Originally posted by: LasermanFor a start, DVD is 4:2:0, even consumer HDTV (1080i or 720p) is only 4:2:0 so your colour resolution is horribly, horribly compromised compared to film where there is effectively a 1:1 resolution match for colour to picture information. Just to nitpick, when you say film holds as much colour as picture information (which is true at the time it's filmed), and is comparable to 4:4:4 - what we're talking about is the original star wars negatives, which have deteriated so much that they need to be colour corrected scene by scene (and I might add that they didn't do a perfect job in 1993 or in 2004 with this correcting). With this in mind, wouldn't it be fair to say that the master star wars film reels do not hold colour as well anymore? Wouldn't this be more comparable to 4:2:0 then to 4:4:4?
You try to compare something which cannot be compared. Fading negatives don´t lose their colour resolution, they are simply starting to loose the whole chemical layer which represents one colour, which, depending on the state, can be brought back fully, with digital or photochemical methods. What you are referring to is digital YUV quantization, which is not present in analogue film.
I have great respect for Francis Ford Coppola (more then any other single director), his movie "The Outsiders" is one of the finest movies I've ever seen. He is known for his attention to detail, and the quality of his works. If he prefers digital over film, I'm sure it's because of the quality.
No, because it is ENOURMOUSLY cheap compared to shooting on film. And it can have other advantages: a film reel holds 12 minutes of expensive film, and thus actors and directors cannot try much variations of a scene in lower budget productions. With digital, you can just let the camera film continuously and experiment much more. If a scene isn´t good enough, it can simply be erased from the harddisk. Roberti Rodriguez explains this in the "Once upon a time in Mexico" DVD very detailed why he and other directors, are pushing the HD format.
Here's an excerpt from Cameron's interview with The Hollywood Reporter (I know his point of view is far from fact):
THR: How does the HD look blown up to 15-perf/70mm?
Cameron: It looks phenomenal. To say we're wildly enthusiastic would not be overstating it. One has to bear in mind, though, that it's a 16:9 aspect ratio, so it doesn't fill the entire height of the Imax screen. It chops off a bit at the top and bottom. But in a 3-D environment, you don't really notice that.
The amount of data available from a 35mm negative is much less than the amount of data available from an HD frame.
THR: Film purists argue the opposite.
Cameron: They're wrong. You can take an HD image and blow it up by double before you start to see the same amount of granularity you have with a 35mm negative. George Lucas did some tests that I flew up to see, and it corresponded to what we'd found. I'd say the Sony HD 900 series cameras are generating an image that's about equivalent to a 65mm original negative. Of course, filmmakers don't wish to admit that important cost fact of shooting in HD, since it would generate a huge negative backlash. Cameron is known for being a director who utilizies the cheapest and most effective way for making movies (in Terminator 2 you still see background projection scenes), it´s absolutely understandable he favours HD. However, by stating that HD has roughly the same resolution as a 65mm negative, he is clearly leaning himself far out of the window.
Also, keep in mind when comparing the quality of detail in the 2004 release, that a lot of that detail is in newly created digital elements introduced to those scenes - and there are so many alterations that are of course going to be better and more crisp then the original film, so that when you watch the entire SE movies an illusion is created making you believe it's more crisp with more detail then the film itself had.
Star Wars is not the only "old" film which looks superb on DVD. Take the WIzard of Oz and other 3 strip technicolor movies, which are over 70 years old. They have so much resolution and colour brilliance in them, they easily surpass consumer HD formats with their clarity (1920x1080). Take Fritz Lang´s Metropolis: when they did the restauration, they had 90 minutes of the original negative from 1927. The transfer looks absolutely gorgeous, and can easily hold up in some scenes to modern films in detail rendering. Almost 80 year old film shot with a silent movie camera...
Sorry, but your initial statement, that 35mm can hardly compare to HD or even DVD (LOL) is really utterly bullshit. It takes not two to make an argument when the other one is not stating arguments.
Maybe I'm wrong, and the original SW negatives do hold picture information to the equilivant of 1080p - but I still really doubt it,
You can doubt it, they hold more resolution than 1080p. Analogue film is still far superior to consumer video formats.
I think a good quality interpolation upscale of DVD resolution would look pretty close.
Oh boy, you are pretty wrong here, and how! Interpolation does and will NEVER add picture information. YOu can make look the pixels smoother, this will result after all not in a pixelated but very smooth picture with few detail.
On the other hand, it would look better to be natively scanned at a higher resolution, just because there's less scaling going on.
Nope, because there is MORE PICTURE information there.
Just because some 35MM film can hold "up to 4000" lines (or however many) doesn't mean the SW negatives do - no matter what the technology.
Look at the DVD´s. They look up to par with Lord of the Rings. No digital algorithm can add picture information, these information has always been in the negatives. They look very sharp, especially in the non-special effect scenes. This is a clear indication that the nagatives, although faded, retained all of their resolution.
I kind of got that out wrong anyway, yes of course they would look better, more crisp and contain better quality - probably much better quality. But it would not look as good quality as the Special Edition.
Most people here don´t want Special Edition quality. But the transfer could easily reach the clarity of the SE´s ON STANDARD RESOLUTION DVD.
Also, I tend to confuse what I'm talking about (in other words, make it confusing for you, the reader) - most of the time I'm talking about "our" collective ability rather than Lucasfilm's abilities.
We don´t have any abilities here. It´s almost impossible and will never happen that someone is going to make a private 35mm transfer of Star Wars.
I also disagree with what you're saying about laserdisc quality - I've watched Laserdiscs projected by professional-grade mounted movie projectors (thanks to friends who are complete movie geeks - and it sounds like you've watched them too) and the quality is good. It's not fantastic, of course, but it's still good enough to enjoy on a big screen. By the way, many independent films are filmed digitally at DVD resolution and are still more then acceptable theatrically.
