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Idea: 'A Shot in the Dark' - Laserdisc Preservation (* unfinished project *)

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The sequel to the Pink Panther. This follow up puts more focus on Inspector Clouseau vs the previous film, which was more of an ensemble cast. A Shot in the Dark is generally considered the strongest film in the series and is one of Peter Sellers’ great works. Sadly this has not been released on BluRay as of yet.

**Objective: **Remaster the laserdisc of A Shot in the Dark, fix the contrast, upscale to 720p.

**Why: **There is a DVD of this. The sound mixing on it is good but the visual transfer leaves something to be desired compared with the laserdisc. True, the laserdisc is softer but a transfer at a high bitrate, means you only see the qualities of the analog signal and not the pixel noise of upscaling the DVD.

**What Can I Do: **I can provide the laserdisc, offer my equipment and time to fix the contrast (the laserdisc is slightly washed out but the color is impressive and accurate), do any audio work that needs doing, and upscale the video.

**What I Need: **Someone who has the capability of digitally recording analog signals. I’m a fulltime filmmaker but I seldom work with legacy material. I have an analog to USB recorder for my Mac but it’s really made for home movies. It records at a measly 5mbps in MPEG2. Not suitable for this. Looking for something that will preserve the look of the analog signal, but upscaled without the introduction of pixels.

Let me know if this interests you!

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There is a 720p version after 2 secs of looking 

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Forgive my ignorance but can you point me to it? 

In my searches I've found a show called Haven that has an episode title A Shot in the Dark that has 0% to do with this film. Also found a 720p version of the correct film in Dutch and it's only 4GB o_O

No official BluRay NTSC or PAL release in my searches. 

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There is a 12gb 1080i HDTV rip of the movie floating around as well as a couple of 720p versions that are between 4GB and 6.5GB in size.  All of them have been posted to usenet.

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Likely from old HD material stuck a few years back via MGM. I've seen a bit of the 720p version with hdtv logos and it looks like a cross between upscale and higher res master with noise. The Panthers all look rather iffy on DVD, as they are the exact same transfers as LD with tinny lossy audio. The first film got a BD re-issue but it really only tidied up the old scanned material and isn't really benefiting of a Technirama picture.

The audio for all the films (I don't have Revenge or Trail on LD, so I'm assuming for them) is all clearer and more robust on LD due to the PCM and lack of loudness compression. That said they do get a bit noisy and peaky at times but that is to be expected for the age.

Of all, Return has the best transfer because Universal had to do a remastered version of the Image DVD (which itself used their remastered LD transfer) and instead made a nice and very good looking HD master which is probably sitting on a shelf somewhere...or not as it could be up in smoke as is their mid 2000's stunning master of Brides of Dracula that went up in the studio fire.

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Thanks for the insight. So would you say it would be worth digitizing the LD? I haven't seen these HDTV versions. 

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I now have the the 1080i version.  It has the EPIX TV logos that appear briefly from time to time but the quality looks good overall.  I don't see any signs of DNR or EE but I can't tell if it was mastered at 1080p resolution or at 720p and then upscaled.  I can pull some screenshots if you want.

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What's the aspect ratio? The original is 2.35:1