Originally posted by: Jonno
Hi folks, sorry to have been slow with the replies - net access is a bit intermittent at present...
Ok, here's a bit more about what I've got:
Alien Evolution:
This is my own transfer from a digital UK broadcast (I'm in the UK, in case that wasn't clear!) It was initially taped onto PAL DV as a 4:3 recording of the receiver's 16:9 output - squeezed, in other words. I subsequently encoded this and authored a simple DVD-R with some other odds and ends (it was early 2003 IIRC, and I wanted to backup some of the laserdisc stuff which of course ended up in the Quad set anyway).
I'd rate the picture and sound 8 (bearing in mind the digital broadcast origin, which doesn't always equate high quality!)
The 4:3 squeezed image resizes itself just fine on my widescreen set, and if a 16:9 flag could be added to the main video stream it would play as 16:9 anywhere (including PCs) - I just haven't really had a reason to re-author the disc as yet.
Giger's Alien:
This is an Ebay job - a DVD-R containing both Giger's Alien and Giger's Necronomicon. It's a 'DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER' volume, so I'm guessing the seller just plugged his Japanese lasers into the DVD recorder to achieve this (it's NTSC with Japanese subs of course).
I don't have the disc to hand right now, but from memory it's a serviceable picture - maybe a 5 or 6.
A short while ago I used Womble to isolate Giger's Alien as a separate stream... my plan was to combine both these programs on one disc but the PAL/NTSC difference would mean converting one of them, which I wasn't too happy about. Anyway, I can supply the Alien bit on its own if required.
I think the most satisfying solution would be to distill two discs from the available materials - one PAL, one NTSC (I also have an 'Alien' section from a BBC Scott documentary, broadcast in about 1992 - would fit on the Evolution disc nicely). If the owners of other elements are willing to supply them, I could put these together and distribute (or pass on masters for torrenting)? Just a thought.
I can provide the rare trailers from "to the galaxy and beyond dvd" if you like?