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Doctor M

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1-Feb-2005
Last activity
30-Jun-2025
Posts
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Post
#197873
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197873/action/topic#197873
Time
I am aware that some music transitions might have been sloppy, but under the circumstances I found few alternatives and had to settle for preventing real abrupt cuts. I'm sure there's a better way, maybe resyncing the soundtrack, but there's no way I'm going to try that any further (I did at 2 points in Revolutions).

Can you elaborate on the "silences?"

As for the Oracle scene, yup, rickety as hell. I made sure that the audio from Smith never stops or fades but is continuous even across the Oracle's clips. This was to allow any ambient sounds to overlay her dialog. I gotta say, except for the localization problem I'm not sure I hear what you do.

As far as Link missing the call I'm not sure I'd call it that. It was a creative decision for the transition. I noticed the CBB version had Trinity pick up the phone but not dial, the next audio is the ringing for Link who answers.
I liked Trinity dialing in the Matrix and Link answering in TRW. To keep the full audio for Link involves a ringing in the Matrix and again in TRW which is in too brief a span to be natural sounding.

I guess my bigger concern with the edit is any pops or techinical problems.

The funny thing is, your exceptions with this are largely the things I thought I got right.
I will tell you if you found the movie to lack fluidity, stay away from M3. It is definitely a rough cut more for the impression of what the movie could have been than a good movie experience.
Post
#197761
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197761/action/topic#197761
Time
That bad eh?
30 hours since the first complete d/l's and no comments.
Anyone not want the DVD's now?


Update/Edit: I just got to the scariest part in my re-editing of the transitions.
It's a dissolve that goes from one clip to white to the next clip. I figured I'd have to remove it and write it off as impossible. But noooo, avisynth rocks:
clip1=crop(avisource("smithwakes.vdr"),0,58,0,-62)
clip2=crop(avisource("neoarrives.vdr"),0,58,0,-62)
fullclip=fadeout(clip1,12,$ffffff)+fadein(clip2,12,$ffffff)
addborders(fullclip,0,58,0,62)

(If you don't crop first, the letterbox borders go white too, and that's just sloppy.)
Woohoo. Looks so much better than MVW!
Post
#197440
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197440/action/topic#197440
Time
Lots and lots of seeds now. Get it while it's hot.

V1.01 of Reloaded is now finished. (I won't be making a new Xvid from it.)
It's described in the first post, but some minor artifacts were fixed including a change in black level of the letterbox bars during the opening (which of course isn't present in the Xvid).
The fades were redone with AviSynth/VirtualDub/CCE to remove crappy artifacts in moving in the blackness. The pace is subtly different, but it's much cleaner.

Well, I await the savagery of the critics. I'm serious be brutal...
Post
#197366
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197366/action/topic#197366
Time
Note: Demonoid has trouble with seeder/leecher numbers from external torrents. If you go there you'll need to search for inactive torrents.

Btw, I did manage to fix 2 instances of bad macroblocks since building the Xvid, so the 2 you'll see at the beginning won't be on the DVD.
Also I found another flaw, the Oracle's voice that I replaced (at the end) for some reason is coming slightly from the left. This is a Womble thing since the audio clip is mono and should have come out center or at least equally left/right. I don't think it's fixable without building it back into 5.1, and I doubt I'll be doing that.
Post
#197364
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197364/action/topic#197364
Time
Sorry, I guess I was unclear. The audio sync errors are only when trying to generate an avi file (since the framerate is variable). The DVD is pristine (on a PC).

As far the issue with the standalone player: between a large number of close together re-encoded frames in both 30fps and 24fps, I think there were just some spikes in the bitrate causing the hardware to choke (but a PC has no issues with out of spec bitrates).

Anyway, I finally decided that this is going to be a clean 24 frame video no matter what. I spent all afternoon and all this evening exporting clips, adding and subtracting flags. Hunting down clips used, re-encoding clean with CCE using the proper GOPs.
Fade outs were still done in Womble but under 24 fps, flagged for pulldown and exported back into the project. The same goes for some titles.
There's one dissolve I spent hours on before trashing it and exporting the 2 clips.
I ran 2 separate sessions of VirtualDubMod (one for each clip), setting both to frameserve.
Generated an AviSynth script to produce a dissolve from the 2 VDub sessions, and then using AviSynth to pass it to CCE.

So you are right f1209, sometimes the answer really is simple. :0
M2 is now 100% home grown pure film, direct stream, accept no substitutes.
The video quality of the manipulated clips is much better. I've seen some artifacts (blocks and such) but no jerkiness; it's a real improvement.

Soooooooooooooooooo,
If you point your browsers to thePirateBay.org (or Demonoid.com) and do a search for Matrix Hacked, you'll find something to tide you over until I finish M3 and can get the discs ready. (M3 will take more than a single day I suspect).

Something special just in time for the Matrix's anniversary.

I wil update the first post... tomorrow.
Post
#197232
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197232/action/topic#197232
Time
So I had a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

And so far, it looks like it's working. (Btw, if you don't care about the tech stuff, move along)

It turns out that when I cropped and re-encoded clips even if I was matching the avg and max bitrates there would be a jerky-ness with occasional macro blocks or breakups between clips from different sources.

The answer was so simple I missed it. I was using CCE with setting templates I had built from Doom9's recommendations. The problem is that uses GOPs that are different than the Matrix trilogy uses. I was using M=3 & M/N=5 (N=15). The DVDs were using M/N of 4 (N=12).
I wouldn't have even thought that could cause a problem but it did. I did a test scene with my clips re-encoded that way and I matched the avg/max bitrates as well. I also tossed in a little unsharp mask in to help hide that it's an enlarged and cropped.
100% direct stream 24fps goodness with nary a hitch. It's 10x better than what I had.

A couple more days of work ahead, but it looks like I'll be able to ferret out all of these and make this pure film.

I think I see a light.
Post
#197163
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/197163/action/topic#197163
Time
I spent the entire day working on this.

Short of a 100% frame for frame reedit, there's no having this as pure film.
If someone is handy with Xvid, you have my blessing to try to release some variant of this. I'm not ruling out a full DVD torrent, but that would be realllllly sllooooowwwww from me.

The major hiccup in matrix3 drove me nuts. That's the main thing I was working on.
It looks like it's a croped clip that went funny.
It was encoded CBR at 9200kbps with CCE SP (7pass) (knowing Womble would want to re-re-encode it). Bitrate view shows the peak bitrate to be around 12000kbps (no kidding). When MVW did it's pass on it, it was suppose to keep a max rate of 7500kbps. But bitrate view shows the clip peaks out around 9875.
THAT's why the standalone is choking on it. I suppose I'm going to have to try a new crop of that clip and see if I can keep the rate under better control.

It also means I have to watch ALL recoded regions on a standalone to make sure this isn't happening anywhere else. (Cough small glitch in M2 Cough).

I'm going to say this again, I can't make this perfect.
Maybe in another 7 years I'll redo this, but for now I just want to fix the worst of it all and be done. I am sooo sick of this project and Womble's crappy software.
Post
#196935
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196935/action/topic#196935
Time
I dunno what's up with the way Womble works. With the film and video framerates mixed that leaves few options (problems syncing the audio in an avi file).
I tried a lower quality encode using 30fps. It looked crappy (because you're actually encoding the pulldown frames and then deinterlacing them). Still out of sync.
I even read a bunch of guides and attempted (several times) to create a variable frame rate (hybrid video) mkv file. Don't get me started on that.

This project is pissing me off now. I've watched it on my PC (as a DVD image) and it's great, but getting it anywhere else is murder.

I killed 4 hours tonight trying to fix the worst hiccup where the line of dialog goes out. It created even worse problems (the movie cuts off 30 minutes early now).
I'll take another stab at it tomorrow, but I don't know what to do.

An Xvid/Divx version is indefinitely in limbo and I have 5 M2 discs burned and 3 of the M3 discs. I want to fix the worst of the problems since I'll bet I won't be alone. It's just been that kind of project.

If the stupid software synced the 24fps video to the audio to start with I wouldn't be having these problems.
Post
#196899
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196899/action/topic#196899
Time
Sorry about no comment for a couple days, but the project _was_ done and ready to burn.

Then I got a cunning plan to improve re-code quality and make the disc 100% film so a divx could work.

This involved:
Taking a clip that involved a transition effect or was cropped/reencoded with CCE.
Exporting it as a stream copy (without the transition) or just using the raw clip in the latter case.
Removing pulldown flags.
Moving back into Womble as 23.976 video. Adding back the transition/effect if there was one.
Exporting it re-encoded as the software required to match the official DVD video.
Adding back the pulldown flags.
Reinserting the clip into the edit.

Got that? Visual quality did NOT improve on the recodes. After spending a few hours doing 4 clips like this (there's about a dozen for each film) I had a transition come up very short of it's original length after doing this.
I packed it in...

Currently I'm burning all the first discs as we speak. I did find a problem that no-one might ever see but I need feedback on.
On some of the areas were Womble did it's Womble-y thing, a standalone unit I tested it on coughed.
Don't get me wrong PowerDVD is just fine with it and the standalone is a fairly old (and quirky) Sony.
On M2 it was just a short fraction of a second hiccup in music during a transition. On M3 I found a line of dialog that went out of sync.

That's just what I saw in a casual look at the scenes were I know there's re-encoding.
I'm sending these discs out anyway because I can't judge standalone compatibility against that unit.

If there are more reports of this I might have to go back to what I was doing last night. I need not say that it will be some serious work involved in getting that to work right.

It's more important to get these mailed than to do a lot of work that might not be noticed by anyone else.
Post
#196130
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/196130/action/topic#196130
Time
And now a ramble:

I've been re-tweaking M3. The quality has been good, but I keep going back and forth over things.
I just clipped one small scene that I had trimmed down and now removed all together for pace.
Something else I had cut before now makes an appearance in hopes of smoothing out other things..

I'm both happy and annoyed with these edits. M2 has proven to be a delight. A movie I was so-so over to start with I now find enjoyable. I didn't think I could improve it as much as I did. The new beginning, ending and tighter pacing really do wonders.
On the down side M3 I figured would turn out better than M2, but it's feeling more like a student film or something because of the way it jerks along.
I don't know whether to make apologies for it or boast how proud I am of it.
That is, I like the order of the parts I put together and some of the action scenes flow a little better, but the plot sort of jerks along at times and requires a leap of faith on the viewer's part.

An example: we now see Bane act menacing/crazy around the doctor but does not stab her. The scene plays well but there's really no explanation from that scene to how he manages to leave Hammer. Or for that matter where the doc is in between then and when she reappears in my new ending.
I like to think he overpowered her or she actually felt sorry for him and let him go. Either one of which feel possible with the recut of that scene. The thing is I need to do what I'm doing to make the film play how I want.

On the small scale there's even some lines of dialog I feel like swapping around, but it produces obvious continuity errors.
An example: The Merovingian would sit, eat all his olives, shake an empty glass and then suddenly finds some more olives in his glass to munch on.
The reason is in that scene I always thought he should give the long rambling speech about wanting the Oracle's eyes, and when he says "Yes? No?" cut in the lines from earlier when Trinity says "No" and Merovingian replies "I didn't think so but it doesn't hurt to ask." Then Trinity follows up that she doesn't have time for this sh#t. It's pretty funny to watch and looks great. It brings out the fact that he's really an ineffectual and silly man. But again, the olive crisis. This films is full of tough choices.

I think I'm going to sacrifice witty tweaks like that and only cause continuity trouble when it's unavoidable. I love the new cut of that scene though. Curse your olive sucking fetish!

Edit: Oh yeah, I've been emailing Womble's tech support back and forth. It looks like the same problem that cause the Xvid idea to go wonky may be the same cause of the lower quality re-encoded clips. The software can't tell the difference between 23.976 with 30 fps pulldown and true 30fps clips. When a re-encode is needed it does 30 fps. It looks bad and makes a hybrid video stream. Invisible to DVD players, death to an avi file.
Hopefully they'll come up with a fix shortly, if not I won't hold my breath (or the release) waiting for them.
Really, avoid MVW for major projects.
Post
#195822
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195822/action/topic#195822
Time
Um, good question. I could encode the full film at 30fps which is a waste of frame rate.
IVTC I understand can make crap of 24fps video while fixing the 30fps. (I'm actually a bit fuzzy on the proper handling of hybrid video).
Currently I'm seeing what kind of mess MVW makes doing 100% recode to 23.976. (Which stinks since MVW doesn't know the difference between true 30fps video and 24fps with pulldown flags).
This will be used for the Xvid only since hybrid video is invisible to DVD players. Cross your fingers, this has been a rough last few days.
Post
#195792
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195792/action/topic#195792
Time
Can anyone give me advice on building an Xvid on this? I've tested other videos and none are out of sync, just this beast.
The DVD is fine but I cannot convert it. The video and audio lengths are the same; there's no reason it should be doing what it's doing.
Googling is not turning up any useful advice. The closest I've gotten is the beginning and end in sync and the middle out of sync. Sigh.

Edit: Ugh, I got it. The movie is 95% 23.976 with pulldown. Anything encoded by womble is 29.97. It throws off the framerate....
Post
#195707
Topic
.-The Matrix Hacked-..:Completed:.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/195707/action/topic#195707
Time
State of the Onion.
It seems that only M2 clips are out of sync. When they appear in either of the 2 films I shifted them 1 frame. It LOOKS like that fixed all of the problems.
I didn't fully sit through all of M2, only 20 minutes of the beginning and end, which should be the proof enough.
I still want to sit through M3 once more since I'm not as in love with it as I am M2. Not because of sync, only flow of the movie (and possible audio bugs).

I'm TRYING mightily to get it on Pirate Bay, but the audio will not sync in the Xvid. I've tried raw ac3, I've tried resynching 14 ways to friday with VDubMod. I've used the raw mpv & ac3 files I've used rips from temp burned DVDs. I even installed Auto GordianKnot and pointed it at the finished DVD folder to see if automated software could take out user error. It will not sync.
The DVD is beautiful, but an Xvid seems impossible right now. One more idea left...

On the up side, if the Xvid wasn't this bad I would never have seen the subtle out of sync in the M2 clips since I wasn't looking for that.

Edit: Reinstalled Xvid codec and trying one final time. If that fails I think I might torrent the full DVD. It'll be slow, but I really want some feedback before I start burning and sending discs.