Info: The Criterion Laserdisc Preservation Thread — Page 4

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Apologies for the bump to this thread, but does anyone still have the King Kong Criterion commentary which is ready to sync to the DVD? The link earlier in the thread no longer works, but I'm still interested.

Out of curiosity, FanFiltration, how are your "A Hard Day's Night" and upgraded Banned Bond DVDs going?

EDIT: Bought the King Kong Criterion laserdisc for $2.95 today. :-D

Good price, but I think that one has some parts restored from a 16mm print.  I think the Turner/RKO double feature with Son of Kong is from a complete 35mm print found in Europe which has since become the master print.

Yep but I don't mind the lower quality at times. In fact, it's interesting since you can visibly understand what they censored. In any case, the composite of 35mm and 16mm forms the full film, so it's a good watch for me...

I also have the DVD for casual viewing.

skyjedi2005 said:

The restored one was the 50th anniversary.  They had a black and white version and a color one.

But the  scenes edited out were only found in 16mm.

 

The Spiderpit sequence no longer exists in any quality, i am sure even if they located it only in 16mm they would have put it on the dvd.

Didn't Peter Jackson recreate this scene? I think someone actually added it back into the movie in a FanEdit, and it actually turned out rather well, also Peter Jackson did a great job recreating it, it was a pretty cool scene.

skyjedi2005 said:

I heard that Weta actually found some of the original props for that scene, and even storyboards drawn by Willis O'brian.

The found the spider armature and using that as a concept they recreated the same model.

I wonder if i am the only one who liked PJ's King Kong, except for jack black.  He nearly ruined the movie for me yet did not.

NO, my Family and I liked it a lot to, but I feel the exact same way you do about Jack Black, so you have not seen what PJ did with the Spider Scene? it is really cool.

I did like the Peter Jackson movie but I love his recreation of the Spider Scene even more. Both are really worth checking out. The Spider Scene also seems like it's actually filmed in the 1930's and not just set (like those awful additional scenes to Night of the Living Dead). You'll really get a sense of how the Spider Pit would have disgusted 1930's audiences..

KING KONG 1933: The Lost Spider Pit Sequence
Made by Peter Jackson in 2005

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYhGeYXztsc

I am very interested in restoring the Criterion edition of Akira (#151).

Not only it has the original English dub in uncompressed 16/44.1 PCM Dolby Surround, possibly the best copy of the dub available, but the color timing is much, and I mean MUCH better than the later DVD releases, and even the new Blu-ray! I don't know if that is how Akira was meant to look like, but the colors have more life and the whites are very bright! I own the 3-disc CAV Laserdisc, with all the awesome supplements. It's definitely an LD treasure.

Months back, I've uploaded the very first 54 seconds of the LD on YouTube, to test out my LD-to-digital conversion skills. It contains the opening shot of the nuclear explosion, which, in my opinion, has more color fidelity than the DVD/BD (you can try to compare the two with yourself, if you want).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPtaFKZing

It is one of my top priorities to release a Criterion DVD preservation of Akira on a two-disc set, but I currently do not have the enough equipment to do a proper, deserving transfer.

FanFiltration said:

 

A few Criterion Laserdiscs I have added to my collection in the last few months.

 

Yojimbo (single disk)

The Hidden Fortress (5 side / 3 disk)

Lawrence of Arabia (8 side / 4 disc)

Casablanca  (2 disks)

Citizen Kane (6 side / 3 disk)

I've been uploading all of the laserdisc commentaries I've collected or ripped. You can find them on a site that is named after a body part that rhymes with the band Ween.

However, there are still many more left, including Citizen Kane (2 different laserdiscs, one Criterion, one not, were never ported to DVD), Casablanca, Carrie, Some Like it Hot, High Noon, Cat People, etc. If anyone has these discs, please either send me a PM and we'll find a place to upload it or post more information in this thread.

Here's a full list of Criterion laserdisc commentary tracks that I haven't seen online anywhere:

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Blackmail

Carrie

Casablanca

Cat People

Darling

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

High Noon

It's a Wonderful Life

A Night at the Opera

The Player (but only side 3 is unavailable, I have side 1 and 2)

Sansho the Baliff

Scaramouche

Show Boat

Singin' in the Rain

Some Like it Hot

Swing Time

The Wizard of Oz

There are plenty of other tracks from non-Criterion disc, and you find the whole list here. I do have some of these tracks and have uploaded them accordingly, but only a handful. It would probably be more appropriate in another thread, though.

Where can I download the tracks you mentioned?

Trekkie313 said:

Where can I download the tracks you mentioned?

MySpleen.

I've updated the list above and crossed out the ones that I've acquired since.

are there any news regarding taxi driver?

while the blu-ray looks fantastic, it misses out on the original mono mix. heck, even the dvds never got it. so getting the mix from the good old criterion ld as a untouched .wav file would be awesome.

as for preservation, i have the hard boiled criterion cav ld. is there anything you guys might want from that one?

i wont go forward and say it's better, or let me say could be better then the 5.1 mix, as i never got my hands on the cc-ld. but it was the original mix. that is one big reason to preserve it. it's annoying that studios tend not to do so anymore :(

I would like to have the PCM audio from the Robocop Criterion LD if anyone is working on that.

Thanks!

singhcr said:

I would like to have the PCM audio from the Robocop Criterion LD if anyone is working on that.

Thanks!

 

 

+1

i would love to get, as i'm preparing an edit of the mgm and sony blu-ray. the sony br is on the theatrical cut, but it's by far the best version available. well, not really available. it was never released. but a few copies made it in the open ;)

zeropc said:

are there any news regarding taxi driver?

while the blu-ray looks fantastic, it misses out on the original mono mix. heck, even the dvds never got it. so getting the mix from the good old criterion ld as a untouched .wav file would be awesome.

I had a friend who purchased the Taxi Driver CAV LD and brought it to me to make a DVD out of it several years ago. I ripped the movie soundtrack, isolated music track and Scorsese commentary and then I split all the still frame bonus materials into separate images and recreated the galleries in DVD form. I don't have the original uncompressed files on the audio, just the AC3 audio muxed to the DVD. I would like to get the DVD into circulation.

DVwerks said:

zeropc said:

are there any news regarding taxi driver?

while the blu-ray looks fantastic, it misses out on the original mono mix. heck, even the dvds never got it. so getting the mix from the good old criterion ld as a untouched .wav file would be awesome.

I had a friend who purchased the Taxi Driver CAV LD and brought it to me to make a DVD out of it several years ago. I ripped the movie soundtrack, isolated music track and Scorsese commentary and then I split all the still frame bonus materials into separate images and recreated the galleries in DVD form. I don't have the original uncompressed files on the audio, just the AC3 audio muxed to the DVD. I would like to get the DVD into circulation.

maybe your friend still has the ld and you re-capture the uncompressed audio for us :)
it's worth a shot.

I may be in the minority, but i feel the Criterion Notorious is truly great.

jimjimmyjones85 said:

I may be in the minority, but i feel the Criterion Notorious is truly great.

Really, that's interesting. I have that disc. The video from the LD isn't that impressive to me despite the fact that it's supposedly taken from a negative (not sure why an IP was used for all the DVDs, if a negative exists). The audio, commentary, and the special features do rock though. Definitely feel there absence on MGM's BD.

The Criterion DVD has some better contrast than the BD interestingly enough. They're more accurate to the reissue 35mm prints I've seen.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

jimjimmyjones85 said:

I may be in the minority, but i feel the Criterion Notorious is truly great.

Really, that's interesting. I have that disc. The video from the LD isn't that impressive to me despite the fact that it's supposedly taken from a negative (not sure why an IP was used for all the DVDs, if a negative exists). The audio, commentary, and the special features do rock though. Definitely feel there absence on MGM's BD.

The Criterion DVD has some better contrast than the BD interestingly enough. They're more accurate to the reissue 35mm prints I've seen.

 I think you are right. I guess my mind was on the extras that really made that release special. I wish someone would care enough to bring some love to this great piece.

sega3dmm said:

I am very interested in restoring the Criterion edition of Akira (#151).

Not only it has the original English dub in uncompressed 16/44.1 PCM Dolby Surround, possibly the best copy of the dub available, but the color timing is much, and I mean MUCH better than the later DVD releases, and even the new Blu-ray! I don't know if that is how Akira was meant to look like, but the colors have more life and the whites are very bright! I own the 3-disc CAV Laserdisc, with all the awesome supplements. It's definitely an LD treasure.

Months back, I've uploaded the very first 54 seconds of the LD on YouTube, to test out my LD-to-digital conversion skills. It contains the opening shot of the nuclear explosion, which, in my opinion, has more color fidelity than the DVD/BD (you can try to compare the two with yourself, if you want).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPtaFKZing

It is one of my top priorities to release a Criterion DVD preservation of Akira on a two-disc set, but I currently do not have the enough equipment to do a proper, deserving transfer.

The DVD, HDTV and BD have different timing

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1123629/akira-comparison-pix/90

We need to get that PCM streamline dub!

Hi. Sorry to bump this but I have been trying to find the commentary from Cronenberg’s Crash forever. Anyone able to help me out?