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Blade Runner Color Regrade (Released) — Page 2

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The is no such thing as a 70mm print, it was a blow up and they all come with their own issues 

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dvdmike said:

The is no such thing as a 70mm print

 Huh? Oh, you mean... huh?

Anyway, given PDB's (commendable) preference for an authentic theatrical recreation, I would say that the Criterion laser is the closest we have to a reliable reference (subject to the occasional pinch of salt, as in the case of Alien).

If there's any problem getting hold of a copy, I have a gap in my busy capture schedule; I only have the CLV version, but as far as I'm aware that shouldn't affect colour rendition.

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Of Blade Runner there were only blow ups, no 70mm prints.

And the work print is a direct scan of a film print and will be better looking than the LD due to the colour space 

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dvdmike said:

Of Blade Runner there were only blow ups, no 70mm prints.

It seems important to you that those terms are mutually exclusive. They aren't. For the record, I am well aware that Blade Runner was shot on 35mm. Nonetheless, the 'workprint' accidentally screened in 1990 (as part of a 70mm film festival, no less) was indeed a. 70mm. Print.

And the work print is a direct scan of a film print and will be better looking than the LD due to the colour space

Countless preservation efforts on these forums have demonstrated that that is far from the case.

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Regrading will be tough due to researching transfers etc.

From what I've pieced together:

All the Embassy/Pre-Criterion copies on VHS, LD etc. use that same transfer of the early LD. The Criterion uses a similar looking 2.35 print. All of these are very colorful but full of a contrasty look and to be honest it doesn't seem quite accurate to the film's composition. Plus they are very soft, and the Criterion noticeably so. They seem video-ish.

The Director's Cut was of course based off of the 70mm blowup of the Workprint that surfaced in 1990/1991 (supposedly due to Steve Hoffman and other unearthing it in some vaults) at the NuArt and other places AND the 1982 US theatrical release. Because it was a rush job and Scott not being available to supervise...I think it is actually a very good reference to how the film was shot and processed.

The 1997 DVD is terrible and has color that is not accurate-the full CAV LD actually bests it in terms of image and sound. All it requires for completion is the reintegration of the International cut snippets.

I have the DVD and BD sets and have never been fully pleased with the way the archival versions look. They seem a bit dead looking. Has anyone compared them to the limited 2006 DVD reissue of the DC? Or is it thye same?

The Final Cut looked far better in 35mm. The colors seemed more subjective and far less jumping out.

I think the best balance is somewhere between the deep saturation of the 80's era transfers (from release prints) and the colder look of the DC on Laserdisc/archival version DVD/BD.

God, WB really needs to redo these masters. BADLY!

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
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Y'all need to keep in mind that none of the transfers are really representative of a release print or negative simply due to the drastically different color spaces consumer video and film use, and the evolving methods of mapping film colors to consumer video color spaces. These sorts of factors will drastically effect the look of the resultant transfer.

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Fair enough, but as with Alien the project here is to recreate the theatrical timing 'close enough'.

Has anyone looked at the pre-boxset HDTV version lately? I can dig out my copy of DFNYC's DVD conversion if it might be helpful (first time I burned a dual-layer DVD, that was).

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I stay away from the OT for a weekend and there is so much ground to cover...

Nien Nunb said:

 I really like these, especially the last one at the bottom. This looks exactly like the timing on the 80's VHS I have, which is most likely from the same transfer as the LD you are using. The VHS has those reel change markers too. That last shot at the bottom though is one of the things I've always noticed that looked radically different in any other transfer I've seen other than the VHS.

It almost looks like a VHS transfer sometimes. The LD has the Embassy logo at the beginning so its probably the exact same master as your VHS. That tape is the way I remember watching Blade Runner with its golden/yellow tones. Much like the VHS there are reel change markers all over the place, so it is definitely from a release print.

Spaced Ranger said:

PDB

Would you post some matching Laserdisc shots (BTW, which LD release is it) used to guide your regrade?

Also, what is your procedure for color adjustments?

The LD was a rip from the spleen. Given the information and pic associated with the listing it is most likely this:

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/28188/13805/Blade-Runner-(1982)

Here are a few from the LD. I did this quickly so they are not the same frames.

The one thing I'm not wild about is the LD has a purple-ish cast sometimes at the end of the film (see the window pic). I'm using davinnci resolve lite and timing by sight. Those pics on the first page are done in 10 mins so they are not complete by any stretch.

This also brings up the internal debate that I have been running into a lot lately. The question of accuracy  (ie coloring every frame to the same frame on the LD) versus consistency (coloring the scenes so all the shots match within the scene but still looking like the LD). I have been a big fan of accuracy up until now but now I'm leaning towards consistency lately.

dvdmike said:

The is no such thing as a 70mm print, it was a blow up and they all come with their own issues 

Of Blade Runner there were only blow ups, no 70mm prints.

Sorry, dvdmike. No disrespect but I have to agree with Jonno, I don't understand what you are saying. A blowup is usually defined as printing up to a higher gauge of film (the opposite of a reduction). If you shot on 16mm a blowup is onto 35mm. If your film is 35mm, like Blade Runner, a blowup is onto 70mm. When people used the term blowup it was usually in reference to special engagement 70mm showings. And Blade Runner had a few 70mm prints:

http://in70mm.com/news/2010/blade_runner/index.htm

So there were more then 11 prints in the US and a couple in England. Notice the site says, " Interestingly, in the book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, the producer of the film incorrectly recalls that no 70mm prints circulated."

dvdmike said:

The workprint would be a better source then the LD for colour surely 

I wouldn't use the workprint. First of all why bother, if you have the set you have the workprint's coloring. If I colored to the workprint it would be redundant. Also like Jonno said,  its not the proper color timing. Its just a raw print of the work done up until that point and would in no way reflect the final color timing. And the workprint is a 70mm print also done from a raw cut. They preserved that on the BD set since the aspect ratio is 2:20 to 1 instead of anamorphic 35mm's 2.35/2.39/2.40.

captainsolo said:

Regrading will be tough due to researching transfers etc.

From what I've pieced together:

All the Embassy/Pre-Criterion copies on VHS, LD etc. use that same transfer of the early LD. The Criterion uses a similar looking 2.35 print. All of these are very colorful but full of a contrasty look and to be honest it doesn't seem quite accurate to the film's composition. Plus they are very soft, and the Criterion noticeably so. They seem video-ish.

The Director's Cut was of course based off of the 70mm blowup of the Workprint that surfaced in 1990/1991 (supposedly due to Steve Hoffman and other unearthing it in some vaults) at the NuArt and other places AND the 1982 US theatrical release. Because it was a rush job and Scott not being available to supervise...I think it is actually a very good reference to how the film was shot and processed.

The 1997 DVD is terrible and has color that is not accurate-the full CAV LD actually bests it in terms of image and sound. All it requires for completion is the reintegration of the International cut snippets.

I have the DVD and BD sets and have never been fully pleased with the way the archival versions look. They seem a bit dead looking. Has anyone compared them to the limited 2006 DVD reissue of the DC? Or is it thye same?

The Final Cut looked far better in 35mm. The colors seemed more subjective and far less jumping out.

I think the best balance is somewhere between the deep saturation of the 80's era transfers (from release prints) and the colder look of the DC on Laserdisc/archival version DVD/BD.

God, WB really needs to redo these masters. BADLY!

Hey captainsolo, the fact that those copies look very contrasty actually makes me happy as release prints are always have more contrast/dark/ murky because of generation copying and the colors pushed more to compensate. I'm on the hunt for the Criterion because at the time, Criterion mastered all their LDs from release prints. Of some the Criterion LDs I have: King Kong, North By Northwest and Lawrence of Arabia (not sure about ceot3k) all have reel change markers. Since the 83 LD is from a release print, I can compare it to the Criterion and try to get closer to the truth of what BR looked like in 82. Sure they could change the look of video masters back then but its in no way similar to today's color timing. They could do saturation, brightness, tint, sharpness, etc. Basically, all the things you could do on an old CRT. But I doubt Embassy spent anything changing the master of a failed movie and Criterion back then was pretty dedicated to getting as close to release versions as possible. it could on the other hand look nothing like a release print, no one her including me knows.

Its important to note that that kind of color timing, golden/yellow, was very popular in the early 80s. Look at the debates we have had about Raiders and Road Warrior here in this forum. So Blade Runner having that sort of tint is not totally random. Honestly I don't think any of the BDs in the Blade Runner set are true to a '82 print. Certainly not the workprint, DC or FC (the last two I saw in theaters). I hate the coloring on the FC but that Scott's baby so he can do with it what he wants.

Synnöve said:

Y'all need to keep in mind that none of the transfers are really representative of a release print or negative simply due to the drastically different color spaces consumer video and film use, and the evolving methods of mapping film colors to consumer video color spaces. These sorts of factors will drastically effect the look of the resultant transfer.

That's all true, Synnove. You are 100% correct and we can get into a long discussion about how crappy analog composite video is and how even today's video standards don't match 35mm film completely. And colorspaces, bit depth, yada, yada. But sadly by those standards no project here bears any merit. The Thing, Conan, etc were timed from laserdisc and DVDs, formats with inferior colorspaces. I don't mind those color technical issues With those releases. I just sit back and enjoy the films.

All of this is, kind of misses the point or maybe the spirit of the thing. The goal is the detail of the BD with the color of something close to a release print. I have tried to be clear in this and the Alien thread that these are not the be all and say all for these films. While I believed these laserdiscs are closer to their respective release prints, given the evidence at hand, I still think they are far from perfect. I want to get as close as I can to a release print, not the negative, not Ridley Scott's re-timed versions.  I want 80s era Blade Runner. I don't have an original 35mm print so these LDs of release print are as close as I can get. I have always said that people need to treat these projects as alternative versions to the transfers at hand. If you don't think they represent a 35mm release print, treat them as the laserdisc version. I post pics so that no one is surprised what this will look like and if you don't like the look of this project, don't download it. It may not be for you. That's not meant to be mean, just the facts. 

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Synnöve said:

Y'all need to keep in mind that none of the transfers are really representative of a release print or negative simply due to the drastically different color spaces consumer video and film use, and the evolving methods of mapping film colors to consumer video color spaces. These sorts of factors will drastically effect the look of the resultant transfer.

 That was what I was saying!! using the workprint as it is closest to an actual print and in BD's colour space already

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dvdmike said:

Synnöve said:

Y'all need to keep in mind that none of the transfers are really representative of a release print or negative simply due to the drastically different color spaces consumer video and film use, and the evolving methods of mapping film colors to consumer video color spaces. These sorts of factors will drastically effect the look of the resultant transfer.

 That was what I was saying!! using the workprint as it is closest to an actual print and in BD's colour space already

 No that's 100% wrong. The workprint is not even close to a release print. That is not the way making release prints works. Synnove is talking about digital formats. We are talking about chemical timing of a release print, workprints rarely have any chemical color timing. I quote wikipedia:

A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor(s) during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production animated shots or sequences.

For most of the first century of filmmaking, workprints were done using second-generation prints from the original camera negatives. After the editor and director approved of the final edit of the workprint, the same edits were made to the negative. 

If anything the workprint is closer to the negative then a release print. It was a quick rough print made for a preview. Thats why they used 70mm, to perverse as much detail as possible given the quick nature of the print. It was never meant to be seen again. Release prints are timed after the ip as a result of answer print. The are already a few generations removed from the ocn and their colors can be radically different then the negative. Negatives are great for seeing details but release prints are best for what a film should look like. Workprints are in no way the true color and look of a film.

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PDB said:

The LD was a rip from the spleen. Given the information and pic associated with the listing it is most likely this:

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/28188/13805/Blade-Runner-(1982)

There are some pics from the LD in the opener. Here are a few more. ...

... I'm using davinnci resolve lite and timing by sight.

Thanks for the extra shots and info!
(I had edited my original post while you were replying -- cross-posting, but just correcting my oversight.)

I wondered if you had tried (or thought of trying) HSL separations of aligned Blu-ray (for L) and letterbox laserdisc (for H & S) sources to re-combine. I did see a little bit of a letterbox laserdisc ..

YT: Opening to Blade Runner: The Director's Cut 1993 CAV Laserdisc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYlSlcS-Hco

.. but it was mostly the titles and nothing of your choice snapshots. Of course, HSL remixing only works well if both sources are not too different nor have crushed/blown-out video areas (which would require repair first).

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PDB said:

dvdmike said:

Synnöve said:

Y'all need to keep in mind that none of the transfers are really representative of a release print or negative simply due to the drastically different color spaces consumer video and film use, and the evolving methods of mapping film colors to consumer video color spaces. These sorts of factors will drastically effect the look of the resultant transfer.

 That was what I was saying!! using the workprint as it is closest to an actual print and in BD's colour space already

 No that's 100% wrong. The workprint is not even close to a release print. That is not the way making release prints works. Synnove is talking about digital formats. We are talking about chemical timing of a release print, workprints rarely have any chemical color timing. I quote wikipedia:

A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor(s) during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production animated shots or sequences.

For most of the first century of filmmaking, workprints were done using second-generation prints from the original camera negatives. After the editor and director approved of the final edit of the workprint, the same edits were made to the negative. 

If anything the workprint is closer to the negative then a release print. It was a quick rough print made for a preview. Thats why they used 70mm, to perverse as much detail as possible given the quick nature of the print. It was never meant to be seen again. Release prints are timed after the ip as a result of answer print. The are already a few generations removed from the ocn and their colors can be radically different then the negative. Negatives are great for seeing details but release prints are best for what a film should look like. Workprints are in no way the true color and look of a film.

 Why not try a small section?

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Spaced Ranger said:

PDB said:

The LD was a rip from the spleen. Given the information and pic associated with the listing it is most likely this:

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/28188/13805/Blade-Runner-(1982)

There are some pics from the LD in the opener. Here are a few more. ...

... I'm using davinnci resolve lite and timing by sight.

Thanks for the extra shots and info!
(I had edited my original post while you were replying -- cross-posting, but just correcting my oversight.)

I wondered if you had tried (or thought of trying) HSL separations of aligned Blu-ray (for L) and letterbox laserdisc (for H & S) sources to re-combine. I did see a little bit of a letterbox laserdisc ..

YTOpening to Blade Runner: The Director's Cut 1993 CAV Laserdisc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYlSlcS-Hco

.. but it was mostly the titles and nothing of your choice snapshots. Of course, HSL remixing only works well if both sources are not too different nor have crushed/blown-out video areas (which would require repair first).

I haven't thought of trying that but that's sounds like a good idea, Spaced Ranger. So if I follow you, basically you the take the luma/luminnce from the BR which contains all the detail information and overlay the color information from the laserdisc. Does that sound right? I remember there was a AVIsynth script that did something like that. I haven't had much success using AVIsynth scripts in the past. When I first tried color correction, I used colourlike/colourlikeFBF and could never get the results to what I wanted. Is there another way to do that process? Clearly you are more experience in this area then I am, I still consider myself a novice.

I'm also using speedgrade a lot since I'm creating the cuts/edit file in Premier and it sometimes easier to send it to speedgrade since that feature is built into Premier. 

dvdmikesaid:

 Why not try a small section?

Well, I always try keep an open mind, so ask and you shall receive:

Workprint/International Cut/IC colored to WP

I did this very quickly so it might not be right on the money

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Maybe I'm just being partial to my own preferences but the IC and IC/WP colors just seem so deep and powerful. There's something about the depth of contrast that seems to draw me in. The shot in Tyrell's office just looks gorgeous. I don't know a whole lot about color timing but they seem very rich in depth and fun to look at even if they may not necessarily be the correct color timing of the original 1982 theatrical presentation.

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PDB said:

So if I follow you, basically you the take the luma/luminnce from the BR which contains all the detail information and overlay the color information from the laserdisc. ... I remember there was a AVIsynth script that did something like that. ... When I first tried color correction, I used colourlike/colourlikeFBF and could never get the results to what I wanted.

I never could get that script to work on the system I was using (with all it's Avisynth plugins, something must've conflicted). But, yes, the approach works only within narrow parameters. (They were having trouble with crushed & blown-out areas that simply wouldn't translate right.)

Here's my test. You've got the procedure right.

The Laserdisc provides the coloring (Hue, Saturation):

As shown, the pan & scan Laserdisc had to be resized and aligned to match the Blu-ray (always a pain to do in a paint program).

Just a note here: The source of the Laserdisc had pretty bad color-clumping that showed up ugly when the brightness (inherited from the Blu-ray) was lowered. I had to blur-smooth it to make the color more uniform in the final mix.

.

The Blu-ray provides the detail (Luminance):

.

And the combined H-S & L result is ..

Hmm. This looks a little underwhelming.

Aside from the fact that the Laserdisc rip's noise is coming through, the Blu-ray has some of it's own. They don't mix well and inheriting of the Blu-ray's darkness, to get it's detail, darkens and changes the coloring.

Your earlier posted regrade looks cleaner and more naturally like the Laserdisc:

And I'm guessing a (working) Avisynth script probably won't do better than the paint program demonstration.
It looks like regular color correction is the right approach. I would suggest, if you're going for a match to the Laserdisc, reducing Speedgrade's contrast a little. The face brightness range is a good measure, but it's hard to tell using these LCD monitors with their critical viewing angles.

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WOW! Those workprint colored shots are right on the money for me.

So far, those have become the best looking samples IMO.

They keep the golden hues with no green tint and blue is blue again, not teal.

This just made me want to pull out my Workprint disc, because even tough I own the 5-disc set since release date, I have never watched the workprint.

Now, this makes me believe that this Workprint may actually have been color timed, according to some info that came up here on this thread.

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Yep the WP is the one for me, looks just right 

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Spaced Ranger said:  And I'm guessing a (working) Avisynth script probably won't do better than the paint program demonstration.

Yes, and whoever wrote the script would have to resize every shot in turn, which would be a mammoth task.

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Spaced Ranger said:

I never could get that script to work on the system I was using (with all it's Avisynth plugins, something must've conflicted). But, yes, the approach works only within narrow parameters. (They were having trouble with crushed & blown-out areas that simply wouldn't translate right.)

Here's my test. You've got the procedure right.

The Laserdisc provides the coloring (Hue, Saturation):

As shown, the pan & scanLaserdisc had to be resized and aligned to match the Blu-ray (always a pain to do in a paint program).

Just a note here: The source of the Laserdisc had pretty bad color-clumping that showed up ugly when the brightness (inherited from the Blu-ray) was lowered. I had to blur-smooth it to make the color more uniform in the final mix.

..............


Aside from the fact that the Laserdisc rip's noise is coming through, the Blu-ray has some of it's own. They don't mix well and inheriting of the Blu-ray's darkness, to get it's detail, darkens and changes the coloring.

Your earlier posted regrade looks cleaner and more naturally like the Laserdisc:

And I'm guessing a (working) Avisynth script probably won't do better than the paint program demonstration.
It looks like regular color correction is the right approach. I would suggest, if you're going for a match to the Laserdisc, reducing Speedgrade's contrast a little. The face brightness range is a good measure, but it's hard to tell using these LCD monitors with their critical viewing angles.

 Thanks for the demo, Spaced Ranger. Its actually a very interesting process. I'm sure as you said the downfall of the process is that the Pan and Scan is a garbage transfer. The old, garbage in, garbage out. While I was reading this, I was wondering if it would be possible to DNR the Pan and Scan to remove the noise and reduce the clumping of the colors. That way you have little detail/noise but should maintain the colors. Concerning the contrast I want to try to grade the entire movie first and then may add some contrast to the overall project to see how it looks and if it comes close looking how a release print looks.

Chewtobacca said:

Spaced Ranger said:  And I'm guessing a (working) Avisynth script probably won't do better than the paint program demonstration.

Yes, and whoever wrote the script would have to resize every shot in turn, which would be a mammoth task.

Sounds best left to a person who knows what they are doing with AVIsynth scripts.

Concerning the workprint. I'm glad everyone likes it but I'm not going to use it for this project, basically for all the reasons stated before but mostly since it already is in the Blu-ray package. Recreating it, is redundant. Plus I now have a new source to work with.

I have really grown to like the colors of the Pan and Scan LD (P&S) and there might still a project in there. I do recognize there are a few things I (and others) don't like about the transfer. Luckly, Jonno was nice enough to give me a copy of the Criterion LD (CC). So far, the CC has my favorite color scheme for BR. Basically, it sits half way between the P&S LD and the BR of the International cut (IC). Some parts look more like the PS others the IC. For example, it has the blue tint of the IC, when Decker is being given the run down on the Nexus 6s. It also has that blue in other places that the IC doesn't. Some green too. On the other hand it also has the golden tint that I enjoy so much, like at Tyrell's office. The tinting is a little less intense then the P&S but strangely it occurs in several places the P&S doesn't. The CC also lacks the extreme purple tint of the P&S transfer that looks like an old telecine issue, then natural to the film. I don't see reel change markers so this might be a print from higher up the food chain. 

IC BR/CC LD/P&S LD

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Good shots. It's nice to be able to compare the CC side by side with the others.

I'm now pretty much convinced that the CC is the relative closest to the 1982 theatrical look, but that the 1992 DC reflects more of what the shot material looks like.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
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captainsolo said:

I'm now pretty much convinced that the CC is the relative closest to the 1982 theatrical look, but that the 1992 DC reflects more of what the shot material looks like.

That makes a lot of sense.

“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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PDB said:  Sounds best left to a person who knows what they are doing with AVIsynth scripts.

I'm not quite sure what this means.

EDIT:  The work would not be difficult: it would simply be very laborious, so it's not as much a matter of knowing what one is doing as it is of having the time and the patience.  (In my opinion, it's not worth the effort.)

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Avisynth is for old dinosaurs like me... and I'm proud of 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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StarThoughts said:

captainsolo said:

I'm now pretty much convinced that the CC is the relative closest to the 1982 theatrical look, but that the 1992 DC reflects more of what the shot material looks like.

That makes a lot of sense.

 I was thinking the same thing captainsolo. They probably went back to the negative created a new IP, made the changes and made prints. Since Scott wasn't very involved and it was done quickly I always thought it was close to the negative also or should be.

You mentioned the colors on the DC LD. How different does the DC LD look from the DVD? 

Chewtobacca said:

PDB said:  Sounds best left to a person who knows what they are doing with AVIsynth scripts.

I'm not quite sure what this means.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant what you described sounds difficult and time consuming and best not left to a novice like me. 

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If you know someone with a NUKE license you could ask them to try using the matchgrade node on a few clips.