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Post #212645

Author
THX
Parent topic
Film elements for the OT
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/212645/action/topic#212645
Date created
23-May-2006, 5:04 PM
Originally posted by: Torsten Kaiser at Home Theater Forum
While a D2 (composite) master tape most likely was the source for the Laserdisc mastering itself, the transfer master and the final master was actually (as far as I know) a component digital D1 tape. Another option would have been Ampex' DCT. Both are very much comparable to the Digital Betacam format. Because of its 4:2:2 component properties, D1 actually is able to capture detail and resolution that the 4:2:0 DVD format because of the way of compression can't even show. For one, the Datarate is with 148 Mbit/s far higher than the 10.88 Mbit/s of DVD. So its not the tape itself that one needs to worry about.

What is a much more a factor is the telecine that was used. Transfers made with the RANK MarkIII pale in comparison with the SPIRIT Datacine or the Millenium II, where the image is dramatically more detailed, allows for much finer texture to register naturally and color depth to be captured without bleeding, while keeping inaccuracies to a minimum. The RANK, while good for its time, had many problems, especially when it came to displaying the greyscale and density accurately. The DVNR 1000 by Digital Vision also added a lot of artifacts whenever there was movement in a shot, and (as Jim Vaccaro said already) it also robbed the image of detail along with the grain, that SW producers so desperately tried to get rid of (also a problem of the RANK telecine, by the way, because grain was often displayed as artifact).