Mango

RIP Mike Schank. Work will resume on this project very soon.

After getting out of an abusive friendship, I now realize just how lonely I was. I’ll never go back to him. He was evil. But now I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to. I threw the few friends I had under the bus just to talk to this guy, and he absolutely destroyed me. Now I have nothing. Plus, I’m too afraid to talk to new people because now I have trust issues. I’ll never understand why he wanted to manipulate me so much. I gave him everything, and he treated me like garbage in return. On top of that, He was just pure evil. Once he committed pedophilia, thats when I was done. I can handle a lot, but I wont excuse such an evil crime. It’s been the same thing since I was in middle school. People don’t want to be my friend, they want to use me as a toy. Then when they get bored, they toss me aside like I was nothing. I don’t know if i’ll ever be able to trust anyone again…

Legendary rapper “Coolio” has died at age 59.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 9TH 2022:

After doing more research, it turns out that the 1987 cut was never released on VHS, which apparently means the version on youtube is ripped from the only existing master tape. The tape did get here and i managed to do a quick recording of it. It’s going through Topaz as I type this. It will be far from perfect, but this is mostly a project for myself. I’ve already noticed a slight hiccup in my transfer, but I’ve got more important projects to worry about at the moment. Like my upscale of that Herbie Hancock Laserdisc, this is just practice. If anyone wants a link anyway, I’ll be happy to send it once it’s done.

(Original Post)

This film is one of the ultimate cult/nerdy art films, and I thought it might be fun to upscale it to HD. However, there are 3 different versions of it. There’s the original 1987 cut which ran almost 2 hours long, there’s the 1991 revision which is the one most people have seen, then there’s the 2005 revision which added several CG shots overtop the 1991 version. The 1991 and 2005 versions are both available on DVD, though the dvd of the 1991 version is rare. The original 1987 cut is only on VHS and is very rare. There’s rips of all three on youtube, and I have the 2005 version on DVD, but I specifically want to save the original 1987 cut. Unfortunately, the only copy on youtube is from a quite damaged tape with picture and sound cutting out often.

I managed to snag a VHS on ebay that may be the 1987 cut, which I only think because the tape is copyrighted before 1991. It also does not appear to be on the Polygram label which mass marketed the 1991 version, so it may have the original. I won’t know until it gets here, and if it isn’t the original, I may need someone who has or knows someone who has an original 1987 release to provide a rip for me to work with.

If and when I get a good quality source of the 1987 version, it’ll be a simple upscale with the usual Topaz Video Enhance AI.

Still image from current progress. This is about as good as it’ll ever get.

This project has proven to be a continuous struggle. Work has never stopped, but barely any progress has been made. Therefore, I’m trying to take my time with each individual aspect of it. I’ve also spent a lot of time experimenting with techniques to get to a point where I can truly say that I’ve got something that works. One thing I’ve noticed since day one is how absolutely horrible the color is on the home video releases of Devo’s work. From what I know, most of their stuff was shot on 16mm, then transferred to video for editing. Time has not been kind to the transfers, as the official HD restoration of Truth About De-Evolution has shown that the original film elements are of a much crisper, cooler color grading.

Each video for this project is now getting the full color correction treatment, and we’re not just talking about adjusting contrast and saturation. Using what few HQ clips and on set photos exist, I’m now attempting to get every video to look as close to the original 16mm film as possible, however without grain. Regraining is tricky, and it’s never worked in my favor, so that will not be utilized for this project.

I’d like to give a very sincere thanks to everyone who has supported this or any of my other projects. The feedback I get is what keeps me going. I’d like to give a extra shout out to RayAfraid. Without his enthusiasm, I would’ve abandoned this project long ago. BTW, I notice he hasn’t been online since August of last year. I certainly hope nothing bad has happened, so if anyone has any information on his whereabouts, please let me know.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me. This project means so much to me on a personal level, as my mom showing me Devo for the first time is one of my most cherished memories. I’ve been a fan for life ever since.

~ Mango

This is mostly for practice, but I thought it could be fun to do an HD remaster of an old Herbie Hancock laserdisc from 1984. It’s somehow never been re-released on DVD, so while I work on other things, it might be good practice for upscaling SD footage to HD. Most of the stuff on the disc was shot on video, so the content will be rendered at 30fps.

This project will probably not get any attention, but I need to practice more before I can tackle the long awaited Project DEVO.

I even remade the VHS cover as a bluray cover!

There is now a second version of this project available with better color correction, the 5.1 surround audio and the proper framerate. Currently looking into software for Mac to help make a blu-ray release. 4K version available as raw MOV file now. Just shoot me a PM. 😃

Sorry for not replying to requests for links. This project is on hold while I wait for the Paramount+ versions to be released. Since some of them are still censored, it will then be a matter of restoring the missing scenes. There are several people working on projects like this at the moment, and I will attempt to collaborate with some other people.

Until then, the links are not available, as there will be far better versions soon.

As you can probably guess, I’ve been waiting for the new remasters to show up on Paramount +before resuming the project. Though little has been released so far, I now plan on waiting until the entire series is released, then using it as a base for my upscale project. If theres anything missing from the Paramount + versions that I think should still be there, I will splice them in from other sources. I must say I’m genuinely surprised that they seem to be doing these restorations properly, and I’m very glad that they’re taking it seriously. Also, “Do The Universe” was hilarious.

~ memphiselle (AKA Mango)

Then I have no idea. Might have to make a second gen file with the subs harcoded.

You could try pressing the subtitle button on your players remote.

Myself, and the judgment of strangers.

This is a project that along with my Weird Al and Devo projects is something I’ve been planning for years. As I continue to experiment with the world of AV restoration, I learn new things everyday. One thing I’ve learned is that it mostly results in failure, and due to my admittedly unrealistic expectations, I often get frustrated and abandon my projects only to come back to them once I’ve gotten more practice. This is one of those projects.

I’ve learned that in reality, this, the Weird al and Devo projects may never be released at all, at least to my standards. perhaps I put too much trust in Topaz AI and expect it to do all the work for me. Either way, I’ve started and abandoned all of my projects more then I can count. But since people seem to appreciate my work, I fell that I have to at least try. I pray that maybe by the end of the year, all of my projects will have some form of release. Maybe they wont be as grand as originally envisioned, but something is better than nothing.

Either way, this project, if ever finished will include:

Musik Films:
Radio-Activitat (1975)
Antenna (1975)
Trans-Europa Express (1977)
The Robots (1978)
Taschenrechner (1981)
Showroom Dummies (1982)
Das Model (1982)
Tour De France (1983)
Musique Non Stop (1986)
Der Telefon Anruf (1986)
Expo 2000 (1999)
Tour De France Étape 2 (2003)

TV Apperances:
Ruckzuck (Organization) [German TV Appearance] {1970}
Rücktoss-Gondoliere (German TV Appearance) [1970]
Koln II (German TV Appearance) [1970]
Tanzmusik (German TV Appearance) [1973]
Autobahn (Roger Mainwood Film) [1975]
Autobahn (UK TV Appearance) [1975]
Autobahn (US TV Appearance) [1975]
The Robots (Italian TV Appearance) [1978]
The Robots + Radioactivity (French TV Appearance) [1978]
Pocket Calculator (Italian TV Appearance) [1981]
The Model (German TV Appearance) [1982]
The Robots (German TV Appearance) [1991]
Expo 2000 (UK TV Appearance) [1999]
Areo Dynamik (US TV Appearance) [2003]

Bonus Videos:
Autobahn (Roger Mainwood Film) [1975]
Trans-Europe Express (English Version) [1977]
Ohne Maulkorb (Austrian TV Special) [1981]
Pocket Calculator (English Version) [1981]
Dentaku (Japanese Version) [1981]
The Model (English Version) [1982]
Tour De France (German Alternate Version) [1983]
Tour De France (French Alternate Version) [1983]
The Robots (English Remix) [1991]
The Robots (German Remix) [1991]
Radioactivity (Remix) [1991]
Expo 2000 (Remix) [1999]

The pilots and season 1 are complete. PM me for a download link.

Starting work on season 2 ASAP.

Gonna start work on this sometime soon. I don’t know of any HD release of any of these films, so I’ll upscale them to 4K from the DVD, (with color correction too). If there are any sources better then the dvd out there, please let me know.

Criterion recently announced a blu-ray of this film. Unsure if it’ll be the uncut version, but since it’s Criterion, its safe to assume that it will be.

Work is starting on version 2 again. More info soon.

Work had halted on this project while I waited for the new 4K restoration to be released. It’s an improvement, as it has the mono track, but it’s still missing the blue tint and high contrast. Working on this tonight, might even be able to upload tonight too.

Here’s another preview. This one has the regrain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPSvpI2y7q4

WXM said:

Ah. Then I’ll say your results look great then! 😃

Thanks!

WXM said:

A lot of it looks great, but the “chorus shots” of our boys, their faces, sometimes look over-processed…

https://youtu.be/yfBIsug4XOw?t=37

But I don’t know the source so perhaps that’s to be expected with those shots? (Is this an artifact of de-noising…?)

Mango said:

I finally found a good blend of denoise that retains the detail.

Is noise really that much of a problem in the source?

I’m not out to poo poo on your results. They do look good! 😃 Just throwing out thoughts from looking closely at things as you seemed to say you wanted.

The noise in the source is absolutely atrocious. I’ve come to the conclusion that no amount of work will ever make these look “perfect”. I’m happy enough with the result, and I forgot to mention that these are being regrained to reduce banding. The version I posted had not been regrained yet.

Here’s a little preview. Let me know what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfBIsug4XOw

Moiisty said:

what is jp2 and jp3?

I’m guessing by the profile picture that they’re referring to the Jurassic Park sequels.

Yeaaah, so those last previews were really shitty. But I finally found a good blend of denoise that retains the detail. I’ve been working on this project several hours a day for about a week. Thank you to everyone once again for their incredible patience. I promise the end result will be worth it.