THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released) — Page 65

I highly doubt THX went through any more elaborate of a process than the OT, which would mean Lowry processed at 1080p (or something close). FWIW I'm still working from the Blu-ray.

AFAIK THX was a 2K scan of Techniscope materials, like others including some of the Leone classics. But then you have the Lowry-GL combo...oh dear.

For my own curiosity, was THX scanned from the OCN or the IP? The original opticals are clearly used (look at the dissolve at the end of the first factory scene, where the color grading tries to compensate for the revised factory colors during the fade) but I don't know if they were printed then cut into the negative or the negative was A/B-cut for dissolves.

@DarthAss - My framerate is 23.976. So long as we're both at 1080p and the same framerate, we should be able to intercut just fine.

I did color-grade the Buck Rogers trailer but I left the green font of the opening credits based on screencaps from this thread which showed other pre-2004 releases also being green (this, other than the Kinney logo, was the only thing I sided with the Blu-ray on). I have around ten shots in the works:

Among the finished are the albino lizard (roto'd out the antennae and wings but I want to refine the background a little more), one of LUH's control room shots (removing the green bokeh in the top-left corner), the extended hallway before the escalator (I used split-screens), a control room shot (another split-screen since both the man on the right and the monitors were altered).

In-progress are the door with the "3" on it (since it covers more area, the original can be laid underneath it with no other roto, but it needs to be stabilized-- curiously the close-up two shots before has the door's original signage intact), the shot behind THX viewing the hologram (THX and the chair on the left of frame are the only elements remaining of the Blu-ray), and the horizontal pan of THX in the factory at the beginning (this shot is where I'm having anamorphic distortion problems on the original material).

The opening "grid" shot I intend to re-create completely since the raw clip they used is in the film itself and unaltered, but I'm having trouble lining the original grid to the footage; may need to roto the Blu-ray clip itself to get the alignment precise. I will only be satisfied re-creating it if it's *exactly* like the original, so there's always the LD if it doesn't work.

Roto is done in AE (I do not have Mocha Pro which would make this a *lot* easier) precisely to the edges, but when layering it over the LD, a heavy feather (30-40px) results in the best blend. To reconcile the anamorphic distortion of LD elements, I split them into two images (the right side has more horizontal compression). The LD is then color-matched, noise-reduced and with new grain added to match it up with the Blu-ray. It's pretty advantageous that the film is shot with shallow focus and originally shot against solid backgrounds as even my IVTC'd Angrysun clips blend in (I have a *much* bigger problem with my IVTC artifacts than the resolution differences).

So I finally moved into my new computer room. Everything is more-or-less setup.

I have a few more things to do before I can say it's "finished".

I'm working on calibrating my capture chain at the moment. The [Pioneer CLD-1010] =(composite)=> [Extron YCS-100] =(svideo)=> [Blackmagic Intensity Pro] produces rather drab results with the color-bars on GGV1069.

I have to up the chroma gain by 1dB just to get it close to the reference.

How is the colour if you go straight from the Pioneer to the BMI?

poita said:

How is the colour if you go straight from the Pioneer to the BMI?

I haven't tried that yet, but I imagine it won't be much different because my earlier tests with the Extron YCS-100 didn't change the color much with my DVD player (it probably didn't at all).

The real pain-in-the-ass is that I can't calibrate U and V separately; there's only "chroma gain".

Try it, it could be an impedence mis-match between the player and the Extron.

poita said:

Try it, it could be an impedence mis-match between the player and the Extron.

If so, can it potentially damage the equipment?

Is this kind of thing common?

EDIT: I just checked: The CLD-1010 manual and the YCS-100 manual both say 75 Ohms for impedance. Is there anything else I should look for?

I have sent you a PM Spaced Ranger.

Btw, did you ever finish syncing the audio to the 16mm clip I sent you?

I saw broadcasts on HDNET and TCM.  Sadly they were the George Lucas director's cut with the listed original theatrical release date.

A little like Spike TV listing the original release dates for the 2004 versions of the star wars trilogy.

I even think the blu ray has the same sin for listing star wars as 1977 when its 2011.