How to scan films that were released at 1.85:1 for the theater

[Onti]

Full Frame or just scan the area that was screened? Take a look at this:

When a film goes through the Digital Intermediate process, it is quite common to only scan the actual part of the negative that will be screened. So for a 1.85:1 widescreen film, that's what is scanned. Of course this removes the possibility of reframing for 4x3 TV afterwards - but there aren't any hard and fast rules yet.
The reason for doing this is simply to do with scanning speeds and data storage. With a full frame of 35mm taking up to 12 Mbytes (that's just at 2K, at 4K it's nearly 50Mbytes), a full feature runs into a couple of Terabytes. You can slice several hundred Gbytes off your storage requirement if you only scan the widesreen area. Of course that will give you the same effect as having a hard mask in the camera - black on the final print above and below the projected area.

https://cinematography.com/index.php?/fo...bout-1851/

I often see around here that films that were shown in theaters at 1.85:1 are scanned full frame and I don’t know the reason. If you want to get a final image with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, can a full frame scan be used for this?

[spoRv]

Well, if you scan full frame, you can always crop to 1.85:1 (or whatever AR you like); but if you scan cropped, it would not be possible to get back full frame, unless you scan it again... does it really worth to NOT scan full frame? I don't think so.

[deleted user]

What spoRv said. Also it's exciting to see the extra image.

From what I heard, some companies also scan only the 1.85:1 area because that allows them to scan it at a higher resolution due to limits imposed by the used cameras. Say you scan at 24 fps, the camera may only be able to deliver so and so many lines at that speed. So say you have 2000 lines you can get. You can then either have the entire image fit within those 2000 lines or you can use all 2000 lines for the image you actually want to use. Now, 2000 lines is more than enough either way, you could argue, but who knows what they had available years ago. I think I heard somewhere that the X-Files remaster was a 1080p scan, and that's for the entire image before cropping anything away and such. Plus, if you're not doing a 3-flash scan, you want a bit more resolution than your final delivery since the camera will use a bayer pattern, reducing the effective resolution.

Plus, today 4K remasters are all the hype. So you want to have (more than) enough to be sharp enough for a 4K image.

Anyway, none of these things are important to me personally. I'd rather have the extra image over a little bit extra sharpness. And it's not like these fan restorations are from original negatives. They're from theatrical prints which aren't all that sharp anyway.

[Onti]

So, this would be the most appropriate procedure?:

1. Scan (full frame)

2. Crop to 1920x1080 (1.78:1)

3. Add black bars (1.85:1)

But if you scan a 35 mm print at 2K (2048×1080 pixels) and you must crop all the borders, the result is not smaller than the desired 1920x1080? Or when you scan at 2k the result is a higher resolution?

I thought the point of a full frame scan was to get only a film in their open matte aspect ratio and never crop afterwards to 1.78:1 or 1.85:1.

[spoRv]

Appropriate procedure IMHO:

1. decided which resolution to use: 2K, 4K, 6K etc.
   
2. scan the full frame (with or without optical audio tracks)
   
3. scale back to final resolution (1080p, 2160p)
   
4. crop eventually for 1.78:1, 1.85, or other AR
   

it will be pointless to crop for 1.78:1 and then add back black bars to get 1.85:1 if you would not use the 1.78:1; it could be useful though if you want both 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 - even if, if you have the full frame scans in your hands you could get whatever you want, whenever you want.

[Valeyard]

Full Frame or just scan the area that was screened? Take a look at this:

When a film goes through the Digital Intermediate process, it is quite common to only scan the actual part of the negative that will be screened. So for a 1.85:1 widescreen film, that's what is scanned. Of course this removes the possibility of reframing for 4x3 TV afterwards - but there aren't any hard and fast rules yet.
The reason for doing this is simply to do with scanning speeds and data storage. With a full frame of 35mm taking up to 12 Mbytes (that's just at 2K, at 4K it's nearly 50Mbytes), a full feature runs into a couple of Terabytes. You can slice several hundred Gbytes off your storage requirement if you only scan the widesreen area. Of course that will give you the same effect as having a hard mask in the camera - black on the final print above and below the projected area.

https://cinematography.com/index.php?/fo...bout-1851/

I often see around here that films that were shown in theaters at 1.85:1 are scanned full frame and I don’t know the reason. If you want to get a final image with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, can a full frame scan be used for this?

That's a very, very, old and outdated thread.

Yes traditionally telecines and early digital film scanners only scanned the image area with little-to-no overscan available. You were limited by the slow data transfer rates of the time, storage space, as well as the horizontal resolution of the line-sensor and so-on.

With today's tech you scan the whole thing:



Standard 5K scan.

Open/save the image to see full res.

[Stamper]

There is one thing lost in time for 1.85:1 films though, it's that some sequences or shots could have been readjusted by the DoP or the Director when doing the final cut, but once these people are gone (or they forgot due to being busy doing films year in, year out), a straight 1.77:1 scan could be misframed in some places. See Back to the Future fail on DVD.

It's even worse for Super 35, see how awkward T2 now looks in many shots, due to Cameron and Adam Greenberg having forgotten the choices they made in the flurry of finishing the movie.

They say they used reference prints, but none of the framings match the prints I have seen over the years (including the french VHS which is a print).

So yes, scanning the whole frame would be prefered!

[Onti]

Appropriate procedure IMHO:

1. decided which resolution to use: 2K, 4K, 6K etc.
   
2. scan the full frame (with or without optical audio tracks)
   
3. scale back to final resolution (1080p, 2160p)
   
4. crop eventually for 1.78:1, 1.85, or other AR
   

it will be pointless to crop for 1.78:1 and then add back black bars to get 1.85:1 if you would not use the 1.78:1; it could be useful though if you want both 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 - even if, if you have the full frame scans in your hands you could get whatever you want, whenever you want.

What software do you use for steps 3 and 4?

But aren't 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 the same thing with the only difference being the black bars? I would like to understand that since, for example, David Cronenberg wants some of his films to be released only in 1.78:1 and never in 1.85:1.

Suppose I want create a Blu-ray. The Blu-ray resolution is 1920x1080 (1.78:1 without bars), let’s say I have the hard drive with the raw scan files. Files like this:

Standard 5K scan.

I thought it was always necessary to crop for 1.78:1 first and add black bars later. Can you tell me how can I crop, for ezample, that 5k scan straight to 1.85:1?

[spoRv]

- scale back to final resolution (1080p, 2160p)

use whatever you deem appropriate - I usually use avisynth, but the resize methods it uses are available in many other softwares, along with many others... YMMV!

- crop eventually for 1.78:1, 1.85, or other AR

as before; let's say you have 1080p 1.78:1, and you want to get 1.85:1: just crop 20px from top and 20px from bottom, then add back the same 20px "slices" of black borders - or, better, leave it alone, and if you want/must watch it 1.85:1, let the player overlay the borders on the picture.

About you last question: ff you crop that scan, that is 2.39:1, to 1.85:1, you would end with left and/or right side cropped... what's the point?!?

[Onti]

I don’t understand. I will explain myself.

I’ve found this 4K frame:



https://fanrestore.com/thread-3478-page-4.html

CASE 1

Why scale back before cropping the frame? If I scale back to 1080p the resolution will be 1920x1080 but I must crop the borders (that's why I asked if only part of the frame is scanned). In that case the resolution will be, for example, 1139x921



CASE 2

Suppose I cropped the 4K frame first. The resolution will be, for example, 2287x1814



Now, I open Final Cut - New Project 1920x1080), I drag the frame to the timeline, (the frame shows now two big black bars both sides) double click on it. Then I go to Motion - Scale.

Case 1 - Scale (160) to make the black bars (both sides) disappear
Case 2 - Scale (85) to make the black bars (both sides) disappear

Now, I have the 1.78:1 AR. But in both cases (much less in Case 2) I must upscale to 1080p? In that case, I imagine I’m loosing quality. Is this the way it should be done? That's why I was wondering if there is any software to crop the 4K image straight to 1.78:1 without scaling afterwards.