due to the globetrotting, Amazing Race will not be going HD any time soon Survivor by comparison is quite a controlled environment

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Oh, the highlight of NAB so far for me as a TeeVee watcher has been the announcement by Sony and CBS that the “Survivor” reality show would go HD starting with the upcoming shoot this summer…….using Sony's XDCAM stuff.

I think that makes the first non-studio based reality show to go high-def ?
Anyway, I can’t wait to watch those bikinis slipping in HD during reward challenges in mud pits and such.

Seriously, the beautiful locales (above and underwater) selected for “Survivior” have begged for high definiton production quite awhile now.

I take it you're not a watcher of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or "Sesame Street" then?!

Alan<~~~~~~~~~~Who is looking forward to Elmo in HD!

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

For the record, the title that I’ve alluded to i.e.- which is due for a full blown digital restoration with all the trimmings has been mentioned/posted here so there is no longer any need for new guesses. It could have been one of the early guesses…….or one of the last guesses………or anything in between.

All you have to do now is chew on which one of the stated guesses is correct.
Good luck.

[BluStar88]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Apparently due to the globetrotting, Amazing Race will not be going HD any time soon Survivor by comparison is quite a controlled environment

FYI Amazing Race Asia on AXN (sony owned) TV in Asia was short in HD last year. and heavily advertised Sony HD camera capability. I think it was only 720p though and broadcast (in my home anyway) in SD.

[WickyWoo]

AR Asia is much much smaller in scope, at least the first season I watched

[Agent Cooper]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

For the record, the title that I’ve alluded to i.e.- which is due for a full blown digital restoration with all the trimmings has been mentioned/posted here so there is no longer any need for new guesses. It could have been one of the early guesses…….or one of the last guesses………or anything in between.

All you have to do now is chew on which one of the stated guesses is correct.
Good luck.

I'll stick to the first title that came to my mind, North By Northwest, probably because I really want it to arrive in HD!