Oz color difference

[Penthode]

No one answered my original question: what were the original sources? Obviously they were not from the CD. And as it has been cited above, no two DVDs are alike.

[Eric H]

OK, here's my version, full 1080p on a 2 year old Plasma.
Probably should have used a Tripod to avoid the pincushion at the bottom but I didn't want to dig it out.

[stromberg6]

Originally Posted by Penthode

No one answered my original question: what were the original sources? Obviously they were not from the CD. And as it has been cited above, no two DVDs are alike.

Are you asking about the sources for each release in the various formats mentioned? or the sources that the responders have used in their posts. My source is mentioned in a previous post, a "bonus" DVD that came with the DeLuxe Robin Hood release. The problems with my CTC-4 screen shots are obvious, and the other shots are also interesting, in that no two seem to be the same, allowing, of course, for the differences in the displays used for the shots.
I thank YOU and all others for the info posted, as it seems to indicate that the phrase "Never Twice the Same color" is true to the bitter end .
BTW, Ingrid is also over-saturated, but I doubt that anyone cares about THAT screen shot haha.

[colorfixer]

James,

What source did they use in the early 80's to transfer the film to home video (before they cared about quality) or before for broadcast? Did they simply recycle an old working negative from the 50's? I thought that they didn't touch the 3 strip negative until they did the restoration and subsequent modern re-release?

My uncle was a projectionist from the 50's to the early 80's used to curse the day they stopped using IB prints. He claimed that there wasn't an Eastmancolor print he liked and he hated the prints even more the older they got. Heck, he resisted Xenon lighting until forced to stop carbon arc.

Are there any surviving '39 IB prints still around in any condition?

It's really a shame that a kid today going to a cinema will likely never see real film grain on the screen.

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by colorfixer

James,
What source did they use in the early 80's to transfer the film to home video (before they cared about quality) or before for broadcast? Did they simply recycle an old working negative from the 50's?

In the 1940's to the mid-1980's most local TV stations aired from a 16mm print. Most network aired from a 35mm print. Video mastering was mostly the same as soon as it came along.

Originally Posted by colorfixer

Did they simply recycle an old working negative from the 50's? I thought that they didn't touch the 3 strip negative until they did the restoration and subsequent modern re-release?

I'm speaking in general and of no specific title, but starting in the 1990's they started mastering from copy negatives and interpositives which are the things they normally use to make copy negatives.

Usually, unless they were planning a theatrical reissue, the originals were never touched. Doing that is simply too risky.

Originally Posted by colorfixer

My uncle was a projectionist from the 50's to the early 80's used to curse the day they stopped using IB prints. He claimed that there wasn't an Eastmancolor print he liked and he hated the prints even more the older they got. Heck, he resisted Xenon lighting until forced to stop carbon arc.

I humbly agree with you uncle! There are still a few theaters still running carbon arc, today. At least he got out of the business prior to the switch to polyester prints, which really caused many a projectionist to lose his cool.

Originally Posted by colorfixer

Are there any surviving '39 IB prints still around in any condition?

Probably not on "The Wizard of Oz" as this was just a routine picture that failed to make a profit until it hit TV in Color. but on other titles, yes some still survive. I've seen clips from a first run "Gone with the Wind" print in a private collection. On the earlier two color Technicolor, prints from about 1924 survive.

Originally Posted by colorfixer

It's really a shame that a kid today going to a cinema will likely never see real film grain on the screen.

Unfortunate, but true. Photochemical photography is almost dead. In most cities in the US today, there is no way to see a motion picture being projected, as they have all gone to digital.

James

[colorfixer]

Originally Posted by earlyfilm

I humbly agree with you uncle! There are still a few theaters still running carbon arc, today. At least he got out of the business prior to the switch to polyester prints, which really caused many a projectionist to lose his cool.

My uncle was forced out of the biz when the big theatre chains (all of 2 at the time) decided they didn't like the projectionist unions and locked everyone out. Any decent single screen house was shuttered soon after. Heck, where I live now, we don't even have a decent large screen venue capable of showing 70mm.

All the mega-omni-uberplexes that run up here today are xenon and are all digital. Gone are the craftpeople that kept the stuff running and cared what the image on the screen looked like, replaced by a kid that seldom, if ever even cleans the optics or even the projection booth windows. I can't watch films in the theatre, the simple projection issues prevent me from enjoying the show.

[colorfixer]

From Wikipedia's article on Oz:

"It was also very common (and even an FCC requirement for early color broadcasters) for TV stations to turn off the color portion of their transmission when broadcasting a black and white show or movie. This was because unusual colors or "color noise" could be seen during the showing of black-and-white programming under some conditions. Though the opening Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz were meant to be shown in sepia and though the sepia was restored to the film in 1989 for the film's 50th anniversary VHS and laserdisc reissue, a few local CBS affiliates still showed the sepia portion of the film with the color signal disabled for many years.[citation needed] Most of these were small market affiliates that ran some syndicated black-and-white shows as these stations were used to turning the color modes off during black-and-white programming. One CBS affiliate, WGNX, transmitted the opening Kansas scenes in black and white as recently as its 1996 showing because this station was an independent station that ran a moderate number of black-and-white films before becoming a CBS affiliate.

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by colorfixer

From Wikipedia's article on Oz:

"It was also very common (and even an FCC requirement for early color broadcasters) for TV stations to turn off the color portion of their transmission when broadcasting a black and white show or movie. This was because unusual colors or "color noise" could be seen during the showing of black-and-white programming under some conditions.

The FCC finally ended the practice of turning off burst for B&W programs in the early 1980s because the broadcast studio TV gear being manufactured then required the incoming signal to contain "sync coherent subcarrier". This means that the color subcarrier and the sync signal had to be locked together and mathematically related or the equipment would not pass the video signal. To broadcast a B&W film, I devised a way to turn off the I and Q video in the filmchain camera while still leaving the color burst on in the monochrome video output. This way the color shading problems in the filmchain camera were not visible to the viewers with color sets.
Cliff

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by cbenham

...To broadcast a B&W film, I devised a way to turn off the I and Q video in the filmchain camera while still leaving the color burst on in the monochrome video output. This way the color shading problems in the filmchain camera were not visible to the viewers with color sets.
Cliff

Bless you!

By the way, is there a problem with your personal email? I copied you on a couple of things recently and saw no response.

[old_tv_nut]

"Unusual colors" would include the generally poor shading of vidicon telecine chains.
Analog cable/satellite systems later got excellent black and white transfers of some syndicated programs (e.g., "Father Knows Best") but left the burst on, resulting in strong cross-color on fabrics and other fine detail. If I had watched those more, I would have been one of I'd guess a handful of people who would bother turning down the color on the receiver to get rid of it. This practice gave the only purpose I have ever thought of for having a color control that goes all the way to zero.

[stromberg6]

The "I Love Lucy" re-runs on Hallmark channel show the slight green tint of the prints, which helped accent the contrast when run in B/W camera chains. I used to turn off the chroma, but it now I don't care about it. I agree that some B/W prints are very sharp, and some are still as entertaining as when first shown.
I'm now looking for a decent 21 inch B/W set, mid to late 50s, to add to the collection so I can view B/w material without using a color set. An in-law has a 1957 RCA in his barn, but the CRT has to be OK, or no deal lol.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by stromberg6

I'm now looking for a decent 21 inch B/W set, mid to late 50s, to add to the collection so I can view B/w material without using a color set. ... but the CRT has to be OK, or no deal lol.

Mine has a weak CRT, here it has a brightner.

[W3XWT]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Mine has a weak CRT, here it has a brightner.

Seeing that set brought back childhood memories... my paternal grandmother had one of those.

[Eric H]

The latest restoration of The Wizard was done from a 1939 Nitrate print "and scanned digitally at 8K resolution":

http://thefilmstage.com/features/wiz...ration-report/

The earlier restoration was done from a fine grain master that was duped from the original negative in 1960, the original negatives were lost in a fire in 1970.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/dec98/wizard/pgs1.htm

To say the color from this old film is amazing would be a major understatement!

[old_tv_nut]

Since this has been the heaviest discussion of Technicolor lately, please let me divert it a bit:

I hoped to measure the dye transmissions on a "YCM" leader frame of Ed Reitan's 16mm copy of "La Cucaracha," which he provided for the Early TV Convention. Unfortunately, there was only one frame, which we couldn't still-frame to measure.

If anyone reading this forum has a frame or two of YCM leader they could donate for mounting in a 35mm slide mount, I could do the measurements, and put some numbers and diagrams to the color range of the dyes.