Info: Combine 1080p and film to get 1080p resolution, film colors and a bit larger frame!

First, don’t know if it was done before; if so, just disregard this post! (^^,)

During my latest research of Star Wars saga deleted scenes, needed for one of my projects, it comes to my attention a little clip that I remember was in the final movie. I said myself “I’m pretty sure it is in the movie ‘as is’, but maybe it’s a different take… let’s compare them!”. After the comparison, I discover that, apart different frame size, colors and rough audio, the scene is the same found on any media.

Then I thought if it’s possible to gain some lines of resolution, combining both 1080p and film frames; I explain the theory here: https://forum.fanres.com/thread-20.html - but never tested before with clips longer than few seconds AND with so different color palettes… so, it was time to put the theory in practice!

The 1080p (I used HDTV, but BD will be the same, more or less) frame is left untouched; the SD clip is then upscaled to be spatially aligned with the 1080p; as the frame sizes have different aspect ratio, now we have two overlaid rectangular frames - the 1080p wider, the film taller - where the center share the same image, left and right sides are 1080p and top and bottom are film. Got the point? The problem is to mix them all, to obtain a proper final result… I used my colourmatch to regrade the 1080p using film as reference; while good, it’s still not perfect, so I ended up using the 1080p regraded on the sides, 1080p luma and film chroma for the shared image, and film for top and bottom:

https://s12.postimg.org/bpfu0rrj1/combined.png

Now we have an axis-aligned polygon aspect ratio clip! Simply put, a “cross”, where the corners are empty… so, I used a script to “fill” somehow those corners, to have a full rectangular image.

At the end, now the result has 1920x840 active pixels, with the 1080p resolution and film colors: plus 24 gained lines top and bottom, about 3% of 1080p resolution more… it is still not perfect; the corners, in particular, but also the top and bottom film, and 1080p left and right, “slices” that sometimes have not the identical color of the rest of the image. But it’s a start.

Comparison: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/192337

Test clip: https://fs07n2.sendspace.com/dl/abc07ac01893af13b2ffb3f89e293f56/583f6fd20ac5912d/9h5m7v/Combined-TEST3.m2ts