How do they make older movies into Blu-ray Discs?

[TurboNutter]

Has anyone heard anything about some great older movies coming out on BD? Taxi Driver, French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather series, Raging Bull, Cool Hand Luke, those types. And how good can they actually look if they do?

[ProvenFlipper]

Originally Posted by TurboNutter

Has anyone heard anything about some great older movies coming out on BD? Taxi Driver, French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather series, Raging Bull, Cool Hand Luke, those types. And how good can they actually look if they do?

I heard that the Godfather Series was remastered a few years back by Lowry Digital... Maybe those might see the light of day in HD.

[JTK]

The Searchers is one example that people can use to see that, yes, old films can look GREAT in High Def when done right.

Needless to say: Just about every movie named here in this thread would make me flip out.

[BTBuck1]

The general rule on DVD in the early days was, any movie made before 97' wasn't going to look to good.

with remastering techniques and higher resolution available now, seems we've gotten past that.

[Josh]

Blazing Saddles is over 30 years old and looks stunning in High Def.

[TurboNutter]

Thanx Josh, that's good news. Not crazy about the film, but shows that it is possible for an older movie to look good in High Def.

[Rob Tomlin]

Originally Posted by nyg

If they're restored they can look terrific! I haven't heard anything about any of those titles coming though. I'd happily take Raging Bull from your list though. There certainly is a lack of classics on BD right now. Hopefully that'll change in the coming months.

I copied Raging Bull onto my HD-DVR from HDNet Movies (I believe that was the station). Looked pretty good. Amazing black and white cinematography.

As far as old titles that I am waiting for in High Def: my favorite movie of all time, and it is Sony's crown jewel: Lawrence of Arabia.

Shot in 70mm, with perhaps the best cinematography ever captured on film, I can't think of a title more deserving of being on a High Def format than this!

Sony, please do Lawrence right!

[Blue]

Totally Agree - it had better be digitally remastered - effectivly every fame scaned and photoshopped to get rid of dust scratches etc. Audio is a bit of a touchy subject - leave it as it is or enhance it. As far asw i"m concerned - enhance and give it me.

[speedy41]

Hi,

I am just confused how a movie like Black Hawk Down can be in high definition via Blue-Ray. Were the movies originally filmed in HD or something?

I just dont get how old movies can be high definition.

Thanks!

[dobyblue]

The resolution of film is higher than 1920 x 1080 to begin with.
It's more like 4,000 x 4,000 or higher.

[theknub]

speedy,
there is the original film that they have. this film is at a much higher resolution than current technology supports. the studios then scan the film in at a high resolution (often times greater than the current 1920 x 1080) and transfer it to a disc. obviously, they should do some remastering and all that, but this is the basic process.

[Knight-Errant]

Yeah what the others have said.

Basically historically film has always had the best picture because its a photo-chemical process like traditional photography rather than an electronic one.

So now the technology is available that same film can be transferred to video at much higher resolution (HD) than was possible before.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by speedy41

Were the movies originally filmed in HD or something?

I just dont get how old movies can be high definition.

Thanks!

Hi speedy41, welcome to the forum.

Old movies and most new movies are shot in 35 mm wide negative film (similar to the film used in 35mm still cameras that you can buy in Walgreens). Film negative is a very high resolving medium. Resolution in film is measured in cycles/mm (or line pairs per millimeter one pair consisting of one black line and one white line so one cycle (or one line pair ) could be said to be equivalent to 2 pixels, one black and on white) (It's more complicated than that but that's good enough for the example). Film by itself can commonly resolve from 50 c/mm to 400 c/mm (100 pixels/mm to 800 pixels/mm) depending on emulsion stock. But since the image on film is formed by exposing it through a lens and this lens also has it's own resolution limits, the final resolution on the photographed negative is always less that each component's resolution.
For example 70.7 c/mm (141.4 pixels per mm) for photographed fine grained film. Now to the film formats. Depending on the year and format a movie was made in, the image can vary on 35mm shot film from as big as 24mm x 36 mm for VistaVision/Technirama 8 perforation cameras (same as 35mm still photo film) going down through 18mm x 24mm for Silent Films or Full Frame 4 perforations cameras to as small as 9mm x 21mm in Academy Sound Aperture cameras modified for the Techniscope 2 perforation format. There's also a few films made with bigger than 35mm cameras, like 70mm films (22mm x 48mm) and the couple of times used used 55mm and CINERAMA.

So multiplying the four mayor formats dimensions that have been used in 35mm by the pixels per millimeter gives you approx:
(mm dimensions have been rounded)

A) Academy Sound (Sound movies before 1955): 15mm x 21mm (1.375) = 2160 x 2970
B) Academy camera US Widescreen: 11mm x 21mm (1.85) = 1605 x 2970
C) Current Anamorphic Panavision ('Scope"): 17.5mm x 21mm (2.39) = 2485 x 2970
D) Super-35 for Anamorphic prints: 10mm x 24mm (2.39) = 1420 x 3390

Be mindful that these are aproximate numbers and that at those high resolutions the line pairs are almost fading into nothingess.

In the process of making prints for exhibition this negative is copied onto other film (negative -> interpositive -> internegative -> print) so the resolution gets decimated with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens (for example, on a projector) it's reduced once more. Sometimes the resolution is reduced down to 1/6th of the original negative's resolution, and that's with doing things correctly.

So depending on what film element is used for scanning and with what method, the resolution of the image used in the transfer from film can be from less than that of the 1080p x 1920 Blu-ray format to much more. If they use a properly stored and preserved original negative, the BD probably will end up looking better than what you might have seen elsewhere.


(Btw, this is about as good as BD can get without upconverting it)


I'm sure that as the format gets stablished you'll see some spectacular "old" film BDs. Maybe some even from silent b/w films.

(For a peek of things to come, take a look at The Searchers BD. It's made from a 50 year old 35mm VistaVision film.)

[theknub]

deci, thanks for embarrasing my explanation

[Deciazulado]

Your explanation was good! I just started typing mine before anyone else posted

In fact I think my explanation works much better thanks to yours and the others ones before it



Edit: besides, it was my 300th post!

[MFS3Kiryu]

As someone who is just jumping into the world of HD, I'm curious as to how nice some of the older pictures available on Blu-Ray look. This thread was the closest I found to something like that. So now that things are going into full swing, can anyone offer some insight onto how our classics look on Blu-Ray?

Specifically, how good does something like Full Metal Jacket look on Blu Ray? Or even Superman the movie, a better example is the Donnor cut, which uses test readings to fill in the gaps left by Donnor leaving the project, that footage has to be in horrible shape. How cleaned up and nice do these older titles actually look? If you're already an owner of these films, is it worth it to pick them up again on Blu-Ray beyond showing support for the platform? Can you get similiar results on an upconverting DVD player?

I'm curious, because the price between Blu-Ray and DVD is large, especially when you factor in how easy it is to find DVDs dirt cheap on the internet. If similiar results can be met using upconverting DVD players(which I'm not at all familiar with, so excuse me of I'm off base), is it more cost efficient to buy these older titles on DVD? Or is the difference enough to justify the increase in price tag and a potential double dip for some consumers?

I have no qualms about paying for a quality product, and certain things are just ment to be viewed in HD. Kingdom of Heaven is one of them, I noticied snow in a scene for the first time watching it tonight. I've watched the Director's Cut over 3 times, to show it to various people. But for the older titles where film quality is lower, are we getting enough bang for our buck? From what I've seen of the newer titles I've owned(Lord of War, Kingdom of Heaven) the answer is yes. But before I go out and rebuy some old titles, or even spend more on titles I can get dirt cheap on DVD now, I'd like to know what to expect.

Any and all insight is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Deciazulado]

MFS3Kiryu, I wrote a post about film quality/resolution (or probably more than one! ) so if you search more you might find it (them) (I tired :} )

In short, if the film element is preserved, and optimally transfered/scanned even a Silent film can look great on BD. (Hollywood films have been 35mm since inception, emulsions might have gotten sharper and less grainy over a 110 years but it has been a slow process)

ZzzzZZzz..

Watch The Searchers BD and call me in the morning..

*_-

[tranzishun]

what about even older movies from the 40's and 50's. Film Noir on Blu Ray curious to see how those would look.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by tranzishun

what about even older movies from the 40's and 50's. Film Noir on Blu Ray curious to see how those would look.

Silent films are older than 40's movies
btw black and white film doesn't fade



-------------- midnight update----------------

Ok! I found the post and I merged the thread (the November 13 posts) to this one so we're one big happy family of classic films into Blu-ray posts

So gents, and Blu-ladies and specially MFS3Kiryu who asked the other night, just scroll up a little, if you please.

[tranzishun]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Silent films are older than 40's movies
btw black and white film doesn't fade

yes this i know i didn't see the post till after i posted i love black and white! however some of the movies that haven't been remasted look very deteriated and the audio can be pretty bad as well hope they fix those up nice, they have done a superb job remasteing lots of good 40's and 50's films and even earlier fims. i also wonder if low budget films and special interest programs will see the same wide range release as on DVD there are a lot of low budget releases and independent releases on DVD that im just not sure will carry over to Blu Ray and what about tv shows? i know it's way early to predict anything yet but im just curious.