BoingoBanshee said: Actually, this IS real 4K. 4K isn’t strictly “the camera negative”; you can do 4K scans for any film element.
Well, the same way one can record any audio material at any given sample rate of choice, but that doesn’t mean the original carries that resolution in the first place.
For example, I’m well aware of those “Fake 4K or not” websites where, in the case of, let’s say, a 2K digital intermediate, they rightly criticize that no “Real 4K” performance may be achieved and thus the 4K (actually “UHD”) release is “fake.” However, that view is also a bit misleading and incomplete, as the assumption that film material automatically delivers 4K or whatever resolution just because it was scanned as such technically isn’t correct either.
In practice, some 2K-only productions (at least in parts, such as “Collateral”) may be categorized as “Fake 4K,” whereas some fuzzy “as good as it gets” film source, scanned in 4K, is called “Real 4K,” despite the fact that it may never reach that resolution either and never has. Many may be above 2K level, no question, just to make a point here.
One would actually have to measure the real spatial resolution of such sources (in MHz), and then one could derive the required or equivalent resolution in “pixels” (which theoretically is twice the analog bandwidth according to Nyquist/Shannon) to preserve the original without quality loss.
Back to “The Mask” - I admittedly have no idea what spatial resolution your exemplar comes with, and a 4K/UHD (and maybe even HDR) scan certainly won’t harm. So excitement is justified as the official BD release definitely is mediocre at best by today’s standards.
No denying a film print is nothing compared to a negative. However, if it’s a 4K scan of a film print or an interpositive, then it’s 4K. Saying otherwise kicks sand in the faces of labels like Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight who have done 4K scans of films like The Beastmaster where their negatives are lost and had to work with best surviving elements and those releases are gorgeous. Doing a 4K scan of a film print outside the studio system is something I would not look down upon or say “eh, it’s not the negative though is it?”. With Warner’s track record of their 4K scans where they actually have access to the negatives, they still end up screwing it up such as the Burton Batman films. So I’m very excited someone is scanning a print of The Mask…in 4K.