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Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released) — Page 10

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Hello all.

As much as I don't want to do this, I'll have to cut way back on my authoring participation of this project. This is mainly due to the fact of my son coming into the world, Lucas Skylar Wafford. (It kind of shifts your priorities, ya know?)

Doctor M seems to be doing tremendous work on a new feature encode and JoeyO's cover art (the orange one) looks like a great candidate for a new cover.

My idea was to have this release mimic in format the Disney Platinum Edition series and I have the following material to devote to Disc 2. Of course some items (like trailers) should fit on disc one.

STILLS
8 Animation
11 Concept Art
38 live action (promos and behind-the-scenes)
30 lobby cards and posters (foreign and domestic)
22 production artwork
16 home video releases
color enhanced animation background stills (for use as menu backgrounds?)

AUDIO
Over 3 hours of mp3 audio from the Song of the South 60th Anniversary program
(some of which could be used as menu music)
1946, '72, and '73 radio promos (mp3)
Tales of Uncle Remus record (mp3) (DVD-ROM content?)
6 SOTS midi files (DVD-ROM content?)

VIDEO
3 files totaling 10 minutes of on-set behind-the-scenes footage
All 4 SOTS Sing-Along-Songs
'72 trailer, '72 TV spot, '86 trailer
Disneyland 50th anniversary TV promo (featuring Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah)
Looping clip of Uncle Remus' chair next to a fireplace (Main Menu background?)

CLIPS FOR POSSIBLE USE AS EASTER EGGS and/or DVD-ROM CONTENT
1955 Rambler commercial featuring SOTS characters
SNL "Journey Into The Disney Vault" parody commercial
Fletch Lives "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah" clip
wmv format home video of entire Splash Mountain ride

So basically, I'm calling out to the editor/authorers out there who can put these discs together. Basic features that will be needed are:

Multi-level motion and still menus including music
Subtitles
Easter Eggs

In terms of layout, just take a look at the last three Disney Platinum releases. It's simple, but not boring.

Although I have to pull out of the authoring, I'd still like to share and discuss my ideas so we can make this the ultimate release of this great Disney film.

Please PM me if you have the software, drive, and ability to do this.
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All that sounds like wonderful ideas I'd like to see in this release too. I recently heard a bit that Disney has been reconsidering releaseing SOTS after all. So in case this release doesn't come out in time we'll have something legit to look forward to (if any). I however already bought a copy of the Japanese LD myself, as well as having a DVD-R copy of the BBC airing and one of the typical pirated DVD's out there. I would say I fare far better than back when I had to pay over $30 for a VHS copy of the UK tape (converted to NTSC of course) a decade ago.
Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

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Originally posted by: Studio Toledo
All that sounds like wonderful ideas I'd like to see in this release too. I recently heard a bit that Disney has been reconsidering releaseing SOTS after all. So in case this release doesn't come out in time we'll have something legit to look forward to (if any).


There was discussion about this a few months back, but Disney issued a statement saying they had nixed the idea.
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Disney is now re-reconsidering it. Iger was talking about it recently at a stock holder's meeting.
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As much as I'd love an official dvd release, part of me fears that it will be a horrid piece of gutterflange. That or they will reanimate things, ala the Lion King, or redub huge parts of the audio.....


Here's hoping we get the uncut unedited version.


How's that coming along anyways, DoctorM?

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Roy Disney is spearheading the whole thing, so it should be unaltered and unedited. Somewhat in the vein of the Treasures series.
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I know. I signed up for Roy's petition for it years and years ago. I would love to meet the man and shake his hand since he's been literally fighting for years to get it out there. IF it is out, hopefully it will be complete. Here's hoping so...

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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So let me apologize to everyone awaiting the uber-NTSC 2-disc set... evidently a miscommunication had everybody expecting to hear from everyone else.
That has been remedied.

I am restoring the movie, RowMan is compiling the extras and a third party (whose name I don't know) will be authoring these into a unified Special Edition style release.

I sat down for a final proofing of the movie today... and turned it off after 5 minutes. I was fairly dissatisfied with shimmering artifacts that arose from the edge enhancement I added.

The reason for the sharpening is because the restoration process will only yield 288 line per frame (half the original lines are blended and must be discarded). The restored frames are then resized to 480p.

Sharpening gives the impression of more detail, but doesn't always work out well.
There is a decent amount of noise and compression artifacts in the original disc that are amplified by this process.
Noise clean up will destroy a little more detail, that I don't believe we really can spare at this point.

In my mind I would prefer a softer image with less hard-on-the-eye noise.

Since screenshots of this version actually look pretty damn good (with the artifacts visible in motion), I'm posting a 1 minute clip so you all can see how it looks to you.

Comments would be appreciate... if you guys can't see a problem and love the look, fine, but as it stands I plan to go a bit softer. I should have a new version ready in a few days.
Rapidshare link: http://rapidshare.com/files/31381732/SotsClip.mpg.html (40.4mb)

Dr. M

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I agree with you on this. Although the clip looks nice, it's just a tad too sharp and still reveals some artifacting. A little step down should do the trick.
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awesome work there, Doc. Glad you could salvage the version I upped, but a stepdown would be good. Can't wait for the final product.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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I agree with you, Doctor M. That sharpening looks bad. There's nothing wrong with a soft image - which will look just fine on a regular sized tv and will hold up better (compared to the sharpened version) when shown on a larger display.
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Yeah, I went wrong because the stills were so nice (and the Restore24 filter is Sooooo Slooooow).

I ran into the same thing when I tried to sharpen Moth3r's RotJ. I did find a compromise on that project because I felt it was warranted... in this case I think I'd be just as happy to do without.

On the bright side the softer picture is making the movie more compressible... the re-encoding stage should have no further impact on quality.

Dr. M

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By stepping down, do you mean that it will still be sharpened somewhat but not as much or that you're dropping the edge enhancement completely. And will you be able to totally undo the EE or be forced to add a softening filter to compensate for it? The bottom line is if a video source can't be improved any further with the available equipment without adding some serious flaws, it's better just to leave it alone and hope it can be improved eventually at a later time, either with a better source or better video f/x technology.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
The sharpening was my doing to make up for the decreased resolution while restoring the frames.

It wasn't good so I went back to the original Mentor disc and re-restored/encoded without the asharp filter.

Dr. M

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Well, I recently broke down and bought one of the boots online in order to get this film on DVD. I'm tired of waiting on Disney to make up its mind regarding a release.

The thing is, I'm not sure what "version" I ended up with. The disc contains the movie, the 1972 TV trailer, the 1946 Radio show, and the Coal Black cartoon, and that's it. Here is a screen capture of the menu:

Menu

I was rather disappointed in the picture quality of the movie, as the fan preservations I have seen of the original Star Wars trilogy were much better in comparison. The movie looks as if it was dubbed from a video tape, and the audio is out of sync (lags behind the video). There are also no chapter stops on my copy! Here are a couple more screen captures:

Image 1
Image 2

I would be most curious to see and/or get a copy of one the transfers mentioned in this thread, and though I am somewhat tech-savvy, I don't claim to know anything about torrent downloads and such. Any help and/or advice would be much appreciated.
“I don't think I'm alone in the world in imagining this flick may be the worst idea since Greedo shooting first.” - Ben Affleck as Holden McNeil in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back .
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Originally posted by: Commander-Dan
Well, I recently broke down and bought one of the boots online in order to get this film on DVD. I'm tired of waiting on Disney to make up its mind regarding a release.

The thing is, I'm not sure what "version" I ended up with. The disc contains the movie, the 1972 TV trailer, the 1946 Radio show, and the Coal Black cartoon, and that's it. Here is a screen capture of the menu:

Menu

I was rather disappointed in the picture quality of the movie, as the fan preservations I have seen of the original Star Wars trilogy were much better in comparison. The movie looks as if it was dubbed from a video tape, and the audio is out of sync (lags behind the video). There are also no chapter stops on my copy! Here are a couple more screen captures:

Image 1
Image 2

I would be most curious to see and/or get a copy of one the transfers mentioned in this thread, and though I am somewhat tech-savvy, I don't claim to know anything about torrent downloads and such. Any help and/or advice would be much appreciated.

Heh, my copy I got off BitTorrent once that looked a lot better than this. I would say it looked like a decent master (not so much VHS), but it was obviously an NTSC conversion from a PAL source otherwise.

I also have one that was a direct copy from a airing on BBC2, though it looked like a PAL conversion from NTSC (similar blur effect I couild expect).

Then I have my original Japanese laserdisc of SOTS as well, despite being a tad darker in the picture and the subs over the song moments.

Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

For more mindless entertainment....
My LiveJournal Page
The Online Video Depository - For all your daily video needs!
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The new encoding is finished, and although soft looking on a PC, seems pretty nice on an SD TV.

Again, the Mentor cap wasn't pristine unfortunately (either from the broadcast, or encoding), but restoring 24p does nice things for the smoothness.

I'll post a clip when I can so you all can tell what to expect (and can compare it to your various existing copies).
Once I get a chance to proof watch it, I'll get it out the door for authoring...

Dr. M

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Version 2 previewed tonight... I got a couple minutes further than version 1 before turning it off.
Sigh.
Anyone out there familiar with Restore24?

Dr. M

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Have you been using Restore24 and it's not working out for you, or have you been using something else because Restore24's slowness was a pain in the ass, but the alternative isn't working out, or....what?

Something to keep in mind: If you keep at this, and you never get to a point where you're satisfied because while the image is cleaner, the field blending makes the image look shitty, make sure to take a moment to decide whether you should do this project or not. The source you have has some major, major issues. Should this really be used a source for preservation purposes?

Hopefully you can work some magic, but always know when to stop and say, "This isn't the way to go."
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I've been using restore24 since I'm not sure there is any alternative. The only think I can possibly think of is to manually pull the good field and resize. Then locate all field shifts myself manually.

Anyway, at the moment it looks generally good. The occasional blended field survives (but I believe in some cases it's unavoidable.)
What I'm running into now that I strongly dislike is (and I haven't figured out if it's the source or Restore24) that movement is unnatural.
Occasionally a moving person/object will jerk forward like a frame is missing.

My first step is to figure out if the frames in question actually exist in Mentor's version... then, hmmm, yeah.

Dr. M

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Damn man, all this work you've put into this makes me feel like crap for getting this version out there....

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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It's still possibly the best looking that's available.

There's of course plan B (or is it C)... just use a 25 to 29.97 pulldown on the video.
It won't be restored, but it'll be about the same as the PAL version.

Dr. M

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Ok, I want some opinions.

As it stands the problem is either Restore24 is flaky, isn't that smart, or I'm not in using it OR SotS has to many problems.
Either way, what happens is in places there are too many consecutive blended frames and when they're tossed out the movement becomes jerky (like a frame is missing... which it is).

At these points there's nothing to restore, to keep things smooth a blended frame has to be kept.

The newer plan involves my original thought of tossing out all the odd fields (which are about 100% blended) and keep all the even fields (which are 80-90% good).
The result is a half resolution 25 frame/sec video that's neither fish nor fowl.

With a 25 to 29.97 pulldown it'll be cleaner than the original DVD, but with much lower resolution.

So the question is: Is this worth it?

Dr. M

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Seems to me Dr. M that if the cost of maintaining the resolution is preserving the "crap", the course is clear: count me as one for the cleaner image at a lower rez...
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I agree. Even at a lower resolution, this NTSC version will look better than just about anything else out there.