Monday, 9 October 2017

Rebecca (1940)

Criterion blu-ray booklet:
The soundtrack was remastered from the original soundtrack negative at Chace by Deluxe in Burbank and restored by Disney Digital Studio Services. Additional restoration was performed by the Criterion Collection using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX.
The soundtrack was indeed newly transferred for the new restoration, and it sounds like a better analog source was used. Recall that the 2012 MGM blu-ray (and the 2008 MGM DVD) are heavily noise-reduced, and the older Prism Leisure Corp DVD presents that same source without any hiss reduction. But the new Chace track is clearly from a better source that sounds much less thin and tinny.

However, the additional restoration done by Criterion manages to make a significant portion of the Prism DVD sound better. Female dialogue in particular sounds muffled and closeted in the Criterion, whereas it's detailed and immediate (and unfortunately also thinner) in the Prism DVD.

Fortunately, Carlotta will be releasing the same 4K restoration as part of their upcoming Hitchcock box set, to be released in November. On that page is a clip of the restored Rebecca without any additional filtering and it sounds much better than the Criterion blu-ray.

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