Info: Toy Story on 35mm, and other early Pixar films for that matter... — Page 2

Ah. That makes sense.

So does anybody have any of the Toy Story laserdiscs?

Interesting topic Im knew to the whole 35mm world but wouldn’t comparing colors on a film reel and a blu ray release not very helpful because when something is restored for blu ray isn’t it scanned digitally and put through a whole process for HD viewing, and even if a film reel is scanned for blu ray (Jaws, E.T.) could it really look exactly the same as it did when it originally was in cinemas because it was impossible to show a movie in that level of detail back then since there was no HD back then so wouldn’t raw film reels as opposed to HD scanned reels always look a bit different color wise

Jp4195 said:

there was no HD back then

35mm film has an effective resolution way above 1080p and therefore has more detail. There was no “HD” in the sense that everything was analog, but there was more detail in the picture than on a modern 1080p Blu-Ray.

Really??? that’s crazy but is that only if the 1080p transfer isn’t from a 35mm source or does the same amount of detail carry over if they scan the original film elements

To digitally view the full potential detail in 35mm film, it would need to be in ~8K resolution. As for your question, JP4195, I’m not sure I’m understanding it correctly.

This is true for a negative, but for prints, especially release prints, there is rarely much information above 4K, and generally many films struggle to represent 2K resolution.

The blu-ray often has more detail than a release print, but not always and not consistently.

It is a bit hard to explain, but being able to scan from the negative lets you capture detail that never made it to the print, but sometimes there is fine detail in the print that is lost when you downscale to 1080P.

Grain is definitely a ‘fault’, it is the very definition of noise that obstructs the signal, but in many cases it was ‘used’ to help hide matte lines, blend separate elements or breathe a bit of life into a static shot. In other words, it was a known limitation, and was factored in to the final look of the film, and that makes it worth preserving in many cases.

I’ve been hearing things about Jurassic Park having color timing issues due to DNR, the 3D release was from the 35mm and is supposed to reflect its original color, im a little disappointed because I love Jurassic park and think it looks great on blu ray, but knowing now that the new one is a better transfer pisses me off because universal should have made that 4k master the go to print for the standard blu ray as well maybe they’ll release a new edition

poita said:

This is true for a negative, but for prints, especially release prints, there is rarely much information above 4K, and generally many films struggle to represent 2K resolution.

The blu-ray often has more detail than a release print, but not always and not consistently.

It is a bit hard to explain, but being able to scan from the negative lets you capture detail that never made it to the print, but sometimes there is fine detail in the print that is lost when you downscale to 1080P.

Grain is definitely a ‘fault’, it is the very definition of noise that obstructs the signal, but in many cases it was ‘used’ to help hide matte lines, blend separate elements or breathe a bit of life into a static shot. In other words, it was a known limitation, and was factored in to the final look of the film, and that makes it worth preserving in many cases.

Thanks for the explanation! My knowledge is severely limited.

Jp4195 said:

I’ve been hearing things about Jurassic Park having color timing issues due to DNR, the 3D release was from the 35mm and is supposed to reflect its original color, im a little disappointed because I love Jurassic park and think it looks great on blu ray, but knowing now that the new one is a better transfer pisses me off because universal should have made that 4k master the go to print for the standard blu ray as well maybe they’ll release a new edition

I think you’re getting the wrong impression about color-timing. Both were originally taken from the film negative. Films are digitally color-timed for home video. This sometimes reflects the original colors, but usually doesn’t. In the case of Jurassic Park, neither release fully retains the original color timing, though the 3D is technically closer (still way off). If you want to watch JP in the best way (IMO), watch the 35mm theatrical print version that’s on the 'Spleen. That is, if you’re on there.

EDIT: And DNR has nothing to do with color-timing. DNR stands for Digital Noise Reduction, which refers to the removal off noise (or grain) of the image, and does not have any direct impact on the colors.

Thank you for clearing this up for me, everything I’ve read made it seem like DNR was responsible for the color timing, as for that 35mm scan Im totally going to get it asap I guess when it comes down to it what really matters is watching a movie in the best possible quality in your home, I’ve never known about a lot of these issues before and wont let them spoil my viewing of the movie I love now sure some blu rays may not look exactly like they do in theaters but I think we can all agree that they look incredible anyway

Also remember that this film was rendered at 1536x922 for its original theatrical release so there won’t be detail that magically appears because it’s transferred to film…

I do agree it’d be nice to preserve that original render.

ToasterBoy said:

Some people were saying that the LD was “cropped”, which isn’t the case. The Blu-ray release had (slight) open mattes, opening it from 1.85:1 (the original theatrical ratio) to 1.78:1 (the HDTV standard). Just thought I’d throw my opinion into the ring and say we should crop the BD to 1.85:1 to really get an “authentic” theatrical version.

The original aspect ratio is 1.66. In American theaters, this would have been cropped to 1.85.

16x9 is much closer to the original aspect ratio than 1.85 but in all honesty, there isn’t THAT much difference between 1.66, 16x9 and 1.85. You’d really need to be pixel peeking to notice.

very interesting. hoping to see more developments soon

Did a little lurking and found this topic. Toy Story was a favorite film of mine as a kid, and given recent interest with DrDre’s tools and scan preservation something like this intrigues me greatly. Since there hasn’t been any sort of closure or resolution to this topic, any chance a few good members would like to revisit this? As long as sources can be voted as properly color-timed, I’ll go through the whole film and match the colors myself. I’d just hate to see this topic slid under Andy’s bed and never to see the light of day again.

Looking through the comparison pictures of the Viewfinder frames and Bluray frames (found here: Toy Story View-Master Comparison) a couple stood out to me as being very different in a bad way. The frame of Woody peering over Andy’s bed with Buzz’s legs in the foreground looks very vivid and heroic in the Viewfinder frame, yet milky and warm on the Bluray.


The most shocking of the comparisons is the frame of Woody shining the flashlight upon the Baby-doll-spider in Sid’s room. The Viewfinder frame reminds me instantly of how terrifying I remember that scene being as a kid. It presents the horrific monster of Sid’s creation with stark contrast, the room being dark and the flashlight almost overblown. Imagine what this would look like in a dark theater.


However in the Bluray frame, the contrast is lost to an almost completely illuminated background with the flashlight not doing much to call attention to the Toy we can already see.

I’ve ColorMatched the Bluray to the Viewfinder and added grain to match the feeling that the Viewfinder creates.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/191553

I would love to see Toy Story color corrected with laserdisc audio. At the risk of showing my (younger) age, Toy Story was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. I watched the hell out of my VHS tape as a child and I distinctly remember the colors looking like that viewmaster. The Blu-ray butchers the grading completely.