How can digital restorations fade? (1 Viewer)

[MielR]

Sorry, I should have been more clear.

I understand that B&W seps have to be made in order to make DT prints, and that DT prints are too dense to yield good copies, but wouldn't a finely-tuned DT print be the best color reference for any subsequent Kodak prints made from the B&W seps?

Last I heard, there was still a lab in China that made DT prints (but it may too be gone now, so it's probably a moot point).

 

[Jon Lidolt]

You're right, a non-fade, dye transfer print would make an excellent color reference for future releases of older films - if a lab somewhere in the world was still set up to make them. I'm not even certain that the Chinese are still using the system. Maybe a digital recording is the best thing to use. I realize that any physical material is subject to degradation but at least it's simple to copy digital code from one medium to another before the original disintegrates. Film is simply too fragile. It's easily scratched, it shrinks over time, sprocket holes tear and all color dyes used in photo-chemical film manufacture eventually fade.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The problem with digital backups is that there's no one standard, and no one "perfect" method of doing it. Hard drives can fail or become corrupted despite the best precautions. DVD-Rs and tape backups can be damaged. It's all well and fine to try to preserve the digital restoration files as long as possible and on whatever the best technology of the day is, but that shouldn't be the only method of backup. Every time one generation of storage technology becomes obsolete, it becomes necessary to make new backups. For better or worse, with film, the technology has stayed consistent enough that I can play a new movie on the same equipment I can play a fifty year old film on; can't say the same about digital storage. Whatever the state-of-the-art storage method is today will inevitably become obsolete, and will studios have the time, resources, and inclination to reassess and redo backups to stay with the changes in technology? Think about how difficult it can be if you have an old floppy disc from your previous operating system or generation of computer that you need access to, but nothing to access it with. Or how a hard drive looks perfectly fine on the outside, but suddenly stops working. If a film negative ends up with some bad or missing frames or fading or other wear and tear, at least the rest of the film still exists and gives something to be worked with. If a hard drive storing the master copy of something fails, that's it. It's not like a physical piece of film where you can see damage and possibly repair it and even if not still retain the rest of the film; if the hard drive goes and that's the backup, it's gone. I'm more concerned about a file corrupting than I'm concerned about a properly made archival print stored in a proper facility. I know I would personally be very nervous if the master backup for the Bond films or Blade Runner or anything else existed only in the digital realm, if there wasn't a new preservation negative also created.

For archival film prints and negatives, I believe it was Kodak that introduced a polyester-based film stock that is supposedly their most durable stock for archival purposes. Apparently it either doesn't fade at all or is far less susceptible to fading than conventional prints. And film has more or less been standardized over the years; as I said before, a 35mm print from twenty years ago can be played in any modern movie house, but the technology to read a twenty year old digital file may not be as readily available.

 

[JeremyErwin]

I'd be interested to know what the digital restoration consisted of. Remember, Bladerunner was rereleased in 1992; Star Wars in 1997. The technology require to store and edit a 4K movie may not have been available at that time. However, it was possible to transfer a fading dye print to an allegedly more archival safe medium-- that wasn't as susceptible to fading. The problem is that this archival safe medium turned out not to be.

 

[Jack Theakston]

No one is currently doing dye-transfer anymore (the China thing shut down in the mid-90s and Technicolor's brief revisit only lasted a few years). Technicolor will dust off the old equipment-- that is, if you have the money, first.

Dye-transfer prints CAN fade, if exposed to the right amount of heat and UV radiation. Take a clip of IB film sometime and stick it to a window or lamp for a few days. It will fade quite rapidly. But it's not often that films are exposed to this kind of climate.

With new low-fade, polyester stocks on the market, scratching, color fading and shrinkage are less of a problem. Black and white, of course, does not fade since it is simply silver particles, and is still archival practice.


Sure, it can happen, but it doesn't happen very often. The Star Trek incident took place while the editing was being done. But the Variety article cites no source for the ROSEMARY'S BABY story. While some studios can be fairly careless, something like that is enough to fire someone over.

 

[stevenHa]

As an aside, this has got me concerned about preserving home movies. I've had 8mm film that is on it's last leg after 40 years, but I was able to copy it to VHS. Now, I am filming my son on DVD-R's and I read above that these can go after about 5 years (and I assume something similar applies to VHS) ! What should be done to help keep them for the next 50 years ? Should they be copied every 3-4 years ?

 

[Leo Kerr]

StevenHa,

Guess what!

This is a fundamental problem; it's a very simple question you're asking, but no one knows the answer to it. I'm not in "the film industry" myself, but I work with media archivists in the Smithsonian Institution, and none of them agree on how to do it, either.

DVD-Rs can last longer than five years; we use them for playout, and we've had some in constant use for close on seven years without any media failure issues. Not that 7 years is so much more than 5. But a lot depends upon how you're treating them.

Some would say, for the short term, use hard drives. A Hitachi 1TB disk is what, $400? You can store a lot of stuff on 1TB. And if you mirror the drive every two years or so...

...right...

Leo

 

[MielR]

I have VHS tapes that I recorded on my first VCR from 1984 and they still play fine.

If you're concerned about the DVD-Rs of your son degrading, maybe making back-up copies of them on VHS tape (in addition to making DVD-R copies every 5-10 years) would make sense. It certainly couldn't hurt!

 

[Robert Harris]

This is an odd article, as it seems to have been removed from a c.1986-7 time capsule. The comments regarding studio vaults and the care of assets represent an archaic era and have no relationship to reality.

Mr. Mayer's comments regard the 1960s.

Rosemary's Baby? I don't believe it for a moment.

Taxi Driver? One of the most protected productions in the library.

What a silly piece!

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

RAH

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That's probably not a bad idea; I try to keep backups of my home movies in multiple formats. For instance, I think have for a typical home movie:

-the original miniDV tape it was shot on
-a VHS dub (often made for relatives)
-a DVD-R dub (easy viewing for me)

For really important things, I'll also keep it digitized on a hard drive.

Just make sure that whatever method(s) you use, to go back and review the stuff every couple of years to make sure it's still in good shape.

 

[cafink]

Why not?

 

[Ruz-El]

Thanks again Mr. Harris. Looks like alll this debate based on a poorly written article is moot. nice to know our film heritage is being looked after more responisbly.

 

[MielR]

I think because (partly) there is no digital medium that doesn't have issues with corruptibility.

 

[Jay Pennington]

I wish I'd had you guys to back me up a few months ago in the TV shows/TV movies forum, where there was a thread similar to this, except that the prevailing opinion was that digital is forever. They practically sent me out on a rail.

 

[DaveB]

Outstanding. Thanks for providing the link!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If only...

(digital was forever, that is)

It's a really nice theory, it really is. I love the idea that saving something digitally protects it forever and saves us from all possible future losses and headaches, but it just ain't so. Besides the possibilities for data corruption, there's the simple truth that digital technology is evolving rapidly, and state of the art today will probably be obsolete in a few years. As an example, I have floppy disc backups from my first computer in 1992, but nothing to read them with, and even if I did have a drive for those discs, I don't have the necessary software to open the files. What's to say that won't happen on some level with digitally preserved film files, where even if the storage media itself is in good shape, there's nothing handy to play it on? I imagine that the most high profile and most profitable digital restorations won't have to worry about that, but what about the smaller gems? Will studios put up the money to transfer this material every time there's a new storage medium or an older one becomes obsolete?

I'm not saying a film print or a restored negative is a perfect solution, but the simple fact remains that 35mm film technology allows for a twenty or thirty or forty year old film to be played with much more ease than a data file. But film itself is susceptible to problems of its own.

My own opinion is that the wisest course of action is to create backups across all mediums, so that the digital files are preserved using the best available technology of today, but also so that a new film negative and prints are also saved. I doubt that there will ever be a completely foolproof method where someone can create a backup that can be stored in one way forever and is always in perfect shape. It'd be nice for sure, but I just don't see it happening. For better or worse, someone is always going to have to be keeping an eye on these things...and hopefully there will always be resources dedicated to this along with people who truly care being allowed to oversee it all.

 

[JeremyErwin]

The Afterlife Is Expensive for Digital Movies

I'm trying to locate a copy of the report, called "The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials"

 

[Mark-P]

The hysteria over digital files not being permanent is just ridiculous. Yes, hardware can get old and fail. That is why you ALWAYS have backups of files in a different locations. Anyone who has priceless family photos and movie files stored ONLY on their computer hard drive is a fool. I'm sure the movie studios have multiple copies of the digital files of restored movies stored in separate locations. When one source fails, they simply make another backup on a new source, and yes with proper maintenance, it is PERMANENT!

 

[Jack Theakston]

But if the fly in the ointment is that the actual storage medium is corrupting, no matter HOW many copies you make if it at once, they're ALL susceptible to corrupting. Unfortunately, it's only when they have that anyone realizes and it's all too late.

Film, on the other hand, has reached a state of near perfection.

I might also add that currently, a digital restoration of a film is still about three times more expensive as a photochemical one.

 

[Simon Howson]

But there are things that can be done digitally that can't be done easily, or at all, photo-chemically. Which I guess is why Warner went the digital route for The Searchers. Surely if they could do the same for less money photo-chemically, then that is what they would've done? It seems to me that if a negative is printable, then photo chemical means can cost effectively produce an element ready for a video transfer. But if the negative isn't printable, then digital technology offers lots of ways around dealing with later generation elements, Ultra Resolution from separations being one of them.