Somewhere in Time has turned up as a 4K UHD preorder, which for a 1980 catalogue title with a following this devoted is not a small thing. What has not turned up is any word on where the picture is coming from. No mention of a new scan, no note on who graded it, no extras list, nothing about the audio beyond whatever ends up on the back of the box.
That is the whole gamble with catalogue 4K. A fresh scan off the original negative and a careful HDR pass can make a forty-five year old film look like the day it was shot. An upscale of the master they made for the last Blu-ray, with the contrast pushed to justify the badge, looks worse than the disc you already own and costs more. From the outside those two releases are the same preorder page.
This one carries an extra risk. My memory of the film is that it is soft and heavily diffused on purpose, all warm haze and glow around the highlights. HDR can go one of two ways with photography like that. Handled well it finally gives that halation somewhere to breathe. Handled badly it turns diffusion into a grey smear and drags noise up out of the shadows that nobody was ever meant to see.
I will preorder it anyway, which is exactly the behaviour that lets studios keep announcing these with no information attached. Has anyone seen a restoration credit for this yet, or are we all going in blind until the first screenshots leak?
That is the whole gamble with catalogue 4K. A fresh scan off the original negative and a careful HDR pass can make a forty-five year old film look like the day it was shot. An upscale of the master they made for the last Blu-ray, with the contrast pushed to justify the badge, looks worse than the disc you already own and costs more. From the outside those two releases are the same preorder page.
This one carries an extra risk. My memory of the film is that it is soft and heavily diffused on purpose, all warm haze and glow around the highlights. HDR can go one of two ways with photography like that. Handled well it finally gives that halation somewhere to breathe. Handled badly it turns diffusion into a grey smear and drags noise up out of the shadows that nobody was ever meant to see.
I will preorder it anyway, which is exactly the behaviour that lets studios keep announcing these with no information attached. Has anyone seen a restoration credit for this yet, or are we all going in blind until the first screenshots leak?
