How can digital restorations fade? (1 Viewer)

[Leo Kerr]

Lord Dalek,

I've seen some films restored from the Library of Congress "copyright prints." The story is, at the time, the LoC didn't believe in film, so if someone wanted to copyright film, their submission copy needed to be the entire film, contact printed to paper!

The restorations are kind of ugly; the paper prints weren't that great to begin with, but they survived.

On the other hand, some of the archivists at work would rather see a reel of nitrate film-stock than some 70's color on acetate. Cellulose Nitrate is a well studied, recognized problem, and it primarily only affects the support layer. The color dye fading of the image layers is much harder to deal with...


As an aside, I didn't draw the 8k frame size out of completely thin air, those several posts ago. I used it because NHK is playing with their 60fps 8k ultra-high definition television process that I've seen a couple of times. Once they debug it, I think it'd probably be a real contender for a first-run 35mm hall. (Some of the bugs are gonna be real hard to deal with, though.)

I feel like there was another "odd" number I was throwing around, but I can't recognize what it might have been.

Ah, well, cheerful holidays, all, whatever they might be,

Leo

 

[Jack Theakston]

You're right. If an element is in printable condition, it can yield a satisfactory photochemical print. And I'm willing to wager (from personal experience in a lab) that about 80% of the time, there's no need for a digital intermediate.

It takes a lot for a negative to be "not printable." That means continuous torn perforations, sections of footage missing either in picture or track negs, etc, etc, etc. Some of these films might have these problems, but most of the time, they don't.

 

[Simon Howson]

I remembered poorly. I was refering to this article:
DVD Review - David Fincher

Fincher says that for the DVD they transfered the negative which was not printed with bleach bypass. They initially tried to transfer prints, and I.P.s made with the bleach bypass process, but he couldn't find a single print that he was happy with, because in his opinion they were all made cheaply.

So instead they transfered the negative at 2K, then emulated the bleach bypass look using video tools at HD resolution, the DVD was then made from that. So it isn't surprising that he considers the HD transfer to be THE video master of the film. Which makes one wonder if he ever needs archive prints of the film, will he get them off the negative, or from the video master of the film. It seems he doesn't trust what Kodak do with their print stocks.

 

[MielR]

I don't think that's really a fair analogy, though.

In 50 or 60 years, will it be as easy to recover an obsolete digital file as it is to construct or modify projection/telecine equipment to accomodate an old 65mm print today?

 

[JeremyErwin]

Depends whether the specification was detailed enough. No trade secrets allowed.

 

[Edgar-N]

About the original question

It's not the first time that an industry article has misquotes, or quotes from someone who has problems expressing himself technically.
I can't count how many times Ridley has said something incorrect about his restoration jobs.

I remember when Alien was being "digitally restored", there has been a lot of misinformation from his side in interviews, because, the man simply doesn't understand so much the technical side of some of these restorations, and I don't blame him. It's not the responsibility of the director to know these things.

Back then, he made it look as if the had done a full digital restoration of Alien etc. But the truth is, it was just a fresh HD transfer, the film is still stored in original negatives (chemically restored) as confirmed by the then-president of archiving at Fox (which had the kindness to answer all my questions)

About this fading thing. It's possible that they struck a new negative from restored files. Which is not uncommon, but it still doesn't make it the "new original". It's just something that's done, for the convenience of it sometimes.
It's possible they meant that these new elements are fading, though I find that hard to believe, that's impossible if everything is stored correctly and there is no factory defect on the film stock.

All these films have new high-resolution digital masters, but they are just masters. Nobody threw away original negatives, and it's quite possible that, if the original still exist, we will see another transfer of those elements in the far future when we switch to an even more demanding home-theater medium than HD.

Even if you scan it at 4K, in 10 years, you will be able to make an even better 4K scan than today. 2K or 4K isn't something fixed. You can have a 4K scan that looks like crap depending on who does it and with what tools.

 

[mike kaminski]

Hey, the New York Times has an article on this very issue today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/bu...=1&oref=slogin

 

[Jack Theakston]

AND, there's a big difference between trying to decode what is essentially computer data to an over-sized film print. You can hold the film print up to the light and see what's there, and with a LITTLE retooling, make it possible to print from (there are adjustable printers for just this purpose). You CAN'T hold up a hard drive and know what's there without running it.

Ever wipe a tape? Most of these things are stored on tape and other magnetic devices, from what I understand. Aside from the degradation that tape can undergo, there's nothing to stop some stuffy executive from ordering all the stuff be wiped so that he can have his office in the room that they're stored (which is exactly what happened to the first ten years of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson").