India, Nov. 30 -- When the first scene of Siva (1989), restored in 4K, hit the screens, it felt as if someone had transported the Nagarjuna classic into the modern day. The restoration, complete with renewed audio and video, was done for the film's grand theatrical re-release this year. "The new version of Siva is stunning. I was talking to Ramesh Sippy and told him that I'd love to hear the sound of the coin in Sholay in a new way! Since this is the 50th year of Annapurna Studio, we thought what better film to do this than Siva, which remains a cult classic," said the actor. The restoration process began before 2019, with the team realising they were faced with negatives deteriorating rapidly, and labs shutting down months later during the pandemic. "That's when we realised we needed to digitise and secure the film properly. When we inspected the negatives, they were so sticky we couldn't even unroll them. We had to run them through four to five rounds of ultrasonic cleaning just to make them dry and rollable for scanning," CV Rao, Chief Technology Officer at the studio added.HTC...