Hi Everyone, I need some help.
I’ve been a lurker here for months now and felt it is time to share my fan project with you…
The mysterious cities of gold was a cartoon show that appeared around the world in 1982, there have been fan projects done of this show before - but you could say I’m a bit of a purist and want to do the show more justice.
The last known project was by Tim skutt in 2004 He used the japanese dvds for the video and lots of sources for the audio, its a pretty good fan project but there are issues with it. the project was NTSC and seemingly the video was not IVTCed properly and is quite jerky and the audio edits from all the sources are mostly choppy and not EQ matched or synced and to my ears stand out a mile.
My project is a PAL project and I started it in late 2004. I’m using the German DVD’s mainly for Video and on occasion the French set for the parts that are missing from the German set. I am also using all the ‘usual’ sources for the Audio…
To break down the scale of this project (read: how obsessed I am with it) I have so far purchased.
Vegas 6 with AC3 plugin
- Im using vegas to sync/EQ and remaster all the audio out for the episodes and align any missing video. (theres luckly not that much missing) I then frameserve the video to Virtualdubmod for a bit of picture tinkering and from there to CCE SP for final encoding. The audio is saved as both WAV and AC3. WAV incase I need to go back and fix something and AC3 for the final DVDs
Waves mastering and restoration VST plugins
- The wave plugs along with the vegas audio plugins are a godsend for fixing rubbish audio and makes it just about on quality to the ‘best’ assets I have.
VideoRedo
- Mainly used for quick tests and helps set up I frames for the animated menu’s loops
DVDlab Pro
- Awesome authoring package, best money I’ve spent
Photoshop 7
Menu Buttons, static menu assets etc…
I also have access thanks to my blagging abilities at work.
Combustion 4
Using this to colour match between the German and French Videos, does a good job because the french set has the most horrible yellow tint I’ve ever seen.
Imagineer Mokey
Used for 2d tracking a small amount of german video that suffered serious telecine wobble that really bugged me. also has studio quality grain removal for certain french bits.
CCE SP
say no more.
So I’ve been working on this project for ages now mostly in my spare time which is quite rare so thats why its taking so long.
I have completed authoring of disc 1 of what will be a 8 disc set. Including all the animated menus and assets.
All the audio and video assets for the 39 main episodes is complete and I’m now quite satified with the quality of them.
Now this is where I need your help!
MCOG was broadcast with each episode having a ‘previous’ and ‘to follow’ 30 or so second animation before and after the episode. I have audio for these sections but every bootleg version I’ve ever come across - the audio is mostly beyond repair. do you have MCOG on video recorded from the BBC1 showings or the nickelodeon showings? or indeed any other showing? Failing this I will just do my best with the audio I have, but theres no harm in asking is there? 
Im doing this for the love of the show and considering this my own pet x0 -type- project. I will hope to send on the finished project to anyone who wants it.
If any of you are interested in this project I can always stick up some screenshots or snippits of WIP somewhere if you like.
Thanks for reading