(no subject)

I wasn't arguing anything. I was just pointing out that I was referring to what studios do, not what happens in the non-profit world. If I had been arguing, I would have pointed out that the type of cleaning up that studios do on titles for DVD/home video release, and the work academia does on film restoration, are fundamentally different things that don't even belong in the same model. Academia, and UCLA in particular, is interested in preserving works that if not restored, will become lost. These are the type of public domain works where all that's left tends to be crumbling and you try to come up with a decent quality master by combining numerous elements sources. The work that studios do on remastered DVD releases is not to preserve endangered films, but rather, to create a higher-quality master using original negatives/interpositives. Most of the work usually involves fixing faded colors, removing marks in the negatives, redoing the audio and doing other minor clean-up. A good example of such work is the 2001 re-release of Superman the Movie, the quality of which blew away the previous VHS/laserdisc releases, particularly in the vibrancy of the color. UCLA is not going to "restore" a public domain picture like Royal Wedding, because it doesn't need restoring. The original interpositives reside in a temperature controlled vault in Colorado and are in relatively good shape. Nor, however, is anyone going to spend the money (usually around $200,000) it would require to prepare a new master from the original source materials and do the necessary clean up on the audio and video. Sure, there are some people who will spend the extra dollars for restored print, but not nearly enough to justify the cost.