question about restorations on platinum ed. dvds?

[Disneykid]

Actually, I'm positive Snow White, Pinocchio, and Sleeping Beauty received digital restorations. If you watch the restoration featurettes for SW and SB, the process shown is clearly digital. All color correction and print flaw removal is done via computer scans of the original negatives, which is the same process being used today. I can't speak for everyone else, but both films look excellent on my HDTV. SW just looks a tad soft at times while SB has some color flickering. Both films look completely clean, though, and have vivid colors.

As for Pinocchio, that film I'm 100% certain was a digital restoration. Lowry, aka DTS, did it, and they don't add "Digital Images" to the end of their name for nothing. Just by looking at screencaps of the R4 DVD, you can see it's up to the levels of Bambi and the 50s films (Cinderella through Sleeping Beauty).

[Jordan]

Actually, I'm positive Snow White, Pinocchio, and Sleeping Beauty received digital restorations. If you watch the restoration featurettes for SW and SB, the process shown is clearly digital. All color correction and print flaw removal is done via computer scans of the original negatives, which is the same process being used today. I can't speak for everyone else, but both films look excellent on my HDTV. SW just looks a tad soft at times while SB has some color flickering. Both films look completely clean, though, and have vivid colors.

As for Pinocchio, that film I'm 100% certain was a digital restoration. Lowry, aka DTS, did it, and they don't add "Digital Images" to the end of their name for nothing. Just by looking at screencaps of the R4 DVD, you can see it's up to the levels of Bambi and the 50s films (Cinderella through Sleeping Beauty).

Yes, restoration was done trough the scans of the negatives but I thought digital restoration meant that it was the cellos that were being restored directly on the computer instead of restoring the films / negatives. Isn't that correct?

And I'm sorry but, frankly, on a HDTV, you clearly see the difference of the transfer quality between Snow White, and a feature that was restored digitally like Cinderella, don't you agree?

[Jordan]

Sorry, I realized I was being SO unclear and inacurate because I got mixed up in the vocabulary so I went to check lol

When I meant is that, although they had a digital RESTORATION, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Pinnochio did not receive a digital TRANSFER on the DVDs. This is the reason why they do not look as good as others like Bambi or Cinderella, especially on a HD display.

Disney started restoring based on the digital transfers since Alice in 2004. Before that, the digitally-restored pictures did not come directly from a digital source (the cellos) but from the negatives (the films), which resulted in a picture quality less pristine that it would have been with a digital transfer.

[Disneykid]

Hmm...I'm not sure I completely follow. I was under the impression that (even as early as the Snow White and Sleeping Beauty restorations) after the negative was digitally restored, those files were then transferred to DVD. The DVDs we have now are the digitally restored files. I think the reason Sleeping Beauty and (especially) Snow White don't quite reach the standards of Alice or Cinderella is: a) they weren't done by Lowry Digital, who apparently have the highest level of technology for digital restorations, and b) the digital files may not have been stored away at a resolution as high as later restorations. I may be wrong, though. Does anyone else have any input in this and know any info we don't? Paging Deathie Mouse...

[my chicken is infected]

Snow White was first digitally restored for theatrical and home video release in the early 90's. For the DVD, they took those files and cleaned them up even more and transferred those files directly to DVD. The restoration featurette on disc 2 will tell you as much.

[deathie mouse]

I think when Jordan says cellos he means cels

Snow White was scanned at 4k resolution if I'm not mistaken.
Jordan I think you have a little mix up in how film/digital transfers work. The film is a done thing . At least for old films , so what most people call the "Master" is the original camera negative, or if that is damaged, lost, or simply not used, other film elements struck from it (film copies). A print is a copy.

I think when you say transfered from the cels what you mean is that you heard that the restorations where done making reference to (looking at) the original cels, trying to make the transfer to digital from the negative/existing film elements look like how the cels look when viewed directly. But , unless Disney got ALL the animated cels and backgrounds together and "re-animated" once again the film (shot it again putting all the cels one by one on the backgrounds and rephotographing them with the same camera moves with a digital camera, or scanned the cels one by one and the backgrounds separately, and digitally composited them and recreated camera moves on the computer), the transfer from the image has to be done from the 35mm film to whatever electronic storage medium they're saving it for subsequent film prints or video transfers

Now, for the DVDs, they could have made direct digital conversions, or done them from subsequent prints after the restorations, or done analog master tapes to DVD masters instead of digital file to DVD masters, etc etc. There's several steps in between the camera negative and the finished consumer disc!


*goes back to the bat-pirate cave hibernation chamber

[Jordan]

I think when Jordan says cellos he means cels

Snow White was scanned at 4k resolution if I'm not mistaken.
Jordan I think you have a little mix up in how film/digital transfers work. The film is a done thing . At least for old films , so what most people call the "Master" is the original camera negative, or if that is damaged, lost, or simply not used, other film elements struck from it (film copies). A print is a copy.

I think when you say transfered from the cels what you mean is that you heard that the restorations where done making reference to (looking at) the original cels, trying to make the transfer to digital from the negative/existing film elements look like how the cels look when viewed directly. But , unless Disney got ALL the animated cels and backgrounds together and "re-animated" once again the film (shot it again putting all the cels one by one on the backgrounds and rephotographing them with the same camera moves with a digital camera, or scanned the cels one by one and the backgrounds separately, and digitally composited them and recreated camera moves on the computer), the transfer from the image has to be done from the 35mm film to whatever electronic storage medium they're saving it for subsequent film prints or video transfers

Now, for the DVDs, they could have made direct digital conversions, or done them from subsequent prints after the restorations, or done analog master tapes to DVD masters instead of digital file to DVD masters, etc etc. There's several steps in between the camera negative and the finished consumer disc!


*goes back to the bat-pirate cave hibernation chamber

Yes, I meant "cells" (I used "cellos" for "celluloids )

There are a lot of complicated things in your explanation And rereading my second explanation, I realized I got i wrong again about all the digital restoration / trasnfer thing.

Okay, so let me try this out again... A so-called expert a few months ago (on a French Disney forum) said that, basically, restored movies since Alice in 2004 were being digitally scanned and recolored directly from the original cells and not from the filmed negatives, as it used to be (for Snow White and Sleeping Beauty for example). This would be the reason why those 2 features don't look as good as what was done starting with Alice in 2004. In other words, digital transfer means using the original cells to restore (and not the negatives).

So basically, before Alice in 2004, Disney movies received a digital restoration but not a digital transfer becasue the digitally-restored scans came from the negatives and not direcly from the cells.

The same guy also says that, when using original cells for the restoration, that when a cell is missing or lost that's not a problem because there are 23 other cells in the one second, so it's unoticeable and you can't see the difference. But when a whole background disappears, it is more problematic because the missing background must be restored from the negatives and it creates a difference with the other backgrounds which were directly restored from the cells. It apparently is the case in Bambi when he was just born and all the animals are gathered around him. You see that, in one shot, the background is less pristine that the one that came before and the one that came after because it had to be restored from the negatives and not directly from the cells...

I think I finally really got what this guy was really saying, so ignore my two previous comments, they were inacurate So now, I don't know if what he's saying is 100% true but this is it, and he seems to know a lot about the subject...

So, what do you think? Does it make more sense now lol?

PS: In case you speak French, here's the link to this explanation from the guy on a forum:

http://forumdcp.aceboard.fr/280850-5602 ... s.htm[url]

[Jordan]

Well, maybe this guy's wrong after all... I just watched the Bambi featurette on the Platinum DVD about the restoration and they cleary say that the restored scans come from the negatives!!...

I'm lost! Please, someone explain to me what "digital restoration" and 'digital transfer" means! And also what's the difference in the process that make Snow White and Sleeping Beauty not as great as other more recents DVD releases!!

[akhenaten]

guys, read this blog by hans bacher

http://animation-treasures.blogspot.com/

it might explain some confusion over restoration difference.

[disneystarsfan]

wow, that's an interesting blog =) great find.