Thank you for the information, Reverend. Looks like we're limited to the available Army of Darkness dvds.

I got my Dino De Laurentiis Communications image from the trailer on the R3 disc - unfortunately, the movie itself on the R3 disc doesn't begin with the logo. While the image quality of the logo from the R3 trailer is higher than what's shown on the Anchor Bay director's cut/bootleg edition, it still has it's own problems. If this is the best source for it though - I'm sure I could make it look better.

Insanity, thank you for the suggestion - and JHammondC, I'm sure you'll love that R3 disc. I remember when I first got it in the mail - oh what a day that was!

Just curious if this project is still active & if there are any new updates? This is one of my all time favorite movies, so I'm highly stoked to see what becomes of it. I also have the r3 DVD & it's the best transfer I've seen yet. I havn't seen the HD DVD combo disc yet, but has that transfer been looked at yet for any needed/useable elements?

Thank you, RidgeShark, for your advice. I've started working on a composite edit of Waterworld, incorporating extended footage from TV cuts, and I've been spending the past several weeks familiarizing myself with AviSynth (and the FFTD3D filter), and VFAPI for frameserving to Vegas. I've had a few bumps in the road, but everything seems to be smoothing out fine.

There's not much in the way of updates since finals are coming up. However, about a week ago I managed to create a high quality version of the original Army of Darkness opening by incorporating high quality footage from Evil Dead 2 and AOD itself. It looks pretty spiffy, but at times the ugly VHS quality rears its ugly head since there is no high quality footage available for some shots (mainly Ash's eyes as he tells his story). I'll be incorporating this alternate opening somehow. I still haven't messed around with the dvd authoring software, so I still don't really know how to make a branching DVD - I swear I'll figure it out though!

Sushicide - I am using some video from the standard definition side on the HD-DVD/DVD combo edition. I wish I had a way to use the high-def footage since the standard def side on the combo disc has a few problems - such as some artificial sharpening *gag* - but it will have to do since it's the best video available to me for things like the theatrical-only line - "Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun."

mcfly89 - Awesome work on the Waterworld composite edit. Earlier tonight I had some friends asking me if I knew anything about the extended television version of Waterworld and I started telling them about your project. Needless to say, we're all excited and can't wait to see it.

Before I disappear again - I just wanted to say that my entire AoD edit is basically done - including the color correction. Now I'm left with doing a lot of testing on the 5.1 audio mix to make sure it sounds alright. I'm mixing together so many different sources for the audio mix, so there's bound to be some problems. I'm definitely no pro at 5.1 audio, and it would be way easier to just do this in 2.0 stereo - but then I wouldn't be happy with it. Anyways, the audio testing will begin after my finals are over. Should be fun.

So what would be a good anti-bootlegging message that I could put up before the movie actually starts playing? Is there a thread or a page somewhere with examples?

Thank you both for the ideas. They've already inspired the warning message.

RidgeShark,

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I'm now working with DGMPGDec frameserving VOBs to Avisynth to VFAPI to Vegas. I tried re-rendering to MPEG2 in Vegas, but noticed quality loss due to recompression. Is there some way to re-render without recompressing, or is that only possible by cutting the MPEGs together in software like Womble? Thanks again for getting me started on the right foot.

Looking forward to it!!!

Yeah, I hope this is coming along well Scott. This is probably the fan-edit I'm most excited about on the whole forum

The project is still alive and well. I've undergone a huge move recently, and I've been very busy working - so this project has taken something of a backseat to everything else going on in my life.

The good news is that I did get a preliminary/test version up and running with branching for the alternate beginnings and endings - and it works very well on most dvd players. It seems to only have a real problem with dvd players that have slower drives. The project is very close to being finished - I just need to fix a few problems with the video and 5.1 audio and it should all be set. I've decided to drop any "extra" content due to it being a bit more extra work than I'm willing to do right now.

Anyways, I don't have an internet connection right now, so updates will be few and far in between. I'm hoping to have this truly, and finally finished by October. Wish me luck.

Fantastic news. May I ask what you're referring to by "extra content"? Any good rarities that aren't on the DVDs? Someone certainly needs to put together an Evil Dead Companion DVD - I'm sure someone was putting one together (or maybe that was just the in-limbo Bruce Campbell project), but there's enough stuff to go round. Someone's recently put a rip of the uncut Sam Raimi episode of The Incredibly Strange Film Show on Demonoid that's miles ahead quality-wise of any previous rips.

Good to here all is well, break a leg man, can't wait!