Digitally Remastered DVDs

scottishminnie

I apologise if this isn't a "techie" question however to a thickie like me it is so...

I have a very dear friend (in his 80's) who has challenged me to find him a number of films on DVD so he can enjoy them at his leisure. He is very specific in that he has given me the cast list and the year that the film was produced which has been great in helping me find them. I've managed to locate almost all on Amazon which is wonderful.

Now to my question - some of them state "Digitally Remastered" and they have a recent date - e.g. like this one which states 1958 (then 2012) on brackets or this one.

Does this mean that, in idiot terms for me, the sounds quality etc has just been enhanced but the film is the original. I'm thinking kind of like an old vinyl record which has had the scratches polished out?!

Apologies if this is really basic however I'm keen to make sure I get exactly what he asked for as he is very particular and I know he get so much enjoyment from watching these films which he thought he couldn't buy on DVD.

Many thanks

penrhyn

AFAIK they have gone back to the original master copy on 35mm film and cleaned it up digitally.

Nilrem

Aye digitally restored should mean they've scanned the film in from an original print and then repaired/stored any damage.

Depending on how much work they've done, and the reason for the restoration*, a digitally restored version can look better than it did at the cinema, especially for older films (as often the old "cinema" reels for films would continue to be used long after they were out of their prime, and had suffered damage).

I think some of the early Bond films were restored for the Blu-ray releases and the difference with them is pretty stunning, as it repaired all sorts of faults in the film, things like hairs and scratches, whilst also sorting out colour balance issues that cropped up (IE one reel of the original film might have a slightly different brightness level or colour might be off a bit compared to another).


Digitally remastered tends to be a slightly more fluffy term, as basically just making a new disk with an extra trailer would count


*For example some of the early DVD transfers were pretty poorly done, or done from poor source materials (IE multiple generation film reels that had been in use for ages) whilst later "restored" versions were done off materials that had been sourced to do Blu-ray/HD broadcasts and were much improved because of that.

scottishminnie

great, thank you both. I can now go ahead and order his wish list which he will be delighted with.

penrhyn

I'd be interested in the list.

Casablanca, High Noon, Its a Wonderful Life and the Dambusters come to mind, O yes and check out Hell Drivers.

JJ_Egan

What about Freeview and a recorder or just Freeview .
Fair amount of older stuff shown .
Brief Encounter . Sink The Bismark .Operation Pacific .Tubruk . Malta Story are just a few of this weeks offerings + Last of the Summer Wine + Baywatch .
Compo meets Pam .

BBC has a number of the old audio comedy radio shows Clithero Kid Arthur Askey etc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/collections/

http://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

jje