How good are old films in HD (Blu Ray)

[kingbuxton]

I am going to go Blue Ray when Watchmen comes out. Was wondering what old stuff looks like in HD.

Take an old film "Godfather" anything will do tbh, do they look better in HD over DVD? I have this thing in my head that "HD" is "DIGITAL" and anything that isn't is kinda "ANALOG" for want of a better way to describe it.

Kinda like, how can Ben Hur filmed on a normal camera be HD when compared to new films that are shot on Digital cameras? Are films shot in the old style when taken as raw "like a wav file" still too big to fit on a DVD and so you get them "as filmed" on a BR disk, no compression etc?

Finding this hard to explain. Hopefully you get what I mean

Would be interested to hear from anyone that has a film, from the 70's say, in both DVD and HD that can say the HD version is better.

[Turkey Machine]

Grand Prix apparantly looks very good in HD, and that was released circa 1966.

[kingbuxton]

Is it just cos "Grand Prix" when taken as raw data (like a ripped CD) is such a large file that it needs to be compressed to fit on a DVD and BR has the capacity to show it as is? But to be truly HD the film needs to be shot in Digital native?

[alferret]

In my opinion there are very few films that come up to scratch after being digitally remastered and converted to HD. The only decent ones I have seen (and they are not old films) is the Matrix trilogy. But I do have limited use compared to the amount of films there are out there.

[Kymmy]

It also depends on what the original/master filmstock is like...Only some modern films are shot in digital mode and 99% of the films out there have a master film reels (1st generation copies from the original edited reel) if one of these were put through a decent digitizer then you'd have the same quality as the film being shown in a cinema (maybe even slightly better)

But it really does depend on the condition of the original, how it was stored/handled and what aspect ratio and sound format the original had... But even an old film should be better on BR than the 500+ scanlines of DVD

[MovedGoalPosts]

Whilst the picture quality will be better on blueray instead of DVD, if the old film soundtrack was only stereo or worse then that cannot be enhanced without clever stuff trying to put in what was not actually there.

[Stephen]

Yes old films can look amazing on Blu-Ray and sometimes a lot better than modern films. I have a few and they don't look that much better than the DVD versions especially watching them on an upscaling DVD player connected with HDMI.

The best example is Blade Runner IMO.

Most movies can be put on Blu-Ray in 1080p Hi Def as they were shot and stored on film, now film was designed to be shown on giant cinema screens so already have the resolution needed to enable a HD version to be made. The have to scan them in to a computer to get the raw data and then work some magic on it. It has nothing to do with modern films being shot digitally,

Movies on 35mm film will resolve at least 4K resolution, which is 4096 pixels by 3112 pixels.... thats about 3x the resolution of HD at 1920 by 1080.

In the case of Blade Runner the action scenes and such were scanned at even higher resolution that the rest of the film to really capture the detail.

With the audio they can remix what they have to get a surround version of the sound. Not hard to do these days.

Here is a good link to an article about restoration of the Blade Runner film for HD and also all other Films in the company archives. Its crazy the amount of space the Raw 4K scanned films take.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/fea...ting-edge.html

Typical resolution for a single 35mm film frame is about 20 megapixels, and virtually every major motion picture since the War has been shot on at least that. Ultra Panavision uses 65mm stock.

20 megapixels is way more detail than you see on a DVD so provided they can go back to a good quality mater reel that has been well looked after and has aged well, and if decent digitizing techniques are used, you should get stunning results on Blu Ray.

[LondonRoad]

A bit of a coincidence this thread cropping up. I've just seen my first Blu-Ray DVD today and had my first chance to compare 2 versions of the same film...... OK it was Disney's Pinnochio, which is a lot older than even I am, but it was the only film that we had both versions of.

I'm unsure if I could see a difference between the 2 versions or not. I was so wanting to see if there was a difference I think I ended up with spots before my eyes trying to convince myself there was.

What I do know is our kids enjoyed the non Blu-ray version before we (allegedly) adults got into the dvd/blu-ray discussion.

My mate could tell the difference. Well he claimed he could and I watched his nose very closely for signs of growth.....

[Stephen]

Supposidly Disney's new Blu Ray masters of the older movies are so much cleaner and sharper and have had the colour fully restored too.

[LondonRoad]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Supposidly Disney's new Blu Ray masters of the older movies are so much cleaner and sharper and have had the colour fully restored too.

Yes, that's the case with the blurb that comes with the new DVD release too and I was impressed.

....then again the last time i saw it there was a woman selling Kia-ora at the end of the first reel and the smoke from my Mum's fags were hurting my eyes.

[rogerdraig]

it will all depend on what the film company does to make it blue ray

Disney have ( are redoing ) redone some of thier old films by re scanning and enhancing them they look fantastic

however some have just used the original dvd scans and just software up scaled to blue ray these may look a little better than the dvd version but not much

so far most stuff i have seen looks better on blu ray but some dvds look better on my dvd player than they do being upscaled by the blu ray player

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by rogermevans

it will all depend on what the film company does to make it blu ray

Disney have ( are redoing ) redone some of thier old films by re scanning and enhancing them they look fantastic

however some have just used the original dvd scans and just software up scaled to blu ray these may look a little better than the dvd version but not much

so far most stuff i have seen looks better on blu ray but some dvds look better on my dvd player than they do being upscaled by the blu ray player

Where did you get that information?

Every big Film company i.e Warner Brothers and Fox have been scanning all their old films at 4K before mastering the Blu-Ray or other HD versions. Same goes for the older films like The Thing and Close Encounters which look stunning on Blu-Ray.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by kingbuxton

I am going to go Blue Ray when Watchmen comes out. Was wondering what old stuff looks like in HD.

Take an old film "Godfather" anything will do tbh, do they look better in HD over DVD? I have this thing in my head that "HD" is "DIGITAL" and anything that isn't is kinda "ANALOG" for want of a better way to describe it.

Kinda like, how can Ben Hur filmed on a normal camera be HD when compared to new films that are shot on Digital cameras? Are films shot in the old style when taken as raw "like a wav file" still too big to fit on a DVD and so you get them "as filmed" on a BR disk, no compression etc?

If the film was recorded on film (I believe some stuff from the 80s was recorded on Video), and the transfer is done well, then, yes, HD transfers will look a lot better than SD (Standard Def) transfers.

Remember, Analog film (in so far as it has a set resolution) is a *lot* higher resolution than HD, even Full HD. I don't know the exact resolution, but I know that visual effect houses tend to render their effects at something like 4000x4000.

If you can (I don't think they've been released in this country yet), look at the HD transfers of the Original Star Trek series. They look absolutely stunning.

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Remember, Analog film (in so far as it has a set resolution) is a *lot* higher resolution than HD, even Full HD. I don't know the exact resolution, but I know that visual effect houses tend to render their effects at something like 4000x4000.

*ahem* ... post 8.