sampsoninc916
Agent
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2013
- Messages
- 27
- Real Name
- Jordan Newell White
A whole boatload of titles have been given a 2K or 4K Blu-ray restoration over the past several years. However, in all honesty, there are few companies out there who can truly pull off a quality restoration of an old movie. My state only has one, and that is Crawford Media Services in Atlanta, GA. They worked on Birth of a Nation, the movie industry's (in America) first blockbuster from 100 years ago. They never scanned it, but they worked with the digital files that they were sent, probably by Kino Classics or whoever scanned the surviving film elements. These days it looks like 4K is starting to become the way of the future, but not all content can make the transition. A lot of content to this day is still in standard definition. The problem when playing it back on a Blu-ray or UHD system is usually resolved due to a special upscaling engine and chip that is integrated into either the player or the TV system itself. Nevertheless, just because a movie sits on a disc or on a streaming site like Netflix or Hulu does not necessarily mean that it is preserved. I'm not sure how many animated cartoons can ever make the transition from SD to HD, often times 2K because older cartoons worked with 16mm, and newer cartoons like my favorite cartoon about technicolor equines living in a place called Equestria take advantage of Flash and Toon Boom and master their content in HD 1080p. iTunes current has the highest quality distribution copies of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, all 4 seasons, in 1080p. Not sure about what the resolution or bitrate that DHX Media (the animation company that makes My Little Pony) stores their masters at, but if you run it with the new UHD Teranex Processor, it will look good at 4K, yet it varies due to the quality of the original image. Just because of the delicacy of old film elements, scanning it is difficult, precisely removing the defects is difficult, and preserving it for generations is expensive. Crawford Media Services restores and archives stock footage from public broadcasting stations. I feel like with all the film attention being lavished upon GA, GA can deserve quality post production facilities, not just film restoration and preservation, but visual effects, animation (2D, 3D, and stop motion), color grading, editing, etc. I really think that GA having a post production facility on the caliber of Hollywood providing digital post services of all kinds is a good idea. It is difficult, but it's worth the risk. Do some of you understand the difficulty of restoring old movies and TV shows?