Doctor M

Well, yes and no.

Both discs are finished and have been released, but I'm (supposed to be) in the process of making some tweaks.

Disc 1's English subtitles need lots of work (and I'm down to the last 20 minutes), and disc 2 needs an aspect ratio fix (which is already done).

If I stop putting it off, v2 will be released before the year is out (maybe).

Sony does build mp3 players under the brand name Walkman... so it's not completely wrong.

Taolar said:

I incorrectly use Divx as a generic term, kind of like some people use the words Coke and Bandaid.

While you might use them as generic terms, I wouldn't try to use them interchangeably. :)

Just bought the Philips recorder. For all it's drawbacks, I can't complain when I buy it (new in sealed box) on clearance at Sam's Club for $84.01 (minus an additional $20 from a gift card they gave me for sending me to another branch 30 minutes away for no reason (but that's a long story).)

I noticed Haupage makes a weird TiVo like device... it's HD, but recodes everything into H.264... and is tunerless.

I can't believe TiVo owns the market.  Heck more than half of all VCR/DVD recorders are tunerless now.

It's like everyone said VHS is dead, TiVo wins, let's go home, and build BluRay players.  You'd think no one else wanted a piece of the market that lets people record a program to watch later.

I'll probably pick up one of those Philips units, fast, since they look to be discontinued with no replacement model on the way.

Shame they're not HD, or lossless, or, well, better.

TiVos recode all programs as well, don't they?

Will it be a high bitrate encoding at full resolution XviD/DivX since you aren't releasing a DVD version right away?

I could build a HTPC out of my head, but I haven't been able to find a guide to what recent parts are recommended.

I have a few stuff laying around to offset the cost.  Can you recommend  a guide lordjedi?

One of my 2 VCR's is now a lost cause and I can't see replacing it with another one.

TiVo is the first thought, but I am morally opposed to their invasive data collecting, and monthly fee. There use to be good DVR alternatives out there but that has all but dried up.

Comcast's DVRs are $14/mo which is ridiculous and I hear their interface is obnoxious. The ability to dump the raw data streams to a PC is possible, desirable, but not necessarily guaranteed.

I had always considered that on my next PC upgrade, I would build my old one into a media center... but I currently don't have the funds to go that far.

The best answer I've found so far is Philips DVDR3576H/37 (which is slowly disappearing in availability). On the plus side it's a DVR/DVDr without a monthly fee. It can record to either DVD or HDD and you can watch something else while that's going on.

It also has a high quality mpeg encoder that can encode at multiple quality settings up to 9500kbps vbr (which provides better quality than a DVD recorder which has to record at preset cbr settings). It can also rapidly burn HDD recorded programs right to DVD without re-encoding.

It isn't HD, but has 1080p upscaling, and can record HDTV shows downscaled to 480p. So all ATSC and QAM channels are pretty much fair game. Shows can be saved in their original anamorphic aspect ratios. It's also suppose to make some really nice captures from VHS input.

My real misgivings are that even though it can dump HDD programs unrecoded to DVD it IS re-encoding the broadcast when it first records: HDTV or SDTV. It does not save the raw streams.

The other serious drawback is that it downmixes/reencodes recordings to DD2.0 (it won't save a 5.1 stream). It also loses closed captioning from any digital broadcast (which is everything come February).

Anyone have a suggestion or is this one of those "it's the best of what there is, live with it" deals.

Is the Elgato a PC capture device or a standalone?

Does anyone know of an off the shelf DVR that also has the firewire out?

I hate to give Comcast the money for a rental.

Also, has anyone else gotten this to work? Are the firewire ports still available and functional?

Have you give thought to a 'making of' featurette?

I'd love to see some before and afters strung together so we can marvel at your genius.

So I'm not completely clear, is this going to be a group of editors working on an uber-cut or is everyone doing their own digital work and coming up with different edits?

What you need to do is decode it to 6 wave channels, slow it down (of course), and then re-encode back to DTS.

Mind you, there are those that say 640kbps DD is pretty much sonically equivalent to 768kbps DTS, so if the source isn't full 1536kbps, it's a good alternative.

For DTS to AC3, here is a nice guide: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=91239

If you really want to keep with DTS, here's all the info you need on working with it: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68300#post424069

I'm guessing that's different than the officially published script.  Interesting.

Thanks for posting.

A couple good ideas, but another list of reasons why I never care for Spence's edits.

Can someone post details of Spence's edit?

I don't have a functioning account at FE, and don't want one.

Could be worse, you could be running Vista.

The extended pause wasn't too much.  You just got banged around pretty hard, there was also little indication that the speed had been played with.

I say the expanded wait was fine.

I figured it was something like that.  It seems a bit strange when you look at it closely, but if you aren't looking at it frame by frame, it's fine.  Really, I do love it (and it makes more sense than this scary guy running from a gun being cocked.)

I don't think the sound needs to be later, that's fine.  Just louder.

EXCELLENT cemetery scene.

A few stupid nitpicks... the gun seems to shoot a little early (while he's still raising it, but I think you did that to give the impression of a recoil(?)), the flash should probably be at least 1 or 2 frames after the muzzle flash (for dramatic effect, even though in reality it probably wouldn't be that late.)

Finally: better gunshot sound. This one might be a bit weak considering the POV looks like it's being fired right beside your ear.

But on the whole: beautifully seamless, and a huge improvement. Indy has a gun and isn't afraid to use it on South American monkey ninjas or whatever those things were.

Edit:

As for the fridge scene, like I was saying before, if you cut all of the bounces, it lands and seems to roll/slide to a stop. It's more convincing that the occupant might live.

I did a quick re-edit of your clip (removing the audio since it was already out of sync): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KBQ0WMJG

Mind you if I wasn't just tossing this together, I'd make one other change: The shot of the fridge as it falls from the sky and just touches the ground should be flipped left/right. It would provide continuity with the final shot which makes the fridge seem to come from the other direction (and the fridge would be standing on the same corner between those two shots).

Hmm.  Still too many bounces.

I think I'd just go from flying to the last cut where Indy actually gets out.

My gut says this is the plain release, and the double dip will come a few years from now as the re-restore them one film at a time.  It's what they did for the DVDs.

I can't believe they opted to save money and do the new fx for TMP in 480p.  They had do know sooner or later they were going to need a high def transfer of it.

So what now, they re-redo the effects?  Nitwits.

Out of curiosity I took a look at Kaminski's Imdb listing.  I think the list includes at least 5 of the most disappointing movies of the past several years (that should have been MUCH better).

Spielberg definitely is in love with this guy though.

I didn't see Spalko shoot her own men when I watch the film either.  It was talked about and the clip shown in an extra on Disc 2 of the Special Edition.

It's a shame: I was happy to see Marion back, but she was definitely on some sort of mood stabilizers.

I've been trying to figure out why this movie doesn't work.

There are action scenes that should be good, but aren't very intense. The plot is mostly ok, with a few flubs, but I could live with that. Even Mutt is quite tolerable (I expected Anakin II).

I want to blame Lucas for a lame alien plot, but you know, it does sort of work in the time period it takes place.

I want to blame Spielberg for failing to articulate the story in the white-knuckle manner we are accustomed, but the action seems to move along well.

I want to blame Harrison Ford for agreeing to Lucas & Spielberg's crap, and looking generally jowly, but I was never afraid he was going to break a hip.

I've decided the blame rests squarely with Janusz Kaminski. His shot composition is terrible. He frequently fails to emphasize the action on the screen, almost like he didn't know where his camera was pointing. For example: the tree cutting blades, the door being blown at Area 51, Mutt jumping vehicles, etc.

It's obvious whoever was responsible could not compose action shot to save their life.

Also, who else is there to blame for the high dynamic range/light blooming? I'd SAY the cinematographer is responsible, but I suppose with so much green screening it could have been Spielberg.

Spielberg MAY have been responsible for the problems in this film, but I don't believe that after all these years Spielberg forgot how to direct.  I'm thinking if we see an Indy 5 it'll have a different DP... or it will suck too.

That being said, in the example scenes I mentioned (and several other), an edit would benefit from strategic cropping/resizing to shift the focus to the action.

Going from an HD source would make this possible, and could fix a lot of the dull action beats.