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Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009 (?), or.....

post #1 of 311
2/7/08 at 2:13pm
Thread Starter 
Per the Digital Bits:
Quote:
major classic catalog title that you can look forward to on Blu-ray in 2009, just in time to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary... Ben-Hur
In 1080P, and it was mentioned in the last paragraph:
Quote:
concern many of you Blu-ray enthusiasts had for Warner. Specifically, a lot of you said you wanted to studio to start including uncompressed audio on ALL Blu-ray Disc releases, both new and catalog. Rest assured, the right people have heard your concern (naturally, George was already aware of it) and you can safely assume that the studio intends to start addressing it in the near future.
Now that would be truly great!

To those knowledgable few who know:

The only concern is that I wonder about the capability and difficulty of transferring a crisp, clean and especially SHARP image from a native 70mm film source, that is, if they use the best possible film source print that is available.
Problems with transferring native 70mm film sources in the past to disc became evident to me with the DVD "Oklahoma!", released in November of 2005, when a comparison could be made between the CinemaScope version (2.55:1) and the "native" Todd-AO Version (2.20:1) and the resulting softness of the image from the limitations of the transferring technology used at the time.

Is the technology here now where a 70mm print like "Ben-Hur" can be transferred to (Blu-ray) with the films native sharpness, or will Warner have to use a 35mm copy for the best of todays transfer?

Paul
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post #2 of 311
2/7/08 at 2:49pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Why wouldn't they be able to use the transfer they just did a couple years ago?

I'd expect this release to be exactly like the current 4-Disc DVD, with the only difference being the film in HD.
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post #3 of 311
2/7/08 at 2:57pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Conway
Why wouldn't they be able to use the transfer they just did a couple years ago?

I'd expect this release to be exactly like the current 4-Disc DVD, with the only difference being the film in HD.
Per the Bits:
Quote:
One of the biggest issues they've had to deal with is something that all the Hollywood studios are discovering with their catalog titles: The previous 1080i films transfers they've done were fine for DVD release, but it turns out that they just aren't quite good enough to release on Blu-ray. So they're having to go back and do all-new 1080p transfers for Blu-ray release. That amounts to four or five years of work that needs to be redone in some cases, and that obviously takes time, because Warner - probably more than any other studio - is determined to do it right.

Paul
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post #4 of 311
2/7/08 at 2:58pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

I don't think the latest Ben-Hur transfer falls under that situation. It was done recently enough, with the best possible equipment, IIRC.

EDIT: Release date of the 4-Disc Ben-Hur was 9/13/05. Robert Harris had high praise. I guess we don't know if the current transfer was sufficient for HD or not.
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post #5 of 311
2/7/08 at 3:05pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

That newer BEN-HUR transfer has some problems, or at least the 4-disc DVD release of it does. It's noticeably quite a bit softer than the older DVD, and beyond that there's some weird red color fringing going on in several shots.

Vincent
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post #6 of 311
2/7/08 at 3:12pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Which, as far as I can tell re-reading the older thread I linked to, are problems that may not be avoidable.
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post #7 of 311
2/7/08 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Conway
Which, as far as I can tell re-reading the older thread I linked to, are problems that may not be avoidable.


Robert Harris - Post #30 - 09-15-2005 - "A few words about... Ben-Hur " - SD DVD thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Harris
I'm aware of no Rank or other scanners in use, and available today, which are capable of handling a large format image with high quality.

This means that one of two things must occur.

Either one scans a large format element on what is essentially a dinosaur of a machine, or one creates a reduction element for scanning on one of the latest generation set up for standard 35mm.

If one scans large format, one can end up with a nicely rendered, but imperfect image, normally with less detail than can be reproduced from 35mm. This image will generally appear softer than a like image based upon the same scene photographed on 35mm 4 perf.

To create a 35mm element one must run the large format element through an optical printer, with its own inherent loss. With anamorphic 65mm one's difficulties are futher exacerbated.

This concern was expressed here in my first post.

That is why I asked the question if 70mm scanning technology has been perfected that can avoid a soft image in Blu-ray HD media?

Paul
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post #8 of 311
2/8/08 at 4:43am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Hillenbrand

That is why I asked the question if 70mm scanning technology has been perfected that can avoid a soft image in Blu-ray HD media?
Paul

Yes.
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post #9 of 311
2/8/08 at 7:59am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Maybe this time, WB will also include the original multi-track mix that won the Oscar for Sound. I want to hear what Franklin Milton mixed for audiences in 1959, not what mystery engineer-x did in the late 1990's. Yes.. it would need to be ever so slightly reconfigured to the 5.1 format, but it would still be very faithful to the original. But for that matter, I'm sure MGM has original 4 track versions of this title, as well as the original 6 track mix.

WB .. if you want to keep the re-mix, at least offer the original as an option!
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post #10 of 311
2/8/08 at 9:06am
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Referring to "the question if 70mm scanning technology has been perfected that can avoid a soft image in Blu-ray HD media?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michel_Hafner
Yes.


Thank you Mr. Hafner!

Now hoping the 2009 Ben-Hur Blu-ray disc will be authored with this latest scanning technology, including lossless audio of the original multi-track Oscar-winning mix and I will be in - HEAVEN - pure nirvana!

Paul
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post #11 of 311
2/8/08 at 10:24am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

The most obvious example of improvements in 65mm/70mm scanning technology would be the new Blade Runner set, where Warner went bat to the 65mm effects shots and scanned them at 6K to preserve as much definition as possible out of those elements.
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post #12 of 311
2/8/08 at 2:21pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

If Warner can scan the Vistavision seps of "The Searchers" at 8K, what is the current state of the art for 65mm negative? Is it Fotokem's scanner? They did the restoration of "South Pacific" at 4k and the theatrical version has softness issues, while the roadshow version seems sharper (what I've seen of each).

Still, I'm hoping for the best.
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post #13 of 311
2/8/08 at 6:26pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_J_H
The most obvious example of improvements in 65mm/70mm scanning technology would be the new Blade Runner set, where Warner went bat to the 65mm effects shots and scanned them at 6K to preserve as much definition as possible out of those elements.

Where did you hear that they scanned the 65mm effects elements? There is nothing in the extra features that says that. I had assumed they scanned the 35mm reduction prints for the effects shots.

Doug
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post #14 of 311
2/9/08 at 12:08am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

I read an article with the dvd's producer, the blade runner sfx were scanned from 65mm, I think anyone expecting a new transfer of ben-hur for blu-ray will be disappointed...the last one is 1080p and given the limited market for classics on blu ray the cost would probably be unwarranted.

M
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post #15 of 311
2/9/08 at 5:43am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

The quality of the Ben-Hur SE transfer sucked big time. Bad color registration errors, no fine detail, etc etc. There is no way that this transfer would be acceptable for HD. Have you seen the HD DVD of Spartacus? That was a major dissappointment. Ben Hur from the existing transfer would probably look as bad or worse.

Vern
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post #16 of 311
2/9/08 at 6:09am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
I read an article with the dvd's producer, the blade runner sfx were scanned from 65mm, I think anyone expecting a new transfer of ben-hur for blu-ray will be disappointed...the last one is 1080p and given the limited market for classics on blu ray the cost would probably be unwarranted.

M

That market could increase between now and then. But if the market is small, going the cheap route for Blu-Ray transfers will make it smaller because the people who buy these films care about the quality of their presentations.
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post #17 of 311
2/9/08 at 9:12am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

The Spartacus HD-DVD used the old universal HD transfer as a basis, not the criterion HD transfer - if that was used on HD or blu-ray the quality difference would be much more noticeable.

Similarly the actual 1080p transfer of ben hur, although possibly with certain issues of it's own relating to the source materials, is also a lot better than a standard dvd could ever show, the same transfer on blu-ray possibly with a little additional digital clean-up will certainly look much sharper than the SD which is the main issue of the DVD.

As for "the cheap route" this is the second high-def transfer of BH in 5 years, this time from 65mm (no doubt due to complaints of the first one not being from 65) which is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination! New technologies and restoration techniques come along all the time, but I think it's reasonable to assume the last transfer of ben hur will be the one on HD at least until well into the next decade.

M
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post #18 of 311
2/9/08 at 10:46am
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
As for "the cheap route" this is the second high-def transfer of BH in 5 years, this time from 65mm (no doubt due to complaints of the first one not being from 65) which is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination! New technologies and restoration techniques come along all the time, but I think it's reasonable to assume the last transfer of ben hur will be the one on HD at least until well into the next decade.

M

Hope Warner is reading this thread.

This is the 50th anniversary of Ben-Hur and that is for everyone who had anything to do with the production all the way up to the theatrical experience of the audience, and if that doesn't justify a re-scanning of 65mm elements - for a pristine improvement in sharpness and for other do-able corrections - I don't know what will, or if I'll ever have the experience in that light in my lifetime.

Hope the anniversary excitement takes hold for all concerned - building a campaign for a phenomenal release and a profitable success.

Paul
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post #19 of 311
2/9/08 at 12:06pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Paul the elements were scanned in 65mm less than 3 years ago,by a home video arm renowned for high quality work. What revelatory transfer technology are you aware of that has become available, at reasonable cost, that would render it necessary to re-transfer the film again in such a short space of time?

In fact it has been said had they used a 35mm reduction print instead of 65mm it would look even sharper, but unless you've viewed the 1080p master how do you know it doesn't contain the increase in sharpness you seek?

An ntsc dvd is no real judge of the master it is downconverted from, as has been proven several times on blu ray's released thus far from same 1080p transfer that the dvd was converted from, that look head and shoulders better in areas of sharpness, colour and general clarity.

M
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post #20 of 311
2/9/08 at 12:48pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

And WHV can you do the Overture, intermission music,etc correctly this time on a BLANK screen instead of those stupid still frames taken from the titles. They ruin the effect that was intended. You got it right for 2001, but not for Mutiny, Bulge and Grand Prix.Wake up!
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post #21 of 311
2/9/08 at 1:51pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
Paul the elements were scanned in 65mm less than 3 years ago,by a home video arm renowned for high quality work. What revelatory transfer technology are you aware of that has become available, at reasonable cost, that would render it necessary to re-transfer the film again in such a short space of time?

In fact it has been said had they used a 35mm reduction print instead of 65mm it would look even sharper, but unless you've viewed the 1080p master how do you know it doesn't contain the increase in sharpness you seek?
Information that has been gathered in this thread and apparently based on 2005 technology, is that a scan of a 35mm reduction print could look even sharper than from a 65mm print, - scans of 65mm/70mm large formats can end up with a nicely rendered, but imperfect image, normally with less detail than can be reproduced from 35mm and that the image would generally appear softer than a like image based upon the same scene photographed on 35mm 4 perf.

When the question was asked if technology today has been perfected to where a 70mm print, like "Ben-Hur", could be transferred to (Blu-ray) with the films-native-sharpness and which additionally could carry along more detail, there was an affirmative from Michel_Hafner. -So when you ask "What revelatory transfer technology are you aware of that has become available", all I know is what has been offered here.

Reasonable cost? Didn't ask.

Hopefully, new scanning technology is being used today on classic restoring ventures and I hope it will be used on the 2009 release of Ben-Hur.

Paul
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post #22 of 311
2/9/08 at 2:18pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

I say again that the detail contained in the Hi-def master used for the current dvd is above and beyond what the current ntsc dvd can show.

Secondly as the O-Neg of ben hur has so much detail that an 8-10K scan might just about manage to contain all of it. So a downconversion to 1080P for blu-ray will still not be showing anywhere near the native sharpness of the camera negative. Even a 35mm reduction print will still be 4K, at best, so that will have lost over half the detail in the conversion process. Which will be reduced again when telecined for hi-def.

So the bottom line is a 35mm transfer of 65mm originated materials may be superior, it also may not be, and given that WB chose to transfer from 65, they must have had there reasons - technical or otherwise.

I also don't see them running the expense of probably several 10's of thousand's of dollars to create a new 35mm interpositive and re-transfer again, for a format with marginal profit returns, when they could have done it that way the last time.

Don't get me wrong I'd love to see a flawless Ben Hur, but short of a complete ground up photo-chemical restoration and state of the art "no cost is too great" telecine based on new elements from that restoration, it ain't gonna happen!

M
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post #23 of 311
2/9/08 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
I say again that the detail contained in the Hi-def master used for the current dvd is above and beyond what the current ntsc dvd can show.
Potential improvement noted.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
Secondly as the O-Neg of ben hur has so much detail that an 8-10K scan might just about manage to contain all of it. So a downconversion to 1080P for blu-ray will still not be showing anywhere near the native sharpness of the camera negative. Even a 35mm reduction print will still be 4K, at best, so that will have lost over half the detail in the conversion process. Which will be reduced again when telecined for hi-def.
Didn’t realize that the magnitude of scale for the detail contained in the 0-Neg and the resulting loss from downconversion or the additional telecined conversion process was so great.
It’s just dawning on me that today’s consumer 1080P “HD media” cannot begin to duplicate the detailed quality of a classic epic film, which makes me wonder what all the energy spent and paranoia for copy protection is all about at this point in time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
So the bottom line is a 35mm transfer of 65mm originated materials may be superior, it also may not be, and given that WB chose to transfer from 65, they must have had there reasons - technical or otherwise.
Hoping the sharpness and detail is an improvement from all previous ntsc DVD reproductions of the film. Edit: Without adding edge enhancement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
Don't get me wrong I'd love to see a flawless Ben Hur, but short of a complete ground up photo-chemical restoration and state of the art "no cost is too great" telecine based on new elements from that restoration, it ain't gonna happen!

Thanks for your realistic & down-to-earth opinion.

Paul
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post #24 of 311
2/9/08 at 7:08pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

The previous version of Ben-Hur on DVD seemed to have a bit more detail, but the colors not as well rendered, as the newer 4 disc version. This indicates that the transfer from 65mm elements is clearly not rendering the kind of resolution that it should, if its even clear on NTSC dvd.

I would say that just based on this, Ben-Hur would best be re-scanned again either from a 35mm reduction print, or using the 65mm elements on a high quality 65mm telecine machine such as they seem to have a fotokem.

Doug
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post #25 of 311
2/10/08 at 5:09am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Anthony
Secondly as the O-Neg of ben hur has so much detail that an 8-10K scan might just about manage to contain all of it.
M
I doubt there is much beyond 4K in the negatives of Ben Hur. The film is too old for that.
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post #26 of 311
2/10/08 at 5:46am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michel_Hafner
I doubt there is much beyond 4K in the negatives of Ben Hur. The film is too old for that.

I would beg to differ! Especially as it's been said that VistaVision (from the same decade as BH) should be scanned in at least at 6K to take in all the detail, a UP neg is even larger and as it contains squeezed footage arguably there is more data to extract than in a flat negative of the same size.

Regardless even if there was only 4K of data, Blu-ray could still only show 25% of it, at best.

M
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post #27 of 311
2/10/08 at 5:53am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

A question for you all participating in this discussion: Has anyone in this discussion ever handled an actual reel of 70mm film? Either for projection or for transfer?

From my experience in 70mm projection and 35 mm transfers:

One of the issues thats works against 70 (65) mm projection and transfer is that the additional width (and height to a lesser extent) of the film frame makes keeping the entire frame perfectly in focus much more difficult than 35mm.

An obvious example of this is the in and out of focus (what little focus there is) of the center of the frame on the 70mm "Oklahoma!" that is clearly caused by the inability to keep the film element perfectly flat during the transfer process. This is caused by a phenomenon called film buckle, which can be far more pronounced in the wider film element.

The additional width of the film also puts increased demands on the optics of the scanner.

The bad color mis-registration on the most recent Ben-Hur is not an artifact caused by anything inherent to DVD. As a matter of fact, if one takes a close look at the right 1/3 of the HD DVD image on Mutiny on the Bounty, color misregistration errors are present there although not to the degree of certain scenes in Ben-Hur. It looks (to me) much more like chromatic abberation in the optics used for the transfer, rather than mis-registraion of color seps.

I think we will just have to wait and see (and hope) that the final results of whatever eklement, and process WB chooses to use are worthy of this outstanding film.

Vern
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post #28 of 311
2/10/08 at 6:05am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Mark:
are more considerations than film area affecting the available resolution on a frame.

Foe example:
Vistavision is a spherical process that did not use any anamorphic elements.
MGM Camera 65 used both a prime lens and an anamorphic lens. The additional anamorphic lens would cause some (no one knows how much) loss of resolution in the image captured on the film.

Vern
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post #29 of 311
2/10/08 at 9:50am

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vern Dias
Mark:
are more considerations than film area affecting the available resolution on a frame.

Foe example:
Vistavision is a spherical process that did not use any anamorphic elements.
MGM Camera 65 used both a prime lens and an anamorphic lens. The additional anamorphic lens would cause some (no one knows how much) loss of resolution in the image captured on the film.

Vern

Sorry Vern i'm not sure what your trying to say. But larger size aside, the fact that an anamorphic lens is used means more picture is being squeezed into the same area, more picture=potentially more detail and therefore a higher scanning resolution is needed to capture it all.

When i'm talking about 8-10K i'm referring about an archival medium to strike new 70mm prints of off, to reduce wear on the negative, which at some point will become unprintable.

But it's all academic, Ben Hur isn't being re-telecined and if it were it might be off 35mm just like WB's other UP films.

M
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post #30 of 311
2/10/08 at 12:43pm

Re: Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vincent_P
That newer BEN-HUR transfer has some problems, or at least the 4-disc DVD release of it does. It's noticeably quite a bit softer than the older DVD, and beyond that there's some weird red color fringing going on in several shots.

Vincent

The 4-disc is actually sharper than the first DVD, but the resolution is slightly lower since the 2001 disc cropped a lot on all four sides and the SE opens it up. Better compression, too, since the 2001 DVD had a lot of jitter in the frame.
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