The Arrival [spoRv] BD-25 (Released)

,^…^, presents The Arrival [spoRv] - special project of Restored version

| PROJECTS: Released | In progress | Future | Mission & Setup |

Mission: to make “The DEFINITIVE Arrival” edition.

Video source: Blu-ray, DVD, Laserdisc.

Audio sources: Blu-ray, DVD, Laserdisc.

Subtitles sources: Various.

Project info:

The Arrival on Blu-ray has some DNR, plus contrast problems and its color grading is different from previous versions on DVD and LD; it lacks also extras.

For this project, I will correct the contrast, then apply a 35mm grain plate to give the impression of a bit of more details; the DVD will be used as color reference for the color correction; all the DVD and laserdisc known extras will be added - still to be decided if it will be a BD-50, or two discs, one BD-25 with the movie in high definition, the other (BD-25 or AVCHD onto DVD-9) with extras.

Source Material

Video:

• The Arrival - Blu-ray
• The Arrival - German KinoWelt DVD (for extras)
• The Arrival - Special Edition box set Laserdisc (for extras)

Audio:

• The Arrival - Blu-ray DTS-HD MA
• The Arrival - various DVD (for foreign languages)
• The Arrival - Laserdisc AC3 (for film audio track and commentary)

Subtitles:

• English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.

Final format: BD-25

Video:

1920×1080, 23.976fps, A.R. 1.85:1, AVC encoded using x264, 18mbps average bitrate

Audio:

DTS-HD MA 24bit 7.1 from BD: English
DD 16bit 384kbps 5.1 from LD: English
DD 16bit 448kbps 5.1 from DVD: French, Italian, Spanish
DD 16bit 192kbps 2.0 from DVD: German
DD 16bit 192kbps 2.0 from LD: English commentary

Subtitles:

Movie: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Notes:

Animated menu, 28 chapters

Outside and inside covers, disc label

***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***

"Partner in crime":

• thegroovologist for DVD extras and much help
• DoomBot for soundtrack help and general advice
• Jetrell Fo for The Making of The Arrival VHS capture

Project Status: RELEASED

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Top: untouched BD; bottom; contrast fixed, pink blanket removed, grain plate added

OLD: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84102

NEW: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84760

final(?): http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84889

2x BD-25 will be probably the final decision, as they cost less than 1x BD-50, plus the original movie with DTS-HD MA is around 16GB, and will be a little more with the other tracks!

BIG NEWS!

Jetrell Fo stepped in the project, getting for it The Making of The Arrival VHS tape; it will almost surely contains some extra stuff not present in the Kinowelt DVD and/or special edition laserdisc.

KUDOS to Jetrell Fo!!!

Project is put on hold for few days, and it will be updated once the capture will be available.

Jetrell, don't worry, we are all happy the tape is safe and sound in your hand, and that it will be carefully captured with the best hardware and software available.

So, I'm happy to hear that, and eagerly awaiting the capture, to start to work at this really interesting movie+extra project!

Jetrell Fo said:

Okay, here is the update ......

To keep the flow of info I took time out of my schedule to hook up the VCR and preview the tape.  There was NO capturing done.

The time frame for each loop is 25 minutes a piece.  The segment begins with TV promos about reactions to the film and a trailer.  The second part of the segment is a short "making of" that goes through a few sections of production.

That is all I did and saw.

I hope this quells some of the curiosity for now.

Thanks 

No, Jetrell, thanks to you! For:

1. taking time to capture the tape for the project
2. taking time to watch the tape and report content

No rush to do it, as I started some new projects; but you know that, secretly (well, not that much secretly) I'm eagerly waiting... (^^,)

Message to all: we (all of us) have a life - do we? - so please respect people's time, don't flood with PMs, and if you really, REALLY need to know or write something, just post your thought in this thread; thanks!

thegroovologist said:

Regarding the loop; that's great news...the reactions to the film part is definitely new material. 25 minutes sounds very promising. I guess that the Making Of part contains new material, too.

At least, of this 25 minutes we hope about 10 are never-seen-before material... we'll see!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Thanks to Jetrell Fo, the promo video is available to be included in The Arrival extra disc... as it's from VHS, it has a bit of speckles here and there, but luckily it is looped several times, so I will average the different captures to obtain a speckles and noise free version.

Again, many thanks, Jetrell! The exta disc will contain a lot of bonus material, something will never be released on digital discs like the former promo video and the laserdisc material... speaking of that, I should "break the seal" of my The Arrival laserdisc box set - still shrinkwrapped - to capture the video, but I'll be more than happy to do it!!! Hope to finish the capture in the next few days, then release the movie itself, then - let me some days - I'll release my first extra disc... wish me luck!!!

Yes, it's time... the laserdisc capture will be used for all the extras - including the alternate ending - that will form the extra disc, and also the commentary track (and, maybe, the ac3 audio track as well) to be added to the movie disc.

Good news: just finished to watch the video; it's a loop of the same segment (4 times). It is a short TV promo - nothing special, but a nice addition nevertheless, and, most important, a 20 minutes Making Of, with interesting facts about CGI, audio and such... great things that will form a great extra disc!

After A LOT of time (too much, indeed) I'm back to work on The Arrival; as I was not happy with the previous color regrading attempts, I decided to start from scratch; now, apart obvious contrast fixing, I've tried only to remove the pink blanket of the BD, and it seems I reached a good compromise; of course, grain plate is present like in the past, as it seems to increase perceived details very well.

You can see a link with screenshot comparisons in the post #2; feedbacks are welcome!

thegroovologist said:

Hmmmm...the snow shot is always tricky so I'm just gonna focus on screenshot comparison #2 & #3 for now.

It looks like the colors are too cold now.

Before you decided to start from scratch again, how did the colors of your "final" version look like? Can you post a comparison (same frames, Original Blu-ray vs old "final" version) ?

Agree that those colors seems a bit too cold now - in particular the "famous" snow scene - in comparison to the untouched BD and DVD, in particular the latter; I did a LOT of testing yesterday - many hours, and many dozen settings - and this is the one I like best, and I thought to use these settings for the final version; this is still not the final decision, though; but as I could watch the whole movie with these settings, I can say it is overall really better than the untouched BD, and, again, even if it seems too cold in some shots, it is perfect in others IMHO.

Just name some other shots (min:sec) that could be useful to make further comparisons, and I'll do them ASAP - this is still not "set in the stone"! (^^,)