Restoration work in R1/R2

[Stuart N]

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether there is much restoration work on films going on in R2 that will come out on DVD?

Is it not possibile for companies such as Warners who have expertly restored films like Now Voyager, etc to release them outside R1 as I note some of these releases are becoming RCE? If Warners UK decides to release Now Voyager on DVD in R2 are they not able to utilise the restored print in R1 or do they have to do all this restoration work again themselves or perhaps it would be likely that they'll just transfer the film onto DVD in Region 2 using an unrestored print? Surely films that are being painstakingly restored and released on DVD mainly in R1 should be aimed at the global market to recoup costs? Any explanations would be appreciated as I would like to try and understand what is going on, as a newcomer.

[Kit_Taylor]

I assume they make a high definition master copy of the film, digitally restore that (possibly after chemically cleaning the print) and THEN convert it into NTSC for region 1 DVDs. When they release the region 2 DVDs, they can just go back to the high definition master and convert it to PAL. So if a major studio has created a restored version they can just as easily release it one region as in any other region where they hold the distribution rights.

Warners UK is just the UK branch of Warners, so they have acess to the same restored master used to make the R1. Films ARE released onto the global market, just territory by territory rather than all imported from the one region.

[gZa]

So d'ya think HKL (http://www.hongkonglegends.co.uk/) could theoretically release their restored films to 60hz NTSC without doing a crude PAL 50hz to NTSC 60hz conversion?

[Chris]

Depends on the studio

For major releases Warner US tends to created both PAL and NTSC masters, but for smaller releases it only creates NTSC masters which leads to the PAL versions being standards conversions (thats why Warner are experimenting with NTSC releases in Austrialia as it's cheaper than creating a new PAL master)

Most of the time Columbia Tristar has an HDTV master available for a movie (they have created thousands of HDTV masters over the past few years), they use these to create both the NTSC and PAL versions, this means they are more or less indentical, when no HDTV master is available they use what ever they have, which normaly means an old master (I think this happened with Priscilla, Queen of the Desert)

Universal normally creates both PAL and NTSC masters, but evertnow and then they don't create a new PAL master (thats why some of the R2/4 Hitchcock collection are 4:3 Pan&Scan because Universal US didn't create a PAL Widescreen master)

Companies like Anchor Bay US now create new masters, but because they have only just entered the UK market almost all of the masters are NTSC as they had no use for PAL versions before, this means their R2 UK releases tend to be standards conversions.

Fox UK have in the past used their own masters (Die Hard 1 and 2) where the US version had been non-anamorphic, but now they tend to get most of their masters from Fox US now that they fully support anamorphic and have a much larger budget to spend on restoration.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Garry Cowell
So d'ya think HKL (http://www.hongkonglegends.co.uk/) could theoretically release their restored films to 60hz NTSC without doing a crude PAL 50hz to NTSC 60hz conversion?

HKL work from a digital copy of the original negative or interpositive, so PAL or NTSC could be easily created.

Their license agreement with Media Asia prevent them making NTSC releases as thats Media Asias market.

[gZa]

Thanks Chris.

I guess you work in the 'business' :D

[Stuart N]

Thanks guys for helping me understand a bit more what's going on out there. Is there a listing of R2 DVD releases that have taken advantage of restoration work or is this information only available via individual reviews?