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ElectricTriangle

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Join date
26-Dec-2013
Last activity
24-Apr-2024
Posts
305

Post History

Post
#1203294
Topic
Amadeus - Theatrical Cut Restoration 1080p (V3 Now Available)
Time

evilronin said:
Hopefully, I’m an idiot and don’t know what I’m talking about and there is a digital way to extract the AC-3RF from the laserdisc while retaining its original quality

There is. People do that on these forums all the time. If you have a RF demodulator that can bitstream DD, then you can just capture that with no re-encoding.

Post
#1200581
Topic
Info: Films re-released with alterations
Time

SilverWook said:

This is utterly crazy considering there’s a skit on the Saturday Night Live Season 4 DVD set that has both Coke and Pepsi products shown in it! That had to have been cleared for the video release. Maybe NBC/Universal was willing to cut both companies a check?

Yeah, using the original posters would be fair use. There’s no need to clear licensing on anything. The only reason they were blurred to begin with is the movie had a deal with Pepsi, and that deal is definitely not in effect today. I wonder if they don’t have the original, un-blurred negative, and figured that replacing the blurs would be less distracting. It still doesn’t explain why they removed the coke logo from the cooler. I guess for consistency.

Post
#1199690
Topic
Info Wanted: A question about public domain works...
Time

captainsolo said:

Essentially when dealing with PD titles it is the new restoration or version that can be copyrighted but anyone else is free to make their own release or version from the non-restored still PD materials or whatever they get a hold of.

Again, in the US at least, there is ample legal precedent that establishes that you can’t re-copyright a restoration, because the basis of copyright is originality. Now, you can re-copyright a remixed soundtrack or an extended cut of a PD film, because those are creative decisions, but a faithful restoration, no matter how much work is involved, cannot be copyrighted. It is not a new creative work or a derivative work. Some restoration houses register their restorations with the copyright office, but based on current legal precedent those copyrights would not hold up in court.
Here are some examples from earlier in the thread:
http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1186550/action/topic#1186550
http://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1186553/action/topic#1186553

Post
#1198537
Topic
Info Wanted: A question about public domain works...
Time

They are still very much under copyright. Why do you think Disney bought Lucasfilm for billions? Distribution has nothing to to do with a work’s copyright status (it should, as currently their are tons of pieces of art and literature that are under copyright with no one distributing them-so called “orphan works”). Lucasfilm has thankfully ignored the existence of edits on here (and the rules stress that you should buy the official blurays), but fan-works still exist at the whims of Disney’s legal department.

Post
#1192305
Topic
How are you planning for the Oppocalypse?
Time

I’m glad they at least have the resources to do support and continue to provide firmware update. But this is really sad news.
Since bluray it’s been less essential to have a really nice player, as you just need something that can pump everything through HDMI (to a nicer TV/receiver/speakers) and won’t break. This is probably one of the reasons they hit trouble. But Oppo made really nice machines.

Post
#1192110
Topic
Wallace & Gromit in "The Wrong Trousers" - Original Audio Preservation (Released)
Time

They’re asking if they use the same transfer. If they do, then the US bluray is the one worth working from, as it’s 1080p progressive and can be sped up to 25fps easily, whereas the AUS BD would have to be deinterlaced. (the BD spec only allows 25/50fps in an interlaced form.)

Post
#1190896
Topic
Mr. Plinkett's Prequel Reviews Remastered in HD? (TPM & AOTC - done; ROTS - a WIP)
Time

I don’t think there is a similar project for empire and jedi that is in sync with the blurays.

JawsTDS did some one pass color regrades for the blurays. You might ask him for the color settings for empire and jedi and see if you can apply something similar in avisynth.

You_Too actually posted avisynth scripts way back in 2011, but the curves are now offline, and he hasn’t been around here in a while.

Post
#1189271
Topic
Mr. Plinkett's Prequel Reviews Remastered in HD? (TPM & AOTC - done; ROTS - a WIP)
Time

Sounds great! Glad I could be some small help.

Have you considered using a color corrected version of the OT blurays? (at least for when he isn’t specifically criticizing the special edition). The BDs have notoriously bad colors, and better color would let them compare favorably to other films. I know you’ve already done all the hard editing work, but Neverar’s A New Hope Technicolor Recreation is in sync with the bluray, so potentially you could drop it into your edit without too much trouble.

Post
#1187955
Topic
Info: The Force Awakens - IMAX Edition - Help needed!
Time

^…^ said:
By the way, I’ve discovered that the IMAX picture found here (http://media.washtimes.com.s3.amazonaws.com/media/image/2015/12/16/film_review-the_force_awakens.jpeg) - that is 1.33:1, by the way - has been recomposited (unless BD/HDTV were recomposited instead, but I don’t think it’s the case)

Yeah, the promotional still is a Photoshop of several different frames, so that you can have both Rey and Finn in good poses plus a good explosion, plus the tie fighter firing all in one image.

This is the frame Rey and the left half of the image are taken from (as you can see, Finn’s pose is not as dynamic and too blurry):

BB-8 and the tie fighter are from different frames as well.

Post
#1187154
Topic
Info Wanted: A question about public domain works...
Time

DMCA doesn’t exist outside of the US. Also, currently in the US there’s an exemption for breaking copy protection for the purposes of using the resulting footage for commentary and short usage, which is weird, since it judges your intent when breaking DRM (what if you decided not to use that footage in your documentary after ripping it?) and also doesn’t account for the fact that copy protected material might be in the public domain.

The question of what you do with the material after breaking the DRM is separate from the issue of breaking the DRM. In the early days of the DMCA, when companies actually tried to enforce the restriction on breaking it, I remember that legal decisions ruled that using the resulting footage for fair use purpose was legal, but breaking CSS wasn’t.

So theoretically you could be taken to court for breaking DRM, but the copy you made and distributed would be perfectly legal. God, copyright law sucks. In practice, I don’t think companies have gone to court over breaking disk DRM since the early days of HDDVD.

If you want a fun, legally dubious way around this, you could have a friend rip a copy in a foreign country and send you only the public domain content. Or torrent the movie as long as it didn’t come with any copyrighted bonus material or soundtracks.

Post
#1186553
Topic
Info Wanted: A question about public domain works...
Time

In the US there is ample legal president that this is legal.
Digitizing a photo or painting that is in the public domain should not create a new copyright on that copy, because an original work was not created. Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp establishes a precedent that “Even though accurate reproductions might require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element to determine whether a work is copyrightable under US law is originality.”

In other parts of the world this is less settled, but in the UK the National Portrait Gallery threatened Wikipedia for hosting their scans of old paintings. The museum backed down and the UK’s Intellectual Property Office then later said that “copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. Given this criteria, it seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitized image of an older work can be considered as ‘original’.”

So in the US and probably the UK you should be fine to freely use and modify restorations as long as the original film is public domain.

Now, a lot of restoration houses do put copyright notifications on their work. They do this mostly so they can get paid for when another label wants to use their transfer. Because their business model depends on this it’s conceivable that they might go to court to try and defend them. You would probably win if you could afford to hire a lawyer and defend your case, but if you couldn’t then this would be an effective way to stop usage of their transfer.
There are weird areas this gets into such as if the restored tinting on silent films is copyrightable because it’s a creative decision, or because since the tinting aims to restore an original element of the film it is not copyrightable. Also, based on how the music industry works, multi-channel remixed soundtracks (from the original elements) are likely copyrightable depending on the creative decisions made.

Edit: And just beaten to it by Mr Shickadance

Post
#1180957
Topic
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition HD Recreation (V3 Now Available.) (Released)
Time

Glad you liked it!

Unfortunately, using the DC effects at the end puts a substantial amount of the finale in SD, including all the viewscreen shots of vger’s interior up until that point. And while they are impressively matched to the film, they are ultimately limited to being 2001 era budget cgi. I personally think most of the theatrical cut shots look better despite their limitations.
If I ever incorporate these effects, I’d want to do some extra work on them, including re-rotoscoping the two shots that incorporate a live action plate.

Post
#1180339
Topic
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition HD Recreation (V3 Now Available.) (Released)
Time

Version 2 of this edit is now available. It’s a fairly small upgrade, but now it’s a little more polished.
version 2 changes:

  • newly created opening titles which have a logo animation similar to the DC DVD.
  • cleaned up some of the redone effects
  • made the DVD footage’s aspect ratio consistent throughout the the film
  • used color-corrected Blu-ray footage to add the theatrical alien subtitle font.
  • Motion tracked the the DC “Starfleet Headquarters” shot to replace the title with an HD title in the main title font.
  • Fixed one brief editing error in v1 that repeated a reaction shot incorrectly.

This image gallery shows the changes made for v2: https://imgur.com/a/K0EhF

Now available on the 'spleen or pm for a link.