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Why is the Estate so lazy when it comes to 4K restorations?

Lord Jackson

Lord Jackson

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So as you know, a lot of Music Videos are being remastered in 4K, one of the first that really started the trend was Last Christmas by Wham.

Now, lots of MJ videos were shot on film, at least Thriller and the Bad era ones were. (Moonwalker)

So how come the Estate doesn't do anything and leaves it as 480p messy scans on Youtube?

Either fans are upscaling to 4K with A.I or are doing true restorations (like Pitou World) when the Estate could easily do it
 
i'm pretty sure they already did it, just don't releasing them.
 
Shot on film doesn't necessarily mean anything. Most 1980s & 1990s music videos were edited on videotape, no matter how they were originally shot. A lot of TV shows from that time were edited on tape too, and many sitcoms were filmed on videotape. If the music videos were edited on tape, any special effects would most likely have to be done over from scratch. Which would mean, it wouldn't be the exact same video. It would be like when they added new CGI effects to the 1960s Star Trek show a few years ago. There was no CGI in the '60s. There's a 4K version of the Eurythmics video Missionary Man. The only parts that are actually 4K are the performance parts which were scanned from the original film, but the effects parts came from videotape. You can easily tell the difference in picture quality between the 2 sources. In some cases, the original film footage for music videos was thrown out or lost after they were edited. I don't know if that's the case with Mike's videos. Also I think some of the earlier ones like Rock With You was shot on tape, so you can't make a HD or 4K of those.
 
They might want to release them on Blu-Ray before uploading them to Youtube. It looks like they are remastering them:

FAQ

This page has been created to provide answers to commonly asked questions received by the Estate through the Michael Jackson Online Team. The page will be updated occasionally with additional questions and answers and you can submit questions for consideration through the submission form on this...
www.michaeljackson.com www.michaeljackson.com

WILL THE ESTATE UPGRADE MICHAEL’S SHORT FILMS TO 4K?

The Estate has every intention of upgrading Michael’s short films wherever possible. Upgrading Michael’s short films is more akin to what is required for older theatrical motion pictures as opposed to music videos by other artists in large part due to all of the work (e.g., effects, etc.) customarily done on each short film beyond the actual filming and the manner and format in which all of that work was originally done. A few short films, like “Thriller” and “Smooth Criminal”, have 35 mm masters where the upgrade is expensive but much more doable. However, that is not the case for most of the short films and, in these cases, the process is more expensive and requires more work (and time). In some cases, it may not even be possible if all we have is a poor quality master tape and no original source materials are located. It is important for fans to understand that not everything that was created by Michael actually made it into Michael’s storage facilities (including, for example, the high def footage of the full Bad Tour concert at Wembley even though we know that Michael shot “Another Part of Me” at that and other concerts on film to create the short film for that song). But we will continue to look for the best solution for the challenges we face with each of the short films and we look forward to sharing the upgraded short films when the work required has been completed.
Click to expand...
 
Galactus123 said:
They might want to release them on Blu-Ray before uploading them to Youtube. It looks like they are remastering them:

FAQ

This page has been created to provide answers to commonly asked questions received by the Estate through the Michael Jackson Online Team. The page will be updated occasionally with additional questions and answers and you can submit questions for consideration through the submission form on this...
www.michaeljackson.com www.michaeljackson.com
Click to expand...
i call bulls*t wont happen sorry
 
DuranDuran said:
In some cases, the original film footage for music videos was thrown out or lost after they were edited. I don't know if that's the case with Mike's videos. Also I think some of the earlier ones like Rock With You was shot on tape, so you can't make a HD or 4K of those.
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I know that not all of his clips were shot on film, but some were
Thriller hasn't got any effects I can think of, and considering there was the IMAX version they have the original (or a decent copy) of the film.
And most of the Bad clips appear in Moonwalker, being that it was a fairly popular movie and that were was a blu-ray release (1080p remaster) they have the film for that too and could remaster it.
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
I know that not all of his clips were shot on film, but some were
Thriller hasn't got any effects I can think of, and considering there was the IMAX version they have the original (or a decent copy) of the film.
And most of the Bad clips appear in Moonwalker, being that it was a fairly popular movie and that were was a blu-ray release (1080p remaster) they have the film for that too and could remaster it.
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If the videos were edited on tape, then there is no film edit. So they would have to find the original film reels (if they still exist) and make a brand new edit. With Thriller 3D, it's been said that some of the original audio was lost or unusable. So they used some kind of remix for the music parts. Some people who have seen the IMAX Thriller said that there's a kind of bad audio edit at some point. Moonwalker was supposed to be released as a theatrical movie (in the USA), not a music video for MTV, and theatrical movies are not edited (or shot) on tape. So it can be scanned like any other movie. If there is any film damage like scratches or faded colors, that takes a lot more time and money to fix though. I haven't seen it, but I heard some parts were cut out of the Moonwalker Blu-ray. In the USA, to this day Moonwalker has only been officially released on VHS & Laserdisc. Nothing since then, except as imports which most don't work in the USA, except ones from Japan. Or if you have a region free player.
 
DuranDuran said:
With Thriller 3D, it's been said that some of the original audio was lost or unusable. So they used some kind of remix for the music parts. Some people who have seen the IMAX Thriller said that there's a kind of bad audio edit at some point.
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That's an audio problem, not video
4K remaster can still be made

If the videos were edited on tape, then there is no film edit. So they would have to find the original film reels (if they still exist) and make a brand new edit.
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Look at Star Trek: The Next Generation

The problem though is that it becomes VERY expensive really quick
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
The problem though is that it becomes VERY expensive really quick
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That's likely a reason that mainly extremely popular oldies songs get 4K or HD videos, not every one in a particular artists catalog, except maybe The Beatles. There isn't much of a market today for music video compilations on home video, that was more popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. Especially when people watch them for free on Youtube on their phone. Home video in general has been slowly losing sales each year. Most younger people stream movies, TV, and music. The DVD section in Best Buy/Wal-Mart/Target gets smaller & smaller and Best Buy stores don't even carry CDs anymore but they can be ordered from their website. So I think companies aren't willing to spend money on music videos that has little chance of making a profit.
 
DuranDuran said:
That's likely a reason that mainly extremely popular oldies songs get 4K or HD videos, not every one in a particular artists catalog, except maybe The Beatles. There isn't much of a market today for music video compilations on home video, that was more popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. Especially when people watch them for free on Youtube on their phone. Home video in general has been slowly losing sales each year. Most younger people stream movies, TV, and music. The DVD section in Best Buy/Wal-Mart/Target gets smaller & smaller and Best Buy stores don't even carry CDs anymore but they can be ordered from their website. So I think companies aren't willing to spend money on music videos that has little chance of making a profit.
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I agree with this. The golden age of music video has come and gone. There's not much upside in spending money on creating 4K music videos. The number of people that buy movies on physical media just keeps getting less and less. I can only imagine how small the market is of people willing to buy a physical media music video compilation. I have a feeling that the Vision DVD set didn't sell very well.
 
DuranDuran said:
The DVD section gets smaller & smaller
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Well it makes sense, considering its ugly 480p
That's likely a reason that mainly extremely popular oldies songs get 4K or HD videos, not every one in a particular artists catalog, except maybe The Beatles
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Michael is on the same level as The Beatles (or nearly)
And it can't be THAT expensive considering an amateur was able to do a restoration

[Exclusive Interview] HIStory 4K Is Coming?

smooth-c submitted a new article This thread is for the general discussion of the Article [Exclusive Interview] HIStory 4K Is Coming?. Please add to the discussion here. Actual shot from 4k rendered video. Image slightly colour graded and manipulated by us for publication. YES - IT'S COMING...
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Because they are lazy. Should have really been the first thing they did, instead we get stuff like "we plan to" alongside statements like "we don't have all the materials to do it". Tell me you haven't looked without telling me you haven't looked. 🙄
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
Well it makes sense, considering its ugly 480p
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It has nothing to do with that. DVD still outsells Blu-Ray more than double. And 4K discs are a very small percentage of sales. Blu-Ray never really caught on with the general public. That's why more stuff is released on DVD than the other formats. TV shows are more likely to be on DVD than Blu-Ray. Like I mentioned earlier, many sitcoms were filmed on video, so were music & variety shows like American Bandstand & Soul Train. There isn't any real benefit of putting programs like this on Blu-Ray. DVDs are generlaly cheaper too, there's like the $5 dollar DVD bin at places like Walmart & Dollar Tree. DVD sales are dropping because of Netflix & Disney+. They can pay less for those a month and get way more programming than buying one disc. A lot of people don't collect physical stuff like those in the past. That's the reason a lot of book stores like Borders went out of business and newspapers are a lot smaller now. People can read the news online and read books on Kindle. They don't put CD players in new cars as a default either and many PCs/laptops don't have a disc drive anymore.
 
Maybe they think that if people think vinyl is superior to digital, people will also think that 480p is superior to 4K...
(Just an hypothesis.)
 
Maxym said:
Maybe they think that if people think vinyl is superior to digital, people will also think that 480p is superior to 4K...
(Just an hypothesis.)
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I think it's more that the average person does not care about things like that. There's a reason that audiophile formats like DAT tape, SACD, DVD-audio etc never caught on with most people, but MP3s did. Why would somebody buy a blu-ray player when they have a already perfectly working DVD player? You can also buy a new DVD player for around $25 too. Many don't know what the difference is. Especially when a lot of movies are DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs with a digital code. A DVD by itself is cheaper than a combo-pack or a a 4K disc and they don't need 2 discs of the same thing. A lot of people watch movies on their phones where the picture is too small for HD to make that much of a difference. I know people who buy bootleg DVDs off the street, of new movies still playing in theaters. They usually don't have good picture quality, worse than an official release. But they're cheaper than going to buy a movie ticket, especially if you have more than one person. There's also many folks who pirate movies off the internet. That's the only way you're going to get a movie like Song Of The South since Disney prefers to pretend it doesn't exist, lol.
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
Look at Star Trek: The Next Generation

The problem though is that it becomes VERY expensive really quick
Click to expand...

Yeah Star Trek TNG is a prime example of doing a remaster right and down to the detail. Unfortunately it was a very expensive project and CBS/Viacom didn't make enough money back from the Blu-ray sales to make up the cost. We will probably never see DS9 or Voyager remasters because of this. A shame, because the TNG remaster looks freaking incredible.

Here's a video that explains pretty well the cost of such remasters. It's Star Trek based but it could apply to any remaster project:

I'm hoping some solution can be reached with Michael's videos, but I won't hold my breath.
 
I actually do not think I would buy a new release on Blu-Ray

I never use that anymore, I stream everything. I would love to buy it at Apple TV or somewhere else so I could see it on my phone and stream it everywhere. But to buy Blu-Ray and have those standing in the basement... I would never watch it anyway. Streaming/digital release is what The Estate should aim for.
 
Amaya said:
I'm hoping some solution can be reached with Michael's videos, but I won't hold my breath.
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A lot of Michael's videos aren't affected by the issue

However something like Scream could have a similar issue to this
 
DuranDuran said:
A lot of people watch movies on their phones where the picture is too small for HD to make that much of a difference
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Believe me, you can see the difference between a 720p TV and a 1080p Phone
4K on phone is stupid, but HD isn't
 
Hess said:
I actually do not think I would buy a new release on Blu-Ray

I never use that anymore, I stream everything. I would love to buy it at Apple TV or somewhere else so I could see it on my phone and stream it everywhere. But to buy Blu-Ray and have those standing in the basement... I would never watch it anyway. Streaming/digital release is what The Estate should aim for.
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Yeah, I purchased This Is It on bluray and I think I watched it twice. I've probably seen it 15 times through streaming.
 
Eric said:
Yeah, I purchased This Is It on bluray and I think I watched it twice. I've probably seen it 15 times through streaming.
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Meanwhile my 4K blu ray collection is at around 50 titles
double that for regular blu ray
 
Same reason we have no official HD concert material. They don't want to spend the $$ to locate, scan, edit, remaster everything.
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
We do have official HD concert material

Bad 25
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And The Ultimate Collection has a Dangerous World Tour DVD... I haven't checked it for so long I forgot it existed. (Wasn't it also released separately?)

EDIT: I missed the fact the "HD" was mentionned. If you mean Full HD, DVD's are not Full HD.
 
Maxym said:
And The Ultimate Collection has a Dangerous World Tour DVD... I haven't checked it for so long I forgot it existed. (Wasn't it also released separately?)

EDIT: I missed the fact the "HD" was mentionned. If you mean Full HD, DVD's are not Full HD.
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When it comes to Dangerous World Tour its probably 480p (because VHS master)

And unless it's a short dvd (or with a low bitrate) it's almost never HD (720p)
 
Lord Szechenyi said:
Believe me, you can see the difference between a 720p TV and a 1080p Phone
4K on phone is stupid, but HD isn't
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I can see the difference when they DNR the footage like on that new Beatles Get Back miniseries. They look like plastic or wax figures. 😄 I don't understand the point of removing grain to try to make it look like current digital shot stuff. It just takes out the detail.
 
DuranDuran said:
I can see the difference when they DNR the footage like on that new Beatles Get Back miniseries. They look like plastic or wax figures. 😄 I don't understand the point of removing grain to try to make it look like current digital shot stuff. It just takes out the detail.
Click to expand...

A lot of DNR was used with the beatles footage because a lot of it was shot in dim environments and was very grainy and bad looking. Rescanning to HD and using lots of DNR are not tied to one another.
 
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