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BANNED BOND: The Criterion Collection on DVD (Released) — Page 13

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http://the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2011/04/21/Banned-James-Bond-Commentaries

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/050814_1500

"Finally today, here’s a little treat for you 007 fans that our friend (and BD producer) Robert Meyer Burnett alerted us to this afternoon: The website The 007 Dossier has just posted MP3 files of the “banned” Criterion laserdisc audio commentaries for the films Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger! These tracks were recorded by Criterion for their original LDs way back in 1991 and were initially released, but Albert Broccoli felt they were unacceptable and had them all pulled and re-issued without the tracks. Now you can finally download them and enjoy, so be sure to head over there ASAP if you’re a Bond fan. They’re well worth the time."

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Behold the power of twitter. I posted these files back in April of 2011 and nobody noticed. Someone tweets about it tonight and 900 people all try to download them at once, causing the server to crash and be down for nearly an hour. If you couldn't get them because of that outage, I'm pleased to report the server is back up...

http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com

http://www.the007dossier.com

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I have been wanting to contact the owner of 007 Dossier or someone in charge of these laserdisc files since I found them again this week (I saw them before, but forgot about it, and DVDCompare mentioned them while I was searching for 007 movies).

Here’s the thing:

  • These AC3/MP3 tracks don’t match in terms of sync with the current Blu-rays (and I am going to assume DVDs, too) from these movies. So far I only checked Dr. No. Here’s the problem:

If I try to insert the laserdisc commentary and the music/sound effects track (this is done using MKVToolnix) inside the Blu-ray rip, it will not match audio and video. Which means we would need to gain access to the original rip (the video) from these laserdisc captures for optimal experience.

Still, I tried to match these 2 tracks from Dr. No with my Blu-ray rip. When I say “match” I mean forcing the audio to be in sync with the video.

This is what I discovered:

  • If we insert a negative delay of 18 seconds and I guess 650 ms (or 18650 ms) the gunbarrel part will be OK. I mean, the moment Bond fires his gun will be in sync with the video. And if one track is synchronized then the other will be, too, obviously.

The issue here is this: if I subtract 18.650 seconds from these 2 banned tracks then I will be removing a portion from them that starts at 1, 2 seconds from the video. That’s because the commentary, for example, doesn’t wait for more than a couple of seconds to be heard.

In other words, I can fix the sync, but at the same time I’ll be removing good seconds from these 2 tracks, which isn’t acceptable. This is happening because (and this I noticed, too) the laserdisc had more than the MGM logo, it had another one playing, so the intro was longer. (note: I have no idea if any DVD edition matches the LD, it’s worth checking).

So my only choice here would be editing the video itself and adding more content just to fix these sync problems, and I have nothing specific to add. And even if I did, that implies a reencode from the video and it would cease to be lossless (assuming this Blu-ray rip is that way).

A similar fix was done for this movie:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Superman-IV-International-Cut/id/15984/page/1

In the beginning we see the TV (or VHS/LD ?) logo. This is the only way to fix this I can think of, that would accomodate these tracks, provided the reencode is really good.

I will check the others later. Of course, without making sure these tracks are in sync with the BRRips, they can’t be enjoyed fully.

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Williarob said:

Perhaps this is what you are looking for:

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-2899.html

It recreates the laserdisc content (including the extra logos) using Bluray footage and laserdisc audio.

These guys only want contributing donors to share anything, if at all. It’s one thing to ask for donations or funding for some project, like buying some rare material from eBay, it’s another to be rapacious about everything you can touch. That’s why sharing is dead nowadays, thanks to that sort of attitude and even for free we have private trackers only restricted to their clique and with all their screening, ruin things for everyone. I bet these guys will be a honeypot for a “bust” similar to the one that happened with the defunct Megaupload in 2012, and when that happens even them will have no access to said material. It’s sharing, especially FREE SHARING, that ensures this stuff will not be gone tomorrow. And make no mistake, that’s what copyright trolls only care about. Just look at what they are doing to Internet Archive these days…

It only took me a few hours to do what I asked. I only needed to discover how to sync properly. I added 24 seconds of black image to the beginning of the Blu-ray-rip, which it’s not ideal, still I think I managed to sync (for Dr. No) the 2 tracks you (or 007 Dossier) shared. I haven’t tried this for a lossless Blu-ray rip because I currently don’t have one for this movie, only a lossy copy at 1804x1080. A lossless MKV rip can be created with help from MAKEMKV and adjusted by MKVToolnix, if someone is interested.

This is what I did for my lossy rip:

Required:
MKVToolnix
gMKVExtractGUI

First I opened the lossy rip and decided to extract a small portion from it, to reinsert in the beginning. That would make sure no reencode would be necessary, so the image quality would stay the same. This is the ideal scenario.

That portion would be used to be added to the beginning, with the condition it would not have any audio related to it or if that’s the case, then it would be something that could not mess with the beginning by making it worse, before the MGM logo. In this case it was better to wait 20-25 seconds with no image rather than insert a random logo and force a reencode. A reencode would be required, too, if I had a logo matching with what he listen in the beginning of these 2 banned tracks because MKVTOOLNIX refuses to combine files totally different in terms of resolution and other technical data.

That Superman IV project I have here, and it has a VHS or LD logo added to the beginning, if I am not mistaken, the rip has 20 GB (it’s even bigger than the lossless file from the original Blu-ray), however it’s a reencode in the end.

This movie has I believe 8 seconds of black image before the file ends. I said before 18.6 seconds would be required (at the start), to compensate the differences. However we can’t cut as much as we want, due to the cut being only based on keyframes (I think this is how it’s called). In other words, if I wanted to cut 1 second and the keyframe had a lenght of 8 seconds, then I would be forced to accept 8 seconds or more, never less. That depends on the scene or how the file was created in the first place.

The only way to cut at a precise moment anywhere in the movie, or as much as I want equals = reencode.

This is how I cut the 8 seconds from the ending:

  1. Open the lossy rip from DR. NO with MKVToolnix. Disable all items (all tracks), except for the video one. Then go to Output, Split mode. After output duration: 01:49:40 (the movie has 01:49:50). Maximum number of files: 2 (or unlimited…)

MKVTOOLNIX will save 2 extra files. The second will have the last 8 seconds (which means the last keyframe has 8 seconds).

  1. Create 2 more copies from the generated file with 8 seconds. Control + C and control V.

  2. Open one of them and with the right button choose Append Files. Select the other 2 and save as a new file. This new file will have 24 seconds and 23 ms. I am going to call it “TWENTY.mkv”.

  3. Open the lossy rip again from Dr. NO, disable all items (all tracks), except for the video. Save as a new file. Note: don’t use any other internal option. Save the whole thing. I am going to call this DRNOVIDEO.mkv

  4. Then open TWENTY.mkv, choose append file and select DRNOVIDEO.mkv. Save as a new file. I’ll call this new file EXPERIENCE.mkv. It will have 1h50m14s. The first 24 seconds will have no image and then the MGM logo will appear.

  5. Now it’s time to use gMKVExtractGUI. Open the lossy rip from DR. NO and extract all desired tracks. In my case I now have the AC3 english/new commentary (and some foreign language/dubbing), and SRT/SUP subtitles separated from it. Also the chapters.

  6. Open EXPERIENCE.mkv with MKVToolnix. Add all tracks from 6). Delay (in ms): Insert here (for all tracks extracted by gMKVExtractGUI) this number: 24023. If you are adding the chapter file (XML) in OUTPUT, do the same. This will make them start playing after the 24 seconds I added at step 5.

7.1) At the same time you are doing step 7, add the banned tracks, the laserdisc commentary and music/effects. For them another number needs to be added instead of 24023. The correct one (for both) is 5550. Then save as a new file.

This is how it looks like at the beginning, the first 1m30s:

With the original english track:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ubjex

Note: Vimeo can’t display this bit correctly, that’s why I had to upload to DM.

With the banned commentary:
https://vimeo.com/426336869

With the music and effects track:
https://vimeo.com/426337177

Another scene that tells me the audio is in sync is the one in which Bond shots twice after saying “It’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six”. Play it with the banned commentary and the music/effects track, and you’ll see the sound effect will match the precise moment Bond fires the gun.

It’s annoying to try finding the right moment to sync this stuff and how much of emptiness, yet not impossible. I don’t know if all these steps are the best way to do this, so I am open to suggestions.

I prefer to watch all my contents in form of files, lossless and Matroska when possible, instead of full DVD/Blu-ray discs.

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Perene said:

Williarob said:

Perhaps this is what you are looking for:

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-2899.html

It recreates the laserdisc content (including the extra logos) using Bluray footage and laserdisc audio.

These guys only want contributing donors to share anything, if at all. It’s one thing to ask for donations or funding for some project, like buying some rare material from eBay, it’s another to be rapacious about everything you can touch. That’s why sharing is dead nowadays, thanks to that sort of attitude and even for free we have private trackers only restricted to their clique and with all their screening, ruin things for everyone. I bet these guys will be a honeypot for a “bust” similar to the one that happened with the defunct Megaupload in 2012, and when that happens even them will have no access to said material. It’s sharing, especially FREE SHARING, that ensures this stuff will not be gone tomorrow. And make no mistake, that’s what copyright trolls only care about. Just look at what they are doing to Internet Archive these days…

Are you talking about FanRes? If you’ve had trouble getting a hold of projects over there, I’m going to assume you haven’t interacted with the community at all. People don’t like random new users demanding access to fan projects and then leaving and never coming back. Make friends, then people will share. Nobody is making you pay any money to grab fan projects, and nobody is being excessively rapacious about anything. And what does what happened to Megaupload have anything to do with FanRes? It’s not a file host. It’s a public forum, just like OT. In fact, I’ve seen people only share projects with donors on OT, but I’ve never seen that on FanRes to my memory.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

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Are you talking about FanRes? If you’ve had trouble getting a hold of projects over there, I’m going to assume you haven’t interacted with the community at all. People don’t like random new users demanding access to fan projects and then leaving and never coming back. Make friends, then people will share. Nobody is making you pay any money to grab fan projects, and nobody is being excessively rapacious about anything. And what does what happened to Megaupload have anything to do with FanRes? It’s not a file host. It’s a public forum, just like OT. In fact, I’ve seen people only share projects with donors on OT, but I’ve never seen that on FanRes to my memory.

What I meant was that when you mix money with sharing the odds of the Powers That Be putting you in jail increase tremendously. Megaupload’s biggest mistake in my opinion was an incentive program that was adopted by them, encouraging the upload of “popular” files in return for payments to successful uploaders. In other words don’t take unnecessary chances of exposing yourself needlessly through donations for copyrighted works. It’s one thing to donate for a website to remain online and pay their servers, or paying Megaupload for more disk space and secure your data, it’s another to ask for money for sending a content to someone. My criticism of such sites (especially private trackers) is that they think they are somehow a “special” community when in the end we are all the same here or there, no one specific is better or worse.

I thought that FREE sharing was a common goal for everyone, that way everyone gains, not just making yourself known and earn money, or fame.

What I was looking for were the synchronized files, so I could just put them inside a DVD/Blu-ray/HDTV/streaming rip. I said before I managed to fix this for Dr. No. Both tracks are OK with it, so I don’t need anything from FanRES. I did this myself.

“From Russia With Love” - this one has a single track, the commentary. It’s also OK, I was able to do this, too. Now, for this movie we have two 4Ks: one with 29 GB (better colours and proper brightness in my opinion) and another with half that size.

For GOLDFINGER, contrary to the other two, I was UNABLE TO correct the sync (and if one track is flawed, the other is, too). I’ll explain: as the movie progresses the audio starts to be out of sync for perhaps 0.5 second and towards the ending I believe it’s 1 full second. So it’s only OK for the beginning, perhaps the first half hour.

The only way to correct this would be having a laserdisc rip and comparing with my own (DVD or Blu-ray or 4K from iTunes), or someone that is a specialist fixing this (perhaps it will need a lot of patience). I don’t know if FanRES did or how it did. It would be hard because the only way of trying to sync is listening to the music + effects track and looking at the video to see if the sound effects match with what is happening on the screen.

I can’t, of course, fix the ending, if I do that I will mess other parts, and vice-versa. Isolating specific areas of the movie and fixing them separately is required, I guess.

Maybe this is a fps problem or it means the laserdisc is in some scenes a little shorter than the newer medias. I can’t say what is exactly wrong without the Laserdisc rip (and it needs to be video + audio, not just audio like the ones from The Dossier), which would be crucial in solving this.

It’s unfortunate only Goldinger is not OK because the others appear to be for the entire movies.

And of course, for all 3 movies we need to add at least 20 seconds into the start, before the MGM logo. This is only a method of making sure the audio tracks will be in sync with the video, since they are longer.

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I am now sharing the Matroska files from the 3 Bond movies (Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger). To get them, please send me a PM (I can’t post links directly).

What each file has:


  • Dr. No (1962):
  • 2.83 GB MKV (lossy)
  • Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1804x1080 23.976fps [V: English [eng] (h264 high L4.1, yuv420p, 1804x1080)
  • Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo 3072kbps [A: English [eng] (ac3, 48000 Hz, 2 channels)
  • Added 2 portuguese dubbing tracks (one is recent, the other is older);
  • Also added the english audio commentary track from Blu-ray (plus english subtitles for it) +
  • by director Terence Young, actors Ursula Andress, Lois Maxwell, Eunice Gayson and Timothy Moxon, editor Peter Hunt, composer Monty Norman, set designer Ken Adams, former UA President David Picker, art director Syd Cain and sound designer Norman Wanstall, moderated by Ian Fleming Foundation’s John Clark

  • Subtitles: English and english HoH (subrip and pgs), Portuguese (subrip and pgs)

  • And finally: a) laserdisc commentary and b) Music and Sound Effects (laserdisc).

  • Added ± 20-25 seconds of black screen to the beginning. This allowed the laserdisc tracks to be synchronized (read the explanation I gave in the previous posts).

  • Also available english subtitles for the laserdisc commentary track. These were created by Youtube (automated captions) and contain some errors.


  • From Russia With Love (1963):
  • 3.22 GB MKV (lossy)

  • Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1204x720 23.976fps [V: English [eng] (h264 high L4.1, yuv420p, 1204x720)

  • Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 9216kbps [A: English [eng] (ac3, 48000 Hz, 6 channels)

  • Added 2 portuguese dubbing tracks (one is recent, the other is older);

  • Available: the english audio commentary track from Blu-ray (plus english subtitles for it) +

  • by director Terence Young and cast and crew, moderated by Ian Fleming Foundation’s John Cors

  • Subtitles: English and english HoH (subrip and pgs), Portuguese (also another portuguese subtitle for the older dubbing track, which is incomplete, the english audio fills the dubbing gaps)

  • And finally the laserdisc audio commentary.

  • Added ± 20-25 seconds from the MGM lion logo to the beginning. This allowed the laserdisc track to be synchronized (read the explanation I gave in the previous posts).

  • And english subtitles for the laserdisc commentary track. These were created by Youtube (automated captions) and contain some errors.


  • Goldfinger (1964):
  • 3.45 GB MKV (lossy)

  • Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1204x720 23.976fps [V: English [eng] (h264 high L4.1, yuv420p, 1204x720) [default]]

  • Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 9216kbps [A: English [eng] (ac3, 48000 Hz, 6 channels) [default]]

  • Added 2 portuguese dubbing tracks (one is recent, the other is older);

  • Also added the english audio commentary tracks from Blu-ray (plus english and portuguese subtitles for it). +

Track 1 is from director Guy Hamilton and actors Sean Connery, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Michael Mellinger and Honor Blackman, moderated by author of “The Incredible World of 007” Lee Pfeiffer.

Track 2 is from stuntman George Leech, optical effects supervisor Cliff Culley, stuntman and Connery double Alf Joint, draughtsman Peter Lamont, composer John Barry and crew members Joe Fitt and Burt Luxford, moderated by Ian Fleming Foundation’s John Cork

  • Subtitles: English and english HoH (subrip and pgs), Portuguese

  • And finally a) the laserdisc audio commentary and b) Music and Sound Effects track.

  • Added ± 20-25 seconds from the MGM lion logo to the beginning. This allowed the laserdisc track to be synchronized at first, HOWEVER THIS ONLY APPLIES TO THE BEGINNING. Unfortunately, as the movie progresses, the audio starts to be out of sync for more or less 0.5 second and towards the ending I believe it’s 1 full second. So it’s only OK for perhaps the first half hour.

  • And english subtitles for the laserdisc commentary track. These were created by Youtube (automated captions) and contain some errors.