I know they were mostly filmed on video so it's not like film where they can get an upgrade easily.

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It's been great seeing them again on the music channels in the last few days, but on today's modern TV's they're not looking like they used to.

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So can they be improved? Will they be?

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It feels almost heartless to be making fan requests at a time like this, but I would love to see a boxset of all of his music videos from I Wanna Be Your Lover right through to Breakfast Can Wait (that was the last official music video, was it not?).

MattyJam said:

It feels almost heartless to be making fan requests at a time like this, but I would love to see a boxset of all of his music videos from I Wanna Be Your Lover right through to Breakfast Can Wait (that was the last official music video, was it not?).

The WB lyric videos from AOA I believe would be his last official ones. But what he has in the vault is anyone's guess.

The answer is not straight forward. It is a mixture of 'yes', 'no' and 'maybe'.

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Early videos were recorded on 16 or S16mm film and then transfered to tape for editing. I've been involved in 35mm productions (like Natalie Imbruglia's Torn), but it can be a lot more expensive.

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Early videos would have been edited and mastered onto U-matic tape. As time moves on the process evolved into ferous oxide beta tapes, then digi beta tapes and finally digital formats.

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So as you can see mastering onto tape in the 80s and 90s has it's limitations. It would be technically impossible to go back to the film source to re-composite the master as the original EDL (edit decision list) would need to exist. Even then this would be technically tough to do.

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In the 90s when editors were using digital compositing machines, such as the Quantel Harry, you would still need all of the software components to remaster. This would be near impossible.

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The only option would be to go back to the original tape master, digitise it, and to then digitally clean up any imperfections. BUT you will never make a blu-ray quality video out of something that was only an early broadcast quality.

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This is something I was involved with during the re-release of 1999 in (of course) 1999.

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We got from Warners in the USA the original tape master of 1999. We took a new "dub master" from the original, cleaning it up as much as possible along the way.

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So in Europe in 1999/2000, when you saw 1999 being shown, you would have seen the new cleaned up shiny version.

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Hope this explains a little.

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darkroman said:

The answer is not straight forward. It is a mixture of 'yes', 'no' and 'maybe'.

.

Early videos were recorded on 16 or S16mm film and then transfered to tape for editing. I've been involved in 35mm productions (like Natalie Imbruglia's Torn), but it can be a lot more expensive.

.

Early videos would have been edited and mastered onto U-matic tape. As time moves on the process evolved into ferous oxide beta tapes, then digi beta tapes and finally digital formats.

.

So as you can see mastering onto tape in the 80s and 90s has it's limitations. It would be technically impossible to go back to the film source to re-composite the master as the original EDL (edit decision list) would need to exist. Even then this would be technically tough to do.

.

In the 90s when editors were using digital compositing machines, such as the Quantel Harry, you would still need all of the software components to remaster. This would be near impossible.

.

The only option would be to go back to the original tape master, digitise it, and to then digitally clean up any imperfections. BUT you will never make a blu-ray quality video out of something that was only an early broadcast quality.

.

This is something I was involved with during the re-release of 1999 in (of course) 1999.

.

We got from Warners in the USA the original tape master of 1999. We took a new "dub master" from the original, cleaning it up as much as possible along the way.

.

So in Europe in 1999/2000, when you saw 1999 being shown, you would have seen the new cleaned up shiny version.

.

Hope this explains a little.

.

Fantastic response. Thanks for that.

Happy to helps.

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The copies they have been showing here in the UK are terrible.