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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Big Sleep (1946) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Oblivion138

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The 1945 cut of the film has moderate to severe damage, that would preclude a simple HD transfer. Presentation in HD would have entailed inordinate expense.

RAH
I would have taken a "warts and all" HD transfer.


In the same vain, I like to give a shout out to Dorthy Malone in one of her earlier roles as the book shop girl. I always had a crush on her.
Ditto!
 

ShellOilJunior

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Day 1 for me. More Raymond Chandler is always welcomed. (I can't believe this is the first time his name has been mentioned in this thread.)
 
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Tim Munton

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It doesn't say anything about the resolution of the digital acquisition,workflow or output, just how good the discs look upconverted / scaled to 4k on a high quality UHD display or projection system. I would guess that most of the time these discs are watched on a 4k Sony SXRD, a very nice projector!

Thanks Oliver - ok I'm clear on that.
So, does anyone know if the film elements were scanned at 4K ( or not ) before digital restoration for the blu-ray commenced?!
 

OliverK

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Not saying it has been done that way but to put things in perspective especially for the academy ratio even a 2k scan neds to be downscaled quite a bit. Going to Blu-ray one would effectively downscale from about 2000 by 1500 pixels to 1440 by 1080.
 

Robert Harris

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Not saying it has been done that way but to put things in perspective especially for the academy ratio even a 2k scan neds to be downscaled quite a bit. Going to Blu-ray one would effectively downscale from about 2000 by 1500 pixels to 1440 by 1080.

A 2k scan would generally be cropped, not downscaled. Keep in mind all of that track area that's a part of the scan on the left side of the image, in addition to the normal 2.5-5% crop at right.

The original scan begins with 2048.

RAH
 

OliverK

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A 2k scan would generally be cropped, not downscaled. Keep in mind all of that track area that's a part of the scan on the left side of the image, in addition to the normal 2.5-5% crop at right.

The original scan begins with 2048.

RAH

Thanks for the explanation, so the 2048 would cover the whole width of the frame between the perforations?
 

Tim Munton

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A 2k scan would generally be cropped, not downscaled. Keep in mind all of that track area that's a part of the scan on the left side of the image, in addition to the normal 2.5-5% crop at right.

The original scan begins with 2048.

RAH
Thanks for the technical info Robert & Oliver - very interesting to hear these details.

So, it sounds like that possibly no one on this discussion thread knows whether the film elements were scanned at 2K or 4K
( or even 6K - not very likely this latter probably; just mention it as yesterday watched the Olivier 1950's 'Richard III', not a WBros release, which, at the start of the
UK Bluray edition, says it was scanned at 6K & colour corrected at 4K ).

Do Warner Brothers have a policy of not disclosing the initial scan rates ( &/or related technical detail ) ?
And if so, why would that be ?

Or is it just that no one there has thought to make the info public - or perhaps don't think anyone's interested in such matters?!
 

Tim Munton

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Great to read the Sonia Darrin piece Thomas
& lovely that she's still around & looking like she's enjoying life.
 

Robert Harris

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Thanks for the technical info Robert & Oliver - very interesting to hear these details.

So, it sounds like that possibly no one on this discussion thread knows whether the film elements were scanned at 2K or 4K
( or even 6K - not very likely this latter probably; just mention it as yesterday watched the Olivier 1950's 'Richard III', not a WBros release, which, at the start of the
UK Bluray edition, says it was scanned at 6K & colour corrected at 4K ).

Do Warner Brothers have a policy of not disclosing the initial scan rates ( &/or related technical detail ) ?
And if so, why would that be ?

Or is it just that no one there has thought to make the info public - or perhaps don't think anyone's interested in such matters?!

Both Big Sleep and Key Largo were scanned in 2k, from recently produced fine grain masters. There was an immense amount of damage to both films, moreso Sleep, and shipping the nitrates, scanning in 4K, and doing cleanup,and new color would be well beyond current budgetary abilities. This will have to occur, but probably not until software increases in its restorative capabilies.

As to secrecy of scanning at WB, I've always found them to be open.

To put things into financial perspective, cleanup for each title, based upon a 4/6k scan of the surviving nitrate OCN, could easily hit six figures.

Asset protection, and making a film available on Blu, cannot always be in sync.

RAH
 

Jonathan Perregaux

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Pre-ordered. I still have the Warner snapper case DVD.

I love it when a title like this is released with an alternate cut when all they had to do is put out the more familiar version. Fools me into thinking physical disc formats are stronger than ever.
 

Tim Munton

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Thank you so much Robert for your informative & very helpful reply .
Well that clears that up!

From your review & ratings at the top of the thread re the impressive picture
quality of which you speak, I'm guessing that at the 2K level ( ie for this blu-ray release ) quite a bit of cleanup/restoration has been done to get the picture looking that good.

Mine's on pre-order but as I'm in the UK it'll take a bit longer to get here. Can't wait to see it!

Thanks again Robert for your time spent & help in replying to my quest for information - it is much appreciated.
 
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