Jonno

This is what I tried to post yesterday:

I've compared the raw MPEG-2 rips and, while the conversion to AVI hasn't helped the definition, the clipping is definitely a factor of the recorded DVDs.

While ADC technology in set-top DVD recorders does vary considerably in quality (not wanting to cast aspersions on Russ's AV kit!), it seems more likely that it was a limitation of the consumer-level VCR that created the tape in the first place.

Anyway, I'm presented with a bit of a quandary here - I certainly hadn't planned to make any revisionist alterations to the image (indeed my proposed editing workflow - as outlined earlier - is intended to obviate any transcoding at all).

I wonder what the best approach is - make my edit as a 'pure' preservation of this tape, then hand over to someone else to make improvements to the image as they see fit? I'd be glad to hear peoples' thoughts on this.

Not at all Frank, this is an important version so the more exposure it gets the better!

Thanks for your patience everyone, this project is still on its way! I don't want to rush the decision-making process here (Russ has provided multiple passes so I want to make sure I'm using the best version of each segment) so I'm still at the rough assembly stage.

I want to keep this preservation as transparent as possible so I'm initially grappling with Womble - I have other (arguably better) editing tools which can edit the MPEG-2 but they WILL re-encode it, particularly since I'll be adding material from other sources (e.g. the ads).

As a rough estimate I'll be looking to get this done in time for Christmas - the formats will be a DVD with menus (possibly dual layer, depends on the final tally) and an MP4. Any thoughts or suggestions in the meantime, send them this way...

I tried the playlist method in TSMuxer but that did include the additional MGM start and end logos, with no apparent way to remove them - if you want a more purist experience the .m2ts route might be best (I can provide my list of time-adjusted chapters if anyone wants to save themselves some maths).

Thanks again for doing this STENDEC - the adjusted track fits and sounds great.

I've put together one of my vintage theatrical intros for this (in consultation with Bigrob) - if anyone's interested I'll pop it on Vimeo.

PM sent.

On a related point, did the theatrical screenings open with the Orion logo (the film having been acquired by MGM in later years) or was there some other distributor/studio attached at the time? Hemdale perhaps?

STENDEC said:

I've synced dark_jedi's mono track to the new Blu-ray. It was more or less a case of removing the MGM logo from the start of the track (and the end), as it's not on the new disk. I had to compressed the dynamic range a bit as well, because if you leave it unchanged from DJ's, the softer scenes (particularly at the end of the film) get clipped out when you play it in a Blu-ray player. Wish I'd known that before I burnt it to a blank BD25 :P!

I have an ac3 of it that I muxed with tsMuxer. Anyone know if it's OK to put it on Myspleen or is that against the rules over there (also if DJ's OK with it).

Thanks for making the effort to share this, just a couple of questions:

1 - The 'clipping' on the low amplitude scenes - is this on all BD players or just the one you tried it on? Sounds like something that might vary from player to player (or even according to settings).

2 - Any particular reason why you opted to compress to AC3 rather than leave the track as PCM?

Spamming jerk reported.

And it's a good question. You'd think it would match well, but my experience says possibly not - it's a different master and all kinds of strange speed mismatches can sneak into the chain from film element to telecine/datacine to disc compression.

Try it and see, but you might need to use a dual layer DVD - this PCM audio is 1.5GB on its own.

So apparently this was shown in support of RotJ - ring any bells for anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SclGfTrgnIQ

New links sent.

Let me know if there are any problems with the file - Chewtobacca had an issue with the download, so I'm uploading to another location as a standby.

Jetrell Fo, you should have a PM with the info now.

I'm certainly up for a V2 if the 5.1 does become available, though in that case it might be easier to sync the picture to the sound rather than vice versa!

Anyway, anyone who's got a copy of this project should pester Bigrob for his fantastic cover. Rob, are you happy to share it here?

An extra couple of snippets from the In70mm site:

Some engagements added 70mm blow-up version of animated short "Duck Dodgers In The 24th And A Half Century". 

(From this page.)

"Sorcerer" film editor Bud Smith recalled his experience in seeing the coming attractions trailer he had cut for that film in front of "Star Wars" at the Chinese Theatre: "When our trailer faded to black, the curtains closed and opened again, and they kept opening and opening, and you started feeling this huge thing coming over your shoulder overwhelming you, and heard this noise, and you went right off into space. It made our film look like this little, amateurish piece of [expletive]. I told Billy [Friedkin], 'We're [expletive] being blown off the screen. You gotta go see this." 

(From this page.)

PLEASE do Danger Diabolik!

The man pat divulged to me that this clip explains it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWmVlgIR2HA

(hope I haven't broken any confidentiality there, pat - to be honest, I'm still not much wiser anyway)

Ok, I have to ask - what does this mean?

If you want any Fan Edits or Preservation's before the come out, you will need to go to the Spaceballs Galaxy.

The video stream alone is 12.7GB (and with good reason), so no DVD-R is going to hold this.

At a push you might convert the MKV to a BD folder using TSMuxer, then use BDRebuilder to 'shrink' it to DVD-9 size. It's a clumsy way to do it, though - better to wait for the official AVCHD release (since that smaller version will be directly encoded from source).

I'm having fun trying to get Adobe Encore to import the video stream without crashing. I'm not sure the designers of this software even considered feature film file sizes when they put it together...

I'll certainly be having a look when the new disc turns up (I've got that pretty steelbook version on pre-order) - presumably it's too much to ask for equivalent duration/frame count?

PM sent.

Fair enough!

1. 1.37:1 is not the same as 4:3 - that would be 1.33:1. 1.375:1 is the US academy film format (full-frame 35mm).

2. 1080p is only ever 1920x1080. Films of aspect ratios other than 16:9 (in other words, most) will be letterboxed or pillarboxed to some degree. You're not 'losing resolution' if you are retaining the full image in a format that doesn't exactly match.

3. If the image is 1080 pixels high, the width of the Wizard of Oz will be 1080 x 1.375, i.e. 1485 pixels. To answer your original question (which is only really relevant to pre-1932 films), 1080 x 1.33 is 1436 pixels wide.

4. Barely related: on Saturday I paid £20 to watch the Wizard of Oz at a drive-in. They were showing a BFI film print, but since the screen was 16:9 they enlarged the image to fill its width, thus losing the top and bottom of the picture. That's losing resolution! (Since drive-ins are a rare commodity indeed in the UK I put up with it...)

It's possibly the first one listed here (doesn't say anything about subs, mind):

US screenings in summer 1977 probably wouldn't, but in the UK later that year? Perhaps.

Anyway, my main reason for doing this (as I've probably already mentioned) is that I recall seeing one for Empire toys - probably the second ad in the collection Raphael posted above, in fact - during the 1982 double bill so they were certainly shown theatrically at one point or other.

Reckon I'll swap in the 1978 Palitoy ad when I recompile - thanks for that Raph.

Thanks for the feedback fellas, glad you enjoyed it.

I wasn't planning on spending any more time on this (I already disappeared down an After Effects rabbit hole for several hours once I discovered I could customise the curtains!) However I've located a better source for the adverts so I'll plug those in, and maybe a bit of extra in-house stuff while I'm at it.

On the point of the Kenner ad, you're absolutely right d - unfortunately I haven't even seen UK versions of the earlier Palitoy ads since they were originally used, and I suspect any that have survived aren't in the best of shape. Do let me know if you can correct me on this!

Of course you can feel free to grab the clip - Vimeo's MP4 is fairly respectable, though since my film grain filter works better at 1080p you might want to wait for the BD folder version for the full effect.