Warner to release Ben-Hur on Blu-ray in 2009 (?), or..... (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

My guess is like everything else with Imax they have their own proprietary equipment for video transfers. You couldn't put an Imax film on a standard 70mm telecine machine for scanning, given that Imax is a horizontal 15 perf format. Also Imax uses the area that is normally used for soundtrack for picture information.

Doug

 

[OliverK]

If I was to produce a scanner for 70mm material I would certainly see to it that it scans all available variants of 70mm including IMAX. Would be great if somebody could shed some light on the subject. At least for 35mm they got it working which means they can scan anamorphic, Super 35, Academy, Vistavision etc.

Oliver

 

[OliverK]

Yes it is disappointing. Like everything else it looks better in motion but of course not nearly as good as it could. But regarding next years' release: Warner usually gets their big titles right and if this is not a big classic title then I don't know which one is. As this could be some kind of extra spectacular demo material when it gets re-released in excellent quality I hope Warner does the film justice and helps it to become the premier large format demo title on HDM. Lots of work to be done on this one but I am confident they are up to the task.

Oliver

 

[OliverK]

Hi,

yesterday I took the time to install a trial version of Photoshop and did a downsampling/upsampling test for the HD version that is available of Ben Hur - it tops out at around half HD resolution :frowning: So clearly there is A LOT of room for improvements !

Oliver

 

[Ray Chuang]

Now that the format wars are pretty much over, what better way to showcase the Blu-ray format than to produce "from scratch" a super-quality 1080p BR disc version of Ben-Hur? Complete with a Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio multi-channel soundtrack?

 

[MatthewA]

Well, Hewlett-Packard and WB have come up with an automated film restoration system that can, among other things, remove the joining lines on Cinerama (there's a thread about How the West Was Won with samples). Perhaps it can make it possible to do this film justice in time for its golden birthday?

And hopefully other studios will license the process for titles that need it. And hopefully it will be used judiciously.

 

[OliverK]

I think that this will not go well with the kind of misalignment seen with Ben Hur that I would first and foremost expect to be related to uneven shrinkage of the Seps used for the current master.

Still an interesting technology for Cinerama and related processes.

And if even the midpicture registration problems can be traced back to hardware related issues I would of course be more than happy to be proven wrong as in that case a new transfer would not be so hard to get right.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Did Warner use their Ultra-Resolution process on Ben-Hur? If not that process might go a long way to correcting the misalignment, as it did for Robin Hood and Singing in the Rain.

Doug

 

[OliverK]

Surely they did not use that process before. A scan at 8k will be the way to go for Ben Hur and as RAH confirmed this is the way things are done these days. This should represent most if not all the detail in the OCN and allow a little leeway to account for misalignment issues.

Oliver

 

[Michel_Hafner]

If there is misalignment the ON was not used but color separations. I hope the ON is not faded so much that only separations can be used.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Exactly I wasn't sure if 65mm color seperations were made of this film and thats what the DVD was created from or not. If the ON was used it seems unlikely that misalignment would be seen but rather distortion from a shrinking acetate base. Unless one color layer shrank at a different rate than another, which also seems unlikely.

Doug

 

[OliverK]

Definitely there are color fringes in the current version.
Here are two captures that show nice red color fringes in different parts of the picture. This is not restricted to just the edges.

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Oliver

 

[Douglas Monce]

Oliver can you point to a specific place in either frame where you are seeing red fringing? I'm just not seeing anything that looks like misalignment. I would expect to see it fairly pronounced around the white tunics in the second frame. I am seeing what looks to be a slight bit of edge enhancement.

Doug

 

[OliverK]

Of course Doug. First off it is best to make sure to see the caps in their original resolution without scaling. I would suggest to look at Charlton Hestons' left arm in the second cap. There is red outlining to the right of the white toga. It is not that easy to see as the backgrund is also red. Compare that to the toga of Boyd that does look much better.

Oliver

 

[RobertR]

The superb job done on How the West Was Won gives me hope that this will look great (yes, I know that the Cinerama process was quite different from the 65 mm process used for Ben Hur).

 

[Jeff_HR]

In my small Humble opinion this is one of the "Crown Jewels" of the WB library.

GET IT RIGHT! Do what has to be done & the time needed to make it the BEST!!

I really wonder whose opinions Mr. Feltenstein listens to here in this Forum. That would be of interest to know.

 

[Vern Dias]

Yes, the previous Ben-Hur DVD sucked big time. As is mentioned above, severe color fringing was present on many scenes. Also, the fine detail was actually reduced compared to the previous transfer which was done from 35mm reduction elements. However, at the time that this was transferred, 65mm film telecine was in it's infancy and not up to the quality available from 35mm transfers.

With the latest scanners, I would certainly hope that the new release, done with at least a 4K scan will not have these issues.

We'll soon see....

Vern

 

[oscar_merkx]

Any news ?

 

[GregK]

Add me to the vote for to finally include the original multi-channel mix.

That mix won the Academy Award, and at an absolute minimum deserves the option to be heard once again!

 

[Edward Weinman]

I hope that Mr. Feltenstein listens to his own instincts...throughout the laser disc years and with his involvement at WB, he is the format's greatest asset.