Papai2013

I did say “If you discount the colour.” So yeah, I know the colour is green-shifted, unlike the prints. But the contrast makes it more filmic and accurate to the look of film prints, which were contrasty and darker than the TV masters of the films.
The left shot has more richness and depth due to the contrast, which is lost in the dull looking right hand-side shot. The right image looks really bad to my eyes.

JayArgonaut said:
Very well but I’m sticking with the earlier versions of all three films. For me, the comparison below sums up why the director does not always know best. 😃

It’s very obvious that the image on the left is much more filmic and robust. There is proper highlights, shadows and contrast even if you discount the colour.
The image on the right looks made for TV, not cinema. A Very flat image.

Andrea,
I had also sent you HP6 OM SD and full screen SD, remember?

Possibly yes.

Are you planning on adding the IMAX scenes in 1.43:1 as well and with a common width (vertical expansion for the IMAX scenes)?

No no, I meant my eyes. As in - the red feels a bit too intense.

This looks really good. Keep it up man! The Reds in the last shot can be a little less though. It affects the eyes a bit.

Are you aware of workprints/extended cuts of Jurassic Park 1,2 & 3 existing? So far we’ve only heard rumours, hearsay and other apparently unreliable info. If you have any knowledge regarding these, it’ll be great.

RU.08 said:

It has TL and TR. The issue is that it’s an analogue format that I’m not sure is really designed for digital? I know in other 35mm release people just leave the Dolby SR tracks as 2.0 - but do they decode correctly in a home theatre? This I don’t know partly because I don’t have a home theatre with surround sound in which to check.

In that case, just look at a Criterion Collection BD 2.0 channel encode. Maybe that’ll help with the specifications.

I’d really love to see these two restored - Aladdin & The Lion King. Would even like to contribute some funds later.

JayArgonaut said:

JC has also altered the colour grading, in a similar vein to that visited upon Aliens and The Terminator.

Actually, the home video colour of all the films were wrong, if that’s what you hold as sacrosanct. They did not reflect the photochemical finish of the 35mm prints, which had more yellow, teal, purple and brown. This was the case with almost all mainstream studio films back in the day. Titanic’s colour timing is no exception.
The digital grading of 2012 tries to go back to that look but because of the limitations of the Rec 709 colour space, it still cannot achieve that result.
From what I have seen, Aliens, The Terminator, all look close to their 35mm couterparts but not the same.

RU.08 said:

Plus we will also have both the DTS audio and the optical audio. Our scanner has run a few reels through his projector and said the optical mix sounds terrific. Speaking of which, is it best to simply leave it a a Dolby Surround 2.0 PCM, or should we decode it to 4.0?

How many channels does the optical track have? That is what should be kept in the release, “as is.”

RU.08 said:
…we have a print of the film now that we can make our own release from. 😃

Well, can one of such releases contain the full height of the cells, pleeeaaasssee???

The only things that were changed in Titanic was the star field in the sky, removal of studio equipment, re-framing the “Left Eye,” “Right Eye” shots, making the “TITANIC” credit a bit bolder. I am not aware of anything else that was changed. These don’t alter the film in spirit at all. No VFX were re-composited, unless you’re talking rotoscoping for the 3D (which isn’t an issue with the 2D). The framing is similar and the colours, though they feel a bit fake (Hello digital grading), is very similar to the 35mm release prints, which was not the case with the previous home video releases.
The theatrical cut as is, exists on the DVD in good enough quality. HDTV versions are also theatrical. There are ways to watch the “flawed” film.
Being the perfectionist he is, there was no way JC was going to allow studio lights or wrong star field, especially after being pointed out.
In Jurassic Park, not only was the studio equipment removed, Spielberg also removed netting that held up fake leaf canopy in the “Veggie-Saurus” scene. He added a lightning flash visually, which terrifies the lawyer, making him request the guests to return to the cars. The wire that pulls open the dilophosaur’s fan-like membrane is also digitally removed. The VFX, especially the final T-Rex shot, is touched up and polished. All of these improve the film subtly. But, JP also exists in its original (debatable) version in the previous home video releases. It wasn’t Walkie-Talkies replacing guns after all.
Having said all that, I do appreciate the need to restore the original versions. Which is why we’re all here, aren’t we? Your effort is laudable, there’s no question about that.

Film prints are like time capsules that allow us to travel back to simpler and more “real” moments in our past. We wish to share these with the coming generation some day, hoping to see their eyes sparkle with an enthusiasm that used to be ours. Unfortunately though, kids today have virtually no similarity to kids in the '80s or '90s. So, we’ll likely be disappointed in that one area at least. The world has paradoxically become more liberated, yet more superficial and confined at the same time. I apologize for the philosophising.

RU.08,
It would have been nice to see the full print.
You guys could do a stabilized GRINDHOUSE release before the proper version, without cropping any picture out, can you not?
Kindly do ask the person who has the uncropped scan.

Also, I think the shape of the faces in the print appear slightly squished vertically. Stretching the final 2.39:1 image back to 2.35:1 might make the faces look normal.

Those are very thin lines and can be edited out later. My point was having a base full height version first, so that when someone wishes to construct a 2.20:1 version, they could re-adjust the framing by including the full height (minus the white edges you mentioned) and cropping out the sides.

RU.08 said:

Papai2013 said:

I have seen images of many Titanic release print film cell strips that were being sold loose on ebay and elsewhere. What I noticed is that when I extract the full height of those cells and crop out the rounded edges at the sides, I get an aspect ratio of about 2.20:1 (around that) not 2.39:1. The 2.39:1 is achieved by further cropping the extra height.

The anamorphic “squeeze” is 2:1. Here’s a cell off the internet:

And here it is cropped and resized:

As you can see it is 2.35:1, not 2.2:1. It’s not possible to reconstruct the 70mm version from 35mm, you’ll need to get a 70mm print for us to scan for that. When cropped it comes to 2.39:1 as so:

If you crop the rounded edges out, without cropping the top & bottom, you’ll get around 2.20:1. I was talking about preserving the full height. It can be done. In the 2.39:1, you have cropped the top & bottom out, as visible from the lines.

RU.08, I am willing to contribute to this thing of beauty. I have one request though (not demand!) that the full vertical height and horizontal width be preserved while scanning. I have seen images of many Titanic release print film cell strips that were being sold loose on ebay and elsewhere. What I noticed is that when I extract the full height of those cells and crop out the rounded edges at the sides, I get an aspect ratio of about 2.20:1 (around that) not 2.39:1. The 2.39:1 is achieved by further cropping the extra height.

I have seen this in the case of the Empire Strikes Back anamorphic print as well. The original cells had more image at top & bottom than the final cropped version released.

Because Titanic was also released in 70mm with the 2.20:1 aspect ratio, I would request that at least one release of this print be made with the full height of the frame kept intact, so that someone interested can create a 70mm version out of it and the existing open-matte materials.

Print looks beautiful so far!

Hey, is that your voice?

Andrea, the audio is a different narration than the one by Emma Watson in the film. Also, the music is missing. Can you not use the original Eng BD audio?

OF COURSE I am interested! This really looks much better!

None of the other open-matte scenes are significant. If the aerial battle and the Locket’s destruction were open matte, then it’d have been something. Also, the nature of the film is such, that it looks better in the cinemascope format.

Thanks for doing this. However, as you can see, the logo is still quite noticeable and distracting.
The best bet would indeed be to find a 1080p broadcast without logo; sync it to the BD and add the Eng DTS track. But that’s easier said than done.

Great! A link to the 4:3 animation, please. The colour on the Blu-ray looks better to me.

Ok. Can you provide stll frames of those scattered open-matte shots, as per your convenience of course. There’s no rush.

For the animation, would love to see the entire uncompressed clip that you recomposed.

Thanks, Vouka,

Andrea, the added grain definitely makes the image look sharper. However, I would advise you to use real 35mm film grain scans, like Crumblepop 35mm grain. This grain pattern looks a bit like noise. We need only those scenes where the open matte gains good amt of info at the vertical space. Then we could construct an IMAX version.

Any action-oriented scenes look open-matte in this, like the battle in the sky with death eaters early in the film?

I see. But, the channel logo obscures the image badly. We need to find one without a logo and in HD.

Vouka, can you provide screens for the animation scene from this OM version?

It would be nice to see the open-matte animation from HP DH Part 1 preserved.