Chewtobacca

The capture of SW looks great, althor.  It seems that sides 1&2 and 3&4 are joined together.  Is there an IVTC script that takes this into account?  Mallwalker's latest script envisages separate sides, but perhaps the script's intended for ESB.

^ I'd love to hear them too.  Some here might even be interested in the Betamax tapes.

Good timing! :D

Interesting comparison!  The BD's colors look far better to me.

It looks like I need to buy a new hard drive. :D  Thanks, althor.

The Aluminum Falcon said:  I think you may have misunderstood my post.

Ah, perhaps I did.  I was just trying to say that I agree with your assessment of the Italian BD's deficiencies but am nonetheless happy with it.  :-)

The Aluminum Falcon said:the foreign BDs for The Dollars Trilogy seems more right to me-- it's saturated and doesn't look like it's been "normalized."

The Italian BDs seem that way to me too. 

Though the US/DE transfer was taken from the neg, the scan is old and it shows. EE exacerbates the grain, while creating an illusion of higher detail, and color timing is dull. The IT is only trimmed by a second from the DE, and, though being DVNR'ed and lacking some ultra-fine detail from being VC1-encoded, it seems like a newer transfer and more film-like.

I agree but am happy enough with the Italian BD.  The DE BD looks awful.  Synchronizing the English mono from the DE BD to the Italian BD is very difficult.  It's not like other films in which a few edits here are there are required.  The two transfers are very different: for long stretches, they go out of sync almost every time there is a new shot.  To sync them satisfactorily, you have to edit both video and audio.  Obviously, recompressing the video is not desirable, but here it's the best option, and with x264 you don't really lose anything.

Interestingly, there is a scene in the Italian BD that lacks the night filter that was applied to the other releases.  It's the one in which Indio's gang break him out of prison.

Restoration almost always means going back to the original elements (where possible) and repairing damage, not just making a new transfer to serve as the basis for a new release.  For example, I wouldn't call a BD release a restoration just because it uses a new scan from the original negative: there would have to be more to to it than that.  For this reason, I am wary of the term "fan restoration".  To me, studios are involved in restorations, and it's highly improbable (but not impossible) that fans would be; therefore, I would combine categories 2 and 3, between which (as defined above) I don't see any meaningful difference.  (I strongly agree with most of what Catbus wrote in the first few paragraphs of post #3.)

Spaced Ranger said:  NOT ON BLU-RAY - Orange and Teal, or How “Re-Mastering” is Distorting Our View of Classic Films (link from OP) shows this stupefying Aliens Blu-to-DVD comparison:

The teal on the BD is certainly excessive, but the DVD looks far too pink.  Something in the middle would be interesting to see.

dvdmike said: Are you sure? because I am pretty sure I just downloaded a 720p version....

I stand corrected.

All the HDTV broadcasts have been the theatrical cut.

Thanks but that's not quite what I wanted. :-)

 

I strongly agree with dvdmike: if WOWOW has not the *right* color grading, surely it's better than BD... 

...It seems to me that WOWOW has more details than BD - it could be used as source for a project, taking BD scenes (color graded) only when WOWOW has the *corrected* version.

I agree.  It would interesting to see a three-way comparison of the BD, WOWOW and THX WOW.

Moth3r said:

Good find, nice to have in 720p. Do you have to have an account to download? I'll ask my wife...

I don't have an account but was able to download it with Flashgot.

dvdmike said:It barely resolves over 720 in detail, it is really bad 

Do you agree that the HD DVD is better?

No worries!  It's an interesting read.

Thanks, but I'd found the main thread.  It was the one with RAH's review that I couldn't find, but I found it by googling "a few words" + "alice in wonderland".  I think I can find half an hour to read through it.  :-)

Would you please post a link to the discussion?

The original MPEG-2 BD could certainly be improved on, but it looks all right.  If you can't wait for December, buy that rather than the Ultimate Hunter Edition, which has excessive DNR.

That is fairly interesting.  I didn't even know that there were pre-Lowry, Russian-sourced DVDs of Cinderella.

SilverWook said: Pinocchio got a Dolby Stereo mix for the 1992 theatrical reissue.

That would explain it.  Thanks for the info.

@Jonno

PCM for Aliens sounds fantastic.

Jonno said:I have a copy of the Predator laserdisc I'm planning on capturing and syncing when time permits.

That would be excellent.  If it's at all possible, please sync it to the old MPEG-2 BD rather than the Ultimate Hunter Edition, which was heavily DNRed. 

I too had wondered where the 4.0 mix on the US Predator BD came from.  Its being a discrete encoding of the Dolby Stereo makes sense.

What I don't understand is where the 4.0 track on the original R1 Pinocchio DVD from Buena Vista came from.  The original was mono.  If you're going to upmix the audio, why not make it 5.1, as was done later?

ww12345 said: I wonder if they are just desaturated or if they are wrong altogether?

Judging by the comparison in Doctor M's first post, I'd say that the colors on the '97 LD and '99 DVD look far too cool, whereas the '92 LD looks too pink.  Those on the 2007 DVD look the best (especially in the last screenshot, the one showing Hathi) so, in the absence of other evidence, it should be quite a good guide.

I'll have to look for another copy of the 2007 DVD.  It's annoying that my copy won't rip.

I watched the old Limited Issue DVD of The Jungle Book yesterday.  Despite the muted colors, it looks all right to me, and I enjoyed watching it more than my 16:9 DVD, which appears to be Chinese.  (I can't remember where I bought it.) 

EDIT: Unfortunately, the 16:9 DVD won't rip.  AnyDVD stops ripping with an error:  PS12.  I think that I might have bought a Chinese copy inadvertently.

The old DVD has a 2.0 mix, which is 2.0 surround according to dvdcompare.  I wonder if it's from the same source as the 5.1 mix on the Platinum Edition.  It might be worth synchronizing the mono on the Platinum Edition to the video from the old DVD and seeing if something can be done about the colors.

I'm astonished by Moth3r's second thought. :O