As I have mentioned several times in the past, Interstella was released in theaters at the time, and even screened at Cannes Film Festival.
So, what about these masters / prints ?
No one seems to have any information.
There's no official info on the loss/condition of masters, neither on the fact that it's AI upscale (even though the question of mentioning the use of AI is highly topical today...).
Anyway, Interstella has already been released in cinemas.
So, not sure it was necessary to do this horrible thing.
Also, I understand that AI can be used when masters are longer available/usable for true remastering. IMO it's the only legitimate use for AI upscaling (which is also of course an unhoped new commercial opportunity to make inexpensive *HD* versions & sell it while waiting to truly remaster later).
But in the end, the concern remains that AI upscaling should only be used if the existing SD masters are *clean enough*.
Cause an AI upscale is never perfect, and always generates aberrations.
And here, clearly, they've used a crappy master, so the result of the AI upscale is even crappier.
The prints would probably still be SD, just blown up (see also most indie films that shot on DV and then printed to film like 28 Days Later). Probably the only thing a film print would potentially fix is the interlacing issues that plague every home video release if it was transferred at 24fps.
Even from a rough source, I still feel like you could've done a better job given your prior experiments/experience than what ever happened in those stills.
I wouldn't even attempt upscaling it until I had the film fully retimed which judging by this rather detailed GitHub page documenting the available home video sources, might actually mean re-animating frames that are missing due to the poor PAL conversion. https://github.com/sttng/Interstella5555
Wow, they screwed the pooch on ever having a good version of it without throwing tons of money at it (though, it's Daft Punk. If they told fans it'd have to be fully re-animated in 4K, they'd make their cash back 100 fold. There's a generation of House music that exists solely because of that film.)
Indeed you can feel that Interstella is not a feature & had production/NTSC/PAL/conversion/whatever issues.
I just wonder if they used here the *least worst* master, if it wouldn't be better to screen the old cinema master again (or use another AI upscale model, less *violent* on the lines ;-\).
Comments
So, what about these masters / prints ?
No one seems to have any information.
Maybe is only digital.
Anyway, Interstella has already been released in cinemas.
So, not sure it was necessary to do this horrible thing.
Cause an AI upscale is never perfect, and always generates aberrations.
And here, clearly, they've used a crappy master, so the result of the AI upscale is even crappier.
I just wonder if they used here the *least worst* master, if it wouldn't be better to screen the old cinema master again (or use another AI upscale model, less *violent* on the lines ;-\).