You often hear the advertisement telling you that you need to buy the “new digitally remastered” version of your favourite movie or album. This is becoming increasingly common within the film and music industry. But what makes this new version different to the one you may already have? Is it worth the investment?

So what does remastering mean?

A master is the original copy of the audio or images which all further copies are made from. To remaster refers to the enhancement of sound and/or images of a previous recording, by making a “new” master copy of an album, movie or other media.

With the advent of digital audio, copies now made from the digital master don’t suffer the same “generational loss” that was typical with vinyl and film.

Remastering a new audio original allows sound engineers to alter audio levels, clean up any interference and imperfections expressed from worn out prints. Remastered films have their images “cleaned up”, by removing film dirt, and the colours “tweaked” to appear more vivid than they have become over generational copies.

A great example of a beloved film being remastered (The Wizard of Oz) is shown below.

Remastering can divide the opinions of experts and lay people in regard to whether it improves or interferes with the authenticity of the original sound and image. It is often a matter of personal taste. What do you think?

Wizard of Oz - Remastered

* upload reference: YouTube "fpm1979"