I have one question. You may have covered this already, but aren’t the prints you are using missing some frames? I know the SSE was. Are you going to just use the frames you have or add them back so this will sync with the GOUT soundtracks. And if you add them back what source are you going to use?
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Yes, all of these prints are missing some frames. The LPP was only missing frames at the reel changes, but the other prints are all missing other frames too. I will be keeping the GOUT sync as I think that is very important because it allows us all to choose from a growing library of audio and subtitle tracks.
There are a variety of techniques I can use to restore missing frames, each with their own pros and cons:
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If there are just one or two frames missing the middle of a shot, PFClean’s Fix Frame effect can often be used to extrapolate or interpolate the missing frames. When it works, the new frames are seamless to the viewer. However, if you were to overlay one of these frames on top of an original frame from another source, they may not match up perfectly, especially if there was a single frame laser blast or something that the software has no way to predict. Also, it only works well about half the time. If there is any camera panning, there is often unusual cropping or other weirdness that ruins the new frame(s).
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Use a frame from another source (preferably another print, but the blu-ray if it cannot be found anywhere else). The advantage here is that we know we are not missing anything and that the frame is the right frame, the difficulty comes in making it look seamless. The colors, sharpness, size, rotation and cropping all have to match perfectly or you can see the difference. For this reason, it is often better to substitute the entire shot with that from another source.
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Sometimes, particularly if there is little or no motion, frames can simply be repeated.
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Photoshop. Using, for example the blu-ray frame as a guide, the previous frame and the next frame can be manually adjusted in Photoshop.
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A black or “Frame Missing” frame can be inserted, but of all of the solutions this is a last resort. I don’t know about you but I’d rather have a single slightly blurry frame than a black Flash!
I’ll do everything I can to make it as seamless as possible.