Dirty Harry films coming soon

[Grubert]

On the occasion of the release of Blade Runner on Blu-ray and HD DVD, Sound and Vision Magazine has an excellent article on how Warner is restoring its films for highdef release and archival. The writer is given a tour of the facilities, which are very impressive.

Evidently, the studio is now working on The Enforcer, the third of the Dirty Harry films:

The information the studio definitely doesn't want transferred to any high-def discs is the kind of fossilizing left behind by dirt and scratches — often a problem when transferring older titles. In fact, when a movie goes high-def, it must spend time at the station of the dirt-and-scratches guy. The technician — in this case, editor Steve Sanchez — attacks blemishes like a vat of Clearasil. On the day I dropped by, he was in the process of removing no fewer than 13,000 glitches from a mere half-reel (that's about 10 minutes) of the Dirty Harry movie The Enforcer (coming soon to high-def).

The next stop is at the mega-console of Jan Yarbrough, technical director of motion picture imaging, who does color correction and enhancement. Jan, also working on The Enforcer, has had to take the film's deteriorating color and make it look natural (not easy, when skin tones have taken on the look of a fatally bad fake tan).

Warner Bros. motion picture imaging technical director Jan Yarbrough
does color correction and enhancement for the 4K transfer of The Enforcer.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Bring on the Dirty Harry collection in Blu.... Punk!

[glenn-bob]

hooray for harry

[richteer]

Given the care they seem to be taking for the high def restoration, let's hope that Warner doesn't shaft us by giving us bit-starved HD DVD ports...again.

[Manco]

AWESOME NEWS!

"Go ahead Warner. MAKE MY DAY!"

Maybe we'll see the boxset by summer (after they go BD exclusive)

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Grubert

On the occasion of the release of Blade Runner on Blu-ray and HD DVD, Sound and Vision Magazine has an excellent article on how Warner is restoring its films for highdef release and archival. The writer is given a tour of the facilities, which are very impressive.

Very cool.

Although the 4K master gets downconverted to 2K for Blu-ray and HD DVD, Cookson and Price note that they still get better high-def detail if they work down from 4K. In fact, earlier that day in another Burbank building, John Lowry showed me how a standard DVD of the James Bond movie Goldfinger, which he scanned at 4K, trumped a less-than-masterfully mastered early Blu-ray Disc of a film that shall remain nameless. The Blu-ray had a number of obvious flaws, including contrast issues and pixelation, while the Bond DVD was so loaded with clear detail that this was the disc that actually looked high-def.

Name the nameless.

Fifth Element? House of Flying Artifacts?

[gearyt]

Great look inside the workings, Thanks for the info

[TauHeel05]

"I gots to know, I gots to know"

I hope to see these titles soon.

[Storm]

Outstanding! Thanks for the information.

[zombie]

The DH series has been planned for HDM release since 2006. A search should find the old thread I started about it back then. Glad to hear it's coming soon though.

[Living Near Shamu]

"Do you feel lucky, punk? Do ya?"