Post Description

Starlight Editions Presents


The.Bear.1998.h265.1080p.10bit.AAC.Remastered.Starlight.Editions

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286490/

Rating .............: 7.1/10
Genre ..............: Animation | Short | Adventure

Studio .............: TVC London for Channel 4
Language ...........: English
Year ...............: 1998

Runtime ............: 25 min 53 s
Source .............: 1080p WEB-DL (H.264, SNAKE)
Video ..............: 1920x1080 (16:9)
Codec ..............: H.265 (HEVC) Main 10 / 10-bit
Audio ..............: AAC LC (Stereo, 129 kbps)

About this restoration:

The source is a 1080p WEB-DL encoded in H.264. It was put through three AI/grading passes and re-encoded to produce a clean, refined 1080p presentation with improved detail and corrected colour.

Pass 1 .............: Gaia 2 - AI Enhancement
AI-based detail recovery and enhancement applied at the native 1080p resolution, sharpening soft areas and recovering fine texture lost to web compression while preserving the hand-drawn animation style.

Pass 2 .............: Color Grading (.cube LUT)
Manual grade exported as a .cube LUT and applied during the encode in 10-bit, restoring the film's rich, warm palette
and correcting colour drift without introducing banding.

Pass 3 .............: H.265 Encoding (NVENC)
Encoded to H.265/HEVC (Main 10, 10-bit) with hevc_nvenc at ~8619 kb/s average. Color space: BT.709 (TV range)
Audio: source AAC re-encoded to AAC LC, 129 kbps, 48 kHz stereo.

The result is a cleaner, sharper version of the 1998 Channel 4 broadcast, with recovered detail and restored colour - without losing the gentle, hand-drawn charm of Raymond Briggs' artwork.

Credits:
Director ...........: Hilary Audus
Written by .........: Hilary Audus, Joanna Harrison
Based on the book by : Raymond Briggs (1994)
Music ...............: Howard Blake
End theme ..........: "Somewhere A Star Shines For Everyone"
performed by Charlotte Church
Production .........: TVC London for Channel 4

Check out this video and others on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@StarlightEditions

Starlight Editions 2026