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Help Wanted: 'Anne of Green Gables' (1985) Bluray image restoration project

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 (Edited)

Hello friends!

This is my very first post šŸ˜ƒ

I was curious if anyone would be interesting in helping me (no money needed - just some constructive comments would suffice) restoring the Anne of Green Gables series (1985).

I own the DVDs released back in 2001, original full screen edition (it was made for TV).

Sullivan Entertainment released the Bluray version a few years back, but Alasā€¦

The framing looks good, but its obvious that itā€™s cropped from its original 1.33:1 presentation (I read somewhere that the video is a scan of the original negative, then cropped to fit our widescreen screens). It seems the original negative is somewhere between full screen and widescreen, because upon comparing the TV version and the Bluray version, the Bluray version has more information on the left and right sides of the image, but crops a bit on top and bottom).

That part is not too badā€¦ The worse is that in this bluray presentation, the image is very dark and muted in contrast. Quoting a comment found online : ā€œOutside daylight scenes look like they were filmed under twilightā€. To my observation, it looks like they scanned the negatives and never bothered adjusting anything before realeasing it.

This is why I thought about this forum šŸ˜ƒ

This is my plan : I would like to adjust the video to its intended beauty. The scenery is absolutely incredible, and itā€™s a shame the bluray is so poor in quality. Iā€™ve never done this kind of project before, but I have a bit of knowledge with Adobe Premiere Pro and I found lots of tutorials on Youtube.

Would anyone be interested in helping me ? I would like to post some screen captures and you could tell me what you think of the quality. I hope I am not biting more than I can chew but I want to give it a try.

How about this first steps :

  1. Get an uncompressed copy of the Bluray using MakeMKV
  2. It seem Adobe Premiere Pro has trouble using MKV files, so I would convert the resulting mkv to MT2S fileā€¦ this would be the file I would use in Adobe Premiere Pro.

any thoughts?

Ykarus1974.

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 (Edited)

ykarus1974 said:

Hello friends!

This is my very first post šŸ˜ƒ

I was curious if anyone would be interesting in helping me (no money needed - just some constructive comments would suffice).

I am a huge fan of the Anne of Green Gables series (1985).

I own the DVDs released back in 2001, original full screen edition (it was made for TV).

Sullivan Entertainment released the Bluray version a few years back, but Alasā€¦

The framing looks good, but its obvious that itā€™s cropped from its original 1.33:1 presentation (I read somewhere that the video is a scan of the original negative, then cropped to fit our widescreen screens). It seems the original negative is somewhere between full screen and widescreen, because upon comparing the TV version and the Bluray version, the Bluray version has more information on the left and right sides of the image, but crops a bit on top and bottom).

That part is not too badā€¦ The worse is that in this bluray presentation, the image is very dark and muted in contrast. Quoting a comment found online : ā€œOutside daylight scenes look like they were filmed under twilightā€. To my observation, it looks like they scanned the negatives and never bothered adjusting anything before realeasing it.

This is why I thought about this forum šŸ˜ƒ

This is my plan : I would like to adjust the video to its intended beauty. The scenery is absolutely incredible, and itā€™s a shame the bluray is so poor in quality. Iā€™ve never done this kind of project before, but I have a bit of knowledge with Adobe Premiere Pro and I found lots of tutorials on Youtube.

Would anyone be interested in helping me ? I would like to post some screen captures and you could tell me what you think of the quality. I hope I am not biting more than I can chew but I want to give it a try.

How about this first steps :

  1. Get an uncompressed copy of the Bluray using MakeMKV
  2. It seem Adobe Premiere Pro has trouble using MKV files, so I would convert the resulting mkv to MT2S fileā€¦ this would be the file I would use in Adobe Premiere Pro.

any thoughts?

Ykarus1974.

I recommend converting the MKV container into a MP4 container using FFMPEG.

Hereā€™s the code I would use: ffmpeg -i ā€œinput.mkvā€ -codec copy ā€œoutput.mp4ā€

That should copy everything over? (I donā€™t think subtitles will) But I would keep the original MKV just in case.

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 (Edited)

Thanks, I will start with that. I really appreciate it šŸ˜ƒ
Next step is learning how to add images to my posts so I can show come comparisons.

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Hi ykarus1974

I would convert the resulting mkv to MT2S files

Iā€™m pretty sure MakeMKV can make verbatim copy of your BD straight to M2TS, a ā€œpure ripā€ so to speak; it at least gives you m2ts files. (For the longest I assumed that it couldnā€™t do this, would only give you MKV containerā€™d output butā€¦)

Use ā€œBackupā€ (second icon from the left). šŸ˜ƒ Then youā€™ll save a whole step of converting MKVs to MT2Ts (and likely losing quality).

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me šŸ˜ƒ

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 (Edited)

Just for curiosity, here are a few screenshots I took of the bluray and of the TV version. Some scenes are not too different, but some other are quite aweful. There is a weird green tint all over the bluray version. Would just removing some green make everything better? Any suggestion how i should tackle this first project?

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Me again

Iā€™m not a master color grader by any stretch, but I put your BD image into my VirtualDub and used just three primitive-ish filters, and think the end result is passable, natural enough now, hm? So it would seem with better tools you could do better than this quick job. (I know itā€™s not a perfect match to the SD side, but that side looks a tad dark and over-saturated to me, but maybe thatā€™s just me.)

My criticism of my own work here might be the flesh tones are a smidge pink-ish, but I personally donā€™t know how to pull so much yellow out from the (BD) image and keep yellow in the skin. Maybe Dr. Dre knows. šŸ˜ƒ

image

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me šŸ˜ƒ

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 (Edited)

Oh wow, thatā€™s quite impressive! The colours are even better than the TV version (Dianaā€™s sleeve has a natural white tone to it while the one on the TV version has some kind of yellow). Could I use virtual dub for a first correction then use Premiere Pro to do some tweaking? Some scenes only have a colouring problem, while other ones would need some contrast/brightness correction (or other filters that would make those dark images ā€œpopā€ā€¦ like this one. Who is Dr. Dre ?

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Oh wow, thatā€™s quite impressive!
Could I use virtual dub for a first correction then use Premiere Pro to do some tweaking?

VirtualDub doesnā€™t let you do pieces of a file, only the whole thing (thatā€™s loaded) and youā€™re talking different scenes needing diff work. Ultimately if Premiere is to be in your workflow for sure then letā€™s hope it can do everything that VDub could do to keep your life simpler. I donā€™t have Premiere (!) so I canā€™t say what it will and wonā€™t do for you with this, but Iā€™d imagine AP could surely kick some pretty serious color correcting, contrast adjusting, etc. butt here in 2020.

But letā€™s say Premiere fails to go the distance in some spots and you want to give those bits an as-suggested pre-boost in VDub. If you do coloring work in VirtualDub you really should save it out as a lossless (avi) file, using the Lagarith lossless codec, so that you lose no quality (well, more or less; itā€™s up to you not to overdo the filters and jack up the image). If Premiere insists you turn that avi file into something else before itā€™ll read itā€¦ šŸ˜¦ Youā€™re talking a lot of hard drive space and computing power. A 45 minute BD rip when turned into a lossless avi will be about 100GBs. šŸ˜® But if you have a powerful as hell computer and empty terabytes on more than once drive in your system then perhapsā€¦? Or if you need only one or two scenes with such a pre-boost?

Thereā€™s also scripting (Avisynth) which is the better path apparently for things, but thatā€™s out of my league to a large degree so I wonā€™t suggest or comment. On this note, letā€™s see of others chime in with better advice and knowledge than my simple little mind is trying to offer. šŸ˜ƒ

Who is Dr. Dre?

A feller known in these parts for being a wee tad decent-plus at working with movie colors. Hereā€™s where heā€™s a bit active recently (currently)ā€¦
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Harmys-STAR-WARS-Despecialized-Edition-HD-V2-7-MKV-Released/id/12713/page/673#1366137

He created a legendary tool (although I havenā€™t used it myself) called Dr. Dreā€™s Color Matching Tool thatā€™s used by people on many sites itā€™s that good apparently
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Color-matching-and-prediction-color-correction-tool-v13-released/id/18128

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me šŸ˜ƒ

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Thatā€™s where Avisynth comes in. XD

The credits have obviously been retypeset, though they made at least a decent attempt at matching the old credits.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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 (Edited)

Hello Molly, nice to meet you and thanks for your input!

I did some research, and it looks like the fonts used in the Anne of Green Gables title are a combination of 2

  1. Caslon 540 ITALIC (for the small case)
  2. Caslon Becker No540 Swash Alt Italic (for the caps -A- of Anne and -G- for Green and Gables.)

Interestingly, the Capital G of Caslon Becker No.540 has its tail (or stem?) much shorter than the one used in the title. But beside the stem lenght, itā€™s the same.


Iā€™d like to know if that stem was added for the look of the title, or if itā€™s from another Caslon font, but I havenā€™t been able to find it.

What do you mean when you say :

Thatā€™s where Avisynth comes in. XD

Thanks again for the input!

RĆ©mi

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You can cut a file in pieces and apply filters to them separately, then put them back together with a script.

Also, thereā€™s a way to use Virtual Dub filters in Avisynth.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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I would love to help in any way I can. I loved these movies when I was younger and probably still have the vhs boxed sets of the first and second from back when PBS used to offer them as a gift for pledging your support back in the late 80s early 90e. The 3rd movie was just so far out of tone with the others that Ive only watched it once or twice despite owning it.
Do you have any plans to restore the second movie? I would love to be able to compare them to my original copies.

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pauljpowers said:

I was wondering how this went. Is it finished?

Hello! Well Iā€™ve been working on it using DaVinci and I think the first hour looks really really good. I didnā€™t realize anyone was interested so I kinda put the project on hold a while ago. Maybe i can share before and after images and you can give me some advices? I am learning DaVinci at the same time šŸ˜ƒ thanks for asking!

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Iā€™d be interested in this project as well.

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ykarus1974 said:

pauljpowers said:

I was wondering how this went. Is it finished?

Hello! Well Iā€™ve been working on it using DaVinci and I think the first hour looks really really good. I didnā€™t realize anyone was interested so I kinda put the project on hold a while ago. Maybe i can share before and after images and you can give me some advices? I am learning DaVinci at the same time šŸ˜ƒ thanks for asking!

Oh, I wish I could help. I have trouble just ripping discs. But Iā€™m a big fan of these restoration projects. Iā€™m just checking in and rooting you on! šŸ˜ƒ

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pauljpowers said:

ykarus1974 said:

pauljpowers said:

I was wondering how this went. Is it finished?

Hello! Well Iā€™ve been working on it using DaVinci and I think the first hour looks really really good. I didnā€™t realize anyone was interested so I kinda put the project on hold a while ago. Maybe i can share before and after images and you can give me some advices? I am learning DaVinci at the same time šŸ˜ƒ thanks for asking!

Oh, I wish I could help. I have trouble just ripping discs. But Iā€™m a big fan of these restoration projects. Iā€™m just checking in and rooting you on! šŸ˜ƒ

ooh thatā€™s very nice thanks!! Iā€™ll post some before and after comparison very soon, thanks for the encouragment!!

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ykarus1974 said:

pauljpowers said:

ykarus1974 said:

pauljpowers said:

I was wondering how this went. Is it finished?

Hello! Well Iā€™ve been working on it using DaVinci and I think the first hour looks really really good. I didnā€™t realize anyone was interested so I kinda put the project on hold a while ago. Maybe i can share before and after images and you can give me some advices? I am learning DaVinci at the same time šŸ˜ƒ thanks for asking!

Oh, I wish I could help. I have trouble just ripping discs. But Iā€™m a big fan of these restoration projects. Iā€™m just checking in and rooting you on! šŸ˜ƒ

ooh thatā€™s very nice thanks!! Iā€™ll post some before and after comparison very soon, thanks for the encouragment!!

You got it! Best of luck in all your endeavors!

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very nice of you pauljpowers. How come you know of Anne of Green Gables? I am from Canada so thatā€™s my excuse šŸ˜›

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ykarus1974 said:

very nice of you pauljpowers. How come you know of Anne of Green Gables? I am from Canada so thatā€™s my excuse šŸ˜›

Both my parents were fans of the books. So we watched this many times growing up.

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pauljpowers said:

ykarus1974 said:

very nice of you pauljpowers. How come you know of Anne of Green Gables? I am from Canada so thatā€™s my excuse šŸ˜›

Both my parents were fans of the books. So we watched this many times growing up.

LOL now i donā€™t remember how to add images to this chatā€¦

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ykarus1974 said:

pauljpowers said:

ykarus1974 said:

very nice of you pauljpowers. How come you know of Anne of Green Gables? I am from Canada so thatā€™s my excuse šŸ˜›

Both my parents were fans of the books. So we watched this many times growing up.

LOL now i donā€™t remember how to add images to this chatā€¦

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so here are the before-after (animated gif) of the 6 shots from the first scene. The image on the bluray is quite dark, I did my best using a few filters on Davinci, including isolating the skin to make it look more natural. Right now it looks like the face is too redā€¦ I know too much tweaking might be too much šŸ˜ƒ