For the experts - Bon Jovi videos in 4k

A time ago I saw Bon Jovi announce via twitter that some old videos were being "transformed" for 4k resolution. At the first time it meant nothing for me, until I stoped and watched LOAP video. And shocked me how much details I could see and how "alive" the image was looking, as if it had been filmed right now. A very great experience!

So, I was just wondering. If they can do this with the song's videos, would be possible do this with "Live from London" and "The Crush Tour" videos too? I mean, it would be truly amazing seeing those videos with so much details and quality.

I wanted to consider that they can do this with a lot of shows that are in their vault, but we know it's a very far far dream.

I swear there's the odd different shot here and there in that vid. It miles better than any of the other remasters and looks incredible

I guess it all depends on how it was recorded. If it was filmed with cinema cameras, you can scan the negative at 4k or even 8k and get a better transfer. Living on a Prayer Video 4k is the example.

But if they recorded with professional TV cameras from that time, they could not do it. There are programs with AI that can very well remaster images recorded with TV cameras to convert it in 1080p and 4k, but I don't think it works in 4k. At least not with those results.

Recently they remastered some Bon Jovi videos for youtube, like Its My Life in hd 1080p, well, they actually used an AI program and upscaling. The result is not as good as Living on a Prayer.

The good thing about the whole thing is that most videos (80s and maybe 90s) were filmed with cinema cameras. Live from London for example was filmed with 16mm cameras. So they could make a transfer in 4k. An evening with Bon Jovi is filmed with TV cameras, therefore I don't think it can be done, although it could be remastered with AI for a 1080p transfer... using AI programs.

Wow! Thanks a lot Rolo!

I saw that the It's my Life video was in 1080p and it's good, but nowhere near the LOAP.

You gave me hope for Live from London...Imagine a release with the full setlist and in 4K....

As far as I know, Bon Jovi doesn't own the material, so we'd have to rely on either the BBC or ABC (can't remember which company sent the film crew) to have kept the raw masters.

Livin' On A Prayer in 4K? this on youtube?

I watched "Livin' on a Prayer" in 4K and and looked great, even when watching on my phone! Before the 2nd chorus as it changed to colour, that's when the image really popped.

"It's My Life" looked decent but unlike "LoaP", it did look upscaled and was cropped to 16:9. There are some 4:3 section during the original video and the aspect ratio changes here and there, but considering most of the shots are in widescreen it's no big deal.

Can't wait to see more videos reuploaded in 4K, but unfortunately prettymuch anything from "It's My Life" onwards will be upscales and I presume they were originally shot digitally and therefore locked at 480p/1080p.

True. they zoomed. And sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease.

I don't know if Its My life was shot with cinema cameras, if someone has photos of the recording, maybe I could see the type of cameras they used. If they recorded with CINEALTA digital cameras, they could launch the video in 4k. Even in 8k, as long as the director took that option.

Sometimes that's true and as a purist I'm usually dead against things like this but like I say, only a small percentage of that video is in 4:3 it's not much of an issue. Plus if they maintained the aspect ratio for the entire video, most of it would be windowboxed for the sake of those few frames.

This almost makes me want a Blu Ray release (which 10-15 years ago would have been a day-1 purchase for me) but that won't happen now because of YouTube and I can't remember the last time I watched a music videos DVD.