Superrayman3

Molly said:

Depends on how the software is set up to handle the m2v data; whether it is set to telecine or not.

I figured out the problem, turns out VirtualDub-MEPG2 has a setting enabled by default called honor “repeat first field” flags which apparently I had completely forgotten about (it’s been years since I actually worked with DVD stuff so I’m a bit rusty with the settings from a fresh install of VirtualDub-MPEG2), turning that setting off restored the original progressive image and framerate to my DB DBOX Vol 1 single and thank god, I just thought my memory was off and I was going crazy, good thing I wasn’t.

Molly said:

The Dragon Boxes are progressive.

I thought they were, the thing is whenever I rip my JP DB DBOX Vol 1 single, the footage is always interlaced be it using VLC or editing with virtualdub (which is what I tend to use for video editing), extracting the m2v from the vob file doesn’t help either so I wasn’t sure if they were or not, what makes things even weirder is the fact that I used to be able to rip DVDs and open them without interlacing at all (unless the source was interlaced from the start) and now ever since I moved to a new PC everything I rip from DVD is interlaced, even discs that I know are progressive, so IDK what’s going on.

Molly said:

A friend is attempting to fix the Funi 30ANIV BluRays of Z, and he’ll prolly hand them off to me to encode. (Which means I’ll prolly do the same voodoo I did with the Levels.)

Might only be worth 480, he suggested (because the processing he’s using to mitigate the filter damage does include some blurring), though his experiments have been at 720.

Honestly I don’t see a point in doing anything with FUNi’s 30th anniversary set since it’s trash through and through. There’s friggin artificial grain added to the footage for christ’s sake presumably to mitigate complaints about the lack of grain which was stupid because it would have been easier to just tone back the DNR and everything wouldn’t have been so bad, something between the grain on the level sets and Kai would be the sweet spot imo (the level sets while fantastic looking had a little too much grain for my tastes, Kai on the other hand has too little grain, it isn’t as bad at the 30th anniversary sets mind you but Kai still went a little bit overboard), add that and the fact that the cropping for the 4:3 framing is complete overkill and it’s a waste of time, even if one could make it look better it’d just be a stop-gap measure at best, you’d be better off working on deinterlacing the DBOX footage (assuming it needs to be deinterlaced) and working from there.

darkspire17 said:

Superrayman3 said:

darkspire17 said:

Superrayman3 said:

Molly said:

I know, right? I don’t think there’s any better than the R1s for that right now, is there? (Since that series was kind-of a dud, although wasn’t it Michie Tomizawa’s first major role?)

There actually is a R2 Japanese DVD release of Southern Cross (which has been long out of print so you’ll have to get it second hand from somewhere like Yahoo Japan Auctions) but I’m not sure how the quality on the Japanese DVD version compares to the ADV R1 release, personally I’d assume the Japanese release would be slightly better since the Japanese DVDs probably use the original 16mm film negatives for their source as opposed to the nth generation copies ADV had to work with, that and the fact that Japanese companies usually tend to put forth a great effort to try and make high quality releases, I’ve actually been wanting to get my hands on the R2 release for a while now to see how the two versions compare I just haven’t had the money to get it (I may be getting a job soon so that may not be an issue for much longer).

sadly that is incorrect, the JP dvd set is worse than the adv set, chroma bleed, nigh noise levels, basicly taken straight rom the broadcast masters (or degraded copies atleast) the ADV set attempted to fix them but overall ruined them, removing most colors, leaving mostly heavy blacks and blue tones throughout the episodes, ive attempted to color correct the ADV set but it simpily cant be done, and the japanese rellease will cost you arround 500$

Like I said previously I didn’t know what the quality of the R2 DVDs were like and just assumed it would be better since it was a domestic release in the country of the shows origin, who knows in the right hands it might actually be somewhat salvageable and turn out to be better than the R1, highly unlikely but you never know, I’d actually like to see a good comparison shot between the two DVD releases to see what the differences are.

sorry for the late response
https://imgur.com/XO4rl0U
id say the japanese set is the better quality, sharper image, and could be corrected

Hmm looking at the 2 side by side as is and I think I’d prefer the slightly smoother look of the ADV set just a tad bit more than the Japanese release (it just looks a tad more pleasing to the eye IMO, not to mention the fact that from what I’m seeing there appears to be more of the image in the ADV set, and based on a few tests I’ve done, that might actually be the case although I’ll have to investigate further, could you post full screenshots of both releases instead of a half and half screenshot for a more accurate comparison between the two?), however when it comes to retaining the color information I’d definitely go with the Japanese set in a heartbeat because it looks like more of the original color information is retained in the Japanese release, whereas the ADV set appears to have altered the colors to the point where there’s severe crushed blacks and whites in comparison, it’s pretty much a pick your poison kind of deal in this case and it’s really hard to say which release is actually better because they both have their pros and cons.

darkspire17 said:

A small update, Ive finaly got a new PC, editing will start shortly, need to get myself a combination pal NTSC player before anything starts.

Great to hear that you’re almost ready to begin working on this, just curious what editing software do you plan on using to do this when everything is ready to go?

darkspire17 said:

Putting out a bounty of arround 70 AUD for someone to find the reigon 2 Southern cross Perfect collection (japanese) ive only seen one up for auction twice and its 500$, not worth the price, or id have to get the laserdisc set witch the shippping would break me, if you know anyone who owns the set please contact them and buy it off of them or you.

Best of luck in your hunt, I’ve been searching for the Southern Cross Perfect Collection at a reasonable price and thus far have had no luck, our best bet would be for a group of people pitch in together and buy the set with every person who donated getting a copy of the discs, that’s pretty much the only way Robotech/RTM fans are ever going to get this unless someone crazily decides to buy it for that price alone and uploads it.

darkspire17 said:

ScottZill said:

When will this be released?

Also I found this: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-80323.html. Might help.

ive known about this font for a while, sadly it isnt the one, the original ffont was ound recently in a typography book ,but no one ever scanned it, and the thread is long gone sadly, and my backups of the photos where lost

Do you remember the name of the typography book or where it was found? It may be possible to find it on the way back machine. Also you may want to look into the Japanese Megazone 23 Blu-ray boxset, one of the discs in the boxset has the Streamline dubbed version of part II with optional Japanese subtitles meaning clean Robotech The Movie opening and ending animation (sans the scrolling text starfield) and it’s progressive unlike the DVD included with the Limited Edition release of Aoi Garland which was interlaced, I actually have the m2ts file for it backed up as I’ve been wanting to do my own remaster/preservation of Robotech The Movie but still need a few elements to make it, one is the Southern Cross series (I will not use the most recent DVD releases from A&E/Lionsgate, they’re too compressed and honestly I really don’t want to use the ADV remastered footage, that leaves the R2 DVDs which were mentioned to be not very good in another thread on the “Preservation of Other Properties” board, the old ADV DVD footage, and that’s pretty much it for DVD options, the only other options are to hunt down either the old VHS/Laserdisc releases and work with those, I wish we had a film print of the movie to work with but those are obscure and very elusive), the next piece needed is HQ audio the best option would be a PAL Laserdisc with I believe either Swedish or Turkish subtitles, but those are very hard to come by even moreso than the PAL UK VHS release (which I do own).

darkspire17 said:

Superrayman3 said:

Molly said:

I know, right? I don’t think there’s any better than the R1s for that right now, is there? (Since that series was kind-of a dud, although wasn’t it Michie Tomizawa’s first major role?)

There actually is a R2 Japanese DVD release of Southern Cross (which has been long out of print so you’ll have to get it second hand from somewhere like Yahoo Japan Auctions) but I’m not sure how the quality on the Japanese DVD version compares to the ADV R1 release, personally I’d assume the Japanese release would be slightly better since the Japanese DVDs probably use the original 16mm film negatives for their source as opposed to the nth generation copies ADV had to work with, that and the fact that Japanese companies usually tend to put forth a great effort to try and make high quality releases, I’ve actually been wanting to get my hands on the R2 release for a while now to see how the two versions compare I just haven’t had the money to get it (I may be getting a job soon so that may not be an issue for much longer).

sadly that is incorrect, the JP dvd set is worse than the adv set, chroma bleed, nigh noise levels, basicly taken straight rom the broadcast masters (or degraded copies atleast) the ADV set attempted to fix them but overall ruined them, removing most colors, leaving mostly heavy blacks and blue tones throughout the episodes, ive attempted to color correct the ADV set but it simpily cant be done, and the japanese rellease will cost you arround 500$

Like I said previously I didn’t know what the quality of the R2 DVDs were like and just assumed it would be better since it was a domestic release in the country of the shows origin, who knows in the right hands it might actually be somewhat salvageable and turn out to be better than the R1, highly unlikely but you never know, I’d actually like to see a good comparison shot between the two DVD releases to see what the differences are.

Molly said:

I know, right? I don’t think there’s any better than the R1s for that right now, is there? (Since that series was kind-of a dud, although wasn’t it Michie Tomizawa’s first major role?)

There actually is a R2 Japanese DVD release of Southern Cross (which has been long out of print so you’ll have to get it second hand from somewhere like Yahoo Japan Auctions) but I’m not sure how the quality on the Japanese DVD version compares to the ADV R1 release, personally I’d assume the Japanese release would be slightly better since the Japanese DVDs probably use the original 16mm film negatives for their source as opposed to the nth generation copies ADV had to work with, that and the fact that Japanese companies usually tend to put forth a great effort to try and make high quality releases, I’ve actually been wanting to get my hands on the R2 release for a while now to see how the two versions compare I just haven’t had the money to get it (I may be getting a job soon so that may not be an issue for much longer).

RU.08 said:
That’s absolutely unnecessary, have a look at the samples I’ve posted from Cindy and that’s from a 35mm print! What Disney did was convert what was hand painted animation into digital animation - all the “flaws” from the manual process were wiped away. And then they changed the colours and god only knows why, but they basically boosted them up to the levels of Aladdin and Lion King instead of leaving them how they were.

Disney probably changed and boosted the colors to try and give the film a more modern look compared to the more subdued colors found on the original version although IMHO they should have kept the base colors more faithful in appearance to the original colors as seen on the negatives because the new color palette just don’t look very good in comparison.

RU.08 said:
And not only that but they wiped out intended details in their “restorations” as well:

DANG I knew that there was some detail that was lost in the “restoration” but I didn’t think there’d be THAT much detail lost during the process, if Walt were alive today and saw how Disney in the modern age was butchering his work in such a fashion you can bet that heads would be rolling over crap like this, changing the colors on its own is bad enough, removing details that are meant to be seen is completely unacceptable and Disney should be ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES for allowing such garbage to bear the Disney name.

Examples like this provide the best argument for why fan efforts to preserve film prints whether they be 16mm, 35mm, or 70mm is so important in this day and age because those film reels aren’t going to last forever, and sometimes even the original companies that made said films end up getting something in their process wrong somewhere along the line whenever they go back to work on a new release of their older films like Disney ended up doing in the case of their BATB and Cinderella Blu-Rays.

RU.08 said:

@Superrayman3 There is already an uncensored track using the CD but it’s not perfect, the wind sfx definitely needs to be handled better. Hopefully you can do a better job!

Honestly I’m having doubts about making this work correctly, the CD version has a more noticeable reverb/echo effect on the vocals compared to the LD and Optical tracks and I haven’t figured out how to mediate this issue which is problematic because you can hear a noticeable quality difference between the two sources (CD & LD)

RU.08 said:
Also, the optical audio is better quality than the LD so do it as well, your best option is to convert the CD audio to 48.0 KHz to match the LD & Optical tracks not the other way.

I’ll keep that in mind going forward, I’d like to do the optical track but the aforementioned reverb/echo issue on the CD version would probably make any edit more noticeable compared to the LD track not to mention the invert trick doesn’t work nearly as well on the optical track as is compared to the LD (the vocals are almost completely gone on the LD when inverted while the vocals are more noticeable on the optical track in comparison, I’m trying to see what can be done about this), also the LD and optical audio tracks have some issues that’ll need to be addressed, the LD track has a weird sound glitch during the line “When the wind’s from the east and the sun’s from the west” (I’ve only been listening to the song thus far for now so there may be even more instances of this problem that I haven’t encountered yet later on in the main film part of the track) while the optical track has noticeable click and pops that’ll need to be fixed.

RU.08 said:
Quality aside they are to my understanding two different mixes, the LD being near-field and Optical far.

I’m not familiar with the terms near and far field however I can confirm both tracks are different mixes although both are very good quality in their own right.

RU.08 said:
Ultimately we’ll have to find an uncensored print and get the audio from it.

That would be the best option by far, unfortunately the original 1992 print is neigh on impossible to find so good luck tracking one of those down for scanning.

Beetking said:

Included tracks are the optical from the print itself as well as the LD audio, would probably be a simple cut and paste job for someone with the knowledge for it.

If anybody would be interested I’d be up for trying this, I actually have the original Aladdin Soundtrack CD with the uncut version of Arabian Nights lying around and would be willing to try adding the original line back into the LD audio track if I could get hold of the audio (I’d like to try doing the same with the optical track as well but that one may be a bit trickier to work with since it’d be at a much higher bitrate and have a higher fidelity in comparison to a CD which would probably make such an edit noticeable when compared to the LD track which has a similar bitrate and fidelity to a CD but I’m open to trying it if it means I can help preserve a piece of Disney history).

Edit: I found the original release, now let’s see what kind of results can be achieved.
Edit 2: I just ran some basic tests using the LD audio and restoring the original line is somewhat possible but there’s two caveats at play, first the LD audio will have to be downmixed from 48000 to 44100 in order to keep a consistent quality with the CD audio (from what I understand if my research is correct, the audio track on LDs was originally encoded at the 16-bit 44100 sample rate prior to the introduction of AC3 so theoretically there should be little to no noticeable quality loss if my understanding of LD audio is correct), the second and biggest caveat is in order to restore the original line the censored line on the LD audio will have to be inverted and the uncut line synced over the inverted audio in order to retain the wind SFX that’s present in that part of the song, I’ll see what can be done but I can’t make any guarantees that this will actually work and sound seamless.

skyjedi2005 said:

I have the Laserdisc but no one has volunteered to cap the audio.

I was willing to send it to someone at one point.   Has to be someone i can trust that will actually return the laserdisc when they are done.

Someone on Bakabt.me forums was supposed to cap the audio and mux it with a pal video source but that never happened.

If you still need someone to cap the audio for the JAL dub for Kiki's Delivery Service I could do it for you, I have the stuff needed to do the job and I'd be more than happy to return the Laserdisc with a copy of the capped audio to you once finished.

PM me if your interested.