Comment by postalcoder

Comment by postalcoder 8 hours ago

I think the entire premise of the article should be challenged. Not only is 35mm not meant to be canonical, but the 35mm scans the author presented are not what we saw, at least for Aladdin.

I've watched Aladdin more than any as a child and the Blu-ray screenshot is much more familiar to me than the 35mm scan. Aladdin always had the velvia look.

> Early home releases were based on those 35 mm versions.

Here's the 35mm scan the author presents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuhNnovKXLA

Here's the VHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpJB7YJEjD8

sersi 8 hours ago

Famously CRT TVs didn't show as much magenta so in the 90s home VHS releases compensated by cranking up the magenta so that it would be shown correctly on the TVs of the time. It was a documented practice at the time.

So, yes the VHS is expected to have more magenta.

Anecdotally, I remember watching Aladdin at the movie theatre when it came out and later on TV multiple times and the VHS you saw doesn't correspond to my memories at all.

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postalcoder 8 hours ago

The author here is asserting that VHS were based on the 35mm scans, and that the oversaturation is a digital phenomena. Clearly, that's not true.
I can't challenge the vividness of your memory. That's all in our heads. I remember it one way, and you remember it another.

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- sersi 7 hours ago
  
  For sure, the author simplified things for the article. Anyway, in the case of VHS, they were indeed based on the 35mm scan but then had additional magenta added (as well as pan and scan to change the aspect ratio).
  The author is not wrong that oversaturation is a source transfer phenomena (which will always be different unless special care is taken to compare with the source material).
  On most TVs that magenta wouldn't have shown as much as the youtube video shows because TVs tended to have weaker magentas. Of course, it's not like TVs were that uniformly calibrated back then and there were variations between TVs. So depending on the TV you had, it might have ended up having too much magenta but that would have usually been with more expensive and more accurate TVs.
  TLDR: Transfers are hard, any link in the chain can be not properly calibrated, historically some people in charge of transferring from one source to another compensated for perceived weak links in the chain.
  
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  postalcoder 7 hours ago
  
  The magenta thing is interesting. I learned something new. Reading the other comments, this is seems to be as much a tale of color calibration as much as anything.
  Regarding my memory, it becomes shakier the more I think about it. I do remember the purples but me having watched the cartoon could have affected that.
  
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