The Godfather restored [HP SAN storage makes Warner Brothers an offer it can't refuse

[TheDaddy]

http://blocksandfiles.com/article/5449

The Godfather restored

HP SAN storage makes Warner Brothers an offer it can't refuse


No, thirty five years after his death the Marlon Brando character is not coming back from the grave, but Francis Ford Copola's epoch-making film trilogy is being restored to its pristine state with an HP Fibre Channel storage farm used to hold the digital files needed. It feeds the files to restoration artists at workstations and to restoration software running in compute farms.

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging (MPI) is a movie post-production and analogue film stock renewal facility located on the Warner Brothers studio lot in Burbank, CA. It has developed a patented process to digitally restore movie classics stored on film stock.

This stock degrades with handling and time and will anyway contain original imperfections and blemishes that are clearly visible with high-definition screens. Graduated tones in the dark areas will turn uniformly black or brown whilst bright areas will appear flared. Clors may become muddy and edges indistinct.

MPI uses HP Media Storage, processors and workstations to help replenish this old stock and bring it up to the 4K Digital standard, the movie industry’s highest resolution format for digital video, which provides four times the resolution quality of high-definition television.

The '4K' refers to the resolution per film frame, 4096 x 3112 pixels, which becomes up to 50MB when stored digitally. There will be 24 frames per second - 1.2GB - and 1,440 frames per minute - 72GB - and an up to 180 minute run time - 12.96TB. Storing the entire set of three Godfather film files needed 160TB of disk capacity.

A 2-hour movie has about 172,800 frames. Using a single computer to process each frame could mean a 600-day processing run at a 5 minutes/frame rate - clearly impractical - which is why a server cluster is used and why CPU speed and storage I/O is critically important. The faster individual frames can be processed the quicker the entire job can be completed.

Storage set-up

Designed specifically for the entertainment industry, the HP Media Storage set up at MPI includes 600TB of storage, with EVA 8000 arrays in a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN), HP Linux-based ProLiant servers and BladeSystem server blades, as well as multi-core processor HP workstations. Quantum storage management software, StorNext is used to manage the data via a heterogeneous file system that allows the data to be accessed by all clients, both Windows and Apple Macs.

HP Media Storage supports Apple's Mac OS X and Windows XP connectivity to the EVA SAN. It is compatible with Apple’s Final Cut Studio through the use of Apple Xsan software.

Through the use of StorNext, there is a single 'virtual disk' view across all the different tiers of storage - high-performance FC disk for fast, concurrent active data file sharing, near-line systems for reference or older data, disk systems for back-up data, and off-line tape for archived data.

Automated restoration process

MPI experts and HP researchers have devised an automated process for restoring old film stock, correcting faded and mushy sound, sharpening blurred images, and removing scratches, color distortions and multiple camera field seams in panoramic pictures.

What happens is that the original film stock negatives are scanned at very high resolution and turned into digital files. These are then worked on by multiple teams of MPI people to restore different aspects of the film and to make sure that, overall, its color and appearance and sound quality are coherent and complete.

Sections from the film are checked by software which looks for dramatic changes in pixels from frame to frame, such as might be caused by a speck of dust on one or two frames, a hair, or a bit of localised film degredation. Once identified these can be removed and the now-empty area filled in with pixels cloned from the surrounding area, just like photo editing.

Similar photo-editing techniques can be used to increase sharpness. There is still manual work needed to correct other image artefacts in the digitalised film but massive amounts of 'grunt work' can be carried out by the software.

Moving a 12TB film file from storage to workstations and then to rendering processors means a lot of bandwidth. Multiple artists have to work on parts of the film at the same time and their work must not be lost. The HP SAN has to available 24 x 7 and the storage has to be bullet proof. MPI cannot afford to lose data in the middle of a project.

The restoration efects are dramatic. The beautifully restored Godfather trilogy will be re-released in September, prompting, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of DVD sales and, hopefully, Blu-ray disk sales as well. Only with Blu-ray will the full richness of tone and detail in Coppola's masterpiece transfer to home screens. Perhaps this will be the Blu-ray offer that home movie screen viewers cannot refuse.

Download a video clip about HP and MPI here: http://video.telecomtv.com/hp/mediastorage.wmv

[gufazi]

Being released September. Is that 2008?

[ajc68]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

http://blocksandfiles.com/article/5449

Only with Blu-ray will the full richness of tone and detail in Coppola's masterpiece transfer to home screens.

They must not have got the memo from Toshiba, lol...

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by gufazi

Being released September. Is that 2008?

supposed to be

[D_LO]

Wouldn't there have been an announcement if it was that close to a release? Or did I miss that announcement?

[Hawk]

I had this trilogy in the special edition VHS boxed set, the Laser Disc set where the 3 movies were specially edited together by Coppola to run chronologically, and the DVD set. I cannot wait for the Blu-Ray version. I really liked the Laser Disc version where it ran chronologically instead of jumping around like Godfather II. But of course the purist would want the movies to remain separate as they were first produced.

[bajor27]

I thought 4K res was greater than 4x that of 1080P

Given their numbers, it seems to work out to about 6.15x but they aren't using a 16:9 ratio

1920x1080 vs 4096 x 3112

[fronn]

For anyone wondering about the cost of those iSCSI SANs (not including the ProLiant servers), they rather handedly break 6 digits (not sure on exact pricing of multiple EVA8000s totaling 600TB, but I wouldn't be shocked to hear it hitting mid 6 digits or higher -- my experience is on a much smaller scale).

Upkeep on those isn't going to be too much, certainly not compared to the actual hardware/software costs (few hundred per drive fail).

The EVA line of SANs from HP is pretty spiffy though.

[JBlacklow]

Originally Posted by D_LO

Wouldn't there have been an announcement if it was that close to a release? Or did I miss that announcement?

No announcement was made, but it's not really that close. September releases are trickling in, the big stuff should come in the next 2-4 weeks.

[NoQuestion]

Originally Posted by D_LO

Wouldn't there have been an announcement if it was that close to a release? Or did I miss that announcement?

Studios have been making announcements normally 1 or 2 months before release. If these are truly coming to bluray this September, we will see an announcement from them in July(2 months out) or August(1 month out).

[Squozen]

Originally Posted by bajor27

I thought 4K res was greater than 4x that of 1080P

Given their numbers, it seems to work out to about 6.15x but they aren't using a 16:9 ratio

1920x1080 vs 4096 x 3112

Remember that a frame of 35mm film is 4:3 ratio, not 16:9.

[ryoohki]

Yeah September release is rare, we are still getting August Date...

[sfmarine]

I'll believe it when it's official. Back 2 the Future and The Godfather trilogies all in the same year? Too good to be true! All we need is Indiana Jones!

[AaronSCH]

You can read a nice article about the restoration here. I really hope this is in my stocking come Christmas.

Here's an image comparison from American Cinematographer magazine:

Before:



After:



Before:



After:



Before:



After:

[tvine2000]

i'm all for this.i thought the opening on dvd is to on the red side with faces.
i know its low lit but i'm sure the film print had the right flesh tone for that lighting,the dvd did not.

[Kieran]

I got this on SD Steelbook this week. Not got round to watching it all yet (can't wait to do so) but the little snippets that I have looked at look nice. I wouldn't say the quality blows me away, but it is certainly an improvement on the original DVDs. In the wedding scene, just one clip I watched, the colours are more vivid and the ladys' dresses actually look pink and white rather than a bland musty colour.

I am very sad that they took away the random menu screens that were on the original releases The menus just display the same image again and again now.

I think that the images above are a little extreme. I did a comparison of the DVDs on my TV and comp screen and it does not look AS different as that.

The new extras are kind cool.

[diamondfoxxx]

Well, the DVD's are set with a north American release date of September 23rd, and the DVD's are in fact available for pre-order at amazon (available as a set, and individually). I found out the Sep 23 release date from the American Zoetrope site, but found no mention of a Blu-ray release.

http://www.amazon.com/Godfather-Copp...2930258&sr=8-1

[diamondfoxxx]

http://www.digitalbits.com/#mytwocents

[Beta-guy]

Originally Posted by diamondfoxxx

Interesting article at digital bits:

http://www.digitalbits.com/#mytwocents

''Here's something you Godfather fans might want to check out this morning: A column over on Blocks and Files (a data storage news website) about the recently completed restorations of the films, done over at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging. Of key note is this comment at the end:

"The restoration effects are dramatic. The beautifully restored Godfather trilogy will be re-released in September, prompting, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of DVD sales and, hopefully, Blu-ray disk sales as well. Only with Blu-ray will the full richness of tone and detail in Coppola's masterpiece transfer to home screens. Perhaps this will be the Blu-ray offer that home movie screen viewers cannot refuse."

Indeed. We expect an official announcement from Paramount on this release very soon.''

wait, if the Godfather trilogy is owned by Paramount why was it restored at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Beta-guy

wait, if the Godfather trilogy is owned by Paramount why was it restored at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging?

Just unsubstantiated reasons.

1) Paramount doesn't care about restoration. Steven Spielberg had to Paramount to pay for the restoration.

2) Warner has a bigger catalog of titles in their vault that needs restoration. Creating an in-house facility makes better sense. Their fees might also be better than other restoration companies.

3) DTS Digital Images have been sold to Reliance Big Entertainment, part of the Reliance ADA Group. This might mean that the company may now focusing on restoring Bollywood films and are not available to Hollywood.


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