Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - Theatrical Cut Restoration Project (* unfinished *)

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Yeah the only DVD of the theatrical cut is pretty ugly and I find the extended version to be a let down.

There is another thread here somewhere about a theatrical cut preservation though.

I wasn't aware there was an HDTV version of the Theatrical Cut.  If so, what's wrong with it that it needs work?  (And where can I find it?)

Edit: Never mind.  Crap colors and no English audio would be plenty wrong.

I'm curious if this project is going on... and about HDTV properties (resolution, fps, codec, mbps) - is its video (apart color grading) equal or better than BD?

Could have been worst! At the end, what do you think about its video quality? I mean, it seems the BD has some EE, what about the HDTV?

I'm really starting to think to spoRvify this movie! (^^,)

Here you are an interesting comparison between LD, DVD and BD... I should add the HDTV has the same color grading of DVD.

I don't like BD colors, and I prefer LD, but I don't dislike DVD (HDTV) color grading, because it's near to LD than BD; neverthless, I think applying LD colors over HDTV will be the best solutions.

Opinions?

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On audio side: the italian extended cut DVD and BD have a new dubbing... it's widely recognized that the original dubbing (of the theatrical cut) is better than this... another reason to do a preservation, from my POV.

dvdmike said:

It has that nasty pink 90s tinge all transfers had

...but what version do you think is closest to theatrical color timing? And which do you prefer?

Could you explaind better what "mine" is? Is an attempt to use LD as color reference, and apply it to BD? And what process have you used?

Sorry for all these questions, but I'm curious...

I could agree that your manual correction is good enough, as the HDTV image here is a bit cold, and I agree about contrast and brightness levels; but it could not qualify as restoration, but only as fanedit... don't get me wrong, I admire your efforts here and in several other threads (like Robocop)... but it seems that a *proper* fan restoration (as proper could be a fan restoration, by the way...) should take a reference when trying to do a color correction.

I mean, maybe the laserdisc colors are not the same of what we all saw in the theaters, but at least it could be called *a* reference; do you agree? I'm curious myself to see if, using HDTV luma and LD chroma results will be similar to what you have done.

I was tempted myself to use a color grading for "The Matrix" not entirely based on DVD as reference, but I decided to stick with DVD as color reference; now the BD has colors really really close to DVD and, even if I personally prefer my previous settings in some instances, I think the whole color grading should be mantained as closely to the reference as possible (even if I know it's cleary impossible).

This is, of course, only my personal opinion - I'm still trying to find a clear definition of what a fan edit, restoration, preservation are, and nothing seems to be "written in the stone" (^^,) and you deserve the right to make your own color correction, but I strongly advice to NOT use your german HDTV capture...

The 1080i english HDTV is way better than the 720p german; take a look at these screenshots:

german 720p (yours, as you posted, untouched)

1080i english (VLC -> MSPaint -> resize 50% -> resize 73%, to match your picture)

the 1080i have more details, is less cropped, and colors are slightly different... it's AR is around 1.80:1, while the BD is 16:9 (1.77777...:1), so is closer to the theatrical AR of 1.85:1 (not so much, indeed...)

Sorry, I didn't want to offend you; I only pointed out that the laserdisc is *a* reference, and NOT *the* reference; I mean, as I wrote in my post, that is better (IMHO) to stick with a reference (even if not for sure the right one) instead of making a color correction "by eye", that's it. If it seemed I was rough, I apologize, it was not my intention, I repeat, I like your threads and I think you are a smart person, so sorry again.

About laserdisc as color reference, I agree with you, it's not the best source that could be used as reference for an HD project, but at least it's better than VHS, and a PAL 1.85 laserdisc still got around 416x160/200 pixel chroma resolution Vs 208x360 pixel chroma resolution of a PAL 1.85:1 letterbox DVD, so it has almost the same chroma resolution.

At the end, the whole discussion could be summed up in: it will be a wise choice to use the 1080ì HDTV as luma reference, and LD as chroma reference, to make a restoration project of the theatrical cut of Robin Hood, or it's better to use the BD, cut out the scenes not belonging to the theatical cut, and use the HDTV to restore the missing scenes not found on the extended cut BD? And, if the latter is the best choice, how to restore color grading in the HDTV to match the BD one?

zeropc said:

always remember: blu-ray is capable to hold a higher color spectrum then dvd or ld was able to do. so using a ld or even a dvd for reference might result in a wrong color display altogether.

The BD uses 8 bit for each color, and rec.709 as color space; chroma ranges from 16 to 240, hence we have 225 possible values for each RGB; total colors that could be displayed are 225x225x225= 11.390.625; DVD uses rec.601 with different coefficients, but the total colors remains the same; LD uses bt.601, but as analog format has not a finished amount of color that could be displayed, so theoretically LD has infinite number of colors; all these colorspaces cover about 35% of the CIE gamut.

So, could you explain better your assertion?

i also not recommend to do color correction purely by eye, unless you

- have approved monitors for color correction, which are also properly calibrated

- have high knowledge of color correction using scopes

- know what the original intended look of the movie was

point 3 will be very had to fill, since none of has ever spoken to the directors to the extend a colorist would've or has access to the notes done during the color correction process.

Totally agree.

the final results may look good, but also may not represent what was originally intended. a good example were i have mixed feelings about the result is andrea's the thing color correction. while it looks pretty good, i don't think it's the right look. john carpenter usually goes to a more natural look of colors. especially the skin tones in andrea's the thing look way to desaturated. which i think is a result of using a laserdisc color. we wont know for sure, unless mr. carpenter would watch that version and tells us if it's right or totally wrong.

My attempt is just a compromise; and I agree that sometimes the skin tones are too desaturated; the fact that saturation is quite low could be due to different factors:

• a direct comparison with the HD-DVD/BD obviously fools our eyes to believe the spoRv/LD colors are dull
• I captured the LD with default settings (my fault!) - changing the brightness, contrast and color before capturing, could avoid (all or in part) the problem... but, as I have not the only PAL LD with color bars, I could not optimize the capture values...
• LD format usually has colors set at 75% of full saturation, to avoid color bleeding because is a composite format - I should have set the saturation to 1.33 to be "right"; I tested this, and in some scenes snow turned pinkish, while the faces looks right... maybe I should set the saturation at 1.33 only for not-snow scenes. I admit I have thought to do it, but I decided to not touch saturation - and probably was a wrong decision!
• the very PAL LD edition I used has low saturation

Still, I like most white snow and black and white husky dog... (^^,)

Only John Carpenter will tell us which version he thinks is right, but probably we'll never know...