How can movies from 70s be remastered in 4K, but not sports games?

Question

For example, they remastered Taxi Driver from 1976 to 4K Quality, but they can’t remaster Lakers vs Celtics from the 80s?

In: Technology

Answer 1

The biggest issue is the media used to preserve the event.

Sporting events are shot with the goal of quick production influence to be aired almost immediately. So usually electromagnetic tape is the media of choice to capture the event. Similar to recording something audio on a cassette tape, that is the best reproduction you’ll ever be able to work from.

Now a Hollywood film that was likely recorded on true film negatives, have a much higher quality original source media to go back to. As technology improves, better reproductions of those negatives can be made and distributed.