... The Godfather DVD collection is in dire need of an upgrade. It was decent enough before but for todays standards the excessive grain, speck and dirt is sticking out like a sore thumb.
The Godfather DVD Trilogy was a bad print on DVD even when this DVD set was first released in 2001.
However, since I've seen the Godfather home videos from VHS to Laserdisc to DVD, I was very impressed with the DVD version because it's the best home video version of the Godfather that I had ever seen. Still, the DVD picture quality was still bad compared to other titles, even by prevailing standards in 2001.
The reason was because the original negatives were in pretty bad shape. A photochemical restoration was needed fast, because according to Coppola himself, the negatives were about to dissolve. Unfortunately, Paramount was not willing to pay for the restoration bill, which would supposedly cost millions of dollars.
The good news is that with Steven Spielberg's intervention, the restoration plans finally pushed through. Rumor has it that the restoration job has already been completed, so they now have a photochemically restored print fit for preservation.
An April 4, 2008 post on The Digital Bits Rumor Mill says:
We can, in fact, confirm that The Godfather Trilogy has indeed been restored, and that our very own Robert A. Harris was involved in the project - a project backed by director Francis Ford Coppola and even Steven Spielberg no less. http://www.thedigitalbits.com/rumormill.html#040408No official announcement yet from Paramount.
On Home Theater Forum, they're talking about 4k (4096 x 2048 resolution) digital transfers of the trilogy :
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/ht-software-high-definition/269662-godfather-4k.htmlIf this is true, then the studios are probably predicting that 4k is going to be the next high end home video format. (See my Red-Ray post:
http://pinoydvd.com/board/index.php?topic=70470.msg800025#msg800025 )
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Back to topic...
What's the worst PQ in my collection?
The Godfather DVD Collection.