Info: The Matrix - with original theatrical color timing? — Page 4

The BD has clipped whites too... comparison screenshots (BD top, DVD bottom):

Just to let you guys know, someone has created an altered color timed version of THE MATRIX on TehParadox.com:

KingKong650's regraded THE MATRIX

Technical Specs:

Name: Regraded The Matrix

Size: 16.9 GB

Video: 1920x804 H264 23.976

Audio Track 1: DTS-HD 5.1 Cinema (Theater) Audio

Audio Track 2: Dolby 6 Channel AC3

Subtitle Track 1: English Subtitles

Subtitle Track 2: Spanish Subtitles

Thank you everybody for all the feedback on the 8GB regraded release of The Matrix, I have been really pleasantly surprised by the amount of positive feedback for this release. Many of you requested a 16GB regraded version of The Matrix so I'm very happy to oblige. :)

This 16GB release also includes an impressive DTS-HD audio track not included on the blu-ray that was put together by CapableMetal, Doombot and JetrellFo from originaltrilogy.com. Thank you guys for allowing me to include your great audio track with this release! Those of you (like myself) that felt the True HD and AC3 audio on the blu-ray lacked a bit of umph in the action sequences compared to what you remember from the cinema, especially the blows and impacts in fight scenes, will really enjoy this DTS-HD track.

Here are some words from JetrellFo about what went into creating this DTS-HD track:


"The DTS audio you are about to experience with The Matrix is actual Cinema (Theater) audio that comes from the DTS discs used when the movie plays. It has been adjusted for home use with as little processing as possible to keep the quality intact. A lot of Blu-ray audio has been remixed or remastered and I've heard plenty of reports saying that they wished it was how they heard it in the theater because that is where it made the impact on them.

What we did was to take the reels of audio from the CD's and edit out the cueing pulse material so the audio could be stitched back together to sync with the theatrical version of the movie. We wanted to preserve that "moving going" experience for the home. You can find DTS whitepapers on line that explain how it is used in the theater.

Thanks to DoomBot for taking on the editing/synching tasks and thanks to our own "Yoda", CapableMetal for his expertise and advice. Without these 2, this project would have been for naught and died slowly. I am including the MediaInfo on this audio file so folks have an idea of what they'll be hearing. Please enjoy and leave us feedback on your home experience with this audio.

Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA / Core
File size : 2.11 GiB
Overall bit rate mode : Variable

AudioFormat : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA / Core
Mode : 16
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : Unknown / 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossless / Lossy"


After the sequels came out, the original matrix film had a strong green tint added to the whole film that wasn't there with the original release, so it would match up with the very green look of the sequels. I have removed this additional strong green tint added to the new Matrix transfer, making the film's colour palette far more balanced overall. I have also reduced the contrast to reduce blown out highlights and crushed blacks on the blu-ray transfer to match up better with the image dynamics of the original dvd release of The Matrix, giving the film a more 'filmic' quality.

I hope you enjoy what I've done here with this release. Here are some comparisons below:

Blu-ray-1     Retimed-1

Blu-ray-2     Retimed-2

Blu-ray-3     Retimed-3

Here you are some test I've done; sources used are BD (the italian Blu-Ray - image is identical to US BD); DVD PAL (italian); ColourLike is an AviSynth script that tries to take the colors from a clip (from DVD in this case) and apply them to another clip (to BD in this case). From top to bottom:

1. BD
2. BD retimed by KingKong650
3. DVD PAL
4. BD ColourLike
5. BD luma + DVD chroma

Here ColourLike script did a good job; as you can see, as in this scene the DVD is more cropped, in the last image (BDluma+DVDchroma) the colors "bleed"

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

Here, BDluma+DVDchroma is better than the Colurlike script.

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

Here ColourLike did a bad job, while BDluma+DVDchroma is good.

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

Using one of these two methods (ColourLike or BDluma+DVDchroma) it's possible to retain the BD resolution with DVD color timing; now, if the DVD color timing is right, this methods could be used to do a proper restoration.

I've never found ColourLike to do anything good for a movie.

It's good on a frame by frame basis, but even for as little as a scene it fails to produce good results.

The problem is the references it uses are for whole clips, not individual frames.

If you could get it to check the a single frame, adjust the colors and then move to the next frame and start again, it'd probably be useful.

All the ColourLike shots look much closer to the original timing than the BR. Just saying that, if this is as good as it gets, I'd be happy enough. :)

What's the difference with my script?

###   ###   ###   ###   ###   ###

### next two lines must be run once ###
dvd.WriteHistogram("dvd hist.txt", 1)
 bd.WriteHistogram( "bd hist.txt", 1)

bd.colourlike("bd hist.txt", "dvd hist.txt")

###   ###   ###   ###   ###   ###

I tested it, and, in many scenes, beards are greenish - maybe because the BD is all green-tinted, and ColourLike doens't work properly... at the contrary, when DVD is cropped as the BD - I know there are few pixel shift - results are pretty good... and really bad when cropping are different...

At the end, to achieve a perfect result...

when DVD cropping is almost the same of BD, I could crop a bit (few pixels) the BD

when DVD cropping is really different, there are different choices:

1. crop (a lot) the BD, but the resulted image loose lot of information, and the aspect ratio is heavely modified
2. use the ColourLike, but there will be appreciable color differences between a scene and another, that could be easlily noted when scenes are one after the other.
3. upscale the DVD to BD resolution

solution #3 seems the best (between the worst...)

Comments are welcome.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

What's the difference with my script?

Yours generates a single histogram for the entire clip and then uses that.

Mine generates a new histogram for every frame.

AntcuFaalb said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

What's the difference with my script?

Yours generates a single histogram for the entire clip and then uses that.

Mine generates a new histogram for every frame.

Interesting... I must add that I've made a test, using only one frame to generate histogram, but resut is the same... but neverthless I'll give it a try; shold I use it as this?

ColourLikeFBF(bd,dvd)

Here you are my test using your script - what is wrong?

return ColourLikeFBF(bd,dvd)

function ColourLikeFBF(clip c1, clip c2)
{ # Color-matches c1 to c2, frame by frame.
  # Assumes c1 and c2 are the same length and are
  # both compatible with ColourLike.
  global c1 = c1
  global c2 = c2
  return c1.ScriptClip("""
    ca = c1.Trim(current_frame, -1)
    cb = c2.Trim(current_frame, -1)
    ca.WriteHistogram("hist1.txt", 1)
    cb.WriteHistogram("hist2.txt", 1)
    ca.ColourLike("hist1.txt", "hist2.txt")
    """)
}

Watching frame by frame, I got the following errors messages appearing at the top of the screen, one frame every when colourlike doesn't work and display the original BD colors:

Evaluate: System exception - Access Violation
([ScriptClip], line 4)

or

Evaluate: System exception - Access Violation
([ScriptClip], line 4)

the histogram files are not written, too. Can you help me, please?

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Evaluate: System exception - Access Violation
([ScriptClip], line 4)

or

Evaluate: System exception - Access Violation
([ScriptClip], line 4)

the histogram files are not written, too. Can you help me, please?

You might not have write-access to the directory Avisynth is running from.

Try changing "hist1.txt" and "hist2.txt" to something like "C:\<...>\hist1.txt" and "C:\<...>\hist2.txt".

Replace the "<...>" with a directory you know for certain that you can write to as the current user.

Alternatively, you can try running whatever program is executing the script as an administrator.

Forgive my ignorance but can chroma from an SD source really be combined with luma from an HD source without any perceivable loss in image quality?

AntcuFaalb said:

You might not have write-access to the directory Avisynth is running from.

Try changing "hist1.txt" and "hist2.txt" to something like "C:\<...>\hist1.txt" and "C:\<...>\hist2.txt".

Replace the "<...>" with a directory you know for certain that you can write to as the current user.

Alternatively, you can try running whatever program is executing the script as an administrator.

I followed your instruction and, despite the fact that this time the two histogram files were written (but are small, 5Kb, it's normal?) I continue to have the same error messages...

Turisu said:

Forgive my ignorance but can chroma from an SD source really be combined with luma from an HD source without any perceivable loss in image quality?

Chroma is less "noted" by the human ey ethan luma... for example, a full HD luma resolution is 1920x1080, while chroma is 960x540 (1/4th) while VHS is 350x480 luma (NTSC) and 30x480 chroma(1/12th)!

Consider that PAL DVD has only 720x576 luma and 360x288 chroma, but when upscaled it will reach the same HD resolution, and, as chroma is less "important" (to the human eye) than chroma, the eventual artifacts given by the upscaling process will pass unnoticed.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

AntcuFaalb said:

You might not have write-access to the directory Avisynth is running from.

Try changing "hist1.txt" and "hist2.txt" to something like "C:\<...>\hist1.txt" and "C:\<...>\hist2.txt".

Replace the "<...>" with a directory you know for certain that you can write to as the current user.

Alternatively, you can try running whatever program is executing the script as an administrator.

I followed your instruction and, despite the fact that this time the two histogram files were written (but are small, 5Kb, it's normal?) I continue to have the same error messages...

Turisu said:

Forgive my ignorance but can chroma from an SD source really be combined with luma from an HD source without any perceivable loss in image quality?

Chroma is less "noted" by the human ey ethan luma... for example, a full HD luma resolution is 1920x1080, while chroma is 960x540 (1/4th) while VHS is 350x480 luma (NTSC) and 30x480 chroma(1/12th)!

Consider that PAL DVD has only 720x576 luma and 360x288 chroma, but when upscaled it will reach the same HD resolution, and, as chroma is less "important" (to the human eye) than chroma, the eventual artifacts given by the upscaling process will pass unnoticed.

Let's discuss this one-on-one in a web-chat sometime soon. It'll be a lot easier (and faster!) than trying to do this on the forum.

AntcuFaalb said:

Let's discuss this one-on-one in a web-chat sometime soon. It'll be a lot easier (and faster!) than trying to do this on the forum.

OK, you are right.

Meanwhile, if someone want to take a look at the test clips (10 second and 20MB each):

Blu Ray untoched

ColourLike (DVD chroma applied to BD)

Although I don't like the "green beard" of Neo, it is worst on the untouched BD, so maybe ColourLike can't fix it completely; in other scenes, the results are really good, often better than DVD chroma applied directly onto BD luma.

Nothing irritates me more than the new teal trend in Blu rays.

Except here we got a neon green tint instead of teal.

Tried watching matrix the new mix was awful and the colors were so bad i had to turn it off.