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

Really disheartened by this, it just comes across like the Estate don't care about Michael's art. I would rather them not touch it at all, Michael was all about quality and this couldn't further away from that.

I'm not clued up on video quality, but everything just looks too smooth, as though there's no depth or texture to anything.

What irritates me is this "upscaled version" replaces the previous version
 
MJJHD said:
When next one? Jam?
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In the closet maybe today or tomorrow, BOW came out on YouTube on a Tuesday and that same Friday on Apple music and Tidal Remember the time was updated, it shouldn't be long before it is updated in the closet, every 9 days they are updating it for the escalated versions, I'm waiting on those two platforms.
 
mjfp said:
it was edited on tape, they won‘t do the work and re-edit it
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They should. They did it for Beat It. Thriller was probably edited on film because it was shown in cinemas.

Edit: I don't know how different the editing process was in 1983 and 1992.
 
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Galactus123 said:
They should. They did it for Beat It. Thriller was probably edited on film because it was shown in cinemas.

Edit: I don't know how different the editing process was in 1983 and 1992.
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They didn't do that for Beat It, that one was edited on film so they just had to scan it and based on how it looks, they probably just chucked it into an AI for grain ans scratch removal and not done any actual proper restoration

The short films that were filmed and edited on film are (including what highest resolution it is officially released):
Beat It - released in 4K (with AI grain clean up)
Thriller - released in 4K
Bad - released in SD, partially in HD
The Way You Make Me Feel - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Speed Demon - released in cropped HD
Dirty Diana - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Smooth Criminal - released in cropped HD
Leave Me Alone - released in HD
Come Together - released in cropped HD
 
mjfp said:
They didn't do that for Beat It, that one was edited on film so they just had to scan it and based on how it looks, they probably just chucked it into an AI for grain ans scratch removal and not done any actual proper restoration

The short films that were filmed and edited on film are (including what highest resolution it is officially released):
Beat It - released in 4K (with AI grain clean up)
Thriller - released in 4K
Bad - released in SD, partially in HD
The Way You Make Me Feel - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Speed Demon - released in cropped HD
Dirty Diana - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Smooth Criminal - released in cropped HD
Leave Me Alone - released in HD
Come Together - released in cropped HD
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I wonder if the widescreen version of Smooth Criminal can be considered cropped? That is the correct aspect ratio of Moonwalker movie and it was probably filmed mainly as a scene for that.
 
well a lot of picture is cut off and Michael released the short films in 4:3 as well as Moonwalker on DVD in 4:3, I would even consider movies shot in IMAX but released in ultra-widescreen/widescreen on home media cropped. and Thriller was shown in widescreen in theatres as well, cropping into the picture but intended for TV as are all his short films
 
Since 35 mm film holds an aspect ratio of 3:2, every outcome is intended to be cropped, depending on the target media (TV, cinema, etc.). They film with the end ratio in mind, having 16:9 or 4:3 guidelines in display.

Just for visualization; 3:2 filmed (source)
bow3-2.jpg


4:3 crop
bow4-3.jpg


16:9 crop
bow16-9.jpg
 
the short films that released in 4:3 were shot for 4:3 tho
 
mjfp said:
the short films that released in 4:3 were shot for 4:3 tho
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Yeah sure, none of what I wrote says otherwise. I just wanted to point out that the original film frames have more image on the sides. They took care to keep everything important within a 4:3 frame during filming, as they knew the 3:2 frames would be cropped into 4:3.

For the short films, I wouldn't change the aspect ratio anyway, although technically possible. But it could be taken into consideration for a concert release. But then, they will go to AI upscale a VHS tape and then crop off his feet to turn it into widescreen 💀 ...
 
mjfp said:
They didn't do that for Beat It, that one was edited on film so they just had to scan it and based on how it looks, they probably just chucked it into an AI for grain ans scratch removal and not done any actual proper restoration

The short films that were filmed and edited on film are (including what highest resolution it is officially released):
Beat It - released in 4K (with AI grain clean up)
Thriller - released in 4K
Bad - released in SD, partially in HD
The Way You Make Me Feel - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Speed Demon - released in cropped HD
Dirty Diana - released in SD, partially in cropped HD
Smooth Criminal - released in cropped HD
Leave Me Alone - released in HD
Come Together - released in cropped HD
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Is the HD section of Bad that you're talking about the clip of the intro right before the kid version in Moonwalker?
 
mjfp said:
well a lot of picture is cut off and Michael released the short films in 4:3 as well as Moonwalker on DVD in 4:3, I would even consider movies shot in IMAX but released in ultra-widescreen/widescreen on home media cropped. and Thriller was shown in widescreen in theatres as well, cropping into the picture but intended for TV as are all his short films
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The UK VHS of Moonwalker I had was so cropped it only showed 6 grammy's instead of 8 during the "Retrospective" section!
 
MichaelD said:
Yeah sure, none of what I wrote says otherwise. I just wanted to point out that the original film frames have more image on the sides. They took care to keep everything important within a 4:3 frame during filming, as they knew the 3:2 frames would be cropped into 4:3.

For the short films, I wouldn't change the aspect ratio anyway, although technically possible. But it could be taken into consideration for a concert release. But then, they will go to AI upscale a VHS tape and then crop off his feet to turn it into widescreen 💀 ...
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yea sure I didn‘t mean to say anything against what you said, I was just saying the aspect ratio it was made for and released in should be either kept or expanded and not cropped further
 
mjfp said:
Moonwalker and Bad 25 mainly
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I really wonder why they didn't just restore the Short Films when Moonwalker came out on Blu-Ray and when Bad 25 came out. They did a lot of marketing and promotions that I'm surprised they didn't restore the videos. Also what are the chances that all the Bad short films are all restored for Bad 40
 
threepea11 said:
I really wonder why they didn't just restore the Short Films when Moonwalker came out on Blu-Ray and when Bad 25 came out. They did a lot of marketing and promotions that I'm surprised they didn't restore the videos. Also what are the chances that all the Bad short films are all restored for Bad 40
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Moonwalker is a Warner Bros release, Bad 25 didn‘t do any footage restoration and would be considered unnecessary for a documentary in the estate‘s view plus from what I got Spike likes to use the raw material without any enhancements, plus they just „restored“ all short films two years prior on Vision
 
I thought a couple of them were originally in widescreen? eg Who Is It?
 
ngl there's some regular fanmade upscales of music videos that are so much better than the estate's attempt to upscale the videos. ex: rock with you's upscale on mjcontent1's channel compared to the estate.
 
If we get a BAD 40, do you think we will get remastered short films that are NOT upscaled and instead scanned from the 35mm negatives? There really is no need for upscaling for the BAD short films, as there is no CGI. What I think the estate could have done for BOW and RTT was to scan the negatives for the scenes that do not use CGI and upscale the scenes that do. But this is the Michael Jackson estate, what did we expect?
 
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archonten said:
If we get a BAD 40, do you think we will get remastered music videos that are NOT upscaled and scanned from the 35mm negatives? There really is no need for upscaling for the BAD music videos as there is no CGI. What I think the estate could have done for BOW and RTT was scan the negatives for the scenes that do not use CGI and upscale the scenes using CGI. But this is the Michael Jackson estate, what did we expect!
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I really think the CGI thing is just an excuse for their laziness and that AI upscaling is just gonna be the norm for all short films from now on
 
alexbism said:
I really think the CGI thing is just an excuse for their laziness and that AI upscaling is just gonna be the norm for all short films from now on
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It 100% has to do with laziness. They have the money, but they just are not willing to spend it. I seriously hope that AI upscales won't be the norm. And to add to what I said about some of the music videos not having CGI (mainly the BAD era short films), I don't think You Rock My World or Cry ever used CGI either, and those would be easy. An AI upscale of YRMW would look horrible, and the worst of all short films to upscale would probably be Who Is It and Scream.
 
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