Shaun of The Dead 4K UHD (those guys, 20th Anniversary UK remastered, December 2024)

[Homegrove]

UK Steelbook arrived today from Future Movie Shop in Helsinki in perfect condition. Had a quick skip around it, and wow it looks good.

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I was verr sceptical but the mention of a neg cutter in the credits gave me some hope there was a conformed neg somewhere, and Universal have form for UHD remasters that bypass old 2K DIs (which makes their mistreatment of Bourne Identity all the weirder, I know I mention it a lot but #never4get).

Still sceptical when those first non-tone mapped screencaps were shown as it was hard to judge without a direct comparison, it didn't look amazing in itself, but the latest comparison with the previous UHD is the clincher. That's why I do the comparisons that I do, it's easy to write something off as unimpressive in itself - especially when the perception is that x format should automatically be the dog's bollocks - but comparisons put it all into context. Top Secret! doesn't look great on UHD, for whatever reasons, but the Blu is straight-up garbage so pretty much anything would be an improvement.

Which UHD remasters has Universal created so far that bypass the 2K DI?
In addition, it is also possible today to automatically recreate the cut without a negative cut:

https://www.illuminatehollywood.com/iconform/

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by Cactus

Here it is, from the French disc:

This restoration was produced from the original 35mm negative.
The image was scanned in 4K at Illuminate Hollywood, which dedicated over 200 hours to removing imperfections from the original elements.

Color grading was completed by Asa Shoul at Warner Bros De Lane Lea UK.

A new Dolby Atmos mix was specially created by Julian Slater for this version.

All stages of the restoration were carried out under the direction of Edgar Wright.

This project was supervised by the teams at STUDIOCANAL and UNIVERSAL:
Cassandra Moore, Jahanzeb Hayat, and Stephen Hill.

Very interesting, I hope more 2K DIs are rebuilt.

Even without negativ Cut, this can be automated today:

https://www.illuminatehollywood.com/iconform/

How can this ugly shot be explained?

https://slow.pics/c/m72bkWHO

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by The Rider

Which UHD remasters has Universal created so far that bypass the 2K DI?
In addition, it is also possible today to automatically recreate the cut without a negative cut:

https://www.illuminatehollywood.com/iconform/

Doom, Chronicles of Riddick, Dawn of the Dead (Snyder), Land of the Dead.

And I know it's possible to automatically recreate the cut without a negative cut, I'm well aware of illuminate and their tech has been around for years: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...e#post22767644

The point with uncut OCN is that you're never going to be able to automate someone rummaging thru an archive or salt mine looking for potentially hundreds, maybe even thousands of different cans of film. That will always need physical labour to remove, QC and then scan each individual piece, and it's that time and money that the studios just aren't willing to spend. Then there comes the question of VFX and all the other digital tricks in the DI, do you recreate, do you upscale, a bit of both? Anything other than an upscale is going to cost you a lot more money. Speaking of which:

Originally Posted by The Rider

How can this ugly shot be explained?

https://slow.pics/c/m72bkWHO

It's very simple. That shot follows a wipe, a digital effect which wouldn't be on the cut negative for a DI show (they often just cut in blank leader for it), so instead of finding the negative trims to recreate the effect they've just upscaled it from the DI. Also, that same scene was captured at 25fps to match the frame rate of the PAL consumer televisions used as set dressing, so in the DI they slowed it down to 24p to match the rest of the film (if you watch it you'll notice that Pegg's voice sounds a lot deeper for this scene). Again, as it's a digital effect this would not have been cut into the negative.

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Doom, Chronicles of Riddick, Dawn of the Dead (Snyder), Land of the Dead.

And I know it's possible to automatically recreate the cut without a negative cut, I'm well aware of illuminate and their tech has been around for years: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...e#post22767644

The point with uncut OCN is that you're never going to be able to automate someone rummaging thru an archive or salt mine looking for potentially hundreds, maybe even thousands of different cans of film. That will always need physical labour to remove, QC and then scan each individual piece, and it's that time and money that the studios just aren't willing to spend. Then there comes the question of VFX and all the other digital tricks in the DI, do you recreate, do you upscale, a bit of both? Anything other than an upscale is going to cost you a lot more money. Speaking of which:

It's very simple. That shot follows a wipe, a digital effect which wouldn't be on the cut negative for a DI show (they often just cut in blank leader for it), so instead of finding the negative trims to recreate the effect they've just upscaled it from the DI. Also, that same scene was captured at 25fps to match the frame rate of the PAL consumer televisions used as set dressing, so in the DI they slowed it down to 24p to match the rest of the film (if you watch it you'll notice that Pegg's voice sounds a lot deeper for this scene). Again, as it's a digital effect this would not have been cut into the negative.

Thanks for the explanation.
Especially with the films from the DI era, the material should be well archived and easily available.
Films before the DI era have even greater archiving problems. Although negative cuts are available, these are generally not always complete and contain duplicates. Material from the OCN must first be found to replace these. The restoration team must also look for references for color grading, such as well-preserved 35 mm prints or answer prints.

As far as the effects are concerned, many upscales also affect films with a manageable amount of effects, such as The Departed. The Lord of the Rings trilogy or King Kong are, of course, an even bigger challenge or will not be able to be remastered.

[Nitroes]

UK Steelbook back at Amazon for £15.44 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DHSYJNXM/

[thethingwithnoname]

gone

[Nitroes]

Simon Pegg’s Closet Picks - YouTube

Still waiting for Shaun of The Dead 2, Simon.