The people who restore these masterpieces really are heroes.

I haven’t watched a restoration feature like this in a while, but this was great. In our hyper-disposable, click-happy streaming centered world, this is the sort of thing that people need to know about and appreciate. There are skilled workers creating these films, as well as preserving and restoring them. I get the sense that many people have a vague feeling that since everything is digital now, it’s all free and easy. Even digitally made films require craftspeople to produce, and I think that the ownership of physical media connects us to these processes, and invests us in these works in a way that streaming doesn’t.

I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Robert Harris, the film restorer. He restored Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, Vertigo, The Godfather, among others. We spent two hours talking about film but mainly about his work on Lawrence of Arabia, my favourite movie. It was amazing learning about his view of cinema. A huge honour and pleasure!

To this day, Pink Floyd the wall still hasn’t gotten the Blu-ray treatment, I hope one day they restore it!

I'm kind of surprised how you didn't mention one of the most famous and intensive restoration projects in film history. And that's Criterion's restoration work on Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, & The World of Apu). Which is a very famous trilogy of films that come from India in the late 1950s. Where the fascinating story about this film restoration is how the original film reels went through a really terrible building fire where the building that the films were stored in ultimately ended up burning down. And the reel itself was either completely burned or was basically glued to itself, almost anyone would throw it away with the condition that it was in. Some super famous and important person in the Oscars Academy requested that every single inch of the film reel be saved, regardless of the condition that it was in. Then Criterion stepped up and did some kind of magic that they were able to restore to beautiful 4k quality. Which required several fascinating and time taking processes to recover on top of the processes that you explained in this video. I recommend looking into it, it's again a miracle at how they were able to salvage the films and restore them to 4k quality.

I worked at ARRI and saw in the DI Department the restoration work of old movies like 2001 a space odyssey. Very interesting topic

Jeff, I appreciate that you do these types of videos. Showing how these films are preserved is very fascinating. It shows how much you care about 4k and the medium of physical media as a whole. Thank You very much for everything you do.

As a movie lover and movie collector this gave me such a huge insight and appreciation to studios who put so much effort and time in restoring older movies, thank you for this Films At Home, I really loved this video.

Star Wars 1995 restoration. As usual Lucas was ahead of the curve. They actually reshot many of the composites because he saved all the original props. The documentary is out there narrated by Howie Long. Must see for those interested in film.

Alien 4k is amazing

I like these kind of stuff where they explain how they make physical media

Great video i've always wanted to know how they make 4K Restoration 👍👍

Great video. The biggest issue with Jaws and movies of that era was the crappy Kodak stock that simply did not stand the test of time. ( Just like audio tape of the era turned sticky after a few years, requiring the reels to be baked in an oven to copy to digital. The sound reels for Superman II required this for the Donner Cut.) Despite the cost and difficulty of Technicolor, it was not as subjected to fading as it was more of a printing process. However there are issues of the three individual strips warping over time at different rates requiring a lot of time to fix during the restoration. What one technology is better at the other less so. Up until the 70's and the rise of home media, the studios didn't really care about their legacy. So much has already been lost.

Blade runner final cut and 2001 restorations are A1

Love the process of removing scratches. I can just imagine the processing that will be developed in 5 and 10 years to make another fix easier and eliminate a cumbersome problem. It shows the love and care that goes into a restoration. It is alot of work.Good Video 🙂😎

I really want the old Bond movies on 4K Blu-ray.

The man is working. The quality of this channel is increasing day by day. Thanks friend 🙏🙏

Great video, lots of people don’t realise that the classic movies you can see now are usually in FAR better quality than they could ever be seen at the time. As a kid who was there and very interested in VFX, I can tell you that many 80s movies’ original effects were actually pretty ropy and they have quietly fixed them. Ghostbusters in particular; HUGE improvement.

super interesting topic for a video.... Vinegar Syndrome deserves so much more credit for print restoration for a small distribution house they really pushed 2k & 4k print restoration before anybody else was doing it (Then Arrow, Shout Factor, Severin, etc. did it a lot more) now everybody is quick to add **Brand new 4k restoration of the film in there special feature section

I heard Don Coscarelli's The Beastmaster is finally getting a 4K release, which is great, because John Alcott's cinematography is gorgeous. After an exhaustive worldwide search, Coscarelli and his team of archivists weren't able to find the original negative, which they presumed was mislabelled and thrown into a dumpster, but they did find a first-generation print, the next best thing, having almost as high of resolution, color quality and contrast range to work with.

The film foundation does a great on restoring films!

I want to get into this industry so bad. This looks like the mundane fun I’ve been searching for

I still say the initial blu ray release is one of the finest restorations. Course this comes from being used to seeing the horridly framed version from TV for years and years.

I always watch your videos before buying my 4k movies, I just wish they would hurry and release more classics like Lost boys

thanks, this is exactly what I wanted to know! 500k for a picture restoration and 100k for atmos is defo no joke. That's why we often see english in atmos and german only in 5.1 here

Great video. Makes me appreciate a good 4K transfer and even decent blu-rays that much more.

I really appreciate all the videos you make about 4k, they have really helped me make an informed decision whether to upgrade to it and if its worth it for me!

I remember a good restoration video I saw back in 2013 or 2014 on youtube from sony studios about the restoration of Lawrence of Arabia. it went into technical and interviewed people who worked on the restoration. I haven't been able to find the clip since.

Really excellent Jeff. I just took delivery of Ten Commandments 4K yesterday and am interested to see what they have achieved. Thanks

Awesome & informative clip, great job! 👍 I got a lot of more respect for this work

Excellent video Jeff, well researched and I really enjoyed it. I'd like to see another video on the encoding process to a 4K UHD disc. Thanks Jeff.

My boy with the skill share plug🔥

I've been waiting for this! Thanks! P.S. I'm still waiting on a 4K release of Death Becomes Her.

I'm always in awe when I see these great talents restore classics.

Thanks so much for covering this great topic, Jeff, my favorite! I especially love what colorists do, taking a badly faded image and restoring its proper color and contrast brilliance, matching this brilliance shot-to-shot.

Thanks for taking the time to make this. I've been on a kick buying 4K DvDs and I'll get excited thinking of a movie. "OH! Aliens 4K!" To my surprise, No Joy. I'm actually now aware there is a 4K Remaster coming for Aliens in 2024 so this is great! Anyways - This video has 100% cleared up why I might not find one of MY favorites coming up.

Film restoration has been something I’m interested in for years. As for the wet gate process to reduce scratches during the scan, the people involved actually need to be extra careful. Some film restorationists choose not to use wet gate scanning because the final image is less sharp though at the advantage of less visible scratches. Also, there have been some horror stories of the wet gate process actually damaging the prints after and causing issues when the film is put back into storage.

Hi Jeff. Great vid again. I just subscribed to your channel. I have watched a lot of you content in the last couple of months, so why not! I have a ton of DVD and Blu-ray, but I stopped collecting a while ago. With my new Ps5, my appetite for physical media has reignited and you reviews are always helpfully. Keep up the good work.

Fantastic video! Thank you :-) This is what I have been looking for in a long time - in depth knowledge about 1080p to 4k transfers. I think the studios should be more transparent about their remastering and transfering of 4k movies. It is not easy to know whether a 4k movie has a good or bad transfor or has been remastered properly.

This was awesome! Most film review channels don't get into the technical details of how 4k releases are made possible. Great video!

I love the restoration that was done in 1990 to Lawrence of Arabia with Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese and restoration done to Spartacus with Stanley Kubrick they both used from original negative

What an awesome and educational video!

This is a great video you made!! Love the creating process of how these companies restore movies to upgrade them. It makes me feel more proud of my physical media collection.

Super informative and educational for a fellow film collector like myself! Keep up the good work Jeff!

Thank you so much for making these type of videos! Your videos are my favourite on KZfaq :)

Enjoyed this and learned new things as well. Does help one appreciate the work that goes into the films we enjoy. Thank you.

Excellent video. It's impressive how much care and money goes into the restoration of a great film.

Great video. Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this.

This was a very good and interesting video. Thanks for giving me the knowledge of how much time and effort all the studios put in restoring their films. I have a physical movie collection and it only makes me appreciate it more.

These are the topics I really like to hear about!

Looking forward to the good the bad and ugly 4k due in April 2021.

Heck ya I’ve been waiting for a video like this. Thank you.

Really interesting video Jeff. I know from my personal experience scanning old 35mm photo negatives into my computer, there is a lot more labor involved than one might think.

Great content mate! Always wondered what the process was behind 4K restorations.

Very informative! Thanks for the upload

Great topic. Pretty eye opening. I haven't switches to 4k yet, but after this I can see the value.

Great informative video! Nice to know behind the scene stuff that happens to restore a film to 4k. When i saw Jaws in 4K i was blown away on the quality. Cant wait for the Indy Collection in 4K. The bluray version looks outstanding as is.

Excellent Video! I remember seeing Jaws in our old beat up local movie theater back in 1975 and 1976. (Yep - in those days before VHS or DVD’s these films would either stay in theaters for a long time or be released to certain theaters months later!) Our local theater never got films at the time of release so if we wanted to see stuff right away we would have to go to a different theater. But they would get them months later and stay there a long time - so my friends and I would all see movies like Jaws, Star Wars or the James Bond films many many times there. The Jaws print they had was just full of scratches and different marks and imperfections and these were so obvious that even back then we would all notice these lol! I recently saw the 4K version of Jaws and I can tell you without a doubt that it is the best that that film has EVER looked - and blows even that original theater print right out of the water. So these Restoration teams really do a brilliant job!

Very nice work ! So good to see how content we watch are made

I know there are people that want a film to be exactly like their first exposure to it, but when Universal finally fixed the skipping audio of Swan Lake at the start of Dracula, it was such a big deal for me lol

Very interesting. Thanks.

Great information. Thanks

Great video Jeff. Good stuff. Sad but understandable why so many movies will never get the love they deserve. That would be an awesome job to have. To bring back to life great movies. I think I would bring back some classics like the Marx brothers, About and Costello, Westerns. There's so many. Blood in blood out. The Car etc. 👍👍 Thank you.

Great video! Really puts things into perspective

Love it thanks for the deep intel on this topic keep up the good work 💪👌

Informative. Good job.

Great content as always!

This is a detailed and very informative look st films

Great ep.

Very Informative and interesting!! Respect!

This was very interesting! thank you!

Have you seen the Peter Jackson WW1 doco They Shan't Grow Old? Probably the best restoration work ever. There is a great extra on the disc of the process involved.

Very interesting, thank you

Great video, really good info about the restoration process for blu rays/4k uhd.

Wow really enjoyed this review on film restoration. Being a movie enthusiast this has given me a great insight on all the hard work and money involved really amazing with what they do.

Thanks Jeff... awesome vid!

Great topic and thank you for doing this for us. Subbed for a while.

Great video! 👌

Such a great video 👍🏼

Really enjoyed this, good example of why I like this channel so much. It may not get as many views as a movie review but I think it's cool and appreciate you putting it together

Man!! Awesome documentary! Greetings from Brazil.

The thing with things like Dolby Atmos is how few people actually have a setup like that at home. It’s a small minority of film buffs. Not knocking it, I’m sure it’s great when you have it, but it’s quite a commitment.

Wonderful video. Thank you!

This is so interesting, great video on this,love it!!

Thanks for sharing

Great work

Dope video man

Fascinating 🤨

Great video, man! I learned a lot.

Thank you...an excellent video.

Great video. Thanks a lot

Great video thanks so much!

Good video

Great great job on this!

Dude this was super-interesting !

Excellent video very well done and interesting

Very interesting stuff, thanks for this!

9:15 If a typical 2-hour *movie* costs between $100K and $500K just for the visual restoration, let alone the audio restoration, it REALLY gives me an appreciation that CBS spent the money and went through the effort to not only restore SEVEN WHOLE SEASONS of Star Trek: The Next Generation for blu-ray, but RE-CUT and RE-COMPOSITED EACH SHOT OF EACH OF THE 176 EPISODES - AND remastered the audio in 5.1 digital sound! There'll probably never be another physical media project like that ever!

Awesome, Knowledge.. Far as Sound I was Shocked that they still use DD 5.1. Now I know y. Atmos & DTS:X is Expensive. U do hear the difference between those Top sounds vs DTS Master Audio. Now we know money will spend on Top Sound can't be upset when u don't it - Stay Safe, Be Safe!!!!

Cool😎!