Do they always have to re-scan for transfers?

[scanachick]

This may look like a total newbie question but:

Aren't more recent films that were made (usually those with a lot of superimposed effects) already available in HD format because they had been scanned in HD for post-production purposes? So, creating blu-ray versions should be relatively painless for those???

Thanks for illuminating me on this.

[ryoohki]

Most movies are scanned in 2k or 4k for Digital Projectors. That is new movies that are shot on film. 2k is close to 1080p but 4k is higher. Older movies need extensive scanning for HD.

Even in scanning. Scanner get better with time (a Film scanner from 1999 and 2008 is very different). For example the first edition of 5th element came from a 1997 scan. Using a new scanner they rescanned it and it gave the 2nd version in Blu-ray witch is far superior.

We should see how Ghostbuster look too. Witch have been rescanned recently too. The DVD editions look 'ok', that's all but they came from a 1990's master..

[scanachick]

Thanks for your reply!

If it is so that some blu-rays were made from off-the-shelf HD, I think it should be mentionned in the reviews because it would be unfair to compare this category to the category of blu-ray versions that needed a much more difficult transfer process.

Surely, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars prequels must fit in the first category - why does it take them so long to bring them out?

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

Most movies are scanned in 2k or 4k for Digital Projectors.

Film scanning is primarily done to allow post production workers to use far more precise tools in correcting color and compositing effects shots into the live action footage.

O Brother Where Art Thou was the first movie to use digital intermediate techniques for its entire run time. That movie was released long before digital projectors were put into wide use.

The old school color timing methods, using photo-chemical processes and colored filters on interpositive or internegative elements affected the imagery on a "global" basis. The entire film frame is affected. Computer based tools allow you to make changes only to specific, isolated parts of an image as well as make global changes.

It's just an added benefit that the completed digital intermediate serves as a good master source for creating JPEG2000 D-cinema "virtual prints" to ship to theaters on 300GB hard discs or beam out via satellite.

Originally Posted by scanachick

If it is so that some blu-rays were made from off-the-shelf HD, I think it should be mentionned in the reviews because it would be unfair to compare this category to the category of blu-ray versions that needed a much more difficult transfer process.

Most reviewers aren't privy to information on whether a certain movie on Blu-ray was derived from a modern digital intermediate source or a lower-tech telecine-based master.

Lots of older, catalog titles with limited appeal are duped to Blu-ray using older, less precise HD telecine sources. Those systems run a movie print through in real time, similar to the way a regular film projector works. In this case the system is projecting the image into a video recording system.

The telecine method is subject to the same drawbacks you can see with traditional film projectors. The image can move around in the gate (sideweave) and even "breathe" back and forth causing focus quality to waver. Dirt and other debris is more prone to show up on screen. Finally, the source print being used is usually some sort of duplication element -possibly even a dupe of a dupe. It's too risky to run the original camera negative through a telecine system in real time. So interpositives, internegatives or dupe prints from those sources are used in creating the telecine-based master. In the end, you get an image noticeably softer and slightly more muted image in terms of color and contrast than what the original camera negative holds.

Today it's a routine process for any major movie to have its film elements scanned at 2K resolution for post production work. It's still unusually rare for 4K to be used. 6K and 8K work is reserved only for very special cases.

The film scanning process is much slower, yet far more precise than any traditional telecine system. Image editing tools allow post production workers to eliminate dust and debris that may have been picked up in the scanning process. They can also eliminate any image movement that could have taken place during the scanning process. The image editors can do lots of other things, both bad and good, to the imagery. Overall, the DI process is not cheap. And that means, unfortunately, that a good number of less popular movies being released on Blu-ray will be given a modern scanning and DI treatment.

[scanachick]

Very interesting: Thanks!
(I guess in your last sentence you meant "will not be")

If we want to draw a historical timeline, since when did:

1) telecine HD scans become routine?
2) higher quality negative HD scans become routine?

In terms of reviewers not being aware of the type of HD source, I think the consumer should be able to know and the studios should release this type of information for us to know what we are buying.

Regards

[Bobby Henderson]

I don't know the exact time lines on when HD telecine and digital intermediate use became common, but it's fairly easy to offer an educated guess.

By the end of the 1990s most movie studios were having HD telecine transfers made of then current movie releases as well as catalog titles. They were doing so for two purposes: 1. building up a library of content for the fledgling HD broadcast/cable TV industry. 2. creating the best looking masters possible as sources for the new DVD format.

DVD was introduced in 1997, but the format's first couple of years was stained by lots of crappy looking discs ported over using old, non-anamorphic SD-quality laser disc masters. Disc authors weren't yet at the top of their game in encoding MPEG-2 video yet either. It took at least a year or two for HD telecine sources to become the standard for anamorphic enhanced DVD production.

It's tougher to say just when digital intermediate use became standard operating procedure for nearly all Hollywood films. I think by the 2004-2005 time frame most releases from major studios were using the technology. The first 4K digital intermediates were created during that time (Spiderman 2).

In 2005 digital cinema projectors with 2K quality DLP imagers began to appear in commercial movie theaters. Carmike Cinemas embarked on its plan to change roughly 95% of its theater screens (2200 of them) to d-cinema and finished much of that work by the end of 2007.

With new movie releases, the imagery on Blu-ray should look very good or great unless something was botched in principal photography or if the disc itself was poorly authored (obviously the latter has happen at least a few times).

It's a toss-up with catalog titles. If the old movie has a lot of interest then movie studios will fork over the money needed to get the movie done up right using the best technology available. Some movies over half a century old (like The Searchers or South Pacific) look incredibly good on Blu-ray because they were precision scanned and meticulously treated. That's just not going to happen with all titles.

I'm not sure how the upcoming re-release of T2 on Blu-ray is going to look. Reportedly a "director approved HD master" has been used on the disc, but that says nothing about what technique was used in creating the master. Is it an old HD telecine master that just looks pretty darned good or is it a more up to date digital intermediate derived transfer? I think T2 was a big enough hit to justify the creation of an entirely new digital intermediate. If such a thing wasn't used on this upcoming release then I'm fairly certain a DI will be created at some point for the next "double dip." 2011 is an obvious target date for yet another T2 release since it marks the film's 20th anniversary.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

Even in scanning. Scanner get better with time (a Film scanner from 1999 and 2008 is very different). For example the first edition of 5th element came from a 1997 scan. Using a new scanner they rescanned it and it gave the 2nd version in Blu-ray witch is far superior.

I think the first 5th element used a telecine, and for the remastered release they used a film scanner.

[scanachick]

Great stuff Bobby! (My late reading and reply shows that I am in European time zone). This all boils down to the fact that this information seems to be one of the key elements of a blu-ray reveiw and could invariably help us make better buying choices. I think that most people that are building up a collection of classic movies on blu-ray want to know that they are getting the closest to optimal version given the superb technology which is out there today. Best regards.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by scanachick

In terms of reviewers not being aware of the type of HD source, I think the consumer should be able to know and the studios should release this type of information for us to know what we are buying.

Regards

IMDB sometimes has this information listed whether a digital intermediate exists or not for a particular movie under technical specs. Most major studios would use a DI for the Blu-ray transfer if it exists already.