4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 138

Fang Zei said:

SwissArmyTin said:

Fang Zei said:

I’ve said many times that I would love a three-disc-per-movie release with unaltered, '97, and the new 4k SE (wouldn’t really care if the '04 and '11 versions weren’t included).

They could probably fit all the SEs versions (97, 04, 11) of a single film on a single disc w/seamless branching. They could also probably rope in the unaltered version as well, but then you’d be playing with fire in terms of color accuracy. It worked with Blade Runner (I think disc 1 of the 5-disc set contained the theatrical, international cut, and 1st director’s cut. I think.)

You read my mind! I was going to say all of this, but didn’t.

They could easily branch those three versions onto the same disc. I would want them to go with the '97 color timing, though. The color-timing of the lowry master isn’t worth preserving to me. A 4k scan of the '97 interpositive, given the proper restoration and mastering, would probably produce better results than the 2k scan / 1080p master of the o-neg did in 2004.

But yes, the actual content changes (landspeeder and Jabba re-do and aurebesh tractor beam signage in '04, blinking wicket and Vader Noooo in '11, etc) could probably be branched in without any problem since they’re so few and far between.

I doubt we’ll even get any of those three versions, though. Not even the '97. It will probably just be this new 4k version which, for all we know, might simply be the 2011 version in terms of content.

It was the middle of the three actual blu-rays on the five disc Blade Runner set that you’re thinking of. The second and fourth discs were just regular dvds with the Dangerous Days documentary and bonus features, respectively.

To be honest I would want them to keep the 04/11 versions the way they are, just to show how screwed up a movie can get that isn’t properly taken care of. Bit then again that’s my opinion.

Alderaan said:

George didn’t want them to look good next to his crap digital fake world prequels. He probably ordered the 2004 masters to be butchered intentionally out of spite.

I think it was more laziness and apathy than spite. It was done digitally and cheaply, two things he loves. He was working on Revenge of the Sith at the time also and even that mess required him to do a lot of work.

Now the 2004/11 changes? Those were pure spite. Especially the NOOO! in Jedi. That was him getting back for people laughing during the end of Sith.

The marketing campaign for the GOUT is the only reason why LFL spliced the 1977 crawl into the laserdisc cut of ANH. Because the ad copy promised we’d be able to watch the original 1977 title without the “A New Hope” bit.

They say the devil never lies.

And I like TPM for that.
“Well, they better have the OOT in the vaults repaired by mid-April, or there’ll be hell to pay.” That quote’s a stretch, but I’m feeling pretty ‘Uncle Owen’ about this whole thing.

MalàStrana said:

Alderaan said:

George didn’t want them to look good next to his crap digital fake world prequels.

Episode I is not digital.

Some of the Reshoot scenes were shot digitally, so Episode I is partially digital.

What is this crap about digital being bad? Digital medium is by far superior in terms of storage and preservation. Unlike analogue recording (film), which starts to degrade/change from the point it is being recorded, the digital recording is basically time-invariant. For example, the colour encoding of digital video is strictly defined, while in analogue film it varies based on the current conditions.

Of course, you might still want to use analogue film camera for some reason to shoot the film, but in any case you should digitalise the film as soon as it shot (in highest possible resolution).

imperialscum said:

What is this crap about digital being bad? Digital medium is by far superior in terms of storage and preservation. Unlike analogue recording (film), which starts to degrade/change from the point it is being recorded, the digital recording is basically time-invariant. For example, the colour encoding of digital video is strictly defined, while in analogue film it varies based on the current conditions.

Of course, you might still want to use analogue film camera for some reason to shoot the film, but in any case you should digitalise the film as soon as it shot (in highest possible resolution).

Who here has lobbied for not preserving film elements digitally? As far as I can tell this conversation is all about capture mediums.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

imperialscum said:

What is this crap about digital being bad? Digital medium is by far superior in terms of storage and preservation. Unlike analogue recording (film), which starts to degrade/change from the point it is being recorded, the digital recording is basically time-invariant. For example, the colour encoding of digital video is strictly defined, while in analogue film it varies based on the current conditions.

Of course, you might still want to use analogue film camera for some reason to shoot the film, but in any case you should digitalise the film as soon as it shot (in highest possible resolution).

Who here has lobbied for not preserving film elements digitally? As far as I can tell this conversation is all about capture mediums.

Still, I do not see why wouldn’t you immediately record it digitally. If you use analogue film to record a scene, by the time you transfer it to digital medium it will not be the same as it was originally recorded. Not to mention conditions of transformation process which requires projector (use different lighting during the projection and you have different results, etc.)

If you originally record it digitally, you have it completely preserved. You carve that digital recording into stone inside a cave and aliens will still be able to read it tens of thousands of years after we will destroy each other in the exact form as it was originally recorded.

Shokara said:

imperialscum said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

imperialscum said:

What is this crap about digital being bad? Digital medium is by far superior in terms of storage and preservation. Unlike analogue recording (film), which starts to degrade/change from the point it is being recorded, the digital recording is basically time-invariant. For example, the colour encoding of digital video is strictly defined, while in analogue film it varies based on the current conditions.

Of course, you might still want to use analogue film camera for some reason to shoot the film, but in any case you should digitalise the film as soon as it shot (in highest possible resolution).

Who here has lobbied for not preserving film elements digitally? As far as I can tell this conversation is all about capture mediums.

Still, I do not see why wouldn’t you immediately record it digitally. If you use analogue film to record a scene, by the time you transfer it to digital medium it will not be the same as it was originally recorded. Not to mention conditions of transformation process which requires projector (use different lighting during the projection and you have different results, etc.)

If you originally record it digitally, you have it completely preserved. You carve that digital recording into stone inside a cave and aliens will still be able to read it tens of thousands of years after we will destroy each other in the exact form as it was originally recorded.

The reason is that 35mm film still has inherently higher resolution than digital cinematography does. Each time we invent new video technologies with higher resolutions, 35 mm film still continues to surprise us by how much previously hidden detail was captured when we make updated digital scans and transfers of those film reels. However, digital photography and cinematography provides no such surprises. We know their respective resolutions from the get-go, and those remain constant despite whatever new resolutions come along with new technologies. Something shot in 4K will remain in 4K twenty to thirty years an so on. However, whenever we think we’ve wrung as much detail as modern technology possibly can from film, it always manages to catch us off guard.

You can store digitally in whatever resolution you want. My 10 years old digital camera has more than 4K resolution. Basically you can go even beyond the effective resolution of physical equipment (optics, sensor, etc.) but it would be redundant. So your argument really does not hold.

monkeyjb1988 said:

Shokara said:

imperialscum said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

imperialscum said:

What is this crap about digital being bad? Digital medium is by far superior in terms of storage and preservation. Unlike analogue recording (film), which starts to degrade/change from the point it is being recorded, the digital recording is basically time-invariant. For example, the colour encoding of digital video is strictly defined, while in analogue film it varies based on the current conditions.

Of course, you might still want to use analogue film camera for some reason to shoot the film, but in any case you should digitalise the film as soon as it shot (in highest possible resolution).

Who here has lobbied for not preserving film elements digitally? As far as I can tell this conversation is all about capture mediums.

Still, I do not see why wouldn’t you immediately record it digitally. If you use analogue film to record a scene, by the time you transfer it to digital medium it will not be the same as it was originally recorded. Not to mention conditions of transformation process which requires projector (use different lighting during the projection and you have different results, etc.)

If you originally record it digitally, you have it completely preserved. You carve that digital recording into stone inside a cave and aliens will still be able to read it tens of thousands of years after we will destroy each other in the exact form as it was originally recorded.

The reason is that 35mm film still has inherently higher resolution than digital cinematography does. Each time we invent new video technologies with higher resolutions, 35 mm film still continues to surprise us by how much previously hidden detail was captured when we make updated digital scans and transfers of those film reels. However, digital photography and cinematography provides no such surprises. We know their respective resolutions from the get-go, and those remain constant despite whatever new resolutions come along with new technologies. Something shot in 4K will remain in 4K twenty to thirty years an so on. However, whenever we think we’ve wrung as much detail as modern technology possibly can from film, it always manages to catch us off guard.

Also, digital is not as robust as you make out. Film is still the go to for movie preservation as digital storage can falter or become unreadable over time. Film can last for 100+ years if properly preserved while digital only has 50+ at the most. You’d have to convert it and move it to new storage over time, but even then it can cause rot (the term is ‘bit rot’). Heck, Disney is printing it’s CURRENT films to separation masters to preserve them:

http://www.disneydigitalstudio.com/preserving-our-movies/

Digital in theory does not mean being physically stored on hard drives or optical discs. Like I said, you can carve digital code into a stone and the information will last unchanged for tens of thousands of years under natural conditions. On the other hand film is film and it will last only 100 years here on Earth, not to mentioned the information will constantly change from the second it is recorded.

So to preserve digital movies we should carve out all of the data in stone. That seems completely feasible.

suspiciouscoffee said:

So to preserve digital movies we should carve out all of the data in stone. That seems completely feasible.

It is not feasible of course for every information we currently have. I just pointed out that if digital storage is done well, it is by far superior to film (assuming good resolution of digital encoding). Even on hard drives or optical discs it is still better than on film, as you are not losing the information over time like on film. You just need to replace hard drives or optical discs every now and then and have a backup system.

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

suspiciouscoffee said:

So to preserve digital movies we should carve out all of the data in stone. That seems completely feasible.

It is not feasible of course for every information we currently have.

Friendly teaching moment: It should be “all the information we currently have” or it should be “every piece of information we currently have.”

Thank you my friend. But the language has just evolved and what you suggest is archaic now.