Personal computing discussed
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just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
jmc2 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
jmc2 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
The BBC cared nothing for what they created. Create it, broadcast it and erase the tape destroying it was their system.
Concupiscence wrote:jmc2 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
Like a lot of prestige '50s TV, Perry Mason was shot on 35mm. That makes the prospects of a quality restoration pretty good if the negatives or high quality duplicates have been properly maintained. Unfortunately a lot of shows were shot on the cheap on video or even VHS, or were shot on 35mm but post-production was done on video, like Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the former case, there's nothing to be done but make the highest quality digital transfer from inherently limited source media you can. In the latter, it involved going back to the original film, creating a digital interpositive, and recompositing all the special effects at higher resolution. That was expensive and time-consuming, and even something with the nostalgic heft of Star Trek TNG didn't make back enough money for it to be a viable solution for legacy shows at large.
jmc2 wrote:Concupiscence wrote:jmc2 wrote:
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
Like a lot of prestige '50s TV, Perry Mason was shot on 35mm. That makes the prospects of a quality restoration pretty good if the negatives or high quality duplicates have been properly maintained. Unfortunately a lot of shows were shot on the cheap on video or even VHS, or were shot on 35mm but post-production was done on video, like Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the former case, there's nothing to be done but make the highest quality digital transfer from inherently limited source media you can. In the latter, it involved going back to the original film, creating a digital interpositive, and recompositing all the special effects at higher resolution. That was expensive and time-consuming, and even something with the nostalgic heft of Star Trek TNG didn't make back enough money for it to be a viable solution for legacy shows at large.
So it's the sad tragic era of "tape TV production". Guess we have to be thankful for the little bit that survived at a decent quality.
I've got pretty much everything I want from that era even if I am cringing a bit at what I'm watching.
Did read on that... even in recent years a producer captured everything at 4K, took it down to 2K for production and THREW the 4K away!
Imagine they are still kicking themselves over that.
Thank you!
jmc2 wrote:The BBC cared nothing for what they created. Create it, broadcast it and erase the tape destroying it was their system.
morphine wrote:On a tangential topic, one of the local TV channels has been doing reruns of Miami Vice (which I now see was actually pretty damn good with excellent production values) and Magnum PI (which... wasn't good). Were these shows originally shot/aired in what appears to be a 1:1 ratio, or is it just the version that the TV station has?
Concupiscence wrote:you can't create more detail than what the source media could replicate
ludi wrote:Concupiscence wrote:you can't create more detail than what the source media could replicate
You're certainly stuck with the absolute dimensions of the frame, but with some of the learning-based AI routines developed in the past few years, you can do exactly that within the frame: interpolate the missing detail based on the scene itself and an acquired database of what all similar scenes look like at higher resolutions. In the case of video, you can use both that ability and the temporal data surrounding an artifact as a basis for accurately scrubbing it.
I don't know if any companies are applying all of the possibilities to video remastering yet, but there are already personal photo-editing tools starting to apply some of these techniques, so it can't be too far away.
jmc2 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
The Egg wrote:jmc2 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, unless they went to the trouble of doing a full cleanup and restoration, there will inevitably be degradation of the original analog film or tape.
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
Likewise, I've watched a number of the original Twilight Zone episodes (1959-1964) on Netflix (now on Amazon Prime as well), and the quality is outstanding, even via streaming. They must have used the master tapes.
techguy wrote:The Egg wrote:jmc2 wrote:
I can say that my "Perry Mason" shows from 1955 to mid 60s on dvd from film are wonderfully perfect!
They knew what they had and took care of it.
Likewise, I've watched a number of the original Twilight Zone episodes (1959-1964) on Netflix (now on Amazon Prime as well), and the quality is outstanding, even via streaming. They must have used the master tapes.
The original Twilight Zone has received a Blu-ray release, so no doubt what you are viewing on Netflix is sourced from this (just played at a lower bitrate for cost-savings in transport).
Captain Ned wrote:No, it's because Twilight Zone was filmed on 35mm film stock, at least according to IMDB.
Concupiscence wrote:If you mean 4:3, that's how they were aired for sure. If it's showing up as 1:1, somebody goofed upstream.
just brew it! wrote:Captain Ned wrote:No, it's because Twilight Zone was filmed on 35mm film stock, at least according to IMDB.
No reason it can't be both. Higher quality source material and easier to compress due to lack of color. Though I suspect that the source quality is the bigger factor by far.
Glorious wrote:
ugh.
I'd understand the apprehension about the dreaded black bars (previously horizontal, now vertical) a lot better if I didn't *CONSTANTLY* see people filming with their >16:9 phones UPRIGHT....