Re: Human Nature @ Wembley Vevo/YT Premiere next week!!
Restoration cannot perform miracles, and this won't look as good as a umatic tape. But they had shown several snippets of the show throughout the documentary and the quality was exactly the same as what I saw in the TV Spot. So it's fairly safe to say that what's shown in the documentary is the final quality. Besides, I would never guess that what's being shown is a 24-year old VHS, thanks to the restoration. I would assume to be looking at a late 90s-early 2000s VHS that's been watched quite a lot. It's blurry, sure but the detail is there in the mid-shots and the close-ups.
A VHS is pretty much the lowest form of quality in the mainstream media food chain. It's extraordinarily difficult to restore and to restore well. If the format was anything but VHS, I'm certain that we could've gotten something more viewable. But we don't, and Branca confirmed that they have far less in terms of concert footage than the Estate initially thought they did. You're NOT going to enjoy this release if you keep on thinking that the quality is going to be better than what we've already seen. The documentary and the TV Spot are it; that's what we have, and that's what we're going to get. The sooner you accept that this release has one major limitation, the sooner you will truly enjoy it. I was put off by the quality at the beginning of Man in the Mirror, but after the first 10 or so seconds, I accepted that it is what it is and I quickly began to enjoy it greatly.
Again, restorations cannot perform miracles. If they could, Fritz Lang's Metropolis would be of the best quality films that have survived the silent era. But it's not. For a VHS, it looks great. But don't go into this expecting Bucharest quality, because you'll be disappointed.