The Thing (1982) [spoRv] *BD-25 RELEASED* — Page 5

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Thanks a lot to all of you! The appreciation posts keep me going on.

@PDB: I can't be 100% sure my version is the right Thing, but considering the Teal&Orange trend, I'm quite confident John Carpenter will like it - I'm secretely hoping someone in his staff will find it, call him and says: "John, take a look..."; and him, after watching the comparison, says: "Who changes the colors in the BD? I didn't approve that blue cast over all images! I could be old, but still know snow should be white and not blue!" (^^,)

 

It would be nice to ask Carpenter but sometimes directors betray themselves with changes or reinvent the past or plain forget how their movie was suppose to look. I won't talk about Lucas but I'm reminded of William Friedkin's color changes to French Connection. He went all out changing the colors to some bizarre mess but after there was such universal hate, he kind of denied being responsible and a new Blu-ray was issued with corrected colors.

Man I love Carpenter's early work, Halloween, Fog, Escape, Thing, Big Trouble, classics everyone of them. Sad no one makes those kind of films anymore. Did anyone ever ask Carpenter about the color changes in Halloween? I know Dean Cundey (the cinematographer) is suppose to fix with the next blu-ray so we can only hope. Regardless, I have The Thing on HD-DVD, Blu-ray and now your version, Andrea, so I am happy. I choose what to watch.

Also nice to have the Dolby Stereo Surround soundtrack. I'm into Dolby Stereo tracks right now. Ripping all my laserdiscs so I can merge them to Blu-rays (even though synceing is harder then I thought). I got a used Fosgate Model 5 so I can listen to these is "old" Pro-Logic and not Pro Logic II or DTS-Neo. I want to see if I can find any other "old" Pro-Logic decoders. Each had a slightly different way of decoding.

 

Anr MM2 is another example: who can be sure that the BD has not the right colors that the director has always intended? To me, clearly the BD has wong colors (as "The Thing", "The Matrix" and many others) - this is SO obvious... even with no official reference, or, at the contrary, the studios and/or directors keep telling us that these BD has "the right color grading that the movie should have in the theaters but never had on video because old technology didn't allow that before" (Lucas docet) - when we (educated videophiles) all know that is a big fat lie... OK, I should start a separate thread for this, don't you think?

Well, baci to MM2: I have the LD but not the BD; if someone would kindly agree to send me the 1:1 rip, I'll be more than happy to spoRvify it! But take into account I'm involved in many projects right now, and don't know when I'll start the MM2 one.

Last thing: what about the other Mad Max movies' color grading? 

I quote captainsolo from the Mad Max 2 thread:

"The best evidence was provided by the original cinematographer on the commentary track IIRC. He talked of having to go to the film lab multiple times to push the colors to get that more saturated look of the desert. That is the intended look reflected on the 35mm theatrical prints, the VHS, LD and DVD issue from a print sourced master. That used a US print under the RW title and slightly edited. The BD uses what is presumably a fresh HD scan of the Australian master, hence the uncut film and MM2 title card. It also is the master so it lacks the intended color timing, making it yet another film misrepresented in HD due to using camera negatives and not replicating theatrical color timing."

I agree with his assessment,  it sounds like they didn't color time the HD negative scan. The 35mm print I saw recently was of 80's vintage and was the same color timing as the laserdisc and the old DVD, so clearly the Blu-ray is wrong. The funny thing is that Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome always had the same "yellow" color timing as Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior, which makes sense being a sequel. For the new Blu-ray the color timing is the correct "yellow" same as the DVD and old Laserdisc. So they got that right, probably because they didn't go back to the untimed negative. So it makes MM2/RW stand out all the more since Thunderdome is the right color, same as its always been. Mad Max (the 1st movie) has always had a natural color look befitting it 70s naturalistic filming and seems right also.

Sorry if I derailed this thread, Andrea. I saw the work you did on The Thing (one of my favorite movies) got excited and thought your process would be perfect to fix MM2/RW (another of my favs). If you do want to go forward I have the latest Blu-ray (AVC, not the old VC-1), the old DVD and Jonno's Dolby Stereo Surround soundtrack (which must of been very hard to sync to the Blu-ray since it is a different cut)

Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

I second PDB's request for MM2!

I'm also completely crazy for original Dolby Stereo Surround LD PCM tracks. They usually sound so great with a warmer, fuller feel istead of the thin and hollow sound of the remixes.

As for Andrea's question, I also think Thunderdome needs some touch up. Check these comparison picks.

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cap1=22593&cap2=22601&art=full&image=7&cID=1719&action=1&lossless=#vergleich

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cap1=22587&cap2=22595&art=full&image=1&cID=1719&action=1&lossless=#vergleich

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cap1=22590&cap2=22598&art=full&image=4&cID=1719&action=1&lossless=#vergleich

After seeing the fantastic results of this project, I'd be totally on board for a spoRved Mad Max 2. I've just bought the 1994 letterboxed laserdisc, so I can make a comparison with my existing 1991 capture and remake the audio if appropriate (it's tempting to do it over anyway, now that I have bitperfect facilities).

Not only would the original colours and audio be restored, but this would also be an ideal opportunity to fix the pesky WB logo in a more permanent way than my quick fix.

suntech said:

Having just watched it , I must say great job! I only wish I had better equipment to view it on.

I have a early model Panasonic  BluRay player than can not read BD-R so I use my Sony PS3 which can read it but can not handle errors very well so every 3-5 minutes the picture freezes a while and then when it unfreezes it into the next scene so I lose some of the dialog.

I am using a just purchased Samsung SE-506 Burner and Verbatim discs and I have tried burning at different speeds but the problems are all ways at the same spots. So I went back and checked the source file,  loaded the movie from the file on my laptop and it played on my laptop. It plays OK but I noticed that every where I would have problems on the disc  the file had artifacts during those scenes it is just that my laptop could handle the errors better. 

Any Suggestions?

 

 

Problem solved! It was a bad DL. I DL it again to another HD and Burned it again and it is fine. Thanks all for the input.

I haven't seen The Thing yet, but its great to know you are giving it a restoration. I think the industry should hire you as you deserve it! Way to go Andrea!

I really want to watch this.  Anyone here maybe willing to send out a snail mail copy?  I'm working on resolving my internet connection but I have to wait for my school funding to arrive to do that and to buy more BD-r's.

Cheers!!! 

So is this a torrent or on TehParadox? ISO or the BD folder format?

Optical Quantum 4X logo top BD25s are damn cheap for a spindle of 50. $27 USD from Amazon USA. Just be sure if you're using IMGBurn you have Verify click always.

I'll be removing all dub-tracks before I burn this to disc. But yes I'm leaving the English subtitles.

So I did not read the enitre thread, but I downloaded the BD from MySpleen and burned it.

But just as I started the movie I got some bad stutter withe the beginning on the second chapter.

First I thought it was a poorly burned BD, but when I played the downloaded files on my computer I got some very bad glitches on the second chapter.

I assume it is because of the bitrate used on the AVC encode in this chapter.

It goes up to 60(!) Mbps and never under 50. Both shown on the BD-Player and the PC.

Did someone else experience this problem?

Also I saw on the beginning if the second chapter before the helicopter appears moving mountains in the background. This seems not to be right.

How about instead of chapters, gives us times when you have glitches?

I'll check mine out but i doubt there's anything wrong with it.

It begins at around 2:15 minutes. "Antarctica, 1982"

There are heavy artifacts and on the horzion above the mountains I see other mountains move from the right to the left. I downloaded it twice now to two different harddrives and I get the error in Arcosft Media Center and on my Sony BDP-490.

I remuxed the file and encoded it new, but the errors remains.

I do not doubt you that you do not have the problems otherwise there would be more screaming in here. But I cannot see why it does not work with me.

I got it on MySpleen, is there another source around I could try?

Ok. I will check that, because I also have the untouched HDDVD video available.

That stuff you see is on the hd-dvd as well, i checked.

I wonder what it's like on the blu-ray for those frames?

Ok Ichecked the HDVD and the moving mountains are there indeed.

Never saw that.

But that does not explain, why I have heavy artifacts on both of my Hardware and Software player. Also that VLC does not show the artifacts.

I remuxed it to an MKV and it plays smoothly on my Sony which is good enough for me.

So thanks (again?) for the great work you do Andrea.

I would like to say thank you, Andrea, as well.

One of my favourite Movies got such a nice Treathment. I also bought a Blu-Ray Burner the other Day just to burn it to Disc and enjoy it on the "Big"-Screen.

So thank you for your good work!