I stand corrected. Thanks for the links, Mr. Salty...Obviously, if I'm wrong about that instance, I might be wrong about other things. I'll back off at this point...

To CrumpsBrother...

There seems to be a reasonable amount of confusion in the marketplace today in regard to precisely what the word "restoration" means.

There are corporate entities which would have the public believe that it is akin to having one's car detailed.

A dirty negative comes in to the facility and leaves cleaner with resultant prints lacking a certain amount of minus density dirt.

Most films do not need restoration.

Even fewer are in need of reconstruction.

But the line between restoration and "restoration" seems now to have been blurred --

purposefully by some in marketing positions in an attempt to sell product...

and innocently by others who simply like the sound of the word.

Today we have a major blurring with the concept of "video restoration."

With new digital tools added to our maze of possibilities in working toward true film restoration, we now have "restorations" in which nothing whatsoever has actually been restored.

You mention the work of LDI and John Lowry.

LDI has been working to help create new digital tools, and has been at the fore of this concept for a number of years.

Working within the video or low-rez realm, LDI has been responsible for some beautiful work in a number of areas. Among them, digital rebuilding of the faded yellow layer, flicker reduction based upon fade, dirt removal and grain reduction.

LDI's work on Warner's North by Northwest was an early representation of the potential of their processes, as, working from digital files derived from a new Vista 35/8 interpositive, they used a number of algorithms with synchronicity to yield a beautiful final product which was published as a DVD.

Likewise, LDI's work on Disney's Snow White DVD was helpful in creating a new version of the film.

Please note that neither of these are restorations, but rather, digital clean-ups with the purpose of releasing the final result on home video.

As a new product, the Snow White DVD was quite beautiful.

It was, however, in few ways representative of the original work.

This isn't a bad thing, but simply a fact. The resultant DVD is a wonderful product.

You mention that you have worked with John Lowry and like him personally.

I absolutely concur.

Mr. Lowry is, in my humble opinion, a brilliant gentleman, with a myriad of very workable ideas.

But he and I choose to disagree when certain of his algorithms are used to not clean or restore, but to distort the original look of a film, while making it what some consider "prettier." And in many ways the results are prettier.

This becomes more problematic when a final result is recorded back to film rather than to DVD, creating not a restoration, but rather, a totally new look on film that was not within the original design of that film.

Grain removal, for one thing, can be taken too far.

I view grain structure as the most singular atomic particle in film.

It is that most basic structure which makes up what we view as an image.

And while a certain amount of grain reduction can be a positive thing, especially when one is dealing with multi-generational dupes, we are not yet to a point at which all of the space left by the removal of that grain can be filled in with real information, yielding a slightly out of focus look to the film frame.

What I'm attempting to say here is that at its most basic, one needs to be mindful of precisely what one is viewing, where it has come from and why it is there.

A differentiation must be made between film products, film restoration...

and video products and video "restorations," which in no way affect the base sprocketed assets.

Take as two recent examples, DVDs released based upon actual restoration work performed by Sony's Grover Crisp (In a Lonely Place) and Fox's Schawn Belston (Sunrise).

Both of these are true restorations, which as part of that restoration process take full and proper advantage of digital technology.

To be sure, these are both beautifully executed restorations which resulted in beautiful DVD byproducts.

As a general stance, I do not tend to discuss true restorations by others unless I have positive things to report. When I find something to be extremely egregious, as with Warner's attempt at a film quality restoration of Gone with the Wind, I will speak out.

On occasion, when something is being promoted as an actual restoration and is not, I may do the same, as this damages the positive work being done by archivists everywhere.

In the past five years, we have finally reached a place where each and every one of the studios has a real, proper and viable film preservation and asset protection entity in place.

And each with a knowledgable asset protection executive and a restoration team.

Actual restoration is being done on a daily basis, and the public is generally unaware.

Actual film reconstruction and restoration is so expensive and so time and effort consuming, that when done properly, it should be applauded even if not done to perfection, which is sometimes impossible.

I recall a number of years ago, I received a laser disc of Disney's The Little Mermaid.

Emblazoned in a banner across the top of the jacket were the words:

"Now Fully Restored"

We've finally reached a point at which the studios, at least, are much more cognizant of not only trying not to shoot themselves in the foot, but of the much higher public awareness and perception that they need to be a bit more careful in their claims.

There are currently major projects in the works at each and every studio, which will hopefully find their way to DVD.

There is a base of much more highly educated consumers to be found here and at The Digital Bits and HTF, who have gone beyond the VHS mentality, and now demand certain miniumun standards.

As for Lawrence and what will be coming our way in early September, it is the hope of all involved in that project that the final result, as ported down to NTSC from high definition, will finally be a version of the film which will represent as correctly and closely as possible within the video realm, the concepts and desires of the film's creators.

Jim Ward and Grover Crisp, and others on their teams at CT Home Video and Sony have made a major investment, both monetarily and of their own personal time to make this something special.

None of us has yet seen samples of the finished product, but we have been assured that there will be no new electronic enhancement, a second layer of which was removed when we returned to the original raw transfer.

Viewing this film on a large high definition monitor in its high definition state is much like looking out at the desert through an open window. That is where this transfer will shine for the next generation of DVDs. In the meantime, if our final result has the visual quality of Fox's Hello, Dolly! we will all be pleased.

RAH

Thank you for taking the time to talk about restoration work with us, Mr. Harris I find it to be a fascinating subject.

and for the lazy, or people who are buying this blind and want to know what they are getting into, it comes on tcm tonight starting at 6 ending at 10 pm in its oar.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Mr. Harris. I see we are in agreement on most points and that I have misunderstood your position on some things.

I've been aware that you had issues with the new SNOW WHITE DVD as being in few ways representative of the original work; however I was unaware that you also believed that, as a new product, the DVD is beautiful.

In a way, that seeming contradiction makes perfect sense and I realize, now that you've put it that way, that I completely agree with it. The SNOW WHITE DVD is beautiful. And I, for one, was entranced by its image. Sadly, I was extremely dissappointed with the image of Disney's last theatrical re-release of SNOW WHITE and will probably not opt to see this film in a theater again, making me even more thankful that the beautiful DVD version exists.

What has shocked me, though, is how forcefully some people argue against video restoration. True, film preservation is more important. And further, video restortation is transitory at best. But every time I settle in to watch a beloved movie on DVD I am very thankful for video restoration, which truth be told is allowing me to finally see a decent transfer of many older films.

BTW, before my relationship to John Lowry gets blown out of proportion, I have done some very minor work at LDI and had the great pleasure of meeting him, which I enjoyed immensely. That's why I mentioned him by name. However, I have no connection with him or his company at the current time.

I'm no Robert Harris, but I think video restoration is great when it's done well (such as "North by Northwest"). The problem is when studios look to video restoration as an alternative to proper film restoration and preservation. I fear studios see low-resolution video restoration as a cheap way out because they see little value in preserving film elements for future theatrical exhibition.

Well, here is the problem. Almost all Columbia TriStar DVDs have some measure of electronic edge enhancement. Sometimes it is worse than others, but I can't recall a disc of theirs that has none at all. I believe that the ringing and halos may be added somewhere in their video transfer chain, and it may not even be a deliberate choice that they make.

So as much as a person from CST may claim that the disc will have no edge enhancement, all this means to me is that they have not intentionally added any additional edge enhancement. It does not necessarily mean that they finished product will have none at all.

Meanwhile, a number of other studios are much better in eliminating this problem from their video chain. New Line, especially, seems able to issue discs with remarkably sharp pictures free from edge enhancement.

Mr. Harris, I thank you greatly for taking the time to respond in this thread and clear up many misconceptions that people may have about the nature of film restorations versus video restoration.

I must, however, bring one thing to your attention. In your Digital Bits column, you mention:

I have to point out that in comparison to many products available to the home theater consumer, a 32" HD monitor is really not large at all. It is actually one of the smallest available sizes in the HD category.

I understand that this was undoubtedly a reference-quality professional monitor whose cost was more than most of us in this forum make in a year, and that it was surely perfectly calibrated to the limit of its video specifications. But even so, there is a lack of detail that the human eye is capable of discerning at that picture size, especially if the 32" is measured as the diagonal of a 16:9 screen, and even more so when we are talking about a movie image with a wide 2.2:1 aspect ratio like Lawrence. This effectively means that the picture being viewed is approximately 28"x12".

I say this not to take you to task or to sound like an arrogant jerk, but to point out that the relatively small size of these professional-grade studio monitors is one of the reasons that so many flaws like edge enhancement or compression artifacts make it into finished DVD products. A disc that looks wonderful to the eye on a 32" monitor may not look nearly as good on the 65" RPTV in some homes (and I'm talking about professionally ISF-calibrated televisions, not your average Joe who cranks his brightness and contrast too high). And for those of us with front projection systems displaying an image upwards of 6 to 8 feet wide, edge enhancement that was invisible on that studio monitor now becomes a very serious problem.

So what I would hope from now on would be for some of these studio technicians to take their finished discs and attempt to view them on larger consumer televisions before sending them to market, to give them a sense of what these things look like in a real world environment. I think the entire process of DVD mastering might go through some serious changes if that were a standard practice.

The transfer has been viewed at the studio on a much larger system by technicians who know a great deal more about video than I do. These are not the same people who were behind the original DVD.

They gave the transfer a clean bill of health.

The image in the video bay had no discernable EE whatsoever. A monitor over 30" is the largest that I've worked with in transfer. Most are quite a bit smaller, to a point of (in my opinion) being on the verge of uselessness.

The point of no "new" sharpening has been made by the studio to be precise in what we have been doing. Again, I can normally see EE on a 27" unit, but could perceive none, even in a highdef image, via which it will most certainly be visible.

RAH

Thanks again for responding, Mr. Harris

I've seen at least one DVD with a featurette in the supplement section which shows the video technician proudly turning on the edge enhancement processing to give the picture "that nice sharp look" on his 25" studio monitor. Had he tried watching the disc on a larger display, he'd be appalled to see the results of his actions.