Remastering vs. Original Format

[Melchiz]

Here's a question that's been troubling me for quite some time, and all the research I've done has still left me a bit confused:

Must animated television series, designed for an NTSC signal (standard definition), be completely remastered from the source in order to be displayed in true high-definition (not a simple upconversion)? If so, is the process as simple as running the original masters through some software, or does it involve more expensive changes, as the animation was initially mastered with the intention of only being visible at a specific level of detail (imperfections or poor quality past a certain resolution)? Furthermore, will high definition releases of older television-based anime even be worthwhile without a costly remastering process? Evangelion before the Platinum releases comes to mind; it would most likely look horrid blown up to 1080i/p without significant improvements to quality.

I ask because I'm curious about the likelihood of older anime showing up on high-defition formats. I'm not certain if we'll be getting upconverted throwbacks, true remasters, or something between the two. I've noticed the release of a variety of series on the HD formats (primarily Blu-ray), but for the most part, they are limited to: a) feature films, b) new series, c) extremely popular/profitable series. Does it remain unlikely that older series, which are not big sellers, will ever see release in true high definition?

Thanks folks.

[Skywise]

This requires a rather complicated answer unfortunately. I'll see if I have time to write up something more detailed tomorrow.

[Melchiz]

This requires a rather complicated answer unfortunately. I'll see if I have time to write up something more detailed tomorrow.

I appreciate the notion. I look forward to reading your explanation.

[kakugo]

Hope Skywise doesn't mind me standing in 'till he gets back... ;)

When I say "Blu-Ray" I also mean "and HD DVD". There just isn't nearly as much anime on HD as there is on BD, so it's habit. Please, bear with it.

If you're talking cel animation, it literally depends on the show. You can simply take the film negative, make a new interpositive, telecine it at 1080p and call it a day. These results, however, will likely look pretty awful for TV shows, which were typically shot on cheap, blurry, grainy film stock and were spliced together with absolutely no regard to how the show might look in HD. A new film print being converted to HD is relatively cheap, but the time to fix film damage like scratches and hairs, re-cutting shots from the negative to avoid ugly film splices, re-doing optical effects to avoid film generation loss, and everything else that such a restoration entails costs time, and money. In the case of Evangelion Platinum/Renewal, some shots literally had to be re-animated because no level of restoration would fix the film damage, and every single shot was re-created from the original camera negatives digitally to avoid the "shaking" at scene changes. Between the extensive video restoration and the brand new 5.1 audio mix, remastering Evangelion cost more than creating the show did not a decade earlier.

Evangelion, while a spectacular restoration, also shows the limits to how good a mid 90's TV show can look. The reason TV shows look so grainy and don't have much detail is that when they were printed to film a "quick return" process was used to create the prints faster so they could be transfered to NTSC video. This gives you nasty, grainy film prints, and there's literally nothing you can do about it. OVAs (minus hentai) and movies were generally shot on better 35mm film stock, though there are exceptions: watching Devil Hunter Yohko for the first time was jarring, since probably 15-20% of the show was literally taken from nasty looking 16mm blow-up prints, while the rest of the title was rather good looking 35mm.

If you're talking digital animation that wasn't actually animated in HD, you'll have to upscale. Virtually all digital titles are animated to either SD or HD specifications, which means the original drawing is hand sketched, scanned into a computer, colored digitally and then composited on a hand painted background. Clearly CGI special effects and the like can make this process more complex, but that's the short of it: you pick a resolution and animate to it. Typically all of these elements are finished at their intended resolutions, which is NTSCi for most TV shows and OVAs, and likely either 720p or 1080i for HD broadcasts (PROJECT PAPO was animated at 720p, and thus is presented that way on HDM). Sadly, neither aspect ratio nor original broadcast format is a reliable way to tell: while RahXephon was animated in 4:3, the title was created in high definition, and while AIR broadcast in HD it was only an upscale of the NTSC resolution master.

For titles that were animated in HD, there is no problem: you simply encode the title to 720p or 1080i/p and call it a day. For titles with no HD master - such as Air, Yukikaze, and countless others - the only option left is to upscale. Upscaling is, obviously, the process of taking those 720x480 pixels and converting them to 1920x1080. You're limited by the NTSC resolution, but advanced scaling algorithms and other various filters can be used to improve the general quality you'll see versus letting your DVD player or HDTV do all the dirty work. A 480i to 1080i upscaled Blu-Ray has access to professional scaling tools and massively high bitrates, and as such will in theory look better than upscaling any 480i/p DVD. There are other things to consider - for example, Blu-Ray seemingly can't do 1080p30 or mixed 1080i/p encodes - so upscaling has quite a ways to go before it can compete with an "actual" HD source.

It's entirely possible that, should an animation studio keep the separate elements (backgrounds, hand sketched animation, etc.) they could re-composite everything in HD, effectively make a brand new version of the show from the same basic elements. The question is were the individual elements scanned in at resolutions that would make HD re-composing worth while? If the plan was to make a TV show with a Digibeta master tape there's hardly any reason to scan anything in resolutions over 800x600 max, and as such that re-animated version is basically a fancier upscaled version. Certainly you can re-animate the title from scratch, as KyoAni did for the AIR opening sequences, but that involves re-drawing the title from scratch and almost ceases to be the show that was originally animated in the first place.

For some titles, combining new HD transfers and upscaled NTSC content will likely happen. The Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal series is a combination of 24fps film animation and 30fps NTSCi video footage. The animation could easily be telecined in HD, but the NTSC video footage could only be upscaled. This is akin to blowing up 16mm footage or NTSC video footage to 35mm film: the quality will look worse compared to the rest of the feature, but there's literally no more detail to get out of it.

Titles like Fist of the North Star, Nadesico, Evangelion, Card Captor Sakura, Cowboy Bebop, Dragonball Z* and others have already had new HD transfers taken from their original film elements. For theatrical movies and most OVAs, there's less restoration work to be done and as such there's an even higher chance that we'll see them released in 1080p. Anything "digital" is a potential upscale, though in the case of Air the upscaled Blu-Ray is still the definitive release of the title, for whatever that's worth, and soon enough Yukikaze will give us another upscale to check out.

In short, anything shot on film can have a new HD telecine unless the negative has been lost/destroyed. Anything digital is limited to whatever resolution it was created at, and it's basically impossible to know if a title was created in HD without the studio confirming it. Wither or not you should upgrade to an NTSC upscale, however, is something AoD will likely have fun discussing in the next few years...

*Dragonball Z's current HD master created by FUNimation is something of a mess, taken from second generation film prints, cropped from 4:3 to 16:9, and noise reduced beyond recognition. Some people claim the 1080p Blu-Ray of the 2 Broli films have less detail than the 480p DVD released by Toei, though there are still no screencaps to prove it sadly.

[zipCode]

Dragonball is a step up imo compared to SD. True, it could have been better if theye hadn't denoised it to hell (has clearly less grain then the SD), but the lines' quality is another story. No EE and more..HD looking.

[Skywise]

Okay here's the short version. You'll have different cases:

1. Cel animation
2. Mix of cel and digital animation for TV-shows/OVA
3. Mix of cel and digital animation for theatrical anime
4. digital animation done in SD (NTSC)
5. digital animation done in HD

1, 3 and 5 will be able to take full advantage of a HD release and you'll see the benefits. 4 can only be upscaled, and will receive little benefit from a HD release - however audio will see a benefit, and there might be less compression artifacts.

2 is the most troublesome case as it depends on what materials are available or not. Even then, there are various ways they can do it:

- upscale the CG scenes
- retransfer the cel backgrounds for the CG in HD, and just upscale the CG itself
- redraw/recreate the CG in HD

The last option is the best, if they have the money for it. Some of the CG back then was rather simple by todays standards, so recreating it might not be that expensive all told.

1-3 will all require extensive remastering and cleanup being done of the film, and also require that the film masters are available in the first place. This can be very expensive, which means that a lot of anime simply won't be released in HD because it's not cost effective.

5 will go straight to HD, no issues whatsoever.

Oh yeah I almost forgot - 6: Rurouni Kenshin OVA. Kakugo mentioned this, but it's essentially a unique case and is going to be extremely difficult to do properly. I hope they do it simply because it's one of the most beautiful anime ever made. The best way to do it however would be to reanimate the portions of it that contains video footage, so you actually get all of it animated instead of a mix.

[Pyocola]

*Dragonball Z's current HD master created by FUNimation is something of a mess, taken from second generation film prints, cropped from 4:3 to 16:9, and noise reduced beyond recognition. Some people claim the 1080p Blu-Ray of the 2 Broli films have less detail than the 480p DVD released by Toei, though there are still no screencaps to prove it sadly.
I managed to snag a couple of caps that were posted on a certain popular imageboard. I have no idea if they're straight from the BD or a re-encode or what, but they look like they could be legit: Shot 1 (http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1659/1195147605822cz9.jpg), shot 2 (http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2628/1195147655897ss4.jpg), shot 3 (http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3990/1195147731143en9.jpg).

[Sensuifu]

Does it remain unlikely that older series, which are not big sellers, will ever see release in true high definition?


With the market (and not just anime) having hit a plateau and gradually declining with no sign of rebounding, the possibility is slim. Unpopular, older series are unlikely to get a HD remaster because of the uncertainty and costs associated and getting them to turn a profit. Anime in HD as of now is what LD on anime was a while back, a niche of a niche. The majority of available titles you find may not even be considered popular or have a huge fanbase (Patlabor, WoH, Tekkonkinkreet, etc.) compared to other titles, but these are titles collectors don't mind owning, nor spending the money on for the upgrade in A/V quality.

For a studio to release unpopular, 'unsuccessful' titles (especially older ones that haven't had high demand to be released in SD in the first place) is going above and beyond expectations, but risk losing out in a market that has yet to gain any sign of stability (due to the war, uncertain sales outlook, rental / OD options).

[Sensuifu]

Oh yeah I almost forgot - 6: Rurouni Kenshin OVA. Kakugo mentioned this, but it's essentially a unique case and is going to be extremely difficult to do properly. I hope they do it simply because it's one of the most beautiful anime ever made. The best way to do it however would be to reanimate the portions of it that contains video footage, so you actually get all of it animated instead of a mix.

You mean the live-action video portion into animated form? I'm not sure that will please a lot of fans. Probably a better suggestion would just retake the liveaction scenes in HD, and have the animated elements layered over, if even that's feasible. If the upscale ends up being a problem, that's one option they could take.

[Skywise]

You mean the live-action video portion into animated form? I'm not sure that will please a lot of fans. Probably a better suggestion would just retake the liveaction scenes in HD, and have the animated elements layered over, if even that's feasible. If the upscale ends up being a problem, that's one option they could take.

Actually almost all of the backgrounds in the RK OVA were rotoscoped, with the exception of some parts where you had things like a fire and waves from the ocean peeking through. My guess is that they didn't have the budget to do a realistic animation of it, which is why they overlaid them instead. As such I'd have no problem with them going back and "finishing the job" so to speak - it looked out of place and brought you out of the watching experience IMO. The only thing left then would be the ED sequences, and those can easily enough be recreated and reshot with a HD camera.

[Pyocola]

2 is the most troublesome case as it depends on what materials are available or not. Even then, there are various ways they can do it:

- upscale the CG scenes
- retransfer the cel backgrounds for the CG in HD, and just upscale the CG itself
- redraw/recreate the CG in HD

The last option is the best, if they have the money for it. Some of the CG back then was rather simple by todays standards, so recreating it might not be that expensive all told.
Given how this has been a non-issue with the recent Sunrise HD remasters I'm thinking you might be making this a lot more complicated than it really is.

I guess you are assuming that the CG was added in the video stage, but I was curious so I checked it out and at least to me it would seem that most of the swirling 3D logos/effects etc. were done optically (e.g. the CG frames were printed onto cels and then composited and shot just like everything else) so they wouldn't really need to do anything apart from a new telecine/scan. Of course the CG itself might not really be true HD then and it might look a little fuzzy, but I'm finding it very hard to believe they'd bother doing anything else if they had this option.

[Skywise]

Now you're speculating :) . I would love it if it's true, but we don't know what process was used for those titles, nor how they were treated for the new DVD releases. One (admittedly flaky) source claims that they just took the old SD masters and edited those scenes in, with some digital color correction and cleanup so they don't look too out of place compared to the rest. The only screenshots I've seen so far has also been of Macross Plus only, and that got a theatrical release so the production and mastering process may have been very different from what was used for Esca and CB. There's also no telling how other animation studios may have handled the transition from cel to CG.

[Melchiz]

Wow, this is a rather complex issue. I'm grateful for all the informative posts. From the discussion, I've gathered that certain factors remain clouded, and high definition anime may not become mainstream, as DVD has, especially for older, less profitable titles.

Lots of Scandinavian HD buffs here, huh?

[Skywise]

Wow, this is a rather complex issue. I'm grateful for all the informative posts. From the discussion, I've gathered that certain factors remain clouded, and high definition anime may not become mainstream, as DVD has, especially for older, less profitable titles.

There are certain barriers yes. However, profitability is much more a factor than old age. Going back to my post, 1-3 are "older", since they're cel animation, but ultimately it's the cel anime library that is the biggest that can actually be transferred and shown in HD. "newer" anime from 2000-today, includes anime mostly in category 4, and so even though though they may be popular with some anime fans, they will ultimately never be able to take full advantage of hi-def. Category 5 is the cheapest to release, and sooner or later all of it will be on hi-def media, but popularity will still play a factor as to when that happens.

[MajinVejita]

Dragonball is a step up imo compared to SD. True, it could have been better if theye hadn't denoised it to hell (has clearly less grain then the SD), but the lines' quality is another story. No EE and more..HD looking.

...yes, disappearing lines and such are synonymous with high definition :P

-Corey

[Melchiz]

There are certain barriers yes. However, profitability is much more a factor than old age. Going back to my post, 1-3 are "older", since they're cel animation, but ultimately it's the cel anime library that is the biggest that can actually be transferred and shown in HD. "newer" anime from 2000-today, includes anime mostly in category 4, and so even though though they may be popular with some anime fans, they will ultimately never be able to take full advantage of hi-def. Category 5 is the cheapest to release, and sooner or later all of it will be on hi-def media, but popularity will still play a factor as to when that happens.

Indeed. When the HD formats were first introduced, I was concerned that my investment in DVDs would prove fruitless, due to a newer, higher-quality medium. Now, I am concerned that some titles which deserve the beauty of HD will remain untouched, due to economic or technical constraints. Because the vast majority of my favorite titles come from the 1996-2004 period, very few will likely see high-definition remasters (and many simply cannot, as they are digitally animated for an NTSC signal).

I guess that means no X TV or Last Exile in 1080p (unless Last Exile was authored in HD? I wouldn't put it past Gonzo). That's unfortunate.

[Pyocola]

I guess that means no X TV or Last Exile in 1080p (unless Last Exile was authored in HD? I wouldn't put it past Gonzo). That's unfortunate.
I wouldn't count on it. Last Exile wasn't done too long after Vandread and that one wasn't even anamorphic on DVD. I remember Samurai 7 was touted as being an exceptional production: animated in HD and costing boatloads of money per episode, so my guess is anything by Gonzo before that (and likely a lot after it as well) would be SD.

[Quarkboy]

Don't forget that there's yet another possibility: A show being produced in native HD, poorly.

Example: Yes! Pretty Cure 5. The show airs at 720p, but there are many many instances where jagged lines are visible on outlines due to zooming to far in on scanned digital cells. The backgrounds and majority of scenes are properly HD, but those types of errors are quite common in the show (including one in the opening).

So even if a show is produced completely in HD, inexperience (or laziness) by the animation studio might make the HD transfer reveal more flaws in the work itself.

Of course, I suppose you could argue that the flaws are PART of the show, and so by being able to see them the video is actually better, objectively.

[Melchiz]

So even if a show is produced completely in HD, inexperience (or laziness) by the animation studio might make the HD transfer reveal more flaws in the work itself.

Of course, I suppose you could argue that the flaws are PART of the show, and so by being able to see them the video is actually better, objectively.

Thank you for your insight.

I would argue that flaws which distract the viewer are harmful. Of course, there are exceptions, but in general, when unintentional, poorly authored visual elements will take the audience out of the show and could potentially kill immersion. Individuals have varying degrees of tolerance, of course.

[Skywise]

I wouldn't call that produced/made in HD though - that's a category 4 right there IMO. It was made with SD in mind and using SD production methods.

[zipCode]

I agree with that show being SD. Over the last few years' worth of series no more then 10% of what was aired in HD was produced in HD. For a country so advanced technologically it's surprising how easily satisfied they are when it comes to HD (including teh fact that they still use rather lowish mpeg2 for video).
Staying on topic, I'm somewhat disappointed on quality of the newly HD produced anime (which I expected to be perfect). Mostly about aliasing: Tokyo explorers, Freedom, Appleseed (broadcast), and a friend of mine who was lucky to see Vexille in theaters said same thing about it.
All of them have some very visible aliasing that I can't explain (especially in the case of Appleseed which is pure CG). Something must have gone pretty bad along the line for this to happen.

[Quarkboy]

But many aspects of the show, for examples the backgrounds and all the CG effects are most definitely done in HD resolutions. The tiny butterfly effects, for example, look like mush in SD but show up nicely in HD.

The character animations are done in HD, I'm sure of it. The problems with jaggedness arise when they zoom too far into a particular scan (often during a scene transition), which I think is more due to inexperience than not doing things at HD resolutions.

Keep in mind that Pretty cure makes money off of merchandizing, and not DVD sales (I saw sales data once for pretty cure and it was pitiful, something like 2000 copies sold per DVD). So the show is produced mainly for the TV broadcast and not for the DVD release, unlike late-night anime.

Toei's other big show, "One Piece", has the same problems as Pretty Cure does, but I think most people would consider that natively animated in HD (now, anyway).

Here's a possibility, actually: I know from the credits that some of Pretty Cure is actually animated in Toei's french branch, so it's possible that the materials that were drawn and scanned there were done in SD, while the ones done in the Japanese studio were HD, and then the Japanese studio simply made due with what they got from the outside work. Which would make the show a mixed SD/HD hybrid show mastered in HD.

[Quarkboy]

Haha! I found PROOF that Toei's animations are done in HD, natively, on their own webpages:

http://corp.toei-anim.co.jp/company/production.php

Describes their entire process and their custom software system that I suppose is named "RABBIT", (actually it's pretty interesting), but the relevant quote is:

フルデジタル化
製作工程ã�®ãƒ•ãƒ«ãƒ‡ã‚¸ã‚¿ãƒ«åŒ–を実ç�¾ã�—〠�ＨＤ放é€�ã�«å®Œå…¨å¯¾å¿œã�—ã�Ÿã‚·ã‚¹ãƒ†ãƒ*ã‚’æ §‹ç¯‰ã�—ã�¾ã�—ã�Ÿã€‚

Full Digital Method
Realization of the full digital creation method, we have built a system completely handling HD broadcasts.

So unless they are just lying, Toei animation's works are produced in native HD. That doesn't mean there aren't mistakes in them, though.

[kakugo]

HD is a resolution, not a promise of inherent quality. Zooms are now created by scaling content digitally , which can lead to aliasing and textures being zoomed beyond their original dpi (or whatever the proper term would be), which is just as true with NTSC as it is 1080/720 ATSC. How many NTSC shows from 2000 or so have artwork clearly drawn too small and then blown up/heavily scaled to fit the frame? Should I consider these shows "sub-NTSC" just because their animation... well, sucked?

It's also entirely possible that shows like Yes! Precure 5 were animated at 1080i, were then IVTCed and downscaled to 720p for broadcast, but some of the finishing work is purely interlaced and as such material had to be deinterlaced to create a (mostly) progressive version. Or perhaps it was animated at 1080p and the scaling hardware they used to make the 720p broadcast version simply sucks. There's a whole lot of variables in HD animation that we who don't work in the field probably don't even know yet, and it'll probably take some problematic releases before anyone who does know any better is willing to talk about them.

Unless, of course, fans have valid complaints and it's Zeotrope on Dracula all over again: "You don't know what you're talking about, we did a great job. There is nothing wrong with this transfer, and the fact that it looks different from every other film print, video release, on set photo, production footage, and so on is meaningless because we said so." :roll:

[Skywise]

How many NTSC shows from 2000 or so have artwork clearly drawn too small and then blown up/heavily scaled to fit the frame?

I don't know - how many?

Unless, of course, fans have valid complaints and it's Zeotrope on Dracula all over again: "You don't know what you're talking about, we did a great job. There is nothing wrong with this transfer, and the fact that it looks different from every other film print, video release, on set photo, production footage, and so on is meaningless because we said so."

If you mean the Blu-ray release of Bram Stoker's Dracula - they actually did a correct job on it, but unfortunately some people can't seem to let it go.

[Pfil]

If you mean the Blu-ray release of Bram Stoker's Dracula - they actually did a correct job on it, but unfortunately some people can't seem to let it go.
Car salesman after delivery: 'Sorry, I know the car you saw in the shop was blue, but it was always meant to be blue-green!'

I love that movie, but the BD looks like crap. I don't care if Coppola regrets making the movie so colorful, he shouldn't just go changing the film 15 years after the fact. At least not without making the original available in addition, or at least giving some sort of notice (warning) in advance.

[kakugo]

Bram Stoker's Dracula on Blu-Ray has crushed blacks and area based saturation manipulation. If you believe this isn't the case, please answer me the following, since no one at Zeotrope seems to want to:

If the answer print did look like the new Blu-Ray, it would imply that it was printed from a higher contrast film stock than all other prints. Yet only some scenes appeal to have an overly high contrast, which by the way, only appears and crushed blacks rather than blown out whites. Similarly other scenes have clearly drained color saturation, with what I can only describe as an area-based boost in saturation over details like lips and candle flames. Such a feat is basically impossible without using digital means, yet BSD was completely created using analog means, which has been much touted for over a decade now.

The simple explanation is that the desaturation and black crush was accomplished digitally, while the film was created in a non-digital environment, and as such, if the Blu-Ray transfer really was matched to the answer print it was done so using digital tools which have drastically altered the look of the film. Ergo what you see on Blu-Ray isn't what Coppola saw when the answer print was projected, nor when a master Internegative was made from it.

I'm also rather impressed that Robert Harris would write off the FFC approved Criterion LD transfer as "company politics". So, even a director approved transfer from the single most highly respected studio in the industry can't be thought of as a reasonably accurate representation of what a film is supposed to look like? Once more: :roll:

Really Skywise, have you seen the comparisons over at AVS? If you honestly don't think the Blu-Ray has been digitally manipulated than I really don't know what to say to you. </off topic>

For examples of poor digital NTSC work, I'll look for some examples tomorrow. No, I don't have numbers, but hopefully I can show some examples to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

[Skywise]

I've seen some of the pics, yes, and I can't really answer your question. The thing is though - the people who did the transfer are not noobs. They're not interns who have no clue what they're doing. The changes done compared to the other versions are deliberate, and even though they may be different they're approved, which is what makes all the difference. You may not like the changes, but they're not done through incompetence or negligence.

[Skywise]

At least not without making the original available in addition, or at least giving some sort of notice (warning) in advance.

I agree that would have been the best option. With Blu-ray it would also be relatively easy to do through seamless branching without hurting the overall quality.

[kakugo]

Before anyone blames Coppola for this transfer: nowhere in the packaging or extras does it state that FFC approved, or was in any way directly involved in the 2007 HD remaster. He wasn't involved in the Superbit transfer either, and as such the Criterion LD is the only "for sure" version that Coppola ever signed off on. Being busy making his first film in a decade I'd be amazed if he had the time to do a scene by scene color correction, and likely just handed some notes off to Zoetrope and figured they couldn't possibly screw it up...

Kim Aubry (who's been a collaborator of FFC for some time) approved the Bram Stoker's Dracula Blu-Ray transfer, and seems to have made the original claim that it was matched up to the 35mm answer print which supporters have since ran with. This is all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the new HD transfer has clearly been digitally manipulated, which doesn't make sense considering the film's 100% analog origins. I don't doubt that the look of the new Blu-Ray is intentional, but that doesn't inherently make it representational of the answer print for the reasons I've already specified above.

With this in mind the claims that "this version is accurate to the 15 year old answer print" simply doesn't hold up.

Had Zoetrope and Mr. Aubry simply admitted that the new transfer has had some notable digital tweaks, I'd still think it was ugly, but at least I wouldn't feel that I as a consumer was being lied to. The new version of BSD, to FFC's specifications or not, does not look the way the answer print did in 1992. It simply couldn't have. If Zoetrope, Aubry, Sony, or anyone else was willing to admit that the film had been modified I'd still think the release was fugly, but I'd feel satisfied that at least they were being honest about it. William Friedkin has had no reservations over admitting that the new DVD release of Cruising has been re-edited for various reasons, so why can't Coppola's own production studio treat consumers like they have some intelligence and fess up that, right or wrong, the new version of Dracula is not equal to the orignal version?

Sony aren't noobs, yet they created a brand new telecine for The Fifth Element when fans said the first BD release wasn't up to snuff, and later proved it by showing screencaps that proved the Blu-Ray had more print damage and blown out contrast than even the Superbit DVD. Disney certainly aren't noobs, despite the fact that they got the framing wrong on the first Pirates of the Caribbean Blu-Ray and have since fixed it. Mistakes do happen, and they happen through negligence. Should I assume that Viz' green tinted transfer of Death Note is "intentional", just because they have professionals doing the authoring?

"Approval" doesn't always mean squat, anyhow. While I hold some level of expectations from a Criterion restoration in which the director himself is there checking on everything, ever heard of the Suspiria Definitive Edition (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66235), which was approved by DP Luciano Tovoli? How he can approve both the THX low-contrast-IP-from-the-negative transfer from 2002, and what looks like a telecine of a 30 year old internegative in 2007, I simply have no clue. Or how about the two drastically different digital masters of Oldboy (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare7/oldboy3.htm) ? Surely they both can't be right, can they? If I had the time of day I'd comb through AVS to show you the difference between the Carpenter (LD), Cudney (THX) and Anchor Bay (Divimax/Blu-Ray) versions of Halloween, maybe even hurt my soul by comparing the multitude of awful looking The Evil Dead LD/DVD releases out there, but I think you get the picture.

Anyway, the whole reason I brought this up was to establish that sometimes mistakes happen and the studios involved will simply shrug it off, and not educate the public on why the issues are there. (Has Universal ever acknowledged that the Traffic HD DVD was upscaled from a 480p master, even?) We'll see new and exciting problems on HDM releases of anime (and otherwise), and unless the studios releasing them admit that there's a problem we're left to our own devices to try and figure out what the hell they are.

[Skywise]

I simply don't know enough about optical vs. digital to say what's possible or not, nor do I know for sure what the answer print looked like. They say it's the same, and all I can do is trust that it does, based on their knowledge and experience. There's also a difference between saying that "this is approved and what it's supposed to look like," compared to not saying anything, like in the other cases you've noted.

[JeffDM]

I simply don't know enough about optical vs. digital to say what's possible or not, nor do I know for sure what the answer print looked like. They say it's the same, and all I can do is trust that it does, based on their knowledge and experience. There's also a difference between saying that "this is approved and what it's supposed to look like," compared to not saying anything, like in the other cases you've noted.

I guess it comes down to confidence and trust. I really don't doubt their experience and skills. That doesn't seem to be the problem, I'm suspicious of their integrity here. Professionals in many fields that do know better can and do have occasional compromises in their integrity, so I can't rule that out. And when called on those compromises, they can get defensive with their explanations. In this case, they're deferring to something that's not available to the public, which is, to me, another red flag.

These people could very well be right, I'm just saying that certain assertions sound a bit fishy.

[Ashuraou]

One thing I think I'll bring up is, every studio probably has a different standard they work at.

That being said: The nature of a lot of digital artwork is to draw it really big and then scale it down so you don't see the imperfections, the aliasing. Get the curves in the color shading really nice and smooth even if close up they have no anti-aliasing. That is the trick to smooth coloring.

I'm pretty doubtful that a lot of SD digital anime was animated directly at 720x480 or whatnot. (Though there are definitely some that were- Voices of a Distant Star is, right? But that's one guy in his house.) I'm not saying they did it in HD per-say, but it's very likely that they worked bigger than SD. Especially for those pan-outs from closeups where you can easily tell it's digital because of the line thickness. I've seen art over the years that are only a little bigger than SD, double size, triple size. It's all different, and it all depends on the studio and show. Think about this, though: Something animated even in 720p was most likely animated in a higher resolution and scaled down.

I heard a story once where people asked Pixar at a convention how they got rid of the aliasing problems in their movies, what's their big secret, they had to know! And they said with a grin: We render bigger, and scale down, just like you guys.

Now, if companies still have their source files? Who the heck knows. And even then, how would an HD version of an SD-intended show look? It's quite possible you'd see all the aliasing and imperfections I mentioned above! (EDIT: Rereading the thread, it seems there's an example of this already.)

I'm obviously no expert on this, and I'd be the first to admit such. I've never handled a show master of any kind, just been lucky enough to handle a lot of really pretty artwork. Someone like DLW would know way better, and he's usually a tight lipped guy. :)