Michael Allred
Screenwriter
Mr. Harris,
I know you really deal with film restoration, movies and the like but I was curious if you were ever involved in restoring concert films and how, if at all, it's any different from motion pictures.
You're probably not a fan of the band Queen but they released a collection of music videos called "Greatest Video Hits" a few years back. Mostly clips from the 70s shot on video tape as opposed to film and even though they claimed they were "remastered" (and all the typical selling points they mention) all the clips look pretty shoddy. They even created a "fake widescreen" presentation, they simply put black bars over the top and bottom of the original full frame videos (which cut off a lot of the picture and I still cannot understand why they chose to chop them up in this manner when they clearly were never intended to be seen that way.)
I've seen some quality presentations of 70s era material from video tape on DVD and they looked far superior to what was on that Queen DVD. Did they just do a poor job? Was there only so much you *can* do with video tape of that vintage?
I understand that without actually seeing the DVD I'm refering to you'll have a hard time being specific with me but if you could give some general info about the topic I'd appreciate it. (If you get a chance to ever see Queen's "Greatest Video Hits" DVD, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.)
I know you really deal with film restoration, movies and the like but I was curious if you were ever involved in restoring concert films and how, if at all, it's any different from motion pictures.
You're probably not a fan of the band Queen but they released a collection of music videos called "Greatest Video Hits" a few years back. Mostly clips from the 70s shot on video tape as opposed to film and even though they claimed they were "remastered" (and all the typical selling points they mention) all the clips look pretty shoddy. They even created a "fake widescreen" presentation, they simply put black bars over the top and bottom of the original full frame videos (which cut off a lot of the picture and I still cannot understand why they chose to chop them up in this manner when they clearly were never intended to be seen that way.)
I've seen some quality presentations of 70s era material from video tape on DVD and they looked far superior to what was on that Queen DVD. Did they just do a poor job? Was there only so much you *can* do with video tape of that vintage?
I understand that without actually seeing the DVD I'm refering to you'll have a hard time being specific with me but if you could give some general info about the topic I'd appreciate it. (If you get a chance to ever see Queen's "Greatest Video Hits" DVD, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.)