Disney's Botched "Restoration" of Cinderella (1950)

[Animaniac93-98]

The image found on Cinderella's 2012 Blu-ray release was taken from a restoration done at 2K resolution in 2005. This was shortly before Disney switched to doing restorations and scans at 4K resolution to improve their quality and retain fine detail. When viewed on a SD television the Cinderella DVD looked fine, but in HD it really shows how much of the line art and effects animation was scrubbed away either by computer or human error. I've seen comparisons with the 1995 laserdisc, but now we have a separate HD scan of a 35mm print to compare with, and the results are not pretty:

I hope one day Disney will go back and redo what was done almost 15 years ago. Disney spends 7-digit figures restoring their animated classics (more than most studios do on their titles) because they'll make it back in home media sales. For one as popular as Cinderella, it should look its best on any format.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The Sword in the Stone could also have been done better, but I think that one was more of a budget/time constraint issue. From Blu-ray.com's review:

"Terribly, almost shockingly soft -- to the point that many shots appear out of focus, blurry, or as if the line art is plagued by the sort of ghosting you might find in a poorly aligned 3D image -- with nary a showcase scene to be found, the film suffers the wrath of heavy handed remastering that features an unforgiving application of noise reduction...This isn't filmic softness, though; it's digital smearing, and it's some of the worst I've seen."

http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/8452_13_large.jpg

 

[Cesar R M]

The Sword in the Stone could also have been done better, but I think that one was more of a budget/time constraint issue. From Blu-ray.com's review:

"Terribly, almost shockingly soft -- to the point that many shots appear out of focus, blurry, or as if the line art is plagued by the sort of ghosting you might find in a poorly aligned 3D image -- with nary a showcase scene to be found, the film suffers the wrath of heavy handed remastering that features an unforgiving application of noise reduction...This isn't filmic softness, though; it's digital smearing, and it's some of the worst I've seen."

http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/8452_13_large.jpg

Thats awful. That almost looks like they just did a batch bicubic resolution change, applied softening, then emboss then sharpening.
Looks like pure filters instead of actually scanning at higher ers.

 

[PB Watermelon]

The image found on Cinderella's 2012 Blu-ray release was taken from a restoration done at 2K resolution in 2005. This was shortly before Disney switched to doing restorations and scans at 4K resolution to improve their quality and retain fine detail. When viewed on a SD television the Cinderella DVD looked fine, but in HD it really shows how much of the line art and effects animation was scrubbed away either by computer or human error. I've seen comparisons with the 1995 laserdisc, but now we have a separate HD scan of a 35mm print to compare with, and the results are not pretty:

I hope one day Disney will go back and redo what was done almost 15 years ago. Disney spends 7-digit figures restoring their animated classics (more than most studios do on their titles) because they'll make it back in home media sales. For one as popular as Cinderella, it should look its best on any format.

Cinderella wasn't "restored", Disney takes great care of their negatives and elements. Best in the industry, by and large. You're upset by the mastering of the image, with the boosted contrast and noise reduction software. Also, seeing as how Disney has shown no eagerness to revisit their masters of their animated titles, you're going to be stuck with the existing Cinderella master for a long time.