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Once Upon a Time in the West - LD PCM Preservation (Released) — Page 2

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supersonic395 said:

Is the US Blu Ray region free?

 Yup, region free, along with nearly all US Paramount BDs.

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 (Edited)

Some updates on the edit I'm working on:

  • US BD synced to LD mono mix (1.0 768kbps 44.1KHz WAV) provided by NeonBible
  • Edit based on "restored" cut which is about 10 seconds longer than "theatrical" (the opening restoration credit has been removed).  10 seconds of audio from the BD lossy mono mix has been used to fill the gaps.
  • Harmonica recovering from the opening gunfight has been removed.  After the last of the gunmen fall, the next shot is McBain and his rifle.
  • Track 'Finale' from the OST has been inserted at the end to replace Cheyenne's theme, matching the German cut.
  • I'm currently working on making the same changes to the 5.1 mix.
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Was the Frank and Morton scene on the mountainside always in the movie?  It seems out of place.

Jill goes back to her home to look for the "Station" model, but Frank is already there (nighttime, I think).  Cut to Frank and Morton on the mountainside (daytime).  Cut to Harmonica and Cheyenne beginning to build the station, knowing that Jill is captured (daytime).  Cut to Jill and Frank in bed (nighttime).

The Frank/Morton scene is really good on its own, but doesn't work in its location.  Because then, why did Jill stick around for Frank to come back?

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 (Edited)

That's always been a weird sequence in the film. However, when you see Frank and Jill in bed, aren't they at his hideout?

Also — there is foley throughout the end title in the clip posted above.

As much as I love “Farewell To Cheyenne,” that clip seemed like a more natural end to the film than the version I'm familiar with (it's also not a reprise of the exact same cue that you just heard three minutes ago).

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

“You don't do ‘Star Wars’ in Dobly.”

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@jimbotron235:

According to this: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/325032-sergio-leone-blu-ray-thread/

The German and French versions are the only true director's cuts.

That German version on youtube is about 157 minutes in PAL, which is 164 minutes in NTSC. I haven't checked, but if those scenes are in this version, then they should probably be there.

Also, there really is foley during the credits, but you may be able to get a better sounding version, as there are 2 TV rips of that broadcast , but I myself couldn't find any links.

Perhaps a few German friends can help.

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nirbateman said:

@jimbotron235:

According to this: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/325032-sergio-leone-blu-ray-thread/

The German and French versions are the only true director's cuts.

That German version on youtube is about 157 minutes in PAL, which is 164 minutes in NTSC. I haven't checked, but if those scenes are in this version, then they should probably be there.

Also, there really is foley during the credits, but you may be able to get a better sounding version, as there are 2 TV rips of that broadcast , but I myself couldn't find any links.

Perhaps a few German friends can help.

 What about the German/French dub tracks on the English DVDs/Blu-rays? Do they have the correct ending music?

i don't have my copies with me at the moment so can't check now.

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It may be possible to get the proper finale music after all.

German channel Kabel 1 Classics is broadcasting "Once Upon a Time in The West" on August 8th, 10:15 PM local time, so it should end between 00:30-01:00 AM.

Could anyone who lives in Germany or has access to Kabel 1 Classics record the telecast and see if the finale has the proper music?

http://www.kabeleinsclassics.de/spielfilm/spiel-mir-das-lied-vom-tod

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don't count on german private networks to show credits. they usually cut them out. but since i don't have kabel 1 classics, i can't tell you if they do it.

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I have bought the old German VHS cassette, so it should have the proper ending music...

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 (Edited)

The edit is completed.

Changes made:

  •     Removed opening restoration credit
  •     Removed Harmonica recovering from gunshot
  •     Restored original Finale music (from OST), removing the spliced-in Cheyenne theme.  The result is pretty seamless.  There are no foley effects with the restored music.  Having listened to it several times, I don't miss them.


Video: 1920x816 AVC @ 18Mbps

Audio:

  •     5.1 FLAC (Sourced from Blu-ray DTS-HD mix)
  •     PCM 1.0 Mono (sourced from Laserdisc, provided by NeonBible and Lil Brutto) (44.1Khz 705Kbps) This was from the "Theatrical" version so I needed to splice in about 30 seconds from the "Restored" version.
  •     DD 1.0 Mono (sourced from Blu-ray) (originally 112Kbps 48Khz)


Length: 2:44:03

Size: 23.8GB

The 5.1 mix is FLAC instead of the original DTS-HD because Premiere doesn't output to DTS/Dolby.  The BD mono is expanded to PCM for the same reason.

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Indeed it is awesome. It is so pleasing to finally have this cut available.

Well done to jimbotron235!

Also should credit Lil Brutto for capturing the laserdisc mono track.

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This is great!

Did you have to transcode in order to make frame-specific edits (i.e. removing opening restoration credit and Harmonica rising scene)?

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The entire video was reencoded after I made the edits (and cropped the black bars).  I gave it a healthy bitrate, so the grain structure isn't impacted.

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This is amazing, thank you so much!

Just out of curiosity: You seem to have lowered the bitrate (perhaps to fit on a 25GB BR?)... to me this is puzzling, after so much effort put into this version, why not keep it at the highest possible quality?

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Where do I find this? I searched myspleen and nothing came up.

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Hate to ask for more, but I quite like this preservation. 

Will there be a version one day that's BD-compliant (1920 x 1080p) without the black bars cropped.

An MKV file is nice, especially one in such high quality, but it'd be great to be able to burn it to disc without re-encoding once more.

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 (Edited)

Unfortunately I wasn't so forward thinking, and only made it with the cropped bars and then deleted the project files.  I can recreate the video from scratch, which would not be very hard since I only made two edits (removal of restoration credit and the entire rising scene).  No redos necessary for the audio, so those tracks can be ported from the first version.  Note though that I included the 5.1 mix as FLAC, which I don't believe is BD-compliant.

Aluminum Falcon and Stamper, check your PM.

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5.1 as FLAC? How does that even work? I don't know how FLAC designates different channels...

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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Danfun128 said:

5.1 as FLAC? How does that even work? I don't know how FLAC designates different channels...

No differently than DTS and Dolby, I guess.  It works, and it is MKV compatible.  It plays fine on my OPPO Blu-ray player.

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Is it on the Italian BD, or is that lossless too?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

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