Doctor M

Doesn't say it isn't the same transfer though.

I just noticed that there is a Sleeping Beauty Diamond Edition coming out in a few weeks.

I'm confused, I had thought the last BD was a DE.  Anyone have any knowledge of what to expect from this?  I can't imagine they can "restore" it anymore than they already have.

AntcuFaalb said:

Doctor M said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Doctor M said:

Yeah, something else that probably needs to be updated on the list.  I thought I had heard bad things about it... must start list of the latest releases.

Overall good, but a naive sharpener was used, so the grain is really, really pronounced like the BD release of Earthquake (1974).

 Completely amused by "naive sharpener", but I get your meaning.

Yeah, just a silly 3x3 kernel for sharpening, applied with no grain reduction at all. I love grain, but this is GrainCity™!

It makes me wonder if it is just an HD transfer of the same Lowry restoration that they've been using.  The sharpening was unpleasant on the DVD releases as well.

AntcuFaalb said:

Doctor M said:

Yeah, something else that probably needs to be updated on the list.  I thought I had heard bad things about it... must start list of the latest releases.

Overall good, but a naive sharpener was used, so the grain is really, really pronounced like the BD release of Earthquake (1974).

 Completely amused by "naive sharpener", but I get your meaning.

Yeah, something else that probably needs to be updated on the list.  I thought I had heard bad things about it... must start list of the latest releases.

SilverWook said:

On a side note, would there be any interest in a preservation of this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beta-Disney-Snow-White-Live-at-Radio-City-Music-Hall-Betamax-/191311970208

This aired on HBO many times in the early 80's. The production values were pretty good for the era, and the plot of the movie was expanded a bit. AFAIK, there has never been a DVD release.

I've seen a DVD transfer of this on Cinematik.  I didn't think to get it when it was posted and it is now dead.  Probably still floating about though.

MattMahdi said:

Where'd Bianca's whiskers go?!

That's true throughout the film and consistent with the movie posters for Down Under.

Looks like she had some electrolysis between the films.

Discussion was sparse regarding the Rescuers Blu-ray back when I was working on the guide.

I thought maybe it wasn't restored because the reviews talked about it not looking great, but I recently viewed some screenshots and I'm thinking they did hit it with some unfortunate digital cleanup.

Rescuers Down Under definitely looks good on BD with the great look you'd associate from being struck from film.  I'm just not so sure about the original film.

Anyone have more info?

ALSO, I want to ask you guys what you all see, don't see, or care about in releases.

When I look at digitally scrubbed frames from Disney, I see what I call a 'licked candy stick' appearance.  I don't know if there is a real term for it.

Ink lines that should taper off or thin out like a brush stroke get eroded, smoothed and sometimes rounded.  Sketch lines are pretty much gone as well.

I can tell you it looks 'unnatural' as a frame, I'm not sure how well I could pick it out in motion.  It may simply be an effect of the grain being missing that would normally hide the line ends.

The point being, do we reject this sort of digital clean up from the guide or not?  The Rescuers has never looked great on home video.  Is the overscrubbed look an acceptable our trade off for a better transfer of the film?

Below are screenshots from Blu-ray.com comparing the Rescuers and Rescuers Down Under.  I know they came from different eras, but I still feel like the original film has been poorly treated.

(Right click and select 'View Image' for full size.)

@Space Kaijuu,

You can use tsMuxeR to create a Blu-ray folder with the new video you want to add in.  (Do the movie and short separately.)  You'll want to make sure you have the same number and order of audio and subtitle tracks as well (even if you blank them later).

Under the Blu-ray tab, there is an area that says 'Options'.  Here you can set the first MPLS and first M2TS.  Set these numbers to correspond with numbers on the Blu-ray you are rebuilding.

Next you need to copy the .M2TS from new STREAMS folder, the .CLPI from new CLIPINF folder (will be the same number as the .M2TS), and the corresponding .MPLS from new PLAYLISTS into the old BD structure.

The .MPLS isn't usually the same number as the .M2TS and if you don't know it you can use BDEdit or various other tools to find it.  (If you want info on this let me know.)

You'll also want to replace the same CLPI & MPLS files in the BACKUP folder as well.

It's... not really simple.

Sorry, I'm overdue updating this guide, and I will get to it.  Largely it seems the recent slate of 'dumped on market' blu-ray films are in better condition than the top releases.

I do want to mention ahead of this that the just released 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' BD contains the theatrical cut only.

This is good because it is the first digital release of B&B in it's original theatrical form.  Of course it is also 22 minutes shorter than any release put out in the last 20 years.

I predicted this because the restored scenes are in quite poor condition.  I figured if they had it in a quality that would hold up to HD, it would have looked better to start with.

Hang on to your DVDs if you like the extended cut, you may never see it anywhere else again.

I don't remember a lot of VHS tapes being anything but 1.33:1.

Nice upgrade.  Needs a little work (the sky is darker), but that is better in just about every way.

The problem is the DVD almost looks pastel, which is suggestive of the same issue that the early Dumbo release had.  The DVD could be just as wrong, just for different reasons.

titanic said:

Screenshot comparisons of Ichabod release (Bluray Vs. DVD):

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/85922/picture:0

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/85924

 Huh.  I'd swear they didn't scrub all the grain, but what is with the color changes?  I'm not sure what's right.

Derp. Speaking of getting old, yes, I was looking at the wrong screenshot.  That would explain it.

Wow, just wow.  Your source is just a steaming pile, isn't it.

I cannot believe what you got out of it.

Now I'm curious about the grain that was present in the other screenshot:

It certainly doesn't look like it came from the source.  Is that some sort of debanding addgrain sort of thing going on?

Don't get me wrong, I like grain, but it's too fine to have been present in the raw capture.

(And yes, I was calling you Catman, since copy-pasta-ing your username gets old fast.)

I wanted to ask, Catman Scruthers, what your script looked like for the 'raw' screenshot you posted before.

It's already been resized and I'm curious if that's all or what filter(s) you used to enlarge the frame.

It's on the BD from the looks of it.  (And also on BitHQ.)

I'm afraid I'm not very impressed with the screenshots.  The grain looks natural for an HD transfer, but the underlying image is soft and blurry like it was upscaled and digital grain was added afterwards.

@RU.08 - The yellowing near the lines look to me like rainbow artifacts.

The source is laserdisc, so you are talking NTSC hard interlaced, which makes it a real possibility.

There are some pretty good de-rainbow filters out there.  I think the last one I used was ChubbyRain2, but Bifrost is well liked.

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Rainbow_.26_Dot_Crawl_Removal

I do recall that derainbowing must be performed before deinterlacing though.

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

For example, what if Disney in person had the chance to choose to release his animated features with or without grain?

That's quite easy to answer.  Disney would have CHOSEN grain-free movies, but then he would have altered his animation process to account for it.

The fact is that cell animated features have been optimized during production to look appropriate on film stock.  It's the same reason why sampling the colors on cells is the WRONG way for Disney to color time new digital releases.

I like grain, but to me adding grain to processed video is just as much a travesty as completely scrubbing existing grain.  It's just artificial and the damage has already been done and you're obscuring more image detail.
If it's not there, it's not there.

Laserdiscs and most SD releases tend to be scrubbed to some degree to look good on home video.

In fact many companies used the same amount of scrubbing on their first HD releases (HD DVD and BD) as they used for DVD and those releases were dreadful.

It's an unfortunate fact of SD sources.

titanic, can you tell me what you mean about the background looking flat?

Comparing the frames, while I'm not sure I like it completely grain free, I'm not sure I see any other differences.

Maybe it's the upscaler I'm not digging (which wouldn't show in that comparison) since the ends of lines in the animation look suspiciously like the 'licked candy stick' appearance Disney's own restorations create.

On another note... the raw rip is _only_ 35gb?  Wait, that's standard definition isn't it.

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

An important, philosophical question: do the grain should be preserved in animation?

I mean, grain was part of live action films since the beginning (even if today's digital camera do not have it, but this should be discussed in another thread), and movie as medium cannot exist without grain... animation, on the other hand, was not "born" with grain, but grain was a "forced" consequence of animation transferred on film... so, to me, grain should not be part of animation; do you agree?

A very good question.

(Okay, I was just going to leave it there.)

My only opinion on the matter is we have no sources without grain to work with.  As such, any grain removal will damage detail or cause artifacts.  That I don't like.

@Spaced Ranger - That's the first I've heard of a DVD release with Deems Taylor.  I'll update the first page, but has anyone here actually seen the 'outside the U.S.' release?

I'm making some updates to the guide.

I'm hoping to better sort out the subtitle section, switch to the use of eac3to, and some other updates/fixes.

Any requests/suggestions?