Stories like this regularly make the rounds when movies or shows that the original creators put a lot of love and thought into are "remastered" on the cheap. The last one I saw was the story about the garish colors in digital versions of old Pixar movies - amongst others, they intentionally exaggerated green hues in the digital original to compensate for the transfer process to analog film stock which was less sensitive to green. When Disney transferred the movies to digital formats and streaming, they took the digital original 1:1, so the colors now look off (https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-toy-story-you-...)
Through work I once got into conversation with the guy who did the re-mastering into 96kHz of the ABBA back catalogue. Up until that point CD re-releases of their material was apparently all converted from the cassette masters where they'd massively exaggerated the HF to compensate for the fact that cassette had a notoriously terrible HF response...
A few years back I had the sudden realization that I'd upgraded all my video equipment to HD and then 4k, but hadn't really done anything with my audio. So I went out and got nice equipment (Nice DAC, Headphones, Speakers, Etc).
One of the first things I learned once I could hear music properly was that I had favorite "versions" of different albums. They truly are NOT created equally, but it's not something you can really appreciate on a crummy Bluetooth headset either. Once you can you really start to appreciate the work that folks like your friend do.
> Once you can you really start to appreciate the work that folks like your friend do.
That can be a real double edged sword.
When you realise how good things can be it means many of the everyday/average things can become intolerable.
I'm happy that I've got slightly dodgy eyesight in that I don't really care whether something is in HD or 4K (I can still tell if my wife has selected the SD version of a TV channel, and I'm still way above the minimum standard to be able to drive).
I'm also happy I didn't inherit my father's audiophile hearing. I can do blind listening tests of different bits of audio equipment and barely hear the difference between them whilst my father (even in his 80's) can provide a whole list of things that are wrong/better/different about each of them (and he's not just making stuff up).
The biggest test is that I can also drink most supermarket instant coffee without complaint. I've got some friends that walk 25 minutes each way to their favourite coffee vendor multiple times a day as "everything closer is awful", but then that's more about them having a nice routine to get them away from their desk.
> The biggest test is that I can also drink most supermarket instant coffee without complaint.
I was the same way for years and appreciated it but unfortunately I did start to treat myself more and it's hard to go back, but my financial situation is also much better. I think it's valuable to stick with the lowest sufferable quality of something until you have the ability to meaningfully upgrade or improve upon it.
I also spent quite a bit of time with some quite well known mastering engineers in a former career - many of them talked about the pressure to produce "loud" masters for CD, but how they were given much more creative freedom for vinyl releases.
Hearing the two masters side by side on some incredible speakers really gave me an appreciation for how different 'versions' of an album can transform the experience of the music.
Tangent as you mentioned boosted high frequencies on tapes...
It's possible (likely) that those prerecorded cassettes had boosted high frequencies because they were intended to be played on a deck that supports Dolby B noise reduction, and will do the reverse operation to get the level back to where it's supposed to be.
Dolby B noise reduction didn't actually reduce noise at the source. Instead:
- During recording: Boost the volume of high frequencies (where tape hiss is most audible)
- During playback: Apply the inverse.
When you reduce the treble during playback, you're reducing the hiss along with it, but the original signal (which was boosted before) ends up at the intended level. This improves the signal-to-noise ratio in the high frequencies.
This is similar to the RIAA equalization curve used for vinyl records.
- During mastering: Reduce bass, boost treble.
- During playback:The RIAA phono preamp applies the inverse curve—boosting bass and reducing treble.
IIRC the reasons for the RIAA curve aren't just about improving signal-to-noise ratio, but something about the physical limits of vinyl.
Part of the reason this one is news is that there's really zero excuse for it being done "on the cheap": HBO can afford the very best, and their reputation kiiiind of depends on it.
What happened to the early Pixar movies isn't at all the same, though. They weren't remastered, they were just transferred to a media that they were not originally mastered for.
I think you're ill-informed. The Pixar movies were re-rendered completely. They did not take a 35mm negative, or an old file, to transfer it. Pixar has the ability to load the Toy Story project files, and use the current version of RenderMan to make a new final version. It's completely unique among the industry.
But IIRC there was some color grading gaffe because the original colors were precompensated for film ( they originally filmed the renders ) - but this lead to oversaturation and color changes in the digital renders. So in some way they did meet a similar fate.
Absolutely, but OP was thinking of colours being messed up because of a format transfer.
They would have needed to look at the 35mm negative of Toy Story from '95, picked up the colours from there to then put an intermediate colour correction step. They didn't do it, which is a shame. We lost artistic intent.
That's not at all what I'm talking about. I know it's confusing because I used the word "transferred," but if you don't put your own misunderstanding into my statement, you'll notice that I didn't say from a 35mm negative. It's just a complete transfer of the frames as they were meant for film but crucially, not from film, into a digital file.
And notably, there's some dissent there that the modern Disney/Pixar versions are wrong (there's an arbitrariness to scanners, plus no particularly objective recordings of what you'd actually see at theaters back then) IIUC.
So odd that they didn't slap a film emulation on top of that. Although maybe not any existing software emulates exactly the film stock they used, any film emulation would look more true than a 1:1.
