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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Extended and Enhanced by Doctor M (Released)

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 (Edited)

-=Watch the space for updates. =-

Not a lot of details at the moment, but the title is self explanatory.

I’m going to try to take up the slack left by ADM’s absence from the forums.

I’ve found HBP has been much more difficult to work with than previous entries in the HP series.  Mostly because the deleted scenes haven’t been color timed and made to look crappy and dark yet.

Additionally, the DVD audio is 2.0 that needs a DPLII upmix (which is working out pretty well).  The Blu-Ray has 5.1 audio to start with, but the dialog is badly localized, either spreading to the front 3 speakers or all 5.

I’ve just started work, but I can hopefully finish within a week.  There are only 8 scenes.

Edit:  Har, har.  Finished within a week.  A year and a half later…

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Extended and Enhanced by Doctor M

Original Runtime - 2:33:29
Extended Runtime - 2:38:32

General:

All deleted audio has been upmixed from stereo to DD 5.1 with Dolby ProLogic II decoding.

All deleted video has been cropped/resized to match the theatrical aspect ratio.

In cases where noted, a Blu-Ray source was used.  This was done when the deleted scene was of much lower quality than the rest of the film.  The rest of the time this was undesirable because the BD source was of significantly better quality than the rest of the film.

Scene By Scene:

  1. Harry and Hermione Walk The Halls - Levels/color corrected.  Custom hallway-noise-only track laid over deleted scene to match the surrounding footage.  Lavender’s giggle in the deleted scene was kept, but the duplicate giggle muted when the theatrical footage comes in.  Assumingly the annoying giggle is what attracted Harry and Hermione’s attention.  Ron’s duplicate dialog is muted in the deleted scene since it is heard when the theatrical footage picks up.

  2. Harry and Hermione Discuss the Marauder’s Map - White/black levels adjusted slightly.

In the theatrical cut, in order to hide that a scene was deleted the editor cut a scene in half.  The first part of the split scene appears before Harry finds Ron mooning for Romilda and the other half follows.  It’s actually quite awkward and the script confirms this change was made.

Harry’s first scene knocking on Slughorn’s office door has been moved.  Some of the scene was salvaged and one line deleted.  An additional shot was constructed to fill a removed piece that was probably a reshoot.

Crazy dialog-only tracks and surround-only tracks were created to smooth the transitions.

The old scene order was: Harry talks to Slughorn in potions lab, Harry knocks on Slughorn’s office door and is turned away, Harry finds Ron high on love potion, Harry again goes to Slughorn’s office.

The new order is: Harry talks to Slughorn in lab, Harry talks to Hermione in the common room, Harry goes upstairs to find Ron spaced out, Harry takes Ron to Slughorn’s office.

  1. Harry, Ron and Hermione Discuss the Vanishing Cabinet - Scene added. (No color correction.  Already seems to match adjacent scenes fairly well.)

  2. Harry and Dumbledore Arrive at Cave Entrance - Scene added. Color corrected.

  3. Harry and Dumbledore Leave Cave - I think it feels abrupt, but it’s exactly as the script has it and I tried not to turn this into a fan edit.  Color corrected.

  4. Clouds Gather Over Hogwarts as Flitwick Conducts Orchestra - Rearranged scenes before and after. Deleted all theatrical shots that were duplicated in the deleted scene.

Borgan and Burkes scene and exterior shot of Hogwarts now used to establish events and location.  These shots are not in the version of the script I have and may have been added later.  The new placement seems more natural.

Audio deleted from Malfoy walking down the hallway to the Room of Requirement and replaced with choir finishing their song.

Blu-Ray source used because of severe artifacts and banding in dark areas (i.e. most of the scene).  Color corrected.

  1. Harry Joins Ron, Hermione and Ginny in Common Room - Color corrected to match surrounding scenes.

  2. Harry and Hermione Discuss Ron at Astronomy Tower - Blu-Ray source. Color corrected.  5.1 surround version of soundtrack upmixed to DD 5.1 and mixed/blended.

Dr. M

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Here is deleted scene #1 integrated into the movie: http://www.mediafire.com/?n5bkoj3y4n1kvu3

I need a ruling on this from the community.

The deleted scene itself is a straight cut in the middle of a tracking shot.  I had constructed a custom close-up shot cropped from the Blu-Ray to put in to hide the cut between the two clips.

The thing is, I adjusted the levels and color corrected, and left a straight cut as a place holder while I worked with other things.  Then I noticed the cut was almost invisible anyway.

So first I'd like to know if the cut from the theatrical footage to the deleted scene is noticeable and/or a problem.   (I'll also take feedback on my color correction.  I don't think perfect is possible.).

Second, once the audio in the scene was upmixed to 5.1, you could tell the ambient hallway noise was different from the sound in the rest of the scene.

To make things worse the last several seconds of the deleted scene is a riff on the dialog and giggle from the next shot in the theatrical cut.

To fix this I took the theatrical cut of the scene's audio and re-encoded a 5.1 track with the center channel muted.

So what you are hearing is a mix of a custom "hallway noise" track, with a DPLII upmix of the deleted scene.  Hopefully the final product is seamless with consistent volumes throughout.

To fix the giggle and dialog I kept the deleted scene's giggle (assuming it's what drew Harry and Hermione's attention), muted the later giggle from the theatrical audio and muted the rest of the deleted scene until the theatrical footage comes in with the dialog.

Comments? Questions? Concerns?

Dr. M

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29 view of this topic and 4 downloads of the file... no one has an opinion?  Is that good or bad?

Edit: I have since retweaked the audio.  I'm comfortable with it (but did not update the file linked above).

The video of the first edit point I'm still not sure about though.

Dr. M

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I am downloading it now to look it over, but to be completely truthful, I have kind of lost interest in these extended HP's since ADM's absence, and honestly some of the added scenes really do not do anything for the viewing experience.

Speaking of ADM I used to be in contact with him very much, I have recently emailed him to see how He is doing but have not heard back from him yet.

*edit, it looked and sounded pretty good to me for your first attempt, and you say you tweaked it more,so if gets even better than your sample that is good, but again to be truthful, maybe some don't care about DVD edits, now with Blu-ray I find myself not watching any DVD hardly at all, if ever anymore, let alone download DVD edits, you say you have the BD, why not do a 720p edit instead of DVD?

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I haven't made any changes to the color correction or the way the video looks from the clip posted.  That's the part that I'm still worried about.

The cut is mercifully just as they are walking by a window that seems to play havoc with the camera's exposure anyway, so it does a good job hiding things.

I know the cut is there so I always see it.  I'm curious if anyone else can (although to be fair, a lot of the other extended Potter edits have noticeable audio/video quality change when a deleted scene appears.)

I've also started looking at the next edit point.  It appears that they ham-fistedly split a scene into two and stuffed another scene between them to hide that something was removed.

That's gonna take a bit of fixing as well.

HD Edits: Hmm.  I'm thinking about it.  It also means going back and re-doing 3 through 5.  (And frankly I'd want to re-edit #2.  I think their 'professional' edit leaves something to be desired.)

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harry-Potter-and-the-Chamber-of-Secrets-The-Enhanced-ABC-Cut-Finished/topic/8252/

Dr. M

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I downloaded and watched, and honestly, I wouldn't have been able to pick out the edit if I didn't know it was there. Very well-done.

I love ADM's EEs, and extended editions are generally my favorite fanedits. I always watch the deleted scenes after the flick anyway, so it just makes that whole process easier. I'll absolutely download and watch when you're finished with this. Thanks!

I used to be very active on this forum. I’m not really anymore. Sometimes, people still want to get in touch with me about something, and that is great! If that describes you, please email me at [my username]ATgmailDOTcom.

Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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Wasted many more hours on this so far.  There are 2 deleted scenes of Harry and Dumbledore in the cave.  Again, they aren't color corrected.

Getting the levels right is easy enough, but I knew there had to be a way to do this right (not just tweaking the hue and desaturating).

After much messing around, I realized individual color saturation/hues was not the answer, but that all they did after darkening the picture was to just pick a color and tint the whole scene.

I found 2 identical frames, one from the theatrical scene, one from the deleted.  With a snapshot of the theatrical frame, I used GIMP to find the peak RGB levels.  (This is similar to how autolevel type adjustments assume the brightest color is pure white).

With these RGB levels, I converted to Hex and used a nice little AviSynth filter called Tint().  Then I just tinted the frame to match.

Again, not perfect, but it has me impressed.

Deleted Scene (Raw):

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6525/dsresize.jpg

Theatrical Frame:

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8624/tcresize.jpg

Color Corrected Deleted Scene:

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5757/ccresize.jpg

 

I'll be going back to that hallway scene and redoing it now.  It looks like it has orange tinting.

Btw, while messing around I found a really neat avisynth filter called ColourLike.  http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96308  I didn't use it here, but it could be helpful for others.

ColourLike takes the histogram of 2 video clips, and then applies the histogram of one clip to the other.  Might be nice for some Star Wars color tweaking if we had a source we liked the colors in... like maybe a laserdisc.

Dr. M

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Yes and no.  I got distracted for a bit with real life work, but the color correction has proven to be a new and painful experience.

The problem is there is no duplicating exactly what they can do, so close approximation is the best to hope for most of the time.

At the moment I'm waiting on the soundtrack, because the final scene is in the middle of a longer scene which is all score-y...  The deleted portion is dialog only.  I'm hoping this can be cobbled together cleanly.

Also... and I'm just floating an idea here... but I'm considering when finished starting with Order of the Phoenix and continuing from there with a series of de-David Yates-ed versions.

While he may be a talented TV director, he is, in my opinion, the worst thing to happen to the whole Potter franchise.

I understand color-timing, mood lighting, tinting, or whatever helps set the mood.  That's fine.  But there IS a point at which you have just crushed all light and color from a movie so as to be implausible looking and unwatchabley(sp?) dark.

Just because Voldemort has returned does not mean lights, fires, and daylight no longer work.  People sitting in the dark doing paperwork?  Full daylight looking like night?  I've joked that Deathly Hallows Part II will be so dark you'll need to bring a torch (flashlight) to the theater just to see the screen.

To make matters worse, if you watch with most types of 3D glasses, the picture will be even darker.  (Not that I will be de-Yates-ing a 3D version).

Some first test screenshots (I'll probably use deleted scenes that haven't been messed with as guidelines for the rest of the film).  (I'm also aware they are a bit oversaturated ATM.)

Btw, my intention is to do this to extended editions... I will need to track down ADM's Order of the Phoenix in DVD9 though.  I can't see re-encoding the DVD5 version or recutting it.

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9186/test3y.jpg

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7623/test4z.jpg

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1398/test1oe.jpghttp://img859.imageshack.us/img859/2243/test2j.jpghttp://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3917/test5d.jpg

Again, the De-David Yates-eD version will be separate from the straight up extended cuts of HBP (and I suppose eventually Deathly Hallows 1 & 2).

Dr. M

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I don't mean to be rude but those corrections look too uniformly bright to these eyes, the top two especially (they have a 1980's television lighting look which is very distracting).

They also seem a bit too yellow.

It's nice to see the more of the objects in the frame and all but maybe taking it down a notch would reach a better result.

Looking forward to the final result.

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You're not being rude.  I like constructive criticism.
I'm aware it is a bit too bright and oversaturated.  The first scene has some odd color fringing, but the second one I think should be almost cartoon colored.  Still when I fix the former, it will reduce the latter.

As far as brightness, the first scene is at night, so I would definitely go for lower levels.  Btw, did anyone notice in the last screen shot you can now see there is actually someone in the top left of the frame reading a book?  I wonder if the book text magically glows. ;-)

So really, I was just starting to play around with a new auto-filter on the default settings and was blown away by how much color and level detail is still in those images even as crushed as they seem on the DVD.

For any final version I will use the un-color-corrected deleted scenes as a guideline to find the appropriate settings.  Hopefully I'll be able to find one setting that works across the whole film.

In the mean time @#$@#$ soundtrack.  HPB contains a bonus downloadable 5.1 mix... except it's 2-channels.  When upmixed via DPL2 sounds almost identical to my ears as the CD.  VERY misleading advertising.

Also in the movie they've mixed music into the center channel with the dialog which means stripping music to remix a scene is out an out impossible to get perfect.

I already had one scene I was dubious about, I'm afraid the final scene may come off a bit crappy as well.

I'll post clips for opinions when I'm further along.

Dr. M

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Hey, i'm quite interested in your De David Yates eD version, although he has brought some great visuals to the harry potter series i also think he the worst thing to happen to the harry potter franchise as well. Not having John Williams score when he has offered and has expressed great interest in returning, short action scenes and compressing important story elements. I would like to see someone else's take on Half-Blood Prince, as i have also done an edit myself http://fanedit.org/13310/  if you do watch it, please get it a review and rating on Fanedit.org. You have done wonderful work on the colour correction, the darkness of the picture also made me slightly lighten up the whole movie as well. 

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@Dr.Inza: I like the details and will no doubt check out your edit at a later date.  Unfortunately by the time I am finished working on HBP I'll be so sick of the movie I wouldn't enjoy your edit.  It's on my list though.

I'm looking to find one avisynth filter setting that will correct the whole movie as best as possible.  I have no interest in correcting scene by scene.  Once I have what I consider best, I will post what I've used.  If anyone wants to use it as part of a FanEdit, it'll be a simple matter of adding one line to your avisynth script (or in DVD Rebuilder) and encoding.

@All: Okay, I'm very near to watching a test copy of this (standard edition).
I have 2 scenes I'm a bit uncomfortable about the sound mix on.  Anyone who is able to check them out on a 5.1 system and give feed back would have my thanks.

First: http://www.mediafire.com/?7ta9a4g257sbxdf (16.83mb)

This is NOT an extended scene but a correction to go with an added scene.  Yes, it borders on fan edit territory, but the fact is the original editor cut a scene apart in order to disguise that a scene was removed.  My problem is there was different scoring over the 2 half scenes.  I've cleaned it up as best as possible.  Let me know what you think.

From my NFO on this:

In the theatrical cut, in order to hide that a scene was deleted, the editor cut a scene in half and moved the first part before Harry finds Ron mooning for Romilda and the rest following the scene.  It's actually quite awkward and the script confirms this change.  

Harry's first scene knocking on Slughorn's office door has been moved.  Some of the scene was salvaged and one line deleted.  An additional shot was constructed to fill a deleted bit that was probably a reshoot.

Crazy dialog only tracks and surround only tracks were created to smooth the transitions.

The old scene order was: Harry talks to Slughorn in potions lab, Harry knocks on Slughorn's office door and is turned away, Harry finds Ron high on love potion, Harry again goes to Slughorn's office.

The new order is: 

 

Harry talks to Slughorn in lab, Harry talks to Hermione in the common room, Harry goes upstairs to find Ron spaced out, Harry takes Ron to Slughorn's office.

 

Second: http://www.mediafire.com/?cbhx64n9tvacfwz (55.48mb)

Harry and Hermione Discuss Ron at Astronomy Tower.  In the original cut this scene is drenched in "The Friends" score.  The deleted scene is dialog and sound effects only.

Since the CD includes a download link to a "5.1 surround" version, I used that.  Well, it's not so much 5.1 (it's stereo) and not really a perfect match to the film's mix once you run it through a DPLII decoder.

It seems pretty good to me, but the instruments move around the channels because of the difference in the mixes.   If you all think it's bad I'll try again with the original CD's track upmixed.  It might be better (or worse), but because it's a bit of a pain to sync the track I was in no hurry to try it.

I'm also concerned that Harry's voice has a bit more rumble-y bass in the deleted scene.

Again, input would be great.  From here it's sync corrected English subtitles, preview the film, and rebuild the menus.

Dr. M

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Okkkkaaayyy.  No comments.  I hope that's good news.

Tested CD audio version of "Friends" score just for laughs... and it sounds identical.  I don't know what kind of scam they're running about downloadable "5.1 surround" version, but it's not nice.

Test-movie-only disc finishing up now.  If no one has comments or concerns I'll be watching it tonight.

Lots and lots of work for 5 more minutes of movie.

Dr. M

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A quick update.

I sat through the whole film, made a few tweaks (including the tower scene edit-in point which had a hiccup).

One segment was giving me fits... and in the course of tracking down the problem found it to be a bug in Womble... yup.  (And it's one I've noticed before but didn't have the tech knowledge to understand until now.)

So now I can either:

1) Work around the bug (just re-edit the one problem section).  On proper DD decoders that respect dialog normalization, the audio will probably sound correct, but with a technically questionable stream (variable dialog normalization).

Playback on systems that don't handle D. Norm correctly (and some software players) the audio edits may have volume fluctuations.

2) Brute force fix the problem.  Re-edit all audio segments setting a constant volume across the film, and then using VOBDNorm to reset the entire film's normalization to -27 where it should be.

3) Curl up into a ball and cry.

4) Burn a disc of all my pieces and send it to someone who has more ambition than I do to finish this project.

5) Buy a bigger hard drive, push all the files into a folder somewhere and forget about them for a year (or until I forget how much work will really be required to finish this project).

Yeah... so.... um, yeah.

Edit:  Failed at #1, finished #3, and sort of doing #2.

Actually what I'm doing is using VOBDNorm, stripping the normalization from the movie's audio track so all pieces will be -31db.  (This is a lossless process.)

With all pieces now identical, even the re-encoded edit points will have the same characteristics.

I just need to rebalance any deleted scene audio that is too soft now compared to the rest of the film (probably all of them).

Then after I reauthor I'll use VOBDNorm again to reset the normalization to -27db where it belongs.

This SHOULD fix any weirdness and provide a consistent experience for all conditions.

Edit 2: Interesting discovery: VOBDNorm is meant to only work on VOB files which can be a pain doing each consective VOB.  Turns out it works on muxed mpeg files too.

Really, that is a great discovery.

Dr. M

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Hi, I was wondering if you were able to send me at least your test pressing of the movie? I understand this seems to be a difficult task to concur in doing an extended edition. I've got all 5 extended editions so far and the only one I'm unhappy about is the 3rd. From what I understand he couldn't find all the scenes on the dvd. Also there's a short quick clip from the trailer where Harry asks Stan "Is this safe?" and Stan replies "Don't worry we haven't crashed in weeks!" That's taken out of the movie. Also the deleted bit in the Knight Bus that wasn't finished for production. And of course the FULL extended tower scene with Pro McG. Any way you could tackle this also? Please let me know and would GREATLY (!!!!) appreciate it!
Phil

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I sort of burned out, got busy with work, and just haven't gotten back to HBP.
ATM there is no test version, just a ghost in my editing software that needs to have the audio edit points cleaned up.

As far as Chamber of Secrets, could you give me more details? I'm unclear what is wrong with ADM's release.

Dr. M

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Not COS, POA. I'm satisfied with the official releases of the first 2 extended. Unless ADM added stuff that's not on the official DVD's? Well anyway, on POA, if you look at the international trailer there's a line cut from the Knight Bus that is something like this:
HARRY: Are you sure this is safe?
Stan: Don't worry, we haven't crashed in weeks!
And of course the bit in the deleted scenes section of the dvd from the Knight Bus (you can tell that it wasn't finished but still would be neat to have that added in (ABC doesn't even show that)
And the FULL tower scene with Pro McG. ADM missed a bit from that one scene. Other than that I can't think of anything else that was missing from that. Though I do hope you can finish Part 6 and maybe even do something with 7 part 1? I'm going on a trip and would love to have a nice little harry potter marathon on the way down before I go see the new movie. :) Sorry for the long post but let me know what you think. Going on my trip Monday so if you can't do anything with them I'll just settle with the regular editions. :)
Phil

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IIRC, POA was edited by ADM that way on purpose.
I agree with his decision to not add a scene with incomplete vfx.

As far as the tower scene, I think you're talking about when Harry is supposed to wake from a dream and think Sirius was in the tower.

Again, the problem is the scene doesn't work without the completed fx, so ADM made the most of what was there.  (He briefly flirted with actually creating a dream sequence to add in.)

Can anyone corroborate what my crusty brain is telling me?

Dr. M

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Still would be nice to have all the footage in though. I understand the full FX thing. Hopefully someone will be able to do this for me and finish the 3rd movie right. :)

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Um, wow.  Just wow.

Warner DMCA'd my mediafire account for the two edited clips.

I don't know whether to challenge them on principle or let it drop since they were old test clips I should have deleted anyway.

Dr. M

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They must have been better than you thought they were then. Shame would love to see this with the deleted stuff back in somehow. I'm terrible at all the technical stuff so I can't try my own version. :(

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So how are you going with the project?

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Doctor M said:

Um, wow.  Just wow.

Warner DMCA'd my mediafire account for the two edited clips.

I don't know whether to challenge them on principle or let it drop since they were old test clips I should have deleted anyway.

The color correction you did on those scenes looks really fantastic to my eyes. Shame Warner doesn't have better things to do with their time...