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Michael Jackson's Short Films - Upscale/4K Restoration Discussion

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Annita said:
www.mjvibe.com

“Black or White” Reclaimed: Michael Jackson’s Short Film Restored to Its Original Vision - MJVibe

At the center of the controversy was the panther dance sequence, one of the most powerful and talked-about moments in Michael Jackson’s career.
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Regarding Black or White, I increasingly feel that there are clear differences in quality between certain shots. Even if AI was used throughout the restoration, some scenes such as the snow transition and the dance with the Russians appear, to me, to be of a quality that clearly goes beyond what AI could normally achieve from a standard definition source. These shots stand out as noticeably sharper and cleaner than others.

I wonder if this is because the snow and the large amount of movement in the image help mask the AI artefacts, or because I am used to this level of detail typically resulting in pixelated images when the bitrate is low. Or did they actually rebuild the video using multiple sources of varying quality? Some images almost look like 35mm film where the grain has simply been smoothed out by modern 4K processing.

I am not sure, but these questions remain in my mind. In addition, the estate appears to have used the wrong shot for the zipper scene. Was this due to a mislabeled master, or simply a mislabeled raw take? Regardless of the type of media used, I just want to know whether they have multiple raw takes in their archives or only multiple masters.

I also don’t really understand why Black or White is in such much better quality than the other Dangerous short films, even though all of them received the same AI treatment. Overall, I feel that the source for Black or White is clearly of much higher quality, but I’m wondering why.
 
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MJ_Fame said:
Regarding Black or White, I increasingly feel that there are clear differences in quality between certain shots. Even if AI was used throughout the restoration, some scenes such as the snow transition and the dance with the Russians appear, to me, to be of a quality that clearly goes beyond what AI could normally achieve from a standard definition source. These shots stand out as noticeably sharper and cleaner than others.

I wonder if this is because the snow and the large amount of movement in the image help mask the AI artefacts, or because I am used to this level of detail typically resulting in pixelated images when the bitrate is low. Or did they actually rebuild the video using multiple sources of varying quality? Some images almost look like 35mm film where the grain has simply been smoothed out by modern 4K processing.

I am not sure, but these questions remain in my mind. In addition, the estate appears to have used the wrong shot for the zipper scene. Was this due to a mislabeled master, or simply a mislabeled raw take? Regardless of the type of media used, I just want to know whether they have multiple raw takes in their archives or only multiple masters.

I also don’t really understand why Black or White is in such much better quality than the other Dangerous short films, even though all of them received the same AI treatment. Overall, I feel that the source for Black or White is clearly of much higher quality, but I’m wondering why.
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the shots were most likely enhanced seperately so that each shot can look "as best as possible", shots were with less detail will look more muddy upscaled, you can compare those to the original standard definition transfers. Some are also way easier to upscale than others or simply, they got a better result with certain settings in one scene but not in the other.
 
MJ_Fame said:
Regarding Black or White, I increasingly feel that there are clear differences in quality between certain shots. Even if AI was used throughout the restoration, some scenes such as the snow transition and the dance with the Russians appear, to me, to be of a quality that clearly goes beyond what AI could normally achieve from a standard definition source. These shots stand out as noticeably sharper and cleaner than others.

I wonder if this is because the snow and the large amount of movement in the image help mask the AI artefacts, or because I am used to this level of detail typically resulting in pixelated images when the bitrate is low. Or did they actually rebuild the video using multiple sources of varying quality? Some images almost look like 35mm film where the grain has simply been smoothed out by modern 4K processing.

I am not sure, but these questions remain in my mind. In addition, the estate appears to have used the wrong shot for the zipper scene. Was this due to a mislabeled master, or simply a mislabeled raw take? Regardless of the type of media used, I just want to know whether they have multiple raw takes in their archives or only multiple masters.

I also don’t really understand why Black or White is in such much better quality than the other Dangerous short films, even though all of them received the same AI treatment. Overall, I feel that the source for Black or White is clearly of much higher quality, but I’m wondering why.
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They didn't even watch the tape and gave the excuse that it was "mislabeled" and written "uncensored."
 
mjfp said:
the shots were most likely enhanced seperately so that each shot can look "as best as possible", shots were with less detail will look more muddy upscaled, you can compare those to the original standard definition transfers. Some are also way easier to upscale than others or simply, they got a better result with certain settings in one scene but not in the other.
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And there are still 2 videos left to receive their upscales. This year Invincible turns 25, maybe they'll do the same, or maybe not, for them only Bad and Dangerous exist.
 
MJvibe is moaning about They Dont Care About us brazil 1080p version allegedly looking crap, but when I go to the brazil version, 480 is the best quality I can select. Did they put up a 1080p version that has since been removed again?
 
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Lightbringer said:
MJvibe is moaning about They Dont Care About us brazil 1080p version allegedly looking crap, but when I go to the brazil version, 480 is the best quality I can select. Did they put up a 1080p version that has since been removed again?
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YouTube Super Resolution feature, not anything done by the Estate. I’ve noticed that MJVibe has often given misinformation or didn’t even fact check about certain things recently. It has been disabled by the Estate after it was added by YouTube a couple days later
 
mjfp said:
YouTube Super Resolution feature, not anything done by the Estate. I’ve noticed that MJVibe has often given misinformation or didn’t even fact check about certain things recently. It has been disabled by the Estate after it was added by YouTube a couple days later
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Thank you. That was valuable information and answered my question :) I am glad it was not a problem with the Estate.

Btw, why is the longer version of They Dont Care About Us with drums at the end not available on the official Michael Jackson youtube page? I would argue if only one version should be up it should be the one with the drums as that is how MJ wanted it to be!
 
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Robbsaber01 said:
Joke of an estate. So anything Post '89 is simply lost? Have they contacted some of the directors? I'm sure John Landis has film in his archives. Refuse to believe the film masters stop after BAD era. Smh.
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I have more hope fo YRMW in 4K than anything HIStory/Dangerous. I still don't wanna believe it's "lost", like EVERYTHING? Not even ONE video is intact? This is very sad for an artist like MJ, the greatest visual artist of all-time
 
MJJ.D777 said:
And there are still 2 videos left to receive their upscales. This year Invincible turns 25, maybe they'll do the same, or maybe not, for them only Bad and Dangerous exist.
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I wonder if they will go through with remastering yrm. Michael obviously looks unpleasant in some shots and they added digital blurring to his face in a few scenes. Like when he walks up to the woman.
 
They should just go the original negatives and edit the short films from scratch if that is needed for 4K. That has been done for tv shows including Star Trek The Next Generation because that didn't have a master on 35mm.



I think it was done with The X-Files, MacGyver and Baywatch too. I can image remastering all the seasons like that to be very expensive but doing that to music videos shouldn't be so expensive. Runtime of all the Dangerous era videos is less than a hour.
 
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They are a multi-billions Estate, let's wait until the biopic and a new wave of people heavily complaining about the very bad quality of some videos. They know they don't have any excuses to put any work, money in... So "they are lost"
 
AcielTwilight said:
They are a multi-billions Estate, let's wait until the biopic and a new wave of people heavily complaining about the very bad quality of some videos. They know they don't have any excuses to put any work, money in... So "they are lost"
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I'm sure that the poor video quality will turn away some people lol
 
The majority of music videos by all artists on Youtube are 480 or less. A lot are not even official uploads, but ones fans taped on VHS from Video Jukebox, Friday Night Videos, MTV & Video Soul. People watch them just fine. People also react to these SD videos on music reaction channels.

Also, if they try to appeal to the younger audience idea of video quality, then the footage will likely get a lot of DNR like The Beatles Get Back on Disney+
 
This is a HUGE loss if true. How could they not have the original negatives un-edited? I pray to god they're just lazy and don't want to admit they'd have to re-edit them. Many of them were initially shot on film before being edited to digital. Seriously praying that someone competent on their team does something. Knowing them, it's like wishing for world hunger to be solved.
 
mjfp said:
That‘s the sad part… they don‘t have a team, really. They outsource it to a different company who does a mid-job. My VHS has more detail than the AI upscales
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Even before Ai. The "nasa team" that was put in charge of wembley didn't do a much better job lol. Imo its not the tool to blame, more so the people using it/how its used.

I'm choosing to believe the estate is simply just too lazy/cheap to track down, scan, edit, and restore the films. They simply don't want to spend that much time and $$ for every short film that isn't from the 80's.
 
Robbsaber01 said:
Even before Ai. The "nasa team" that was put in charge of wembley didn't do a much better job lol. Imo its not the tool to blame, more so the people using it/how its used.

I'm choosing to believe the estate is simply just too lazy/cheap to track down, scan, edit, and restore the films. They simply don't want to spend that much time and $$ for every short film that isn't from the 80's.
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No doubt in my mind its laziness/being cheap.

This Estate is nothing but cheap and cheerful and style over substance.
 
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