DJPitaB

If you own the movie already and would like the Extended 4K or 1080p version from Disney+, message me.

SpacemanDoug said:

You do realize that I have 1080p versions of the season 4-5 finales and the season 6 premieres already saved right?

They were intact on the US blu-ray sets and I was able to acquire rips of them.

I have the US blu-rays, and the episodes are split on the versions I have. I bought each season on blu-ray as they became available, as opposed to the big boxed set that came out later… So are you saying that the boxed set had the episodes intact? If so, I’d love to get a copy of those rips.

kuhpunkt said:

What you however might remember is the original cut of the pilot - that leaked in the summer of 2004. There are quite a few differences between both versions. Completely different music, some missing vfx, different sound design, it’s slightly longer and the scene arrangement is different as well.

Thanks, but I definitely was not thinking of the leaked pilot, because I didn’t even learn about its existence until much later. The rebroadcast ABC pilot is what I had recorded, and I’m certain the only difference in editing between it and the DVDs was the credits.

That being said, I’d love to see a restoration of the leaked pilot, if anyone has the ability to put that together.

arcadehappy said:

it looks OP hasnt posted since late Nov. I dmd them months ago and didnt hear anything sadly. Did anyone else get a copy of it they can share?

I did. Send me a DM.

MJBenito said:

From what I’ve been working on so far, the European DVD is in 25fps and widescreen but has less details than its bluray counterpart, which is indeed in 23.976fps. On the other side, the original fullscreen DVD is in 29,97fps so there is no proper way to get back the original framerate without losing quality or tweaking sources for this project.

I don’t know what would work best between those two options :

• Change framerate to fit original pitch
• Change pitch to fit both framerate and pitch

My understanding is that the dialogue is pitched down due to the conversion from 25 to 24fps, but the score was created for the 24fps version of the film, so you have a choice to either hear the dialogue in the correct pitch or hear the score as it was written and performed… I watched it both ways years ago, and I think I preferred the 24fps version at that time.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your work here. From the screenshots, I’d say your version looks better than the blu-ray, so I’ll be interested in checking it out when it’s finished!

DJPitaB said:

DJPitaB said:

SpacemanDoug said:

DJPitaB said:

Also, I noticed that you made no mention of the LOST Pilot episode, which also originally aired as a two-hour “movie” version… Does a proper version of this already exist somewhere in 1080p?

Incorrect actually, the movie version of the pilot never made it to broadcast, it originally aired in two parts and has always been that way since

I’m quite sure that the very first airing was as a two-hour episode with no credits between the episodes. I burned that version to a DVD back in 2004. I’ll see if I still have it.

My mom thinks she might still have that old DVD I burned, so she’s going to let me know if she finds it. Anyway, I’m not 100% positive that the two-hour version was the original airing, or if maybe that’s the version they aired when they re-broadcast later, but I remember trashing the HDTV files from season 1 to save space on my computer, and then thinking that I should have kept them after realizing the Pilot was split into two parts on the official DVDs… but then I thought, “Well, I still have my burned DVDs.” 😕

Okay, my mom found the DVD, and the Pilot is in two parts on my homemade DVDs as well… but I was SO CERTAIN there was a two-hour version of the Pilot, and I asked if anyone in my family could confirm my memory. Thankfully, my sister was there, and she helped me remember.

My sister confirmed that there WAS a two-hour version of the LOST Pilot that didn’t have credits over the 2nd half, but it was NOT the version that aired first; it was a rebroadcast. Here’s what happened: I didn’t have HDTV in 2004, so I was reliant torrent downloads (until ~2006, when I got an HDTV antenna and connected it to my computer to capture my own HD broadcasts). Anyway, people unfortunately didn’t really upload torrents of reruns (because why would they?)… so all I had was my self-recorded, standard definition, 4:3 VHS copy of the two-hour LOST Pilot.

My sister and I sat there and watched the HD torrent alongside the VHS to look for differences, and the ONLY difference between the rebroadcast and the original airing was the lack of credits on the second half. At that time, I wrestled with whether or not to digitize my VHS just for archival purposes, even though it was crappy quality, and that’s when my sister made fun of me. She said, “Why? Just so you can see a little more of Shannon as she sunbathes? Who cares” …and I moved on with my life, choosing not to keep the recording.

That’s how she remembers it, and now that I’ve heard her tell the story, I’m sure she’s right.

DJPitaB said:

SpacemanDoug said:

DJPitaB said:

Also, I noticed that you made no mention of the LOST Pilot episode, which also originally aired as a two-hour “movie” version… Does a proper version of this already exist somewhere in 1080p?

Incorrect actually, the movie version of the pilot never made it to broadcast, it originally aired in two parts and has always been that way since

I’m quite sure that the very first airing was as a two-hour episode with no credits between the episodes. I burned that version to a DVD back in 2004. I’ll see if I still have it.

My mom thinks she might still have that old DVD I burned, so she’s going to let me know if she finds it. Anyway, I’m not 100% positive that the two-hour version was the original airing, or if maybe that’s the version they aired when they re-broadcast later, but I remember trashing the HDTV files from season 1 to save space on my computer, and then thinking that I should have kept them after realizing the Pilot was split into two parts on the official DVDs… but then I thought, “Well, I still have my burned DVDs.” 😕

SpacemanDoug said:

DJPitaB said:

Also, I noticed that you made no mention of the LOST Pilot episode, which also originally aired as a two-hour “movie” version… Does a proper version of this already exist somewhere in 1080p?

Incorrect actually, the movie version of the pilot never made it to broadcast, it originally aired in two parts and has always been that way since

I’m quite sure that the very first airing was as a two-hour episode with no credits between the episodes. I burned that version to a DVD back in 2004. I’ll see if I still have it.

Also, I noticed that you made no mention of the LOST Pilot episode, which also originally aired as a two-hour “movie” version… Does a proper version of this already exist somewhere in 1080p?

I never realized that the blu-rays had missing footage. That’s frustrating. There is a very slim chance that I have the 720p HD rips on an old hard drive. (I’ll check asap.) Which episodes do you need, specifically?

Mango said:

Working on this again, specifically the Al-TV and Al-Music specials as they are in my eyes the most important part of this project (these are being mastered in HD rather than 4K). I would use AI for everything, but its just not feasible with my schedule, so only the host segments and Al’s videos themselves are being upscaled for the specials. I decided to go the overkill route and rebuild each special from the ground up. For the first Al-TV, the host segments were taken from the master tape leak (only the first special has this) and upscaled in Topaz AI, a good amount of the videos were official HD versions with further enhancement by me, others were bootlegs of varying quality, some very poor that I did the absolute best I could without AI. I should note that some versions of the videos in my remasters may differ from the broadcast versions. In some cases, the audio had to be replaced from the album versions of songs. Several videos have transitions between them, which are harder to recreate than you’d expect. Finally, the original titles at the beginning and end of each video were remade digitally and timed exactly like the original. The entire thing was based on the only known complete recording of the original broadcast. I want it to be as if the original master were leaked in it’s entirety, not just the host segments. Doing just the first special took almost a day not counting the upscaling. This same formula will be used for the other specials. I’ll upload Al-TV #1 later tonight.

Sounds like you’ve done some great work. I’m excited to see the results!

I used to have this VHS until it was stolen! I’d love to know when your preservation is ready to share.

Does anyone have an HD capture of Andy Barker P.I.?

Seems like this one may not be available in HD… I’ve gone ahead and upscaled the DVDs to 1080p, making it look as good as I can get it. (There appears to be noticeable edge enhancement on the DVDs, which is annoying, but I did my best to work around it.) I’ve also restored the original music to the episodes that were altered.

Still, if anyone sees this later on and had an actual HD version of this series, please let me know.

Does anyone happen to have any episodes of Tru Calling in HD? I have the DVDs for both seasons, but the transfer looks pretty poor, and I’d like to see if I can get them in a higher quality. If not, I’ll try upscaling the DVDs, but I’m not optimistic about the results.

I also know that the music was altered for the season 2 DVDs, but I have some old 624x352 HDTV rips that I can use to restore the music.

Thanks in advance!

For anyone who’s interested: I’ve found what I think are the best settings to minimize the interlacing/telecine problem with Futurama. It’s not perfect, and if I had all the time in the world to go in and manually correct each frame, it would certainly look better, but… here’s what I was able to accomplish with automatic settings: https://ibb.co/z5B0fnb

As you can see in the screenshot, for those frames that are affected by the jaggies, this filter combination seems to really minimize the appearance. And of course, the non-jaggy frames look very good. (See here: https://ibb.co/NYLNLWd)

Once I’m finished upscaling all the episodes, I’ll update this thread. In the meantime, if anyone has better versions of the episodes that I can work with, please let me know.

Update: The NiXON 1080p episodes are not true HD, and appear to have been scaled up without the use of AI. Essentially just enlarged versions of the SD episodes with blurry lines and halos. If I use AI to upscale the DVDs, that ends up looking much better, but I have one issue: occasional jaggy interlacing lines.

The NiXON versions do not have the jaggy interlacing lines, but the overall image quality isn’t as high as the DVD upscales. I even tried downscaling the NiXON file, the using AI to re-upscale, but the upscaled DVD still had crisper lines.

Here are screenshots of the same frame from each attempt…

DVD Upscale (with occasional interlacing issues):
https://ibb.co/s2bp4hZ

1080p (non-AI upscale):
https://ibb.co/7Xypz7B

1080p (Downscale & AI Upscale):
https://ibb.co/tL541Cn

Unless I can get a better source than the DVDs, can anyone direct me to the best tool to use for the deinterlace/detelecine process so that I can avoid the jaggies? I’m using a Mac, and the best results I’ve gotten so far have come from Handbrake, but no matter how I adjust the deinterlace/detelecine settings, I always seem to get artifacts in the same parts of the episode.

I’d love to get a look at them. Would you mind sharing? If they look better than the DVD rips, I can upscale what you have instead.

I’m finding conflicting information as to whether the original FOX seasons of Futurama have been released in HD at any point. (Some people say they were released on the Microsoft store in 720p, but I have no confirmation.) I know the US iTunes Store and Amazon do not have HD versions – in fact the versions both retailers have for those first few seasons look very poor.

Could someone please point me int the right direction to obtain/purchase these episodes in HD? A well-done 1080p upscale is 100% acceptable as well, if someone has already put in the work. If not, I will likely get started on it myself…

For the altered opening credits, are you using the full frame or are you cropping the TV footage and overlaying it on top of the BD footage?

I’m using as much of the blu-ray image as possible, and I’m overlaying the televised credits on top of the blu-ray image.

Just curious: I know Disney+ has recently removed a lot of their content…

For now (Since December 9, 2022), there is a way to watch the full version of Muppet Christmas Carol WITH When Love Is Gone if you go to the “extras” section for that movie, but has anyone been able to get a proper capture of that version for historical purposes? Seeing as no blu-ray or UHD disc has been produced with this version of the film, this is probably the closest we’ll ever get to an official release, and it would be a real shame if it suddenly disappeared.

UPDATE:
While looking over these episodes with @SpacemanDoug, we discovered that there are extended versions of nearly every episode in season 3. There is also an extended version of the series finale. However, the rest of the episodes (all of season 4 and all but the final episode of season 5) appear to have the same episode runtimes as the versions that were released on blu-ray. (I’ve edited my original post to reflect this.)

That being said, every episode I’ve checked from seasons 3, 4, & 5 has altered music on blu-ray (& streaming) compared to what originally aired.

I have started the process of restoring season 3. I’ve completed the first episode, and I have mixed feelings about the end result. I’ve tweaked the upscaling settings to achieve the closest possible look to the 1080p versions on blu-ray, and many of the shots look very good; a few shots definitely do not. (When upscaling low resolution footage, close-up shots tend to look great, medium shots are hit-or-miss and wide shots with people’s faces in them often get weirdly distorted.)

As a proof of concept, I can make the completed version of episode 301 available to whomever is interested.

If there is enough interest in the complete season and/or seasons 4 & 5 with the original music, I will continue to work on this project. (It will certainly take a lot of time, as the process is quite tedious.) If not, I’ll probably put it on the back burner or abandon it. The additional footage and extended scenes are interesting to have access to, but they’re clearly not necessary for the enjoyment of the show. In my opinion, having just done the one episode so far, most of the DirecTV exclusive content adds very little.

For those interested in what was changed for episode 301, I’ve included the list of changes below. (Note: In order to preserve the original music, I used the stereo TV audio for the entire episode, except where noted.)

List of changes:
00:00:30-00:00:35 - Extended shot
00:03:37-00:03:40 - Extended shot
00:03:46-00:04:58 - Extended shots, additional footage
00:08:36-00:10:39 - Extended scenes, credits adjustments (the beginning of this section is perhaps the best example of how bad certain shots look when upscaled)
00:13:03-00:13:08 - Extended shot
00:14:26-00:14:29 - Additional footage
00:17:37-00:17:41 - Extended shot
00:18:37-00:18:41 - Additional footage, extended shot
00:19:54-00:20:27 - Extended scene
00:25:52-00:26:02 - Used ADR audio from blu-ray, which was recorded to correct a continuity error in the original dialogue
00:28:04-00:28:44 - Additional scene
00:41:17-00:41:36 - Extended shot, re-ordered scene
00:41:36-00:43:29 - Extended scenes
00:44:19-00:46:21 - Extended scene

SpacemanDoug said:

Considering the era in which these aired, it’s possible that these are the highest quality you’d get

But can I possibly get access to these captures too?

I might be able to help stitch these together

PM incoming…

After season 2 of Friday Night Lights. NBC and DirecTV started splitting the production costs for the show, and DirecTV had the rights to run all the episodes on their own channel before NBC. In addition the DirecTV episodes were extended, featuring additional dialogue and extended/deleted scenes.

This was the case for nearly every episode of seasons 3, and at least one episode of season 5.

I would like to start restoring the extended episodes. I have the blu-rays, which contain the shorter NBC-broadcast versions of the episodes, but I only have low quality (624x352) AVI downloads of all of the extended episodes.

Does anyone have higher quality versions of the DirecTV extended episodes I could use for this project?

Baobab Archiver said:

Just wanted to commend DJPitaB on this release.
Excellent work!

Thanks! For anyone waiting for the less grainy version, here’s a quick preview of the reconfigured upscaling as it processes:
https://yourimageshare.com/ib/isEh9bPJDr
https://yourimageshare.com/ib/OoZI5psxyk
https://yourimageshare.com/ib/mCysypHhvh