Warner Brothers cartoons being restored to 1080 HD after 80 years

Here is a severely damaged SD animation restored and re-mastered by Cartoon Renewal Studios to 1080 HD - far from perfect - but it really is "Star Trek" level AI Capability...
Skeleton Frolic 1937 1080HD remaster compare side by side to damaged SD Cartoon Renewal Studios 2021

 

Fantastic news the effort is being made. I think its best to hold up for a few more years on the AI front though. I use some similar software to clean up and up-res/denoise and sharpen photos. On the whole it works pretty well and sometimes its stunning. However, at times, like on that initial intro plate of the cartoon, it adds so much 'odd noise' it just distracts from the original. You can see areas where its just flat colour or simple image on the original and on the AI side it has just added all sorts of noise and lines all over it. Once you see it...you cannot unsee it. I've found that often applying just a fraction of the AI capability works far better than cranking it up, it's almost a picture by picture basis which would make a scene by scene basis a pain in the butt.

Might be best to go with the ones that work and leave the ones that 'get noisy' for 2025? Progress is so fast...

 

Thanks for sharing! This is the type of thing that really helps give people an idea of the scope of work and results. (And it’s fun to see the transition).

 

Mickey Mouse is an interesting case because the character is still under copyright protection, as are, I believe, any shorts in which he appears. I would imagine Disney diligently renewed their copyrights when required; and the law now no longer requires renewal, so the company is assured of the maximum length of protection under existing law. The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added 20 years to copyright protection, so Mickey Mouse won't enter the public domain until 2024 (and it's believed by many that when that date draws near, Disney will lobby hard for another extension through additional legislation -- not for nothing is the 1998 Act sometimes called the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act": Copyright Term Extension Act - Wikipedia).

It's common for rights holders to put a new copyright date on re-releases. With CD collections, for example, you will often see something like "This compilation (P) & (C) 2019," even if the original recordings are from the 1940s. Any new content that is created for the release itself, including the packaging, booklet, menus, commentary tracks, etc. justifies a new copyright date applicable to those new materials. It is a different question, however, whether restorations of older recordings justify new copyright dates. I should amend something I said above, having just done some additional research -- there actually now is a case on the question of whether remastering an old sound recording creates a new copyrightable work, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it does not: U.S. appeals court revives case against CBS over pre-1972 recordings | Reuters ("'A digitally remastered sound recording made as a copy of the original analog sound recording will rarely exhibit the necessary originality to qualify for independent copyright protection,' Circuit Judge Richard Linn wrote for a 3-0 panel.") In that case, the question arose in a rather convoluted way, as part of a defense against a claim brought under state law for royalties. (Sound recordings, or "phonorecords," published before February 15, 1972, are protected by state, rather than federal, law.) So arguably it's not the perfect case to rely on in claiming the issue to be settled. Still, IMO, it's the right answer, in keeping with the 1999 decision in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. - Wikipedia), which held that skillful, accurate reproductions of public-domain artworks are not entitled to copyright protection, as the key to determining whether a work is copyrightable is originality.

Interestingly, I just picked up my copy of the "Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume One," and on its base there is the following: "LOONEY TUNES and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and (C) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Program Compilation (C) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved." Conspicuously, there is no date provided, nor claim (that I can see) of copyright specific to each short.

 

"Falling Hare" has been available restored in HD for years (Platinum blu-ray v3 and now HBOMAX) in case you want to save yourself some time. In fact, looks like most of the shorts you've posted have been restored and released in HD over the past several years. Is it safe to assume you're using these restorations as a starting point? (Of the shorts you've posted, only "Fresh Hare" has not been publicly restored.) Just curious!

 

As a cartoonist, I say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
I hope you can also do all those classic SUPERMAN CARTOONS, and do you know if more of the LOONEY TUNES will be done in CGI, those are absolutely fantastic!

 

This is great!!! Looney Tunes are some of the best things in life. I love Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam....

 

This isn't true anymore. The Porky Archive set sold well enough to convince WB to release the new 80th Anniversary blu ray set. Now HBOMax is restoring the whole catalog. There really isn't a need for somebody to uprez a bunch of old WB video transfers other than maybe the Censored 11. Just be patient and everything will be up there for you to watch.

Derek

 

Man, there's compression artifacts up the ying-yang in the demo. I can't watch something that grungy. All the Disney stuff has been restored already (as far as I know); I did about 10 or 11 of them myself, including "Mickey's Trailer." I dunno about the Ub Iwerks cartoons; a lot of the smaller studios (Van Beuren, etc.) fell through the cracks. The Warner Bros. stuff was not a huge priority over there, but I think they did eventually get all 1000 of them done over the past 15 years, some restored more than once.

I don't think that's exactly true. I think all the cartoons were already restored and the files are just sitting on servers waiting to get released. What is true is that maybe HBOMax has agreed to actually take those cartoons and put them up for streaming -- but they were all done a long time ago by Warner Bros.' Motion Picture Imaging division over there in building 38 on the lot.

Believe me, if it were up to me, I'd say, "release a 50-volume Complete Warner Bros. Cartoons boxed set with 20 cartoons on each volume, and make it available on both DVD and Blu-ray, and make sure they all have complete titles and just a reasonable amount of processing done with good taste."

 

Do you think that’s because it’s a YouTube upload or part of the actual restoration that’s been performed? I’m admittedly not as well versed with video as I am with audio.

 

No, I'm seeing grunge on top of grunge. It looks to me like a cartoon ripped from DVD (already compressed) and then manipulated and uprezzed. Hard to get rid of the grunge.

 

Yeah, the term "restoration" doesn't really apply here - more upresed and tinkered with 480p copies of what's already available on the net. The WB toons he's posted are mostly existing restorations avail on Blu-ray or HBOMax. I applaud any and all attention given to the preservation and care of these films but yeah, this ain't it folks.