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Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem (Unrated) [spoRv] BD-25 (Released)

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,^…^, presents Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem (Unrated) [spoRv] - special project of Restored version

| Released projects | Projects in progress | Future projects | Mission & Setup |

Mission: to improve Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem (Unrated) contrast and brightness, and replace two wrong shots.

Video sources: Blu-ray, DVD.

Audio sources: Blu-ray, DVD.

Subtitles sources: Blu-ray, DVD.

Project info:

“Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem” was released on Blu-ray in U.S.A. with both Theatrical and Unrated cuts - at the contrary, in Europe only the Theatrical cut was available in Blu-ray.

Despite the fact that it has a good video quality, it has two flaws: image is too dark - even if it is an artistic choice, often it’s difficult to recognize what’s going on - and the Unrated cut has two shots missing, replaced with the Theatrical version.

Some reviews about the image quality:

I was mostly impressed by what I saw (or should I say, could see?)

Aliens vs. Predator Requiem is a dark movie, a very dark movie in fact, perhaps one of if not the darkest I’ve ever borne witness to. Even brightly lit outdoor scenes are dark and slightly murky in appearance.

Detail, what we can see of it, is sharp and clear.

Black levels are fantastic, but sometimes the movie is so dark that its hard to clearly see what is on screen.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Aliens-vs-Predator-Requiem-Blu-ray/696/#Review

You can’t see a damn thing. AVP-R is beautifully shot and rendered, but 75% of it is in the pitch black, making much of the action indistinguishable. You’ll find yourself straining your eyes to make out what’s going on more often than your brain can endure. God forbid you should watch the film under normal daylight conditions; it might as well be a radio play. Some critics have excused this choice as atmospheric. Others suggest it’s to cover for flaws in the creature suits. Regardless of the reasons, the result is problematic at best.

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/avprbluray.php

Shadow delineation is somewhat lacking, with many details in the darkness obscured and crushed. Colors are undersaturated, but they match the storytelling nicely, and contrast is overdone.

http://www.widescreenreview.com/hddisc_detail.php?recid=11188

A fault with seamless branching means that the Unrated Edition is actually missing two changes on its Blu-ray release — namely the alternate footage used when the Predalien attacks the homeless people in the sewers, and when Jesse’s body melts in half in the hospital. In both instances, the Blu-ray shows the theatrical footage at these points.

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Aliens_vs._Predator:_Requiem_Unrated_Edition

The BluRay Disc contains the R-Rated as well as the Unrated in very good quality. Although especially the second difference between the Unrated Version on BluRay and that on DVD does seem like censorship, it is not very likely that it actually is. What’s more likely, is that the Seamless Branching is responsible for this flaw.

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=285280

With this project, I’ll try to improve contrast and brightness to reveal more details in particular in very dark scenes, but trying to retain as inky black as possible; the two missing scenes will be replaced using DVD as source - even if quality is lower than BD, I’d prefer to watch them in the proper place rather than watching an incomplete Unrated cut… plus, as different languages will be included, this could be the occasion for many european people to watch the unrated cut in high definition for the first time.

Source Material

Video:

  • Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem - US Blu-ray
  • Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem - US NTSC DVD
  • Aliens Vs Predator 2 - IT PAL DVD

Audio:

  • Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem - US Blu-ray
  • Aliens Vs Predator 2 - IT PAL DVD

Subtitles:

  • Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem - US Blu-ray
  • Aliens Vs Predator 2 - IT PAL DVD

**Project status: RELEASED!
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Final format: BD-25**

Video:

1920x1080, 23.976fps, A.R. 2.35:1, AVC encoded using x264, 23mbps average bitrate

Audio:

DTS-HD 24bit 5.1 from BD: English

DD 16bit 448kbps 5.1 from BD: French, Spanish

DD 16bit 192kbps 2.0 from BD: English commentary #1 and #2

DD 16bit 448kbps 5.1 from PAL DVD: English, German, Italian

Subtitles:

Movie: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, English SDH

Commentaries: German, Italian, Spanish

Notes:

Animated menu, 28 chapters, funny spot after the end of the movie

Outside and inside covers, disc label

"Partner in crime":

DoomBot for suggestions, tests, brain storming, links and something more!

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If there are some interest, I could think to release an additional disc featuring all the extras from both AVP movies.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Test clip (including DVD PaNup'ed shots) (200MB, x264 @20mbps, no sound):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/y7yq2u - expiring date around 2014-04-20

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Screenshots (click the link below image for larger version):

http://s1.postimg.org/x856k5d0d/AVPR_003704.jpg

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http://s1.postimg.org/tahwuqq71/AVPR_027411.jpg

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http://s1.postimg.org/7dvdudd0d/AVPR_068807.jpg

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http://s1.postimg.org/ck6j5errx/AVPR_074791.jpg

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http://s1.postimg.org/wqa14anfh/AVPR_083206.jpg

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http://s1.postimg.org/tyqrdoowt/AVPR_119619.jpg

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Screenshots are looking fantastic, i can finally see the light. :)

One thing though, the pics you have only show up if i click on them. In this thread they are only square empty boxes.

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I used the PaNup method to improve a bit the quality of the upscaled DVD shots that will be used to replace the non-unrated same shots in the BD.

Here you are the difference between NTSC (DVD simple bicubic upscale) Vs PaNup (PAL+NTSC DVDs mixed, upscaled, denoised + grain plate) - WARNING: it's a rather gory screenshot!

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/63368

and this are the non-unrated version from BD and unrated version from DVD:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/63367

@DoomBot: don't know, from my PC everything was OK, but from my android smartphone it is the same as you noted... I edited the post, hope it will work now.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Now i can see the screenshots, thanks.

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I have to say, that upscale shot from the dvd is very impressive!

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I think the missing shots are on the BD under the bonus features

IIRC, you can access the unrated scenes and just watch them

It was a branching error which resulted in them not being in the body of the film

Join the dark side… and get a free cookie!

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I watched every .m2ts file in the US BD... they aren't there... they simply (or intentionally?) forgot to put them in the production process.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Added test clip to post #2 - it includes three shots from the PAL and NTSC DVDs, as seen in post 4.

Feedbacks are needed.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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I just checked out your clip in post 2 and wow, very impressive indeed! The grain looks great, nice and organic, and the detail you've managed to extract from the shadows is very impressive, well done!

The screencaps looked good but in motion what you've done looks even better! I thought at first you might have the blacks a little too bright, especially the bit with the predator at the beginning, but once you get used to it it works really well and fits with the rest of the clip. I didn't notice where you'd added the SD footage either so it must have been pretty seamless, great job there as well.

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Just watched the test clip from post 2, and I must say this is a great improvement over the [far too dark] blu-ray, and the integration of the up-scaled unrated scene is both seamless and unnoticeable.

I am looking forward to this release, good luck with it.

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I've been watching this thread.  If you do a theatrical version alongside let us know, we have the cinema DTS for it.

Shawn

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Theatrical version with Cinema DTS track, eh? MMhh, interesting... but, will it differ (a lot?) from the BD DTS-HD MA track?

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Theatrical version with Cinema DTS track, eh? MMhh, interesting... but, will it differ (a lot?) from the BD DTS-HD MA track?

I couldn't rightfully say for sure.  I'm just putting it out there.

:) 

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UPDATES:

  • audio tracks are ready: the english DTS-HD MA will be used "as is", as the french and the spanish AC3 - all of them are from the BD; the italian, german AC3 from PAL DVD are converted to 23.976fps and sync'd; the english and the two commentary tracks are from the NTSC DVD and sync'd.
  • subtitles are almost ready: english (normal and SDH), french (normal), german, spanish and italian (normal, commentary 1, commentary 2); missing ones are the english and french commentary 1 and 2; if someone would like to provide them, or use one or more of the other languages for translations, you could find them here (256KB) - it will be great to have'em all!
  • lossless video is ready, but it should still be encoded; it will be around 22mbps.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Andrea, YOU CAN DO IT!
Even though this film is a bit mediocre but would be best for those die hard Aliens versus Predator fans.

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Thank you for tackling this film, Andrea.

I have been waiting for years for someone to do this. People keep saying it looks just fine on a calibrated setup, but no matter how you spin it this release is too dark.

..and fixing the Unrated omissions is an unexpected bonus.

Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:

http://www.swonvideo.com

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I agree: even if watched on a calibrated display, black is too deep and a lot of details are lost.

And, I didn't know about the changed shots until I began to work at this project; plus, the italian BD has only the theatrical cut, so... this project was waiting to be done!

I'm doing a fast test encode right now; in few hours it will be ended; I'll burn it on BD-25 then if it will be OK I'll do the final encode and release it ASAP.

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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Damn those screenies look nice. Too much information was lost in the original very dark movie, half the time one can't see what is going on

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PROJECT RELEASED!

It is on the "usual place" (^^,) - enjoy it!

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

PROJECT RELEASED!

It is on the "usual place" (^^,) - enjoy it!

 Great news! I will definately be grabbing this when I get home from work. Thanks for the hard work.

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I looked in "teh" spot where all your other edits are, kk650, but this doesn't appear to be there. Anywhere else this may be?