Superman I-III extended TV cuts & Info - Where have the Preservations gone? (Released) — Page 4

Molly said:

Booshman said:

To be bluray compliant I’m going with 1280x720 (pillarboxed) for the 4:3 version, and 1920x1080 for the widescreen.

Does anyone have any tips on upscaling the DVD footage from the RIC? I have magicbullet for after effects, but if there is a better option I’d like to know. I need to increase the the size by 28%, and it would be nice for it to look as good as possible.

Also, I don’t know how possible it is, but is there any way of sorting out the interlacing that is present in the added footage. The DVD is interlaced. When I open it in TMPGEnc and turn on de-interlace, all of the footage shows as de-interlaced apart from the new stuff. The makers of the original disc must have messed up somewhere in their workflow and it means there are a lot of frames that look like this:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZUak59n.jpg[/img]

Could this be sorted out with avisynth?

How good results would nnedi3_rpow2(2) look, giving you 1440x960 out of the vob?

The ISO I have of the RIC is progressive, though I usually have DGIndex process everything as actual 30i, and then go in and ivtc it in Avisynth.

In some particular bad cases, I’ve been able to use qtgmc and/or srestore to fix some interlacing/telecine issues. No idea if this will fix your specific problem.

I’ll have look and see if that helps. Which version of the RIC do you have? Mine is the PAL 2 disc version. Do you have the same interlacing issue with the added footage?

Molly said:

NTSC 1-disc version. Used to have the NTSC 2-disc version it was based on but I lost it.

I don’t think I’ve run into any issues importing stuff into Avisynth to do my tests…

I made that dual layer version, which I sourced from the original PAL release. So the intelacing problem is present on that version too. My suspicion would be that it was also present on the original 2 disc NTSC version too. I hope there is a way to undo it but we may be stuck with it.

Just to be clear, I can import the DVD into avisynth fine, but when the rest of the movie shows correctly after IVTC, the additional parts still look interlaced.

I’ve made some colour correction progress thanks to Dr Dre’s colour matching tool.

Here’s a pic from the Theatrical cut
[img]http://i.imgur.com/66BfQAT.png[/img]

Here’s my colour corrected version of that shot
[img]http://i.imgur.com/TrkInor.png[/img]

Here’s the equivalent from TRDC
[img]http://i.imgur.com/gupogZ3.png[/img]

And finally TRDC shot matched to my CC Theatrical shot
[img]http://i.imgur.com/krnN6Aq.png[/img]

Booshman said:
I made that dual layer version, which I sourced from the original PAL release. So the intelacing problem is present on that version too. My suspicion would be that it was also present on the original 2 disc NTSC version too. I hope there is a way to undo it but we may be stuck with it.

I didn’t know that there was a 2-disc NTSC original – I thought that the PAL original was later converted to NTSC. Could some of the footage that you need be taken from the ABC cut?

Chewtobacca said:

Booshman said:
I made that dual layer version, which I sourced from the original PAL release. So the intelacing problem is present on that version too. My suspicion would be that it was also present on the original 2 disc NTSC version too. I hope there is a way to undo it but we may be stuck with it.

I didn’t know that there was a 2-disc NTSC original – I thought that the PAL original was later converted to NTSC. Could some of the footage that you need be taken from the ABC cut?

You know I’d forgotten I had that source. I have both discs of the ABC version that was on myspleen. The picture quality is really good. It will need some dirt removal, but it might be better than the RIC. Thre are some bits missing though, I’ll have to check though it.

To be honest, I don’t understand exactly how the ABC and RIC differ. I know that the latter has some shots that are missing from the former, but is the reverse true? I wonder if there’s a comparison of the two somewhere.

Booshman said:

Does anyone have any tips on upscaling the DVD footage from the RIC? I have magicbullet for after effects, but if there is a better option I’d like to know. I need to increase the the size by 28%, and it would be nice for it to look as good as possible.

I am not sure about magicbullet’s resizing filters, but it might be worth trying against some of the avisynth plugins (a comparison was done a few years ago, archived here: http://archive.is/7bvQj ). One thing to keep in mind is that cleaner ratios scale better ie 25% upscaled probably comes out sharper than 28% (3 lines into every 4) - sometimes a slight black windowbox is the least worst option - though not ideal when mixing sources.

The makers of the original disc must have messed up somewhere in their workflow and it means there are a lot of frames that look like this:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZUak59n.jpg[/img]

Could this be sorted out with avisynth?

I have a fair amount of experience with deinterlacing across a variety of sources, but can’t tell what you are dealing with for certain without access to a short clip… but that ghosting appears to be blended fields (seen on some 24->PAL->23.976 conversions) in which case it is possible to bring back the original cadence (the old RePAL filter for Avisynth + a smartbob filter does the trick) but the footage will still have blurriness. Gets you back to 23.976 without dropped frames though.

In order to fill a 720P 4:3 frame vertically, the original 1080P source only needs to be scaled down to 96%.

I thought I would add that it makes more sense to trim the few lines off the 1080 source to make 720 rather than scaling it down 96%. You gain massively on image sharpness (very slight scaling does the most damage) and only lose 4% on the edges - hardly anything at all given what is already lost to the P&S process!

Booshman, another approach to integrating the 4:3 material into the BD footage is to pillarbox as well as letterbox it (after resizing it appropriately). That way, you can enjoy most of the film in widescreen. I’ve seen this done before, and it works. After all, the bulk of the film is unchanged, and the switch occurs only briefly for a few shots/sequences, which are going to stand out whatever you do. It would save you a great deal of work.

By the way how are you panning and scanning the film? It sounds as if you are managing to do it quite swiftly.

Chewtobacca said:

To be honest, I don’t understand exactly how the ABC and RIC differ. I know that the latter has some shots that are missing from the former, but is the reverse true? I wonder if there’s a comparison of the two somewhere.

The RIC should be the longest possible version. I think it was based on an Australian broadcast. I’m not definite if that version was the longest ever and the ABC cut is similar but shorter, or if they had exclusive content in each. I’m sure there is nothing in the ABC cut that is missing from the RIC though

PlatB said:

Booshman said:

Does anyone have any tips on upscaling the DVD footage from the RIC? I have magicbullet for after effects, but if there is a better option I’d like to know. I need to increase the the size by 28%, and it would be nice for it to look as good as possible.

I am not sure about magicbullet’s resizing filters, but it might be worth trying against some of the avisynth plugins (a comparison was done a few years ago, archived here: http://archive.is/7bvQj ). One thing to keep in mind is that cleaner ratios scale better ie 25% upscaled probably comes out sharper than 28% (3 lines into every 4) - sometimes a slight black windowbox is the least worst option - though not ideal when mixing sources.

The makers of the original disc must have messed up somewhere in their workflow and it means there are a lot of frames that look like this:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZUak59n.jpg[/img]

Could this be sorted out with avisynth?

I have a fair amount of experience with deinterlacing across a variety of sources, but can’t tell what you are dealing with for certain without access to a short clip… but that ghosting appears to be blended fields (seen on some 24->PAL->23.976 conversions) in which case it is possible to bring back the original cadence (the old RePAL filter for Avisynth + a smartbob filter does the trick) but the footage will still have blurriness. Gets you back to 23.976 without dropped frames though.

In order to fill a 720P 4:3 frame vertically, the original 1080P source only needs to be scaled down to 96%.

I thought I would add that it makes more sense to trim the few lines off the 1080 source to make 720 rather than scaling it down 96%. You gain massively on image sharpness (very slight scaling does the most damage) and only lose 4% on the edges - hardly anything at all given what is already lost to the P&S process!

I was mistaken when I said 96%, it turned out to be 92%. I don’t want to lose 8%, and my pand and scan work is all complete at the size it is now, I don’t want to have to go back though it. Do you think it worth downscaling the video externally so it’s not down to Premiere to do it?

For the badly interlaced footage I’ll go through and see what scenes exactly are only available in the RIC and post them for you to have a crack at.

Chewtobacca said:

Booshman, another approach to integrating the 4:3 material into the BD footage is to pillarbox as well as letterbox it (after resizing it appropriately). That way, you can enjoy most of the film in widescreen. I’ve seen this done before, and it works. After all, the bulk of the film is unchanged, and the switch occurs only briefly for a few shots/sequences, which are going to stand out whatever you do. It would save you a great deal of work.

By the way how are you panning and scanning the film? It sounds as if you are managing to do it quite swiftly.

For the widescreen version I don’t want to have to just letterbox the footage. It will look bad and I think I can get better results combining footage to create some new shots.

The pan and scanning I have done by keyframeing in Premiere.

The versions on myspleen are all the ones I mentioned previously.

Yorkshire TV version. (Single layer DVD)
BLAX version. (Single layer DVD)
Unknown source PAL capture (2 x Single layer DVD)
1986 ABC version (Single layer DVD) (missing first 50 minutes)

The best looking is the ABC version. The unknown source 2 disc version only has the forst disc on the spleen. I have the second disc, I’ll put it on there shortly.

Booshman said:
I’m sure there is nothing in the ABC cut that is missing from the RIC though

Ah, I see. I wondered if all the ABC footage was available at the time the RIC was made.

For the widescreen version I don’t want to have to just letterbox the footage. It will look bad and I think I can get better results combining footage to create some new shots.

Understood!

…my pan and scan work is all complete at the size it is now, I don’t want to have to go back though it. Do you think it worth downscaling the video externally so it’s not down to Premiere to do it?

It probably won’t make much difference.

I’ve checked the ABC footage, and after being IVTC it still has the interlaced look. Again, this is only for newly inserted footage. I’m thinking this was an issue with how the thing was broadcast in the first place.

Here’s a sample clip

https://mega.nz/#!BEsnhJTR!TyJHGklhVPaAP9DBudo3J6gokYT_QzTftf96K6Wu7Co

You can’t IVTC it successfully, because it’s field blended. You need to use something such as SRestore(). There are alternatives, but they are all much of a muchness.

LoadCplugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth\plugins\yadif.dll")
Mpeg2Source()
AssumeTFF()
Yadif(mode=1)#or QTGMC or whatever
SRestore()

I get confused about the history of the different TV versions. Was this the version that was edited/reconstructed in PAL and then converted to NTSC or was that the RIC? You might have to adjust the script to specify a frame-rate. At present, it’s returning 25fps.

Yeah. As you know, it’s not even unusual for a film to have been panned and scanned more than once. The Wrath of Khan is like that: the ABC version has a different pan and scan from the LD.

Boosh, that clip you posted, that’s not the copy you’re using and trying to fix up, is it? I bought a 2 disc copy of the RIC back in like 2003 and it looks leaps and bounds better than that. I’d be happy to upload it for ya, if you want.

Molly said:

Got a fairly precise tag on that ABC recording: WXYZ (Detroit, MI), April 20 1986; broadcast started at 8 pm, but about an hour is missing, not including commercials.

Pan-scanning is proving to be the most tedious part. That said, the two TV sources I already had do not have identical cropping, so perhaps it was done further down the line.

As you don’t have the bluray yet, what source are you panning and scanning?

TylerDurden389 said:

Boosh, that clip you posted, that’s not the copy you’re using and trying to fix up, is it? I bought a 2 disc copy of the RIC back in like 2003 and it looks leaps and bounds better than that. I’d be happy to upload it for ya, if you want.

The clip is from the an ABC capture. I already have the 2 disc version of the RIC. The blended fields is an issue present on both of the versions. Once I have that sorted out I can properly compare them but I think the ABC version has the potential to look better than the RIC. There is dirt removal and recolouring to do, but I think it can be made to look pretty good.

Chewtobacca said:

You can’t IVTC it successfully, because it’s field blended. You need to use something such as SRestore(). There are alternatives, but they are all much of a muchness.

LoadCplugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth\plugins\yadif.dll")
Mpeg2Source()
AssumeTFF()
Yadif(mode=1)#or QTGMC or whatever
SRestore()

I get confused about the history of the different TV versions. Was this the version that was edited/reconstructed in PAL and then converted to NTSC or was that the RIC? You might have to adjust the script to specify a frame-rate. At present, it’s returning 25fps.

Cheers for that, I’ll have a look.

For the history of the RIC, I know multiple tapes of different airings were used to add in the missing bits to a retail VHS capture. Whether the project was completed in PAL and an NTSC conversion was done, or the other way around, I don’t know.

Molly said:

Got a fairly precise tag on that ABC recording: WXYZ (Detroit, MI), April 20 1986; broadcast started at 8 pm, but about an hour is missing, not including commercials.

Man that is something… I have the same Detroit broadcast recorded myself and complete (in LP mode IIRC), but the tape probably got pitched in the last few years since my parents started clearing out the house. Being that it was obviously different from any commercial video release I watched it quite a bit back in the day.

Booshman said:

Cheers for that, I’ll have a look.

I’ll go through processing on my editing computer tomorrow, but by the looks of it almost certainly possible to use the classic repal plugin for Avisynth paired with a smartbob filter to force out a clean pseudo-PAL 24.975 from 29.97, then slow it back to 23.976 (assuming the BD to match is 23.976) without any temporal anomalies. Since resolution is already OTA VHS, I’d be more concerned about preserving cadence in motion.

For 720p a 92% resize is not going to be a real problem, but it might be worth trying against the crop approach just to compare results for yourself. There are plenty of downsizing filters with sharpening options to approximate the look of the original footage, so I wouldn’t get too hung up about it.

Here’s a comparison of what it looks like scaled down to vertically fit 720P, and what it looks like cropped without resizing the 1080P source.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/PedCHKT.jpg[/img]

I’m going with the scaled down option to preserve the 4:3 ratio and so I don’t have to alter the pan and scan composition to account for the reframing.

Booshman said:

I’m going with the scaled down option to preserve the 4:3 ratio and so I don’t have to alter the pan and scan composition to account for the reframing.

Yeah, it looks fine. I would be much more concerned about slight resizing BDs of digital films from recent years where pixel-level sharpness is already dialed in.

I managed to re-NTSC the clip using avisynth.
https://mega.nz/#!SwYjiBDD!WcUZxy7NFgKp7se_kubOnXkHtQ40L98cuWErgg8zD1I

mpeg2source(“ABC RIC 2.demuxed.d2v”)
yadif(mode=3) #smartbob
repal() #returns a 24.975 clip
AssumeFPS(24000,1001) #slows the clip back to its original film speed
BilinearResize(640,480, 10.0, 0.0, 704.0, 480.0)

The frame blending is baked in, but the combination of a smartbob (either yadif mode 1 or 3, and they seemed about the same in output) and the old repal plugin is probably as good as it gets.