Unfortunately, I found out last week that my employer will be closing down my department sometime in the 3rd quarter. The Bots are officially taking over. Skynet is here…okay maybe not that bad yet. Stressful and delaying the project a bit. “That’s life” am I right?
Slavicuss + Moisty, talking about JAWS 1 has me itching to see a new extended edition similar to what I’m doing with J2. Running the scenes, properly IVTC’d, through Topaz definitely helps a bit when cutting from blu-ray to standard def letterboxed laserdisc masters. Inserting the tackle box will switch the aspect ratios, but it’s so brief I feel it doesn’t matter since it’s for completeness sake. Unfortunately, I gave away my copies of the 25th and 30th Anniversary DVD editions of J1. Never thought I’d do a J1 extended so I’ve only kept the Blu-ray. I’m sure the J1 Blu-ray has slaughtered the deleted scenes the same way the J2 Blu-ray did with abysmal deinterlacing. Any chance you still have your copy of the DVD? I may be able to get mine back. If not, they’re cheap enough online, but I’d like to avoid buying anything given my job situation. Also - It would be good to find out which DVD release - 25th or 30th - has the highest bitrate for the deleted scenes. I’m guessing the 30th does, but you never know.
And while we’re on the topic of the JAWS franchise - digging into my collection, I found my own recording of JAWS the Revenge from AMC that I recorded directly from the satellite box via S-Video to Digital 8. So it’s essentially a MPEG-2 satellite stream converted to MiniDV format. Might look better than the Workprint Collection DVD. Also - I found my old early 90s recording of Jaws the Revenge recorded over the air from Fox TV. Not nearly as good looking as the AMC, but no channel logo and that could be used to remove the AMC logo if they’re the same pan and scanned master. Unfortunately, my VCR is in need of servicing - getting a lot of white streaks/comets. Sometimes they go away though. Anyway, that’s a lot of potential projects and I still need to finish J2. I’m willing to collaborate of course.
And thanks Moiisty - glad you enjoyed the Primitive Screwhead Edition - that was such a fun time in my life. With the new tech, I bet those deleted scenes could look even better these days. I intended to recreate the tv edit in widescreen, but ran into problems with the Koch DVD of the Tv Version. Best looking release of the TV Version that I know of, but the framerate is all jacked up - massive headache just like trying to get these J2 scenes from the spedup TBS broadcast running at the right speed.