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Doctor M

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Join date
1-Feb-2005
Last activity
4-Dec-2025
Posts
2,550

Post History

Post
#287404
Topic
Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/287404/action/topic#287404
Time
I've been using restore24 since I'm not sure there is any alternative. The only think I can possibly think of is to manually pull the good field and resize. Then locate all field shifts myself manually.

Anyway, at the moment it looks generally good. The occasional blended field survives (but I believe in some cases it's unavoidable.)
What I'm running into now that I strongly dislike is (and I haven't figured out if it's the source or Restore24) that movement is unnatural.
Occasionally a moving person/object will jerk forward like a frame is missing.

My first step is to figure out if the frames in question actually exist in Mentor's version... then, hmmm, yeah.
Post
#287197
Topic
Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/287197/action/topic#287197
Time
The new encoding is finished, and although soft looking on a PC, seems pretty nice on an SD TV.

Again, the Mentor cap wasn't pristine unfortunately (either from the broadcast, or encoding), but restoring 24p does nice things for the smoothness.

I'll post a clip when I can so you all can tell what to expect (and can compare it to your various existing copies).
Once I get a chance to proof watch it, I'll get it out the door for authoring...
Post
#287083
Topic
HD Cap Request: 'Jesse Stone - Sea Change'
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/287083/action/topic#287083
Time

The Jesse Stone TV movies starring Tom Selleck have been great to watch.
Unfortunately only the first movie has made it to DVD.
I had the foresight to video tape the 3rd movie and I’ve been unable to obtain the 2nd in any form.

Anyway… Sea Change (the 4th film) will air this coming Tuesday and I’m hoping someone has the equipment to do a nice HD2DVD cap and transfer if they have enough notice.

Any volunteers?

Post
#286707
Topic
Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286707/action/topic#286707
Time
Yeah, I went wrong because the stills were so nice (and the Restore24 filter is Sooooo Slooooow).

I ran into the same thing when I tried to sharpen Moth3r's RotJ. I did find a compromise on that project because I felt it was warranted... in this case I think I'd be just as happy to do without.

On the bright side the softer picture is making the movie more compressible... the re-encoding stage should have no further impact on quality.
Post
#286652
Topic
Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286652/action/topic#286652
Time
So let me apologize to everyone awaiting the uber-NTSC 2-disc set... evidently a miscommunication had everybody expecting to hear from everyone else.
That has been remedied.

I am restoring the movie, RowMan is compiling the extras and a third party (whose name I don't know) will be authoring these into a unified Special Edition style release.

I sat down for a final proofing of the movie today... and turned it off after 5 minutes. I was fairly dissatisfied with shimmering artifacts that arose from the edge enhancement I added.

The reason for the sharpening is because the restoration process will only yield 288 line per frame (half the original lines are blended and must be discarded). The restored frames are then resized to 480p.

Sharpening gives the impression of more detail, but doesn't always work out well.
There is a decent amount of noise and compression artifacts in the original disc that are amplified by this process.
Noise clean up will destroy a little more detail, that I don't believe we really can spare at this point.

In my mind I would prefer a softer image with less hard-on-the-eye noise.

Since screenshots of this version actually look pretty damn good (with the artifacts visible in motion), I'm posting a 1 minute clip so you all can see how it looks to you.

Comments would be appreciate... if you guys can't see a problem and love the look, fine, but as it stands I plan to go a bit softer. I should have a new version ready in a few days.
Rapidshare link: http://rapidshare.com/files/31381732/SotsClip.mpg.html (40.4mb)
Post
#286463
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286463/action/topic#286463
Time
I think the real point is a lot less people would be interest in the X0 project if they decided to keep the picture 4x3 letterboxed.

The re-done 720p image has more detail than the previous one I posted.
The artifacts it brought out are of a digital compression type and are unlike to exist in the original frames the X0 people are working with. (Look around the words "X0 Project". Some of the worst artifacts are in their lettering).
Post
#286455
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286455/action/topic#286455
Time
Is that an endorsement or criticism?

An anamorphic GOUT would have been preferred but we're still talking a better master then they had.

Btw, I swapped the 720p image for one with a real avisynth filter sharpening. I think it looks a bit better (but there's some compression artifacts now (probably from the jpg compression)).
Post
#286453
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286453/action/topic#286453
Time
I think the Black Magic process (some sort of combination of laserdiscs release blending and/or film jitter extrapolation) extracts more information than a single frame.
But just to prove my point (this is just simple Lanczos resize, you could do better with deblocking filters and such).

Image 1
The screenshot (from above) from the X0 project
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3231/x0gn6.jpg

Image 2
The same screenshot enlarged to 133% (about the same enlargement you'd see going letterbox to anamorphic).
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8210/x0anamorphicvm4.jpg

Image 3
For the heck of it, (approx.) HD 720p version (with some edge enhancement.) (200%)
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/5575/x0720pv2px6.jpg

Do you feel like the picture is terribly degraded? And this is WITHOUT access to their raw data (or specialized software) before they encoded, resized, jpeg'd or whatever-ed the image before posting it here.

Want more? Here's the full size HD version:
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5272/x0720pv2fullsh1.jpg

I'd watch that.


EDIT: True avisynth filters used for 720p sharpening snapshot... looks better too.
Post
#286422
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286422/action/topic#286422
Time
That's just plain wrong.

Letterboxed films converted to Anamorphic may degrade in quality if done "on the fly" by just stretching to fit your TV screen and such.

When done appropriately on a PC during encoding, the image can look better than the original.
There are many resize methods available that are able to find edges or nearest neighbor pixels and intelligently resize to provide more image not just stupid line-doubling.

I have converted to anamorphic in a few projects and the final quality is almost always superior even if it's not "true" increased resolution.

It's why there is a monster-size thread discussing how to convert GOUT to anamorphic for personal home use.
It's why many SW preservations have gone anamorphic or better (Citizen's wonderful HD Xvid anyone?).

So yes, anamorphizing a laserdisc may effect clarity... it would be improved.
Post
#286158
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286158/action/topic#286158
Time
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the X0 project is a hoax, but I could do those screenshots in Photoshop, and it wouldn't require donations or years of work.

It's not really proof of anything, that's why people are asking for something more.

Heck even people that do game modifications usually have progress bars like:
Coding: 5%
Modeling: 25%
Skinning: 20%
etc.

It just gives an idea of what's being done and in what time frame.

Wow, that sounded much nastier than I meant it too.
But really guys, why the mystery?
Post
#286111
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286111/action/topic#286111
Time
I'm going to come down on Mojo_LA's side.

You see I'm building a flying car. You can feel free to send me as much money as you want (since you'd all love a flying car, though your donations won't actually get you a flying car).
Also I won't tell you what's been done, how far along I am, whether I'm taking your money and flying to Tahiti, OR present you any proof beyond a few pictures.
So who's in?

The X0 teams is asking for a helluva leap of faith for no good reason that I can see.
Post
#284376
Topic
Info Wanted: 'Night Watch' - has anyone done an edit of this?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/284376/action/topic#284376
Time
There was talk of this on "the other site" and someone posted some deleted scenes.

I'm curious where they go with this since from what I understand some plot threads (and a character) that figure into later movies was removed from the International version.

But I ALSO understand from people that have seen both versions that the original Russian version was inferior to the recut release.
Post
#282179
Topic
.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/282179/action/topic#282179
Time
I don't think GOUT's source was ever in question.

Isn't it just the last laserdisc release with a new transfer of the original crawl tacked on.
This was suppose to be their "closer-to-the-source" answer to our preservation projects.

Since laserdiscs (and their source) are interlaced material, some hack did a really poor de-interlace giving us artifacts that we ourselves have the sense not to create when we make our own transfers.

I've seen that sort of crap before from other bad commercial DVD transfers where they just sloppily dump the laserdisc master to a disc.
The Quiet Man comes to mind right away, but there are many others examples.