Mavimao

SilverWook said:

Was HFR even a thing in the late 80's early 90's?

There must be some arcane technical reason for shooting the models at 30fps.

As all of TNG was edited on NTSC video, any PAL conversion at the time was going to be problematic.

In the early 50s, Todd AO was created, which was a 70mm format filmed and projected at 30 fps. There were actually two films shot side by side with regular 24fps cameras and 30 fps Todd AO cameras: Oklahoma! and Around the World in 80 Days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd-AO 

Douglas Trumbull created his "Showscan" format in the late 70s/early 80s which projected 70mm film at 60 frames per second. No films were ever filmed in the format for reasons one can probably understand. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showscan

As far as to why half the model shots were done in 30 fps, it just seemed like Dan Curry's preferred method. Rob Legato did every other episode's effects in 24 fps so there wasn't a real technical issue. 

bkev said:

 

pittrek said:

- Dan Curry's team was shooting models in 30fps, their movement looks weird in 24fps

AHA! I always KNEW there was something weird about the SFX shots in TNG. The video framerate definitely made me think TNG went CG like DS9 did eventually.

 

Yeah, Dan Curry did every other episode and the higher frame rate gives it that soap opera look, so that's why some people often mistakingly think the models were shot on video cameras, thus making the restoration impossibly expensive to do. 

I think it was a bad idea to choose that frame-rate. I get that it transfers well to NTSC video, but all of the main action was shot at 24 and going from one frame-rate to another is not only jarring, but it makes for poorer conversions to PAL. 

He may also be one of those HFR advocates which, in all honesty, I cannot understand one freaking bit. I saw the Hobbit in HFR and it was horrid; absolutely, positively eye-gougeingly horrid. Higher frame-rates are not more realistic. Wave your hand in front of your face very quickly and what do you see? Blur. (end rant)

pittrek said:

I absolutely LOVE the remastered BDs of TNG. I just love them. The documentaries are just excellent, the deleted scenes are an amazing addition, and the HD scan and colour correction is simply mind-blowing.

 

There are however things I don't like :

- extreme, extreme DVNR on Season 2,

- very bad compositing of some of the SFX scenes. mainly on season 2, but also on a few scenes in season 4

- some of the colour correction - well, I prefer the DVD colours, and also I don't understand why they made some scenes darker, but this is again mainly visible in seasons 2 and 4

- I don't like the fact that they're CG-ing some of the SFX scenes, to be honest I would prefer the elements to be upscaled from the SD tapes

- Dan Curry's team was shooting models in 30fps, their movement looks weird in 24fps

 

Even with these problems I don't regret buying the blus and I definitely WILL buy the whole show, and of course any other shows they release in HD

- I agree that the DVNR in the live-action special effects shots is the one thing I cannot stand about the Season 2 blurays. I can look past the sub-par compositing and some of the low-rez planet shots, but the noise reduction is really distracting. 

- About the color... I don't know, I agree it can be a tad over-saturated, but the DVDs look dull and lifeless. 

- I can't agree with you on the CGI, however. Although the CGI isn't perfect, the original composites were done on analog composite (ie: color and luma mushed together) videotape, so they are low-resolution and riddled with video noise. Look at Trek Core's before and after of Booby Trap  http://youtu.be/Fb_KdXgOhTk?t=4m18s

- I know they scanned Curry's effects shots at 24 and then sped them up about 135%, and I've tried hard to find any artifacts even going so far as to stare at the screen from 5 inches away during Yesterday's Enterprise, but I could not find anything weird, apart from a little less motion blur. Although, in Identity Crisis, when they are on the planet looking for transformed-Geordi at the end, that sequence was shot at 30 fps and there is an obvious skipped frame during a camera movement, and the overall quality is blurry.

Just amazing. Will you guys be releasing one film at a time or all at once?

Just incredible. Glad it's up and working!

doubleofive said:

I have Seasons 1 & 2, mostly to support the idea of rebuilding the entire show from scratch using the original elements, but also because I'd actually not seen most of the episodes. They look incredible, like they were made yesterday (which I guess they were now). And the bonus features are outstanding, mostly because they've had 25 years to look back on it, unlike features on shows still on, where its all EPK fluff.

 

I think the first two seasons really benefit from the remaster seeing as the original film to tape transfers were of really low quality. The somewhat lackluster, hamfisted story-telling can be somewhat forgiven...

Yeah, the special features are pretty great as well, although be forewarned that when you get to season 4, there's a dip in the quality of the VAM. The writers kinda repeat what they talked about in season 3 and the actors are kinda repeating what they've been telling in the other interviews, and the art department interview is a real snore fest. Luckily the old DVD extras are there and those are still interesting. 

Bingowings said:

 

I like some key episodes so I might get a best of box set or something.

They have been releasing popular episodes in separate packaging, if that floats your boat. They put Best of Both Worlds Pts I and II on a single disc, Redemption I & II on another release and Unification pts 1 & 2 will be coming next. That along with the sampler disc that came out before they released the season sets that includes Encounter at Farpoint, The Inner Light, and Sins of the Father... There's quite the best-of collection right there. 

So has anyone gotten around to watching the Next Generation remastered on Bluray? I've been purchasing every season because 1) I'm a big fan of TNG and 2) I want to support this project which everyone thought would have been impossible to do. 

I am really impressed with how well lit the whole show was, especially the models which, when recomposited with today's technology, look like motion picture quality work. 

A few things have been redone with CGI, (planets and phasers of course, but also some shots of the ships) but when it's done it's always with the upmost respect for the original intent. 

Huzzah!

Like Pete Rose?

All versions of Star Wars DE are 720p. This resolution was chosen because it's easier on Harmy's computer (takes less time to render, less space on the HD, etc), better matches the upscaled GOUT sources, and in any case, the loss of detail from downrezing the bluray from 1080 to 720 was negligible anyway. 

Good to know you have better tools! I was also wondering how you were making the color choices you're making? Are you comparing the GOUT? A film source? An LD source?

Harmy, I was curious how you're approaching the color-correction this time around? I recently watched a bit of 1.0 and was amazed already at the difference I saw between your workprint of v2 and your old version. 

Are you using any specific sources? Could - or Did - Youtoo do his magical crushed black color correction like he did on ANH?

dave88 said:

Thanks for making this available Mavimao, and thanks for all your hard work Puggo. It is appreciated.

You're welcome, hope you enjoy it!

CatBus said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

BTW, I sent Mavimao the 8mm audio files too.

So the 8mm mono is slightly different than the 16mm then?  Any sync plans for this?

The 8mm version that Puggo sent me is an abridged version that runs something like 30 minutes ...kinda like those read along books for kids, so it is impossible to sync. I can send it to you, Catbus, if you'd like. 

Yaaaay!!

CatBus said:

Mavimao said:

Funny you mentioned 32 bit... I read somewhere that FCP handles audio at "32 floating bit point" and yet when I export the audio as a WAV file the info says 24 bits. I then transcoded the audio with Max into FLAC. There must be a weird correlation that I'm not understanding. 

Maybe the problem's on my end.  Audition said it was 32 bits, but maybe it was wrong.  Or maybe it's a deal where it's 32 defined bits in the spec but only 24 are actually used, who knows... either way it's too many bits IMO ;)

Agreed! 16 is more than enough!

Thank you A-New-Hope for the sites. I'll check them out and try to put a link up for those who'd rather just have a link to click on. 

Yeah, Catbus, sorry about the huge bit rates. Final Cut Pro X doesn't allow one to fine tune exports (unless one buys the $50 compressor program) and for some reason wants to export everything at 24 bit/48000. Funny you mentioned 32 bit... I read somewhere that FCP handles audio at "32 floating bit point" and yet when I export the audio as a WAV file the info says 24 bits. I then transcoded the audio with Max into FLAC. There must be a weird correlation that I'm not understanding. 

I just muxed it with Harmy's Despecialized 1.0 and it's kinda fun hearing this really lo-fi audio - almost like going to a drive-in!

Thanks for the info Puggo. Good job on blending those 5 seconds, didn't even notice when I was going over it. I had a hard time just getting the drum roll to blend in from the stereo source. 

As for the missing frame at the end credits music, I gave up trying to EQ the stereo source to blend in with the rest of the music (it kept sticking out like a sore thumb), so I just time stretched the gap and left it at that. 

Right, so I've pretty much finished my work and if you are interested in obtaining a FLAC file, send me your email in a PM and I'll send you a link. Feel free to point out any issues with sync or sound quality. 

I haven't exported it yet in full quality, but I'm looking at 1.3 to 1.5 gigs.

I also wonder just how many people would really want to download an obscure sound mix to mux in with their GOUT projects. If it's not many, I can just wetransfer it whenever someone wants it. 

EDIT: If I transcode it in a loss-less format like FLAC, I think I could get it down even lower. 

(Moved a lot of info in this post to the 1st one)

I'd like to know what the best way to transfer a loss-less file over the internet..? I'm not very savvy about these things, and I don't have enough space on my dropbox. 

As you may know, the discovery of a completely new mix of Empire Strikes Back was made last year with the release of Puggo Strikes Back. The sound mix came from a 16mm print that Jaxxon had supplied Puggo to scan and capture.

The history of this mix is completely unknown but it was determined that it was created after the 70mm and 35mm mixes perhaps for the 16mm market (schools, hospitals, etc) and has some similarities with foreign mixes which points to its chronological history. This mix is not a simple fold-down of the theatrical mixes and contains many differences such as new or alternate dialogue and sounds, more prominent music and effects (to account for the low dynamic range of the mono film standard), and oddly enough, some lines such as “the first transport is away” and “meet you at the rendez vous spot” are shifted completely.

Because of the uniqueness of the mix, I decided to do two things: 1) sync it to the GOUT and 2) create a left ear/right ear comparison file for those who would like to listen to and perhaps discover more differences.

First, much thanks go to Jaxxon for supplying the print and, of course, to Puggo who did all of the capturing, did an initial sync pass to his project and allowed me access to the uncompressed files to do this for the community. What I did is child’s play compared to what he’s done already.

I did all my work in Final Cut Pro X, and used the laserdisc 1980 stereo track taken from Harmy’s 1.0 as my syncing guide. Although Puggo’s initial sync would have probably worked fine without much work, I wanted the track to sync up as perfectly as possible to the stereo track so the comparison file would be easier to listen to. This required a bit of cutting and moving and time-stretching here and there - and never more than a couple frames - but this took less time than I imagined.

UPDATE 8-31-13:

First, here’s the link for the finalized FLAC file. The bit depth is a bit over the top due to FCPX’s lack of exporting fine-tuning.

https://mega.co.nz/#!6cBgHDCa!bv2FPn7Bzn0_2KVn5ig9wDXRbxw9xEm5FsHFIPwOnaA

I’m also going to include a compressed 192k/s AC3 for those who would like to have a smaller file to immediately mux in without having to go through compressing anything first. I know 192 is not a lot, but there is very little dynamic range in this mix as it comes from 16mm optical (and not a master mag) so there is very little to subtract sonically.

https://mega.co.nz/#!nAw22CLB!MX7ZMV1W_deW_96uD7DGW34LJ3oJqsVGwZURdhlzK-4

Finally, for those who would like to see what differences there are between this mono mix and the ordinary stereo mix, I have provided a 256k mp3 with the 1980 stereo track panned to the left ear and the mono mix panned to the right. You’d be surprised at all the subtle differences! I know I was! Please note that there is a 5 second segment somewhere that Puggo spliced in from the stereo track (still waiting to find out where) Also, the drum roll for the opening fanfare is missing on the original print so it’s not here either. There is also a frame of music from the end credits missing. These last two issues are fixed in the finalized file above.

This comparison file can be downloaded here:

https://mega.co.nz/#!mIQhTBbD!PCibkhx_rZsY-jzzHMAbtVb-aA9GdoH-Ut88kBU4ByQ

Catbus has also created a DTS-HD file if anyone is interested in that…?

Poita definitely has a way. Puggo does not. His scanner is SD only. 

Harmy said:

Well, because the recompositing in those SW scenes didn't change the look of those shots as significantly as it did here (where it did change the look significantly, the shots were also replaced - like most of the fighter explosions in the Yavin battle).

And the shots in ESB are not simple GOUT upconverts either - just go ahead and compare these shots to the GOUT.

OK, and I apologize if I seemed to belittle your efforts by saying "GOUT upconverts". I see now there's a lot more work going on there.