Tim:. You said that your company has restored the Roy Rogers movies as well as the Hoppy ones. What process did you use to restore the films? Were the original negatives decaying? How much change will a real fan notice in the movies and shows?
Mr Rosenthal: The biggest part of the restoration was to find the best material possible to make the transfer. Requirements: Where possible 35mm Fine Grains (the material to reproduce negatives for mass printing) Second: To find material that was complete (Not edited as much of the Republic films are) Films had been edited for television to 54 or 56 minutes. Whereas their true running time could be anything from 65 to 70 minutes.
Material was sent to a restoration Lab to clean and make any repairs necessary to run the material through a telecine projector. On the Roy Rogers material it was taken to a lab in Atlanta, GA to run through a "wet-gate" to try to eliminate any scratches. (This is a liquid process outlawed in California and many other states due to environmental reasons.)
On the Hoppy's we were lucky that the original nitrate had not broken down. There were some reels that had to be destroyed because of deterioration.
We transferred the material at PAL (626 lines) standard digital which gave a higher resolution image. Then came back to NTSC (525 line). This seemed to give the image a punch. Sound was also an issue since gray scales do deteriorate and most of the sound track was done in what is called "variable density"... in some instances when played the sound was muffled. These tracks were rebuilt by a company in Burbank California that used computers.
On the Hoppy's we went through "Digital Restoration" to take out flaws (scratches, flashes, etc.} The technology did not come into itself until the second year of work. Each scene was matched to the next. Actually the versions now available are better than what was seen in theaters.
Tim: What other restorations have you undertaken?
Mr Rosenthal: We will be releasing four more titles (full length)both DVD and VHS Roy Rogers this fall. We are working on the 1/2 hour made for television series of the Hoppys Eight Hoppy titles have been released from our work on DVD by Image Ent. And eight more are in the works.
