I love seeing old film. I'm glad that I first saw Touch of Evil in an old theater with a gritty and grainy copy. I wouldn't be too thrilled to see a current film that way, but there's just something about the mixture of squiggles and grains on a piece of old film that makes the oldies pop and become a whole different experience.However, the more time that passes, the more damaged film becomes, and restorative measures have to be taken. And of course, not everyone wants those squiggles. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Warner Bros. Technical Operations is restoring George Cukor's A Star is Born in 6K resolution as a test run. Right now, most restoration is at 2K, and an increasing amount are done at 4K, but of course, that still loses a lot of information. So, this is the first jump into even more.
The project is scheduled to take four-six months, and at some point, this restored version will then get released on Blue-ray and normal DVD. This is a test run, but who knows what's next? What old WB films would you like to see get the 6K treatment?
1. This is actually even more vital than most think. Red Digital Cinema announced at NAB a new optical disc player that will play up to 4k resolution!!!! Not only that, but it will play about 2 hours of 4k resolution on a DUAL-LAYER DVD Disc!!! They expect to ship it in the beginning of 2009.
I think restoring these movies to 6k is an absolutely vital exercise since it may only be a couple years till we have the technology to play them at those resolutions.
Posted at 3:13PM on May 24th 2008 by Luke