Buster D

Ah, never though it could be a player problem, but it seems that is indeed the case. Don’t know why I never tested it before (I’d usually only check to see if the first few subtitles displayed or not before burning to disc without checking overlapping timings), but when using MPC-HC, the subtitles display without turning off for a few frames when there’s overlapping timings, unlike my PS3 or Oppo BDP-80.

PC playback isn’t a very good option for me right now since I have an old Nvidia card that has tearing and judder on Blu-ray playback, but I’ll have to look into other hardware options.

Hey CatBus, IIRC you posted a while back saying that you had developed your own software for rendering subtitles. I’ve been using easySUP to make my own .sup files from .ass files for years now for authoring subtitled anime Blu-rays, but the subtitles always flash when two or more subtitles have overlapping timings (really annoying when two characters are speaking at the same time, or when there’s onscreen song lyrics). Recently tried PunkGraphicStream but get the same problem (and now I can’t even run the software anymore since it started giving me a java.lang. unsatisfiedlinkerror).

Looked around doom9 for a solution but couldn’t find one, so thought I’d ask if you have this problem with your software.

When synching LD PCM audio to Blu-rays, I’ve also noticed that there are almost always one or more frames missing at reel change points, etc. in the old masters in comparison with the BDs.

Kushami said:

What exists for the audio of this movie are two things: A VHS release from 1999, and a similar DVD release a few years later that has the audio encoded at 192kbps. (Sadly for me, no Laserdisc exists.)

There was an LD in Japan: http://page24.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/q121326072

I assume you’re working on the English dub based on your samples, though, and I’m pretty sure the JP LD doesn’t have that.

A Blu-ray was also announced by Discotek but if they just ripped the old DVD for their 2014 DVD, they probably don’t have the masters.

I’d personally use the VHS, as I’ve noticed compression artifacts in high frequencies on 192kbps AC3 when using headphones (even cheap ones). VHS Hi-Fi is pretty good quality as long as the tape is undamaged. While it has some minor faults, you can find plenty of audiophiles praising it on the internet.

Yep, another disc encoded at PC levels. I LOL’d a bit when I saw in the Blu-ray.com thread that Shout fixed the black bars being grey in another of their releases, but not the black being grey in the film itself.

Kinda figured something like this would happen, Shout has never had very good QA.

Hopefully a better quality release comes out from someone else, maybe when a Japanese release finally comes out.

The toy was originally going to be pink (see the prototypes here: http://tfsource.com/blog/collector-interview-26-paul-hitchens/ ), so Hot Rod being red in the VHS master was incorrect and/or revisionism to match the retail release of the toy. I’d still kinda like to see a regrade to match the VHS out of nostalgia, though.

Thanks for all your hard work! It will be great to have even part of the isolated score.

Density said:

Laserdisc is actually less than 480i. Its actual (NTSC) resolution is 425 TVL. DVD resolution is roughly equivalent to 500 TVL.

A common mistake, but TVL refers to vertical analog lines and isn’t the same as horizontal resolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_lines

SilverWook said:

Some Trek tv specials have never seen a home video release, or only came out as part of Japanese Laserdisc boxsets which are still hard to come by, and terribly expensive.

Do you know which boxsets? I can try looking for them.

Using SubRip to OCR the subs, then Aegisub to edit them and change the appearance/positions, and then EasySup to create BD compliant subs will result in much more pleasing and professional looking subs, but that will of course take much more time than just upscaling them with BDSup2Sub.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Buster D said:

So no 3D Blu-ray until later this year. It’s lame that they’re delaying it, but at least they confirmed it’s coming.

They want you to buy it twice. And if you can’t wait four extra days but also want a physical copy, thrice.

They won’t be getting me to double dip, I’ll just rent the 2D Blu-ray and buy the 3D whenever it comes out.

So no 3D Blu-ray until later this year. It’s lame that they’re delaying it, but at least they confirmed it’s coming.

Wow, I don’t suppose they would be willing to lend it out so it could be scanned and preserved?

Are you sure? http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie says “this version seemed to combine the European opening naration with the US scrawl-free opening credits”

Pretty sure the "SD International TV & video version" mentioned in the first post will have the Star Wars-esque scrolling intro text, since that's the version that was used outside of North America.

I'm pretty sure only analog audio LDs exist for the original mono mix of A Nightmare on Elm Street, I might be able to help you with a couple of the others on your list though.  I'll PM you later.

Yeah, pretty sure that's how the mono mix has always been (so maybe the mono mix on the DVD is fake?).  That's how it is on my pre-THX Laserdisc at least.  I'd double-check the THX one as well but I just dropped and cracked it.  Ah well, at least it's not a particularly rare LD and I should be able to get another for a few hundred yen.

Is this it? www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00009K2G7/

I live in Japan and can get it used for the equivalent of like $3, I'll gladly send it to you if it does indeed have the CDS mix.

Holy crap, I had no idea WB was doing 4K remasters.  I already have the old BD but I'll buy this in the hopes it will encourage them to do more 4K remasters.  I've bought Blade Runner twice on BD already but I'll gladly do the same for a 4K remaster (although I hope the revisionist color scheme on the Final Cut gets fixed... probably no chance but a man can dream).

Being born in 1978, Jedi was the only SW movie I got to experience in the original theatrical run, and it was the only one I had ever seen for years afterward.  I definitely prefer the other two but I have a lot of fond memories of Jedi and there's a lot of things I love about the film itself.

PDB said:

 Thanks Buster D. Its sad no one make quality anymore. Does that only apply to Verbantim's write once or their re-writables also?

 It looks like there's a few reports on Amazon JP of Verbatim BD-REs becoming bad after the 2nd write or after 6 months, for both their 25GB and 50GB BD-REs.  The most recent BD-REs I've personally used are 25GB ones from TDK since they were cheap and had mostly good reviews.  But BD-REs in general are kinda unreliable in the long run, I think.

Note that the Verbatim BD-50s sold in Japan are no longer actually made in Japan, they're made in China, and a lot of people have been reporting write errors on them (the top rated reviews are all 1 or 2 stars and mention errors): http://www.amazon.co.jp/product-reviews/B0043SEMMW/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=byRankDescending

I personally use That's (Taiyo Yuden) BD-50s: http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00GJ95LB4/ , which are made in Japan.  Used to use Panasonic ones, but nowadays they're only available in Japan from resellers and not directly from Amazon.

That's BD-25s and BD-REs are pretty good as well, but their cheaper BD-25s are made in Taiwan now.

Amazon JP won't ship these outside Japan, but you can go through a forwarding site like tenso.com or check and see if anyone on eBay has them.

kaarma33 said:

Hi Buster D:

I will download the Smart Cutter trial and see if that works.  But, I need to re-rip the remastered and theatrical DYRL DVDs onto my hard drive.

How would you be up-scaling the remastered DYRL DVD video to 1080p?

I have Video Enhancer software with "Super Resolution" that can use the lagarith codec for an upscale.   It expands the DVD video to 10x the original file size.

Sorry for the late reply.  I didn't really have a concrete plan since I've never done much video editing.  IIRC, the censorship doesn't affect that many frames and doesn't affect the entire frame, so I was thinking that it might be possible to edit each individual frame in Photoshop and keep as much of the BD resolution as possible.  Then replace the frames using Premier or similar software.  But again, I don't know if I'll be able to do this anytime soon.

Theres a program called Smart Cutter (not freeware unfortunately) that allows you to precisely cut h264 streams and only re-encodes the frames around the cuts, so it wouldn't be necessary to have a fast PC if the censored parts are the only parts you'll be editing.

I was also thinking about taking the uncensored scenes from the HD Remaster DVD and adding them to the BD, but it would probably take me a long time to get around to it.  First I wanted to make a custom Japanese subtitle file made from the original script and some transcripts I found online, but I'm not even halfway done, then I wanted to re-translate some parts of the English fansub script since it has some errors IIRC.  I'll also be synching the audio from the PILA-7008 LD and maybe the "theatrical audio" from the 2nd disc in the HD Remaster DVD box.

Awesome, I look forward to checking this out.  Still haven't gotten around to watching the BD of The Fly that I bought way back, but it will be good to view it with the LD audio.  I'll probably want to wait until summer is over, though.  It's hot and humid where I live, and my projector puts out enough heat to make it even worse.  Broken A/C, too.

Oh, and the "Format" should actually be this LD: http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/42593/SF078-1395/Fly-The-%281986%29