SDF DYRL HD Theatrical project update:
VIDEO:
I just figured out last week how to best match and up-scale the remaster DYRL DVD to the DRYL BD.
Video Enhancer software was used for upscaling the DVD to 1920x1080 and re-sized to 2077x1155 to match the 1920x1080 DYRL BD.
The remastered DYRL DVD film was cropped just a bit more than the DYRL BD. So, I used Video Enhancer to make a short video clip of the upscaled DYRL DVD to 1920x1080 with video cropped at 1920x1080.
MediaplayerClassic was then used to take 1920x1080 snapshots of the TOHO logo from the upscaled DVD video clip and the lagarith DYRL BD video clip.
Both BD and up-scaled DVD image snapshots were then imported into paint.net software. Within Paint.net, I changed the colour of the top and bottom black borders of the BD DYRL snaphsot. Then I copied over the up-scaled snapshot onto the BD snapshot. By selecting the non-overlapping area between the two snapshots, I was able to count up the additional pixels in height and width that the up-scaled DYRL snapshot & video needed to be adjusted. I did this process 3 times and it looks like the up-scaled video now matches the BD video.
So, now I can import all the pieces together into Sony Vegas Pro and try to start matching the colour, remove the DVD mpeg artifacts with Neat Video and possibly add back in film grain if needed.
The first version will be .mkv video files where you can swap out audio and subtitles as needed.
AUDIO:
This week, I received an M-Audio Audiophile USB capture box from Ebay. For the last 2 days, I have just been making audio captures of DYRL and Flashback 2012 LaserDiscs!
The Audiophile USB appears to work well with my Dell Windows 8.1 64bit laptop, but I needed a whole day to set up the audiophile USB. The Audiophile USB is supposed to also work with a Macbook pro, but I couldn't quite get it to work. So, I ended up using my Dell laptop with the Audiophile USB Windows 7 64 bit drivers from the M-Audio website. For digital AC3 stereo or surround sound, I used the AC3 (RCA cable) from the HLD-X0 to the M-Audio box.
Once the M-Audio drivers are installed, an M-Audio icon shows up in the Windows taskbar. The M-Audio icon opens up the M-Audio control panel which has specific selections for playback and recording.
First, I need to select the right M-Audio recording settings.
Analog or SPDIF (AC3) / 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96 khz / 16, 24 bitrate
The M-Audio control panel selections used were SPDIF digital, 44,1000 khz and 24bit. I tried 48 khz at 16 or 24 bitrate and the recorded audio clips were too fast and pitched higher than the original movie audio. I did some research and found that Audacity audio software can only record at the same khz and bitrate that the original audio is made of. The 88.2 and 96khz options are greyed out and not available when I made the audio recordings.
Within Audacity, under Edit/Properties, I selected 44.1 khz at 24 bitrate using the Best quality Real time conversion and High quality conversion with no dithering. In the main window on the top section of Audacity, 4 options were selected: Windows Direct Sound, Realtek Laptop speakers for playback, SPDIF USB for recording and stereo.
I also had to make sure that these selections for 44.1 at 24 bitrate were the same in the Windows Sound Control Panel for the SPDIF USB device under properties settings.
Now, I have exported DYRL LD stereo audio from audacity into .wav (44.1 khz, 24 bitrate) and .flac (44.1 khz, 16 bitrate). I don't know why .flac changed into 16 bitrate. I didn't select that.
1. DYRL AC3 LD
Dolby Surround Stereo
PILA-7008
.wav and .flac (2 parts each)
2. DYRL Perfect Edition AC3 LD
Dolby Surround Stereo
BEAL-448
.wav and .flac (5 parts each)
3. DYRL Analog LD
Stereo
SF078-5022
.wav and .flac (2 parts each)
4. DYRL Analog English LD
Mono
TLL-2084
.wav and .flac (2 parts each)
5. Flashback 2012 AC3 LD
Stereo
BEAL-1332
.wav and .flac (1 part each)
Spanish DYRL audio and Spanish and English subtitles are being shared from a previous DRYL fan BD project. I do not know of any other DYRL audio or subtitle files that are available.
I still need to figure out how to get the 4 parts of the DYRL Audio Drama LP to match DYRL movie. Sony Sound Forge is supposed to have a time shift option, but I'll need some kind of key framing for the time shift because the LP record player did not play the Macross LP at a constant rate. I bought my own ION USB LP player to record my Macross LPs and to re-record the DYRL Drama LP.
That's it for now.