Sorry guys, as the first post says, the blu-ray has been postponed to either late summer or early autumn. The MOV is still readily available. If you want it, send me a PM.
I also have a new regrade of another movie that I will announce later tonight. Stay tuned. 😃
Ugh. Not to be a downer, but I’ve had a shitty week. Been dealing with a lot of personal problems, and I haven’t had time to encode the blu ray yet. Hopefully it’ll be ready sometime this weekend. I’ll get to it when I can. in the meantime, here’s the artwork for the bluray. I’m working on disc art as well.
Well, I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is that due to some technical problems, the blu-ray is still not ready. The good news is, I snagged a copy of the original 2000 DVD release (before the 20th anniversary version) which has the original theatrical stereo track. With little to no trouble, I was able to sync it with the mangowolf edition and the fullscreen laserdisc version. I will build a new version of the blu-ray tonight and start it encoding asap. The encoding process takes many hours, but I expect the blu-ray to be ready sometime tomorrow night. If not, it will definitely be ready before friday.
The Blu-ray is encoding as I type this. Here’s a side by side comparison of the Lightcyle scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIeRMAPxAtg&feature=youtu.be
I haven’t watched this yet (planning to check it out later today), but I noticed the frame rate is 60fps for the .mov file. I’m curious, what was the source used for this that the finished file is in 60fps?
I’m guessing since you have a blu-ray coming that it will be 23.976?
The color looks outstanding from what I’ve seen so far. I believe that this may indeed be much closer to what it looked like originally in theatres.
Is the full-frame laserdisk open-matte, or was it just cropped for 4:3? Either way it will be a cool extra.
I export everything in 60fps just to ensure that theres no lag (final cut pro is weird about that sometimes). It doesn’t upscale at all, so it’s still technically at the normal framerate, so it shouldn’t look any different. The laserdisc that I have is cropped to 4:3, (I’m not even sure if an open matte version exists). It will actually be available as a bonus DVD since I didn’t have time to include it on the blu-ray.
Thanks for the explanation. So it keeps all the same frames, not interpolated, so it keeps the same motion, but it still technically plays at 60fps, so it’s not true 23.976 output, correct? I’m guessing the blu-ray will be true 23.976?
Correct.
I haven’t watched this yet (planning to check it out later today), but I noticed the frame rate is 60fps for the .mov file. I’m curious, what was the source used for this that the finished file is in 60fps?
I’m guessing since you have a blu-ray coming that it will be 23.976?
The color looks outstanding from what I’ve seen so far. I believe that this may indeed be much closer to what it looked like originally in theatres.
Is the full-frame laserdisk open-matte, or was it just cropped for 4:3? Either way it will be a cool extra.
I export everything in 60fps just to ensure that theres no lag (final cut pro is weird about that sometimes). It doesn’t upscale at all, so it’s still technically at the normal framerate, so it shouldn’t look any different. The laserdisc that I have is cropped to 4:3, (I’m not even sure if an open matte version exists). It will actually be available as a bonus DVD since I didn’t have time to include it on the blu-ray.
Hey Guys. Sorry the Blu-ray isn’t ready yet. The reason is because I was waiting for my Laserdisc of Tron to arrive, so I could also include the fullscreen version. The laserdisc has a noticeable amount of bit rot throughout Side 2 which means that the restoration will take a bit more work. Also because of this, the audio on side 2 has a lot of distortion and crackling. I’ll see what I can do to help fix that, and I really wanted to include the true original stereo track from 1982, but I might have to resync the blu-ray audio.
Either way, I’m about to do some tests on the lightcycle scene from the laserdisc. I’ll post some screenshots and a video soon. Thanks to everyone who has taken interest in this project, and thanks to the wonderful people of this site!
I’ll get back to you guys soon!
Mango
Well, the color and contrast on the laserdisc is all over the place. Most of it has a blue tint but some shots don’t. As for the contrast, it just goes crazy on every shot. Every single shot looks COMPLETELY different, as If they performed a picture correction of some sort when they made the laserdisc. The strangest thing to me is that most of it still has that blue tint. I checked the old 2002 DVD and it looked more like the mangowolf Edition, so I don’t even know what the film is supposed to look like at this point.
Either way, I already finished the blu-ray restoration, so I think i’ll just try to get a nice clean rip of the laserdisc and not even do much to restore it. I have now clue how I would make it even resemble the blu-ray restoration, so it’ll just be a little bonus feature.
I’ll get back to you guys with more updates soon. Here are some of the restoration attempts I did with the laserdisc version of the light cycle scene. These were just a test, and I most likely won’t end up trying to do a proper restoration.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Hey Guys. Sorry the Blu-ray isn’t ready yet. The reason is because I was waiting for my Laserdisc of Tron to arrive, so I could also include the fullscreen version. The laserdisc has a noticeable amount of bit rot throughout Side 2 which means that the restoration will take a bit more work. Also because of this, the audio on side 2 has a lot of distortion and crackling. I’ll see what I can do to help fix that, and I really wanted to include the true original stereo track from 1982, but I might have to resync the blu-ray audio.
Either way, I’m about to do some tests on the lightcycle scene from the laserdisc. I’ll post some screenshots and a video soon. Thanks to everyone who has taken interest in this project, and thanks to the wonderful people of this site!
I’ll get back to you guys soon!
Mango
Almost ready! Here’s the trailer.
Project will include nearly shot by shot color correction based on a theatrical 35MM print and descriptions of the 70MM version.
Video Source: 2011 US Blu-ray
Audio Source: 1995 US Laserdisc
Mango
Just saw it today. It felt pretty good at first, but starting from that Leia scene, it just completely fell apart. Also, I kept getting distracted from the story by the cringeworthy “humor”.
Having some technical problems, so it’s taking longer than expected. I’ll try to get this released sometime next week.
Updated poster.
Currently working on another color regrade since I wasn’t very happy with the first one. I’ll try to get some screen caps to you sometime tomorrow. The BD-50 itself will probably be released by friday or early saturday.
was looking at this the other day you might find it interesting…
All of those scenes are on the deleted scenes reel which will be included as a bonus feature. 😃
Examples of the color restoration
New version in the works. Color correction is based on Trailers, Production Photos and a Pan & Scan laserdisc release. Video taken from Studio Canal UK Blu-ray. Mono Soundtrack taken from MGM US DVD.
Project will be released as 1080p MOV file.
ATTENTION.
The files will soon be deleted from mega and uploaded to pirate bay. I will seed there for a month once it’s up. If you like it, keep it shared!
Sounds great! Any chance of a purely restored version without the PJ spider pit scene?
Probably not. This whole project is more of a fan edit than a restoration. I might do it someday, but at the moment I’m fine with this. Sorry…
I did the same fan edit a few years back, just to see how the missing (recreation) “Spider Pit” scene would play.
It messed with the film’s pacing.
I think that’s why it was cut in the first place.
2024 Update:
After many years, I’m bringing this project back from the dead. This project was originally created as a way to extend King Kong with the Peter Jackson recreation of the Spider Pit scene, but overtime I realized that the film had been digitally tinkered with for the blu-ray release. To my knowledge, these alterations have not been undone since, and there is surprisingly still no word on whether we’ll ever see a 4K version of Kong.
Here’s a list of things that this project will accomplish:
Release will be 1080p as there is no known 4K source.
Oops. Forgot to announce this. Version 1 is NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Version 2 is available now. PM me for the link.
Hi Mango,
First of all, thank you for taking on this project. I’ve just downloaded your custom BD from the link you kindly provided and I love your restored colours and audio. 😃
I have a couple of questions. I’ve just done a side by side comparison with your edition and the remastered Bluray. Unless there is something seriously amiss with my set up, it appears that your version has lost some detail (possibly due to compression?). For example; if you look at the static shot at around 5:30 with David and Jack walking away down the road, there are spots on the road that are visible in the BD but not in your encode.
Also, the BD has a lot of fine yet visible grain which is missing in your version. This can be noticed when the boys walk into The Slaughtered Lamb; the painted walls show the BD’s grain nicely whereas there is none to be seen in your encode. Would you consider releasing a BD-50 version to see if a higher bitrate might correct this issue?
One other small thing: The Universal logo at the beginning seems ‘choppy’ as it zooms in. On the BD it is silky smooth. This issue does not seems to affect the rest of the film (or is too small to be noticeable elsewhere).
I hope you don’t take this a criticism of your wonderful release. I still consider it my go-to version as I don’t think I can go back to the BD colours and audio now that I’ve experienced the difference. Many thanks again.
I did have a bit of trouble encoding the Blu-ray, so it is a little compressed. However, since it was compressed to fit on a 25 gig Blu-ray, that could cause some problems as well, I.E. the missing grain. I also noticed that the beginning logos are a little choppy. That happened when I initially ripped the blu-ray and I don’t really have a fix for it. I may release a BD-50 at some point though. The raw file for my version of the movie is 58 gigs. I frankly think the color balance could have been done better too. The blacks have a reddish tone to them now, which I don’t like. Like I said though, this is just version 1. When I do the second version, I’ll be sure to address these issues. The second version may also be 2 disc!
Thanks for taking interest in the project! Your feedback is necessary to make this project as good as possible.
Mango
It’s done!
PM me for the link.