nirbateman said:

@ Andrea, yes, you have been mentioned, and not just for name dropping sake :)

Those screenshots actually look pretty promising, there is actual grain in the shots!

Nothing about the soundtrack though, although it is a remix.

The DTS discs will probably still be the best option at the moment.

Thanks for your compliments, I feel a little embarassed... (**,)

Well, now I'm working not on one project, but actually on two... so, I'm a bit busy, but I like Disney feature animation, and if I could do something to preserve the best version of one of these masterworks, I'm... well, I'll be ready - in few weeks - just write here (yes, again, my memory needs some more PetaBytes...) the most important to do - as it seems there will be new, properly restored Blu-Ray releases in the next future...

Also, I could manage to take LD color and BD luma - if ONLY the color timing is wrong in the BD; if there is too much DNR, too few grain etc. the only way to go is to use another source - and if DVD is better than LD, I have no problem to use it!

nirbateman said:

Well, out of your collection, I'd say the BATB, TLK and Fantasia are most in need. The others have had a pretty good run on DVD and BD.

OK, now I know.

TLM could be useful for a lossless capture of it's sound mix, as the video is P&S, and the BD captures do look pretty damn good.

I agree.

I want to say Cinderella and Pinocchio, but ww12345 and poita have purchased excellent film prints for both, which should be of reference quality once those projects are done with.

Hope they will do them!

Also, could you put the using of LD color and BD luma in layman's terms? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Look at my "The Thing" project: in few words, when video is essentialy correct, apart the color timing, it's possible to "mimic" the colors of another video, leaving the luma intact...

For example, "The Thing" HD-DVD has grain intact, high resolution quality while the colors are off (snow is blue and/or pink, the husky dog is not black&white etc.); the LD colors are way better, but the luma has clipped whites, and it's low resolution; normally, when something like ColourLike is used, it tend to mimic chroma along luma; well, I managed to transfer (the most part of) LD chroma onto the HD-DVD luma, preserving the high resolution and avoiding white clipping - result is not 100% perfect, but it's the best compromise I've seen until now!

Carly Rae Jepsen?  Yeesh.

I still like the R2J's "Part of Your World" by Miki Imai.

Just to save you time, you cannot merge laserdisc chroma with DVD/BD luma.  The restorations tend to stabilize, realign and sometimes de-rotate cells.

Attempting to directly use the chroma channel will result in colors bleeding across lines.

You can try to use ColourLike and other tricks to color correct, but even then since we've seen repainting going on, the luma AND chroma will be altered in those areas creating incorrect colors.

I know that it's almost impossible to overlay lasedisc chroma to BD luma perfectly (even if I could tell that sometimes is possible with DVD luma); I have experimented my own ColourMatch avisynth script, with good results, in my "The Thing" project, matching laserdisc chroma to HD-DVD luma; but, because laserdisc has some clipped whites, I preferred to overlay the resulting ColourMatch chroma to HD-DVD luma: result is not perfect, but very very good - take a look at the thread, there are some screenshots there. There are few scenes where the result is less good, but the same don't look good on HD-DVD either, so...

I'd like to test my technique on Disney - I dare to think it will be easyier to use it with animation instead of film, as there are less colors to mimic... well, if someone want to send me 1min lossless clip from BD (with wrong colors) and from DVD or LD (with right colors) I'll test it ASAP!

This is fucking disgusting. Didn't actually know how bad it really was with some of these classics. Thanks for this thread, Doctor M. It makes sense to now have LFL under this same roof.

Compared the Diamond and Limited Lady and the Tramp DVDs today.

The screenshots linked in the first post are semi-fair.  The Diamond DVD looks about identical to the Platinum (probably the same master).

I'm torn on this.  I don't like the overclean of the newer transfers, but there is nothing immediately wrong with the new disc.

The "semi" part of semi-fair is that the images are resized.  The Limited Edition is much more cropped on the left and right (like Sleeping Beauty) and is 4x3 letterboxed.  There is definitely less detail.

So is the Limited more accurate?  I dunno.  It does look poor in comparison, but then again the Diamond has that over restored look that annoys me.

Is it fair to still call the Limited the "Purist" choice and Platinum/Diamond "good enough"?  Am I missing something?

ALSO, I compared the Platinum DVD of Cinderella to the Non-Lowry LD2DVD.

My opinion?  Disregard the screenshots.  Yes, there are some flaws and color changes.  It's not every frame that's wrong, it's just the occasional screw-up.

Detail lost in the magic dust?  Yeah, some frames.  But 9 times out of 10 they are sharper and are more numerous in the restored version.  In the LD they tend to be a fat blurry line instead of hundreds of sharp sparkles and specs.

The ribbon on the dress when it's being made with the missing outline?  The outline is missing in both the LD and the DVD when you have the same frame.  Where's the detail in the shoulder frills on the LD?  It's blown out.

Of course the laserdisc capture I'm working with could probably be better, but on the whole there is just more detail in the new transfers.

The Laserdisc has softer colors, is higher contrast, less detail, and I suspect vertical blurring (which would account for some of the magic dust being dimmer).  Those screenshots going around look a lot like they were hand picked to favor the LD.

There is some stuff that are wrong, but when comparing identical frames, what's gained is just better than the alternatives.  I favor the Lowry at least until someone does a film preservation anyway.

In order, Non-Lowry LD2DVD, Platinum Edition, Diamond Edition (DVD):

This post: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Recommended-Editions-of-Disney-Animated-and-Partially-Animated-Features/post/653541/#TopicPost653541 was updated to add a comparison of the Diamond Edition of Cinderella.

I'm not sure what I think of it.  Obviously processed more, but as you can see there is even more detail in the image than the Platinum Edition.

It's also less over bright which seems to deepen the blacks and colors.  Re-animation aside, still image comparison makes the Diamond Edition look great.

Did Lowry over-scrub or are some of the supposed missing bits just vertical blurring?  Dunno.

I will change the good enough recommendation to the Diamond though.  If it's gonna be reanimated, it might as well look good.

I'm still trying to find a review of the UK release of Make Mine Music which came out a few weeks back.  I assume it's the same censored version as the U.S., but we'll have to see.

I'll be updating Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty later on.  I'm also aware Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone and Oliver & Company came out recently.  I just haven't had a chance to go over the reviews.

So yeah, the guide is due for an update.