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Dangerous Short Films are currently being upscaled to 4K on YouTube!

AcielTwilight

AcielTwilight

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Right now, the short films for the Dangerous album are being AI upscaled to 4K by the Estate.

As of August 3, only Black or White is available at a 4K resolution on Youtube. Remember The Time has been upscaled too and is only available on Tidal/Apple Music.

As of August 9, Remember The Time 4K Upscale was made available on YouTube

It's surely part of the Dangerous SACD release.
The short films are not being truly restored from the film reels.
 
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It looks like those HD remasters for others artists from years ago, with a touch of AI to make it 4K. It's off course looks way better than any fanmade remasters and original quality. It's not close at all to Beat it and Thriller though.

I hope it's a short-term solution until next year. It's still great to see, and we're probably gonna get all the Dangerous short films in a similar quality. It's just a shame that they didn't remaster it from the negatives.
 
AcielTwilight said:
It looks like those HD remasters for others artists from years ago, with a touch of AI to make it 4K. It's off course looks way better than any fanmade remasters and original quality. It's not close at all to Beat it and Thriller though.

I hope it's a short-term solution until next year. It's still great to see, and we're probably gonna get all the Dangerous short films in a similar quality. It's just a shame that they didn't remaster it from the negatives.
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It is an AI upscale of whatever tape they had there. Beat It and Thriller are scans of the original 35mm negatives.

robotchicken14 said:
The close up shots of Michael’s crotch (9:10 and 9:25) have been replaced. So they might be working from the original negatives for the non-effects shots.
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Nope. All of it is tape sourced.
 
MJbr2 said:
It is an AI upscale of whatever tape they had there. Beat It and Thriller are scans of the original 35mm negatives.
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Yeah it definitely sucks. I was hoping OTW were gonna be the only ones to get that treatment. I don't understand why they would choose that way. They can use way better solutions than that for the Dangerous short films and make it TRUE 4K. They have money.
 
AcielTwilight said:
Yeah it definitely sucks. I was hoping OTW were gonna be the only ones to get that treatment. I don't understand why they would choose that way. They can use way better solutions than that for the Dangerous short films and make it TRUE 4K. They have money.
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Well, they've been saying they wouldn't be willing to recreate the VFX.
 
dam2040 said:
Why have they edited the panther dance?
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Bear in mind that the Panther Dance was already edited in 1993 due to controversy; the windows were replaced with references to the KKK etc.

The question is whether the Estate have re-edited the film further, and then had it upscaled (very strange decision), or, more likely in my opinion, upscaled an edit of the film that has not previously been released. Whether the new edits were made whilst MJ was still alive would be good to know.
 
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I'd like to think it's a version prior to the one authorized for DVD release.
My reasons for thinking this are that there are new shots, but they're not film quality, they're U-matic or Betamax quality... They're without special effects. The new scenes seem to censor explicit content, like MJ zipping up his pants, or wide shots where he was touching his crotch, which were replaced with closer shots. As if it were an alternate version in case some executive didn't approve the explicit version.

BUT, the shots with Wade Robson are still there, after all the scandal. If this is a re-edit, why not add shots of MJ with Macauley instead of Wade's? There are also missing sound effects.

By the way, I don't know if it's because there's more detail than in the DVD version, but the morphing effect seems different to me, not as realistic as before.
 
MJNTJ said:
As if it were an alternate version in case some executive didn't approve the explicit version.
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If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s an alternate cut done at the same time as the already sanitised version. Knowing the Estate, the edit they’ve chosen to release in 4K is likely the one that Michael fought hardest not to be released, being that it most greatly deviates from his original vision
 
Looks damn good for an AI upscale, honestly. I’m hoping they go the proper route in the near future but for the time being this is solid.
MJbr2 said:
Well, they've been saying they wouldn't be willing to recreate the VFX.
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Not to be that guy, but they never said they wouldn’t be willing to recreate the VFX. They said that doing so is incredibly costly and, in some cases, impossible. Not that that’s an excuse to not do it, of course.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Looks damn good for an AI upscale, honestly. I’m hoping they go the proper route in the near future but for the time being this is solid.

Not to be that guy, but they never said they wouldn’t be willing to recreate the VFX. They said that doing so is incredibly costly and, in some cases, impossible. Not that that’s an excuse to not do it, of course.
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I totally understand effects being costly to completely reproduce, but impossible? I just don't buy it
The only case I can think of being impossible is Billie Jean, because of the destroyed/missing 16mm negatives(?)
I wonder if that means they don't have all the source material for his shorts

or maybe the estate is cheaper than I thought, which I really hope is not the case
 
robotchicken14 said:
Bear in mind that the Panther Dance was already edited at the time, right after the video first aired due to controversy. Michael took out all references to the KKK etc.
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That's not what happened. The first version of the short film didn't have any references to the KKK and swastikas and so on. These references were added on the dvd version, to counter the critics who thought the short film was extremely violent. I think that was a mistake. One shouldn't add symbols of the KKK as an excuse. I am glad they went back to the original version.
 
Piek said:
That's not what happened. The first version of the short film didn't have any references to the KKK and swastikas and so on. These references were added on the dvd version, to counter the critics who thought the short film was extremely violent. I think that was a mistake. One shouldn't add symbols of the KKK as an excuse. I am glad they went back to the original version.
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Exactly that’s how it was!

The uproar was because of the violent and sexually charged dance.

The graffiti & symbols were put in to explain the reason for the violent outburst.
 
Whatever said:
I wonder if that means they don't have all the source material for his shorts
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Even if they have all the source material, it can be impossible to use it. Black Or White was shot on film, so the footage can be scanned in higher resolution, just like Thriller. But the effects (the morphing, for example) were done digitally. Even if you still have a disk with all the files, most likely these effects (from the early nineties!) are made with software that no longer exists, and doesn't run on modern computers. Yes, you could try to find an old system from that era and make it run, but that system can't create 4K output. So this is really difficult, even when you still have all the material from 1991.

What we should hope for, is rescans of short films that have no digital effects. The short film for Bad, for example. Or, amazingly enough, Leave Me Alone. That one is done entirely analogue.
 
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Piek said:
Even if they have all the source material, it can be impossible to use it. Black Or White was shot on film, so the footage can be scanned in higher resolution, just like Thriller. But the effects (the morphing, for example) were done digitally. Even in you still have a disk with all the files, most likely these effects (from the early nineties!) are made with software that no longer exists, and doesn't run on modern computers. Yes, you could try to find an old system from that era and make it run, but that system can't create 4K output. So this is really difficult, even when you still have all the material from 1991.

What we should hope for, is rescans of short films that have no digital effects. The short film for Bad, for example. Or, amazingly enough, Leave Me Alone. That one is done entirely analogue.
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Yep as we saw from the Moonwalker re-releases on DVD and Blu-Ray. Leave Me Alone CAN be scanned cause the animation (claymation) they did is superimposed on film.
 
someplace_else said:
Haven't watched it so far, just read everywhere that they edited stuff... why is it so hard to just remaster it exactly the way Michael wanted it to be released back then? 🙈
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cause branca preferred it another way... god save mr branca
SmoothGangsta said:
Just remake the vfx and remaster from the original film sources. It'll take time and money, some things the estate have plenty of.
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this. 👆
 
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