BluRay. Can someone explain to me the Conversion Process?

photoshop

photoshop

photoshop

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Hi,

I've wondered about this for a while.

How are DVD's converted to BluRay?
What is the process?

And, how can they take a movie that was filmed in SD (like a film from the 80's or 90's) and make it HD?
Surely the best they are going to get in the conversion is the same quality as the original source (master copy), are they not?
 
DVDs and Blurays are (I assume) scanned separately at different resolutions to start with from the original film (which is higher resolution than both DVD and Bluray).
 
As I understand it, the original movie is shot using 'film', they then convert this to the SD picture you may have bought and seen, be it the resolution of standard DVD or the lines on a VHS.

For HD, they simply record / convert from the orignal film using the higher resolution of HD, if that makes sense.

As film is non-digitised, in theory it holds a lot more detail before it has been processed to an HD recording, but I'm sure there's a lot of other factors which affect the quality of picture - especially with older films which they may touch up and improve digitally. Slap me if I'm wrong.
 
photoshop said:
And, how can they take a movie that was filmed in SD (like a film from the 80's or 90's) and make it HD?
Surely the best they are going to get in the conversion is the same quality as the original source (master copy), are they not?
Click to expand...

Film resolution is the equivalent of many times that of even 1080p.

I think a rough equivalent for 35mm film in terms of the amount of information it holds is 10 megapixels.
 
As others have said most films are shot on film not with digital cameras, copies of this are made and are used in Cinemas.
The film is also passed through a digital scanner to make a digital copy, most are now scanned in HD from the start and then down converted to SD for DVD and SD broadcast.
Because film holds a lot more detail than digital they can scan oven old films from the 30's and 40's and still get HD Blu-Rays etc.
 
So you don't need a digital camera to shoot HD material?

I mean the cameras they were using back in the 70s/80s did not use the technology the movie studios use today.

I was under the impression that they used a modern camera to pick up the extra detail????
 
Here's a question I've always had - why are some films converted very well whilst others are converted quite badly? Is it just that cheap film stock was used (obviously those shot on to IMAX will be able to yield the best results) or is the scanning hand-tweaked on the best conversions - something they don't bother doing with rubbish films?
 
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photoshop said:
what res is 35mm?
Click to expand...

There is no resolution because there are no lines and no pixels. It's analogue and is constant, so the best way to think of it is as infinite resolution. It's a bit like asking what the bit rate on record is, if that makes sense.

To put this into context film stock being scanned for archival purposes is generally scanned at around 6000 lines and that's still a big drop in quality from the original.
 
Sorry wrong. A lot of film is done in 16mm and remastered.
So far the worst Blu-Ray film produced is the film "28 days Later". They didn't use film they used digital and PC editting suites. They say they used it for the urban effect but I can quite clearly state that it was more budget than thought.
At the time Digital was in its infancy so it was quite novel and quick to get things on camera withing time and budget constraints.
As for the difference between film and Digital and the different film formats it is really DOF. Depth of Field that constrains any film camera. Also time of day and the direction the camera is facing. the most awkward thing about location shooting is weather and you need to cover the cost of editting the backgrounds and any added effects to the finished film before a shot is taken. That is why you have a location manager on a film crew. He/She is the Directors visual identity. You will see more detail in a Black and white film than you will in a colour film because the lighting curve is basically from white to black and all you have in between is the the contrast ratios of white and black.
If you want to see what a bad blu-Ray is like then Rent 28 Days later and see what I mean. Like some of the opening scenes being almost washed out to VHS format. Putting it plain- cheap and nasty.
 
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There's a few more movies now being shot digitally now, via a HD camera and they are:

Collateral
Miami Vice
Sin City
Star Wars Episode II
Star Wars Episode III
Speed Racer
Superman Returns
Sky captain and the world of tomorrow
Ultraviolet
Wanted
Zodiac

However for cinema release they transfer the master digital copy to a film reel (usually 35mm) and for DVD or blu-ray they use the master digital copy only.
 
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As I understand from reading various reviews on Blu-Ray discs transferring film to Blu-Ray is not a simple task. If the studio is cheap it is a simple process, but for the best quality transfers of movies, work needs to be done to correct colour, remove dust flecks and other imperfections in the film and in the case of old movies, clean up flaws that the sharpness of digital reveals. Also to save cash sometimes studios transfer movies from Laserdisc prints, rather than the original masters and if they aren't of a good quality in the first place, the transfer suffers. I think there was some kind of ho-ha when the Star Wars Trilogy first went to DVD for that reason.

whitecrook said:
Once you spot the cigarette marks, you'll never be able to not spot them. What has been seen, cannot be unseen.
Click to expand...
Fight Club taught me that :D
 
I bought the American version of The Godfather Trilogy remastered.

On the bonus disk, they go into some detail about the remastering process for the bluray.

In there, they said that film roughly compared to, as they put it, 4000-5000p

So they scanned it at 4k and downscaled it to 1080p.

Vin.

edit: I just did a google for "Godfather remastered 4k" and you can find a few pages about it.
 
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