Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Blu Ray

This is topic LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Blu Ray in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=001019

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-13-2012, 03:53 PM:

I just picked up the special edition of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in Blu Ray from Costco and it is in a very sturdy and impressive twelve by twelve inch box. In the box is 88 page coffee table book, a numbered 70mm mounted film frame and three Blu ray discs containing the movie and special features all in a standard bd case. Also included is a cd of the motion picture soundtrack with two never released tracks. The container is very massive and it reminds me of a multi disc long play record or laserdisc set. It is also very heavy.

I have waited a long time for the BD of LOA to be realeased. It would have come out sooner but Sony felt the elements they had at the time was not good enough so they did a massive restoration with the materials Robert Harris created when he restored the movie about fifteen years ago. I was busy when the movie played for only one day earlier this month in a 4k digital presentation but everyone who had seen it said it was excellent . I will finally have the opportunity to see it at home tonight and I cannot wait.

-Claude

Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 11-14-2012, 04:21 AM:

Sounds good - the 4K presentation looked very good in the cinema. Only a bit confusing to see it in digital for the first time, because of the missing change over marks / reel change. When you know the film well, you know the changeovers every 15-18 minutes, and suddenly they are gone ;-)

LOA was restored nearly 25 years ago

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2008/lawrence/index.htm

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-14-2012, 09:39 AM:

Is this new 8K scan/4K DI version based on the materials that Robert Harris worked from, or a scan of the preservation master element that was the final output of his restoration project? In other words, is it a whole new restoration, or simply a digitising of the Harris version?

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-14-2012, 11:22 AM:

It is an entirely new restoration from the 65mm film elements, Leo. I plan to watch LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in it's entirety this weekend but I did watch bits and pieces of the film last night and all of disc 3 that is exclusive to the deluxe set that has a lot of special features about the movie itself and the restoration. From what I saw, the restoration job done to the film was fantastic. On a side note, it is unfortunate my Japanese speaking father is deceased because if he was still living, I would have loved to let him watch the movie in Japanese. In additional to the usual other language such as French, Spanish and one or two others, the Blu Ray of LOA has a 5.1 Japanese soundtrack and subtitles and it is very good. If you love the movie like I do, the deluxe set is the way to go because the exclusive disc in Blu ray as well as the book ,the soundtrack CD and a mounted 70mm film frame plus the movie makes it all worth while.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-14-2012, 01:24 PM:

I read Robert Harris' "a few words about" review of the new LOA Blu-ray release at Home Theater Forum.

From the start Sony felt the existing 2K master created a decade ago for the 2-disc DVD release was not suitable as a source for Blu-ray. Robert Harris advised the company to use the first 65mm IP his team created for the 1989 restoration as a scanning source. It would get them to the 95th percentile in terms of image quality. Sony wanted to get closer to 100%. Despite the huge amount of problems and cost above doing things good enough Sony chose to scan the original 65mm camera negatives. They did this out of the interest of asset protection. The O-Neg was in bad shape. LOA is one of the most important titles in the Columbia Pictures catalog. They needed it looking great for many years into the future.

In going back to the original camera negatives the restoration team basically had to start over. At 8K the 65mm O-Neg yielded a great amount image detail along with a far more daunting image clean-up job. This is one of the reasons why it has taken so long for LOA to make it onto Blu-ray. Just scanning the O-Neg alone was a very risky thing. It might not have made it through the film scanner without incurring serious damage.

I haven't bought a copy of LOA yet, but am very tempted to order the deluxe box set as opposed to spending less than $20 on the standard Blu-ray.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-14-2012, 03:37 PM:

When you do Bobby, get it from Costco. They have it priced at $56.95. As far as I know, this is the best price. If Amazon or any other online retailer price for LOA is cheaper, it will not be by very much.

-Claude

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-14-2012, 03:54 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
In going back to the original camera negatives the restoration team basically had to start over. At 8K the 65mm O-Neg yielded a great amount image detail along with a far more daunting image clean-up job. This is one of the reasons why it has taken so long for LOA to make it onto Blu-ray. Just scanning the O-Neg alone was a very risky thing. It might not have made it through the film scanner without incurring serious damage.

Many thanks Bobby.

I'm not that well up on 65/70 scanners, but there are 4K scanners for 35mm and smaller on the market that are totally sprocketless: the film is simply pulled through the mechanism by the take-up reel and a laser detects the position of each perforation to determine the frame area to scan (e.g. on the Kinetta and the MWA Vario). Assuming you keep the film path clean and lace them up correctly, it really is impossible to damage even severely shrunk and brittle acetate in one of these scanners. Either this technology isn't available in any 8K large format machines as yet, and/or the camera negs must be very badly shrunk and brittle.

Apologies in advance for the heresy, But LoA isn't one of my all time favourites - the extent to which it f***s about with history (and in particular, portraying Allenby as a Blimpish stereotype, when all the evidence is that he was a very shrewd invidivual) is something I find irritating enough to get in the way of it telling a good story. Yes, it's visually stunning, and I'd always be happy to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon at a 70mm (or 4K) matinee screening ... but $60 for the BD? That having been said, I'll probably give in to the temptation ... [Smile]

Posted by Jeff Kane (Member # 6372) on 11-21-2012, 01:11 AM:

IMO skip the collector's edition and just get the standard Blu-Ray when it comes out. Aside from the fancy box, the book, and the 70mm frame, you get one 'exclusive' disc with a short deleted scene and some ancillary interviews. All the really good stuff is on discs 1 and 2. $17.99 from Amazon and worth every penny IMO. LoA looks and sounds incredible.

Posted by Robert Harris (Member # 1712) on 01-03-2013, 01:57 PM:

The 8k scan was derived from the final 65mm A & B rolls we created in 1988.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 02-11-2014, 05:06 PM:

It has been 404 days since the last post.