zombie84 said:
One possibility is that those video transfers were based off some sort of early IP. Then a second IP was made in later 1977 because the original one had worn out. This seems a little too convenient and if it were so those transfers would look awful due to wear and tear (the reason the original IP was retired), and it also would make little sense to use an old, battered IP (if they didn't simply junk it when they retired it...which I suspect they did) when there was a healthy, newer one at their disposal.
The final possibility I can see is that those transfers are based off of a 1977 archival print made before the release, as often is done, before the tear occurred.
I have a hard time swallowing this at first because it seems pretty convenient that every single 1977 source managed to record the tear. But it could be true. We know they had to make at least a second IP, and if it were to be done at any time it would have been mid to late 1977 when the film was at it's peak of popularity and print-circulation. If the bootlegs were recorded in September or so, it could have been for a late batch of prints that were struck from a second IP made from a now-battered original negative that now had the tear. Meanwhile, the 1982 video used a print master made in 1977 when the film was first finalized and thus before the tear was present.
Wouldn't an archival print have the alien subtitles in place? They seems to have been done electronically for the three video releases- US '82 LD, JSC '86 LD (japanese, not in frame) and SWE '89 (english, not in frame). It would also be interesting to know if the tears are on the '82 VHS and Betamax transfers PAL and NTSC, they may be from the same source but I remember that they had different framings compared to the LD in some scenes, probably just a different choice in the pan & scan - process.
Anyway, this info from THX Technical Supervisor Dave Schnuelle regarding the process of making the Definitive Collection Laserdiscs In the September 1993 issue of Widescreen Review...
"In this case, for all three films, we used interpositive elements that had been made directly from the camera negative. Other film transfers might be done from internegatives made from the interpositive, or from low-contrast prints, but we preferred the IP's for these transfers, because that's the earliest generation usable"
"One small difference from the original films is that in letterbox transfers we prefer to put any subtitles in the black border beneath the actual picture area. Thus we didn't use the same interpositive as the theatrical one, because that one contains subtitling already. In tracking down the elements, we found that the only ones in the vault were ones with subtitles- these clearly weren't the first generation off the camera neg because they had to have the subtitles burned in. So a massive search was undertaken and the first generation IP's were found in a special vault having only opticals in Los Angeles."
"A Mark IIIC with a 4:2:2 digital output [telecine] was used."
"[We used] a noise reduction and dirt concealment device made by Digital Vision, a company in Sweden. Their DVNR-1000 is a very powerful noise reducer for reducing film grain. Especially on the two earlier movies the film grain was very high."
...make it seem like there only existed first generation IP's without subtitles in a special vault in LA, but everything seems to indicate that this release (DC/Faces/GOUT) wasn't made from the same IP the earlier tear-free ones, which lacked theatrical subs as well. ??? Confused.
