Doctor M

Very sad.  I always looked forward to his latest work.

Is ADM not okay or just retired?

There's a new Harry Potter in theaters and HBP never got the extended treatment.

Monroville said:

dark_jedi said:

What is that thing Monroville? does it play Blu-ray files as well?

Yup!  The only thing it does not play is Flash video (at the moment, since the people who make the Argosy are really good with firmware upgrades).

I usually just take out the TS file from the blu-ray folder and download it directly onto the hard drive (no need to have all of those blu-ray folders when all you really need is just the movie from the STREAM folder).

Off-topic, but you could probably demux flash video and remux it into mkv or mp4 containers.  Much of flash is now H.264.

Maybe George Lucas' name should be removed since he has divorced himself from the original theatrical cut...

Is anyone planning putting this on TehParadox like the last version?

Which versions of the lines are in Hairy_Hen's mix? (Sorry if that's been asked before).

I hate to ask, but is there any chance of seeing some screenshot comparisons between the standard and maximum bitrate versions?

Maximum bitrate is well and good in theory, but as the pointless SuperBit series of DVDs proved, it doesn't always mean much.

Considering this is an upscale to start with, before a lot of artifact clean up, I can't help thinking that it doesn't really need a high rate to look pristine.

In cases like this, it's sometimes fun to do an OPV test to find what quantization value you get at the final target bitrate.  (But I'm frequently crazy, have a weird idea of fun and I'm definitely not suggesting you actually do that.)

Thread renamed and first post edited.

Okay, so I'm posting at myself, but that's fine.  I wanted to give you all an update, and ask for suggestions.

In version 1, I may have used a bit to much post processing in dgdecode.  I think I could have used some deringing, but it's been a while and I'm not sure.

I used Restore24 to get back to 23.976 which uses an internal deinterlacer.

I actually spent a week creating, in pieces, a lossless v2 using yadifmod/nnedi2 with srestore.

The advantages: More modern restoration filter, less dgdecode postprocessing, possibly smoother motion, 10-20% sharper image (thanks to a serious deinterlacer), and a bit less cropping.

The disadvantages: More artifacts including a bunch of mosquito noise (even with denoising), the smoother image is because srestore chose more blurred fields than restore24 (this is most noticeable in animated scenes.)

For a pointless comparison, here are some screenshots. http://www.mediafire.com/?4tsj6g3vejglggj

They don't really mean anything because I only took snaps where the frames were the same.  In most cases different fields were selected so there were no matching screenshots possible.

What might be ideal would be finding a way to disable restore24's internal bobber and using yadifmod/nnedi2 in it's place... but I don't know how much good that would do, even if it's possible.

I think the problem is actually the noise.  If you filter more, the 24fps restoration is more accurate, if you filter less of it, your picture is sharper, but you get more blended fields.

Anyone have a suggestion?  If not I'll just go ahead and release v1.1 (which has the same video/audio as v1).

That makes a lot of sense.

They'll wait and make it themselves when the sequels get closer using the money they've made on this double dip, and the future two more 3D-BD dips (the 3D theatrical cut is already announced and then there will have to be a 3D extended).

I was just reading details about the upcoming 3-disc Avatar set: http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Three-Disc-Extended-Collectors-Worthington/dp/B0044XV3R8

Sure there’s the 16 minute extended-er cut, but there are also “over 45 minutes of deleted scenes” as a bonus feature.

Assuming the footage is actually finished, has anyone already resolved to make the craziest longest uber-Avatar cut possible?

I would expect ADM to take this up, but from what I can tell, he hasn’t been very active lately.

Darth Solo said:

I've heard the flick is going to get a Hollywood re-make, with a Tim Curry cameo......o dear.

I'm not sure if they hope to make it better, or intentionally as bad as the original.  Neither is likely to work.

I'v never gotten to hear the Say It album, I have no idea how it compares.  Not a bad idea though, it is likely to be clearer.

So this seems like the right time of year for this.

I was a bit disappointed with the DVD release of this film.  To me, watching the movie without an audience is a terrible experience.

The DVD does contain a audience participation track, but I recall it isn’t very clear, and the audio mix is stereo (prologic).

The recent BD release ditches this track entirely and replaces it with a subtitle track telling you what to yell.

I’ve been thinking about taking the audience participation track, running it through a DPL2 decoder, trying to improve the clarity of the audience, and then mix it back into the 5.1 mix (or now perhaps something better with the BD audio available).

I’m sort of leaning towards making a DVD with this track (if it’s from the BD audio, probably as a very high bitrate DD or DTS)… and maybe the audience participation subs if they match up with the audio track.  That way the quality is good for future BD use, just replace the video.

Anyway, is there interest in this?  Any opinions on what form it should take?

Good info.

SuperMediaStore actually shows the manufacturing country on their site.  They're out of stock now, but they normally carry the Singapore discs.

I'm still working through a large quantity of Memorex DVD+R DL's that I picked up (for a song) a while back.

I will be the first to say they are crap.  I burn at the lowest speed I can and still have about a 50% failure rate (or in some cases the disc won't spin up every time in the drive that burned it).

I'm going to be buying some Verbatims soon since that definitely appears the way to go.

While I don't care about them being printable, I've seen that there are DataLifePlus and standard.

Are both considered good, or is it worth the premium on the already premium price to go with the DLP discs?

none said:

Sounds great, Javier Grillo-Marxuach does some great stuff, if you haven't seen "The Chronicle" an older show he did, similar fun.  Missed MM when it was on tv, another on the 'canceled too soon' list.

I DO remember The Chronicle on Sci-Fi, good show.  I was very sad to see that one cancelled too.

I'm guessing you did catch up with MM eventually from your post.  I 'offered' the custom DVD on BitHQ, but in a couple months only 1 person has shown interest, so I haven't posted it.

I hadn’t thought about Pogo in awhile until today.  I didn’t realize that the animated special and feature film are pretty much in oblivion.

I found “Pogo’s Special Birthday Special” on YouTube (in surprisingly good condition), and “Pogo For President” (aka “I Go Pogo”) on Cinemageddon.

What I CAN’T find is the one that was actually released on DVD.

According to Wikipedia:

Walt and Selby Kelly themselves wrote and animated We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us in 1970, largely due to Kelly’s dissatisfaction with the Birthday Special. The short, with its anti-pollution message, was animated and colored by hand. While the project went unfinished due to Kelly’s ill health, the storyboards for the cartoon helped form the first half of the book of the same title.

And…

Selby Kelly had been selling specially-packaged DVDs of We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us prior to her death, but it is currently unknown whether or not further copies will be available.

Has anyone come across WHMtEaHIU in any form anywhere?

I’m thinking perhaps a DVD of the complete Pogo animations would be a good preservation project.  Of course that’s assuming I can find that last one.

Okay a warning and heads up.

BDSup2Sub has a serious flaw.  I believe it's from cropping the subs too closely, but I'm not sure.

Either way, on some display devices (I see it on 3 different stand-alone players connected to CRTs), subtitles generated with this method will jitter up and down.

I can find no fix, I may have to remove the program from the guide... I'm not sure what to use as an alternative because there is nothing as convenient.

Edit: Also need to update the 25i to 29.97i to account for field order and suggest better deinterlacers.

So for those that have asked... I did some experimenting with Mentor's release and more modern filters tonight.

Things I did with the original release (for better or worse):

Mpeg2source(...,cpu=6) -- If I remember this correctly.  There was quite a bit of blocking and ringing artifacts.  This also cleaned up some of the mosquito noise.

Restore24 -- to recover as many non-blended frames as possible.  (Restore24 has an internal bobber).

New filters tested:

Mpeg2source(...,cpu=1) -- Just enough to remove the blocks, but not enough to soften the picture.  Lots of other types of compression artifacts were left behind though.

SRestore -- Faster and more up to date recovery of 24 fps.

Yadif -- SRestore needs progressive source and this is the best of the fast filters.

yadifmod(mode=1, order=1, edeint=nnedi2(field=-2)) -- A much better bobber.  My CPU is chiseled out of stone, but with patience it can handle this.

fft3dgpu(sigma=1) -- GPU based version of fft3dfilter.  A better way to clean the mosquito noise.

What did I see?

SRestore pretty much picked the exact same frames as Restore24.  Neither seems more accurate overall.

CPU=6 versus CPU=1?  Blocks are all gone, but mosquito noise and haloing is more pronounced.

Fft3dgpu?  Removes a good deal of the mosquito noise, leaves behind all of the haloing.  Softens the picture to about the same level as using CPU=6.  Pretty much a wash between this and my previous dehaloing/deblocking.

So... not worth redoing under these conditions.

Interestingly it took SRestore() with yadifmod(mode=1, order=1, edeint=nnedi2(field=-2) to generate about the same sharpness of detail as Restore24() did in my previous release.

To sum up: A version 2 would give maybe 10% better detail (mostly because newer deinterlacers are better), leave behind bit more artifacts, create some minor banding (if you look carefully), and require a good deal of work and a LOT of CPU time.

I'm pretty comfortable keeping things as they are.  Stay tuned for the soon to be released v1.1... no really, I mean it this time!  It's finished and everything.

Booshman's? Fanedit.info

SoJ? Demonoid.

Has anyone had the opportunity to watch Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut Redux by Booshman?

I'm not quite ready to sit through another version of S2, but it sounds like he's done some extensive reworking of the audio, color and visual effects.

Is it worth watching?  Is there anything worth Taolar stealing?  Is the new ending an improvement?

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but as long as Taolar is still editing, it's worth comparing other edits before the final cut.

I'd hazard that HTF is Home Theater Forums.

2 things.

I was re-reading some of this thread, and in the discussion of BatB, I sort of think I remembered something.

Wasn't one of the outdoor transitional scenes redrawn (to change the season) to accommodate 'Human Again', but if you watch the 'Theatrical' version on the DVD, it still shows the altered scene?

If nobody remembers this, let me know and I'll Google around and see if I can find, you know, facts, to back that statment up.  Btw, what progress is there on the v2 preservation?

Also, can someone PM me with info on where to find Molly's Cinderella?

Hmm.

You could go simple, like just resizing to a lower resolution then upscaling it.

You could use avisynth's Blur() (which is gaussian and the reverse of avisynth's Sharpen().)

You could also use fft3dfilter, but that's pretty CPU intensive just to mutilate an image.

Once you've softened things, you may want to use something like addgrain() to dirty it up.

I can't think of anything else you'd really want to do.  I can't see you wanting interlace artifacts or image jitter, but I suppose you could.