Entertainment

The Age of UK Sound Restorations may never be heralded. It will not go down with the Elizabethan Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution. This does not mean that UK sound restorations are not significant. On the contrary, they are innovations that will probably stay around long enough to cross over multiple eras instead of merely defining one.

UK Sound Restorations and Hitchs Steps
When I was younger and living in London, I was taken to see a British Film Institute revival screening of Alfred Hitchcocks 1935 classic, The Thirty-Nine Steps. The visual quality was fine, still crisp black and white. The audio, however, was ruinous. There were constant hisses, crackles and muffled dialogue. The sound deterioration completely destroyed the tension of the movie. By the time Robert Donat got to question the memory specialist, you had heard so much popping you would swear it all a promo for Orville Redenbacher.

This was slightly before the digital technology boom that helped push UK sound restorations into prominence, after which, a delicate and meticulous process was created. It included such steps as the remastering of original sources, dissecting and picking out each flaw for a fine tune polish and then a reassembling of scattered tracks into a new whole that was so fresh sounding, you could swear you were at a live stage play if you shut your eyes.

I saw part of The Thirty-Nine Steps on a classic movie TV station recently. The job that top-notch UK sound restorations had done on the picture would have gained praise from Hitchcock himself. It was new and vibrant with silent silences and thrilling bangs (when there was supposed to be bangs). It made me wonder if there was hope for my familys quavering home movies. I found a website describing techniques that British restorians use and realized that there was a lot of hope, indeed!