MonkeyLizard10

refreshed links (nothing new here at all, just expired links refreshed):
UHD REC2100 PQ version (not that it uses the HDR aspect it is just SDR in HDR wrapper, maybe the wide gamut aspect a trace on a few frames that might be clipped in the standard gamut version):
https://we.tl/t-tlVlP07AOt

UHD REC709 version:
https://we.tl/t-ureYrwbpxQ

both have Dolby analog stereo (probably it has Dolby Surround matrixed 4.0 surround, haven’t checked) and Cinema DTS 5.1 audio

A more permanent link but this has worse compression, REC709 only, no Cinema DTS 5.1 audio due to Youtube restrictions:
https://youtu.be/VW2aXk9kGKs?si=7RDWdOqbpLIQe5AL

link to UHD REC709 version of TPM ‘B’ (this one done with quick HW Nvidia Encoding) https://we.tl/t-4is0uVjmW2

often TV sets tend to be more accurately calibrated in their REC709 modes than in their HDR Wide Gamut modes so the colors/satuation might look a a bit more accurate for you with this version depending upon your set and its calibration, it might clip a few colors though but I’m not sure this trailer has all that much wide gamut content so might not make too much difference for this. Perhaps the NVidia HW encoding isn’t quite as good as the software encoding for the REC2100 PQ version. And it may run better work better for those viewing on a regular screen.

Link (valid for one week) to the version 1.00 of The Phantom Menace Trailer ‘B’ (Main Trailer) in UHD REC2100 PQ with Dolby Analog 2.0 (probably it is matrixed for simple surround?) and Cinema DTS 5.1 audio tracks:
https://we.tl/t-6yQlk3V15W

A few issues are: the masking to compensate for light bleed from edges was over done, the version that got the masking perfect I guess was lost in the crash, so I’ll tweak that a bit before processing the AOTC feature and other trailers and in my excitement I started it making the initial .mp4 out before I went back and edited out a few of the largest dusts and before I edited out a few of the white dot glue seams between some scenes (in theaters would have been masked out but I wanted to present as much frame area as possible) but they are not all that apparent and distracting in this trailer (unlike for the ROTJ SE where the big white lines make a big flash that is annoying) so it’s not too big of a deal at all, I lost the capture sharpening processing in the crash and made a new one but I think it is dialed in well and probably is fine as is, black level I think is OK perhaps it could use a -1 step darker but not sure might be best as is. Eventually I’ll go back and make a 1.1 version with the edge masking refined and the tiny bits of cleanup.

A time consuming calibration process for the scanner was carried out and the trailer scan was also compared back side by side with the original 35mm viewed under theatrical presentation-like D56 lighting. This should be the most color accurate version out there (at least to my 35mm copy of the trailer). And yes, the grass on the hill at the start is quite golden and olive tinted and the grass/foliage in other scenes does trend yellow/orange/olive that is what the original 35mm trailer colors were like.

Rendering out the final TPM ‘B’ trailer as I type as a test to make sure everything is working (especially after the huge crash wiped out my computer and lot of settings (but not the color calibrations which I thankfully had done a manual back up on recently enough). After that then will start rendering out the AOTC feature. Will do it reel by reel since the rendering takes a LONG time so final stuff can be seen before the entire feature is done. A number of seconds per frame for the intermediate PNG outs and there are 24,000+ frames per reel. It’s a maxsize 6.5K DNG based project not a quicker 2k or 4k ProRes scan based project. It’s tons of terabytes of scan data. I’ll also put out the first 10 minutes of reel 1 once that is done to get something out there sooner. Anyway, the feature will finally start rendering out this month (August).

Sent a bunch of PMs to those asking about the project.

JadedSkywalker said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

JadedSkywalker said:

The trailers are donation only as well as the feature or just the feature?

The trailers will go up on Youtube (but links to less compressed versions for most will be for donors, links to less compressed versions for the ROTJ trailer will public).

I should have been more specific will the Bring it On Trailer be made available, sorry for the long wait to respond.

Yes, that trailer as well as the others will all be on youtube (and direct links to better than youtube quality for contributors).

quick update:

I believe I should be able to start rendering out the JP scan starting in September.
I’ll put it out reel by reel at first since the rendering out is very slow so you won’t have to wait for the entire thing to finish to start seeing something. A number of seconds per frame and 24,000+ frames per reel.

On discord.

Yeah this auction is already being tracked. It seems to be a 1985? print from UK.
The worrisome thing is the talk of a weird bad cleaning, warping and residue.

Interesting. I’ll check it out (VHS), but very busy next few weeks. If it seems different, I’ll eventually do capture of the tape (still need to grab a TBC though, have capture card and also a super high quality headphone amp that can also amp the sound out of the HiFi SVHS VCR to improve the audio quality of the BlackMagic capture card rather than it’s cheaper bits doing all the amping).

Thanks!

Your TFA stuff sounds cool.

There are full to near full audio only recordings for SW and TESB. I think there may be a second set of much shorter partial recordings for those to. I think there are a couple videos of the very, very start of TESB. There are least two in theater audio only recordings of TROS (but recorded late in the game, months into the run) and a few short video snips of parts of the end credits. There may be more stuff.

A print recently sold on ebay but nobody doing these projects had the money on the spot to cover it and get it.

Nah that is that same Russian print that has been up there for ages. THe quality looks awful, even crappy untimes snapshots should have it looking way better than that, and the collection it comes from has been said to often been horribly moldy, etc.

It is interesting to revist this thread now that two different 70mm prints have turned up. One is the original cut and has the different Bacta scene, different ending, etc. and lots of different composites, especially during Hoth battle and the second one exactly matches the 35mm cut.

CannonShy said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:
Is often heavily compressed streaming audio actually better quality than VHS HiFi audio recording?

I agree that VHS HiFi can sound pretty good, almost as good as CD quality in the right conditions (good tape, good deck).

But: the streaming audio is 640kbit Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded from (probably) a 6 channel 48khz 16 bit PCM master.

If you have an off-air recording onto VHS, the signal has been on long journey before it hit your VHS deck. Starting from a comparable master tape (probably 48khz 16bit PCM stereo) -> C-band (NTSC) -> Beta SP tape (whatever your local TV station had at the time, maybe DVCAM or digiBeta towards the end) -> SDI (for adding station logos) -> NTSC over whatever medium -> VHS -> whatever you can digitize it with.

The VHS tape, even on a good day, is a couple of analogue generations behind the streaming audio.

I know the TV networks were shifting over to high-bitrate MPEG-2 based distribution of material (not sure if the audio was compressed or not in the MPEG-2 feed) towards the end of Buffys run, and digital tape like DVCAM was becoming pretty cheap - so for the later seasons, assuming you had digital cable (probably Dolby Digital stereo at 192kbits) fed from a digital-only station - it’s much closer. But it’s still adding a layer of wow-and-flutter and an digital -> analogue -> digital round trip to a Dolby Digital signal encoded at a lower bit-rate than the streaming.

That said - if you do have VHS recordings of any of the original airings of Buffy episodes - it would be great to confirm the openings I posted above are correct. It would also be great to clarify which “Tonights presentation is intended for our …”/“New Tuesday” bumper was used with which episode - if you can post any information you have that would be great !

Canon.

Although it should be noted that many cable system re-compress all the video AND audio and often the digital audio is very crappy compared to the original digital compressed audio so it is often hardly any sort of pure chain either and usally just 192bitrate. It all depends upon the year and the exact cable system recorded off of. But it didn’t seem that rare to me that taped HiFi VHS would sound better. It really depends.

But yeah I guess the streaming DD would be direct and most likely not re-compressed and could be higher bitrate, but could sometimes still just be 19s.

CannonShy said:

Regarding the 5.1 mix - I’ve only reviewed one episode (S01E02) - but if that’s consistent with the rest of the series I can say the following:

• I believe the 5.1 mix is the results of taking the stereo “music and effects” tracks, and running it through a Dolby surround decoder to get Left, Right, Surround Left, Surround Right and a low passed LFE channel - the mono dialog track is used to populate the center channel. My evidence for this is:
  – Zero dialogue leakage to left, right, surround, or LFE channels
  – Surround and LFE channel activity correlates pretty much 100% with activity in the left and right channels
  — Checkout the dialogue heavy section between 02:14 and 03:48 (Giles spins a globe and spouts exposition), no LFE, no surround.
  – Seems they’d likely have a M&E/Dialogue split so they could do other language dubs.

• This means a mixdown should be transparent-ish (see below images)
  – A downmix of the 5.1 streaming track I made using ffmpeg looks pretty similar to the original soundtrack, there might be some minor equalization differences - but notice the ~15khz CRT whine in the spectrogram particularly at ~16 minutes present in both it looks to be identical (seems to be coming from the dialogue track)
  – There is a question of the relative phase of the surround channels to ensure correct Dolby Surround compatibility in the downmix - would need to check that

Assuming this holds, it should mean that the streaming soundtrack can be downmixed (with the right ffmpeg command) to produce something very very close to the broadcast stereo soundtrack at much higher quality than any actual recording of the original broadcasts we happen to have copies of.

5.1 Streaming mix

DVD Audio 2.0

Streaming mix downmixed to 2.0 in ffmpeg

Don’t forget that many stereo TV broadcasts were actually surround sound and meant to be decoded with Dolby Pro Logic if you had that capability so even during the original TV broadcasts.

"Dolby Surround Pro Logic is the full name that refers to the matrix surround format and decoding system in one. When a Dolby Surround soundtrack is created in post-production (Dolby MP Matrix), four channels of sound are matrix-encoded into an ordinary stereo (two-channel) soundtrack. The center channel is reduced in level by 3 dB and summed to the left and right channels; the surround channel is attenuated by 3 dB, passes through a band-pass filter (cutting frequencies under 100 Hz and above 7 kHz), passes through Dolby B noise reduction and is encoded on the left and right channels with opposite polarity (this is achieved by applying a +90-degree phase shift to the left channel and a −90-degree phase shift to the right channel).[2] The surround channel was often used for ambient background sounds in the original recording, music scores and effects.

A Dolby Pro Logic decoder/processor “unfolds” the soundtrack back into its original 4.0 surround—left and right, center, and a single limited frequency-range (7 kHz low-pass filtered)[3] mono rear channel—while systems lacking the decoder play back the audio as standard stereo. "

"Note that the original Pro Logic had mono surrounds so the side surrounds were the same signal, but Pro Logic II has some additional processing which creates separation in the side surrounds. The end result is a reasonable spacial sound-field but due to nature of matrix encode/decode U are limited to about 20dB separation between channels while with a Dolby Digital 5.1 encode/decode process will yield >50dB. "

I’m not quite sure if NTSC TV broadcasts got switched to try to deliver split surrounds and LFE in 2000 or not.

Anyway, the point is that there is no need to downmix any of the 5.1 sources to try to get the ‘original’ stereo TV broadcasts since they were surround sound to begin with. That said probably for the first four seasons the surrounds were probably not split so technically the 5.1 digital sources wouldn’t be quite the same though I guess (assumg they even actually feature true split surrounds).

Ronster said:

Cliffs71 said:

As for the print itself… Holy Jeebus! I can’t imagine it looked any better opening day of any of the 70mm re-releases. It was gorgeous and other than that 2 seconds of damage (which, BTW, didn’t require any frames to be lost to repair and didn’t affect the sound), the print was pretty immaculate. Dykstra did say there was considerable effort of the part of many to get Lucas’s approval, so I sadly wouldn’t hold out much hope that this print suddenly finds its way into more and more screenings. I think it could be seen again, but my gut tells me (to quote Indy) only on special occasions. The bigger news to me though is just the knowledge that this exists in the first place and therefore it IS possible should that occasion ever happen.

It is not all that surprising that this 70mm version exists more so what is weirder is that it could have been used and scanned ages ago and released Instead of the GOUT or alongside the SE.

Simply Scanning this would have probably yielded better results than the Digital Restoration work for 2004 and onwards?

I think it’s strange that this could not have been used as a source for a Restoration. Ok it’s a Blowup but it’s still good.

Is this something that could have been found recently or forgotten about?

Yeah would be a great thing for them to have scanned and released as an original version on home media. It could even make it easier since they could say since it is lower res and has grain and so on it won’t compete with the true SE version. And the original 6-track magnetic sound in full quality! And the original colors too!

from the Cinema DTS for TPM we see that it lists:

dts - DTS Flying Disc non-original (of course only played in theaters using DTS) it seems like it is this particular variety of the DTS Flying Disc snipe intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmhZB5cKlxQ

mann1 - a snipe promoting Mann Theaters (of course only Mann theaters would run this) and I think it is probably this variety most likely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF2v-D_b90s

thxbrdwy - THX Broadway intro (only THX theaters would play this or depending upon what they felt like one of the other THX below instead) probably this 1994 version since I think the next version was in 2000 which would be too late but would have to verify:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjyGQggQF6I

thxgrand - THX Grand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9idIJ_LMn0

thxtex1 - THX TEX original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uiac8Qs_RU

simpsons - THX Simpsons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfiUlIiGBg

tex2moo - THX TEX 2 MOO (it is quite possible that this THX version was often chosen to go with showings of TPM since it was apparently produced for the premiere of TPM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0GlkevMuQ

hollywd3 - Hollywood Theaters Promo 3 snipe (obviously only Hollywood Theaters would run this) not seeming to find a scan on Youtube, it talks about adjusting the rear speakers, having a killer sound system plus THX, has a surround sound demo, talks about clearview seats, go Hollywood or you know go blonde especially in the summer, etc. etc., it is quite long

cntryrem - Century Theaters snipe (" ") not easily finding the correct version on Youtube

carmtrap - Carmike Theaters Across America snipe (" ") pretty sure it is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAR5PwVyLEs

cinemtrl - Cinemark Theaters The Best Seat In Town 1999 snipe (" ") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgdp215NqUI

cineimax - some sort of Cineplex snipe (" ") it is very vaguely like this one but definitely quite different all the same, can’t seem to find the right one on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AvXrXNZDd8

wilrog99 - Will Rogers Summer 1999 PSA FOX NFL SUNDAY snipe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNcEURa5-xE

staratta - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set A which goes as follows:
It starts by saying “Now a quick look at three films currently in production.”
Then it has 50 seconds for Anna And The King teaser then about 50 seconds for Fight Club teaser then about 35 seconds for Titan A.E. teaser.

starattb - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set B (so it seems like maybe they printed three different U.S. versions of the prints each with a slightly different set of attached teaser trailers, the trailers are so short I wonder if some or all might not be versions exclusive to U.S. theatrical prints of TPM) which goes as follows:
It starts by saying “Now a quick look at three films currently in production.”
Then it has the same 50 seconds for Anna And The King and then maybe 35 seconds of something I’m not quite sure. It sounds almost like Leonardo DiCaprio saying the line “You hope and you dream and you never believe that something is gonna happen for you. A man dies. Leaves you the mystery map to a secret island. And your life is different. It won’t ever be the same again.” So I’m thinking this must be a teaser for The Beach. And then it continues with what sounds like the same 35 seconds for Titan A.E. as on attached teasers A.

starattc - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set C which goes as follows:
Then it has the same 50 seconds for Anna And The King teaser then about the same 35 seconds for Titan A.E. teaser.

So it sounds like they printed up three different versions of TPM for the U.S. and that the attached trailers were:
Version A -
Anna And The King mini teaser
Fight Club mini teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

Version B -
Anna And The King mini teaser
The Beach ultra teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

Version C -
Anna And The King mini teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

sil2sec - two seconds of silence

I can’t say that I have any particular familiarity with any of the theater chain specific snipes above as we mostly had AMC and indies in my area and then that plus Loews or SONY and Clearview Cinemas and a few General Cinemas and Reading Cinema. And AMC and Loews/SONY were pretty much exclusively SDDS as fas as I recall and Reading Cinema was exclusively DD I believe. I think some Clearview and General Cinema had DTS but DTS didn’t seem to make any DTS audio chain specific snipes for them ever it seems. I think the only THX in my area were one auditorium at maybe three General Cinema locations?

There are standalone trailers called “Titan A.E. (w/Anna & King combo)” and “Anna and the King (w/Titan AE combo)”. I have to check to see if they are the same trailer or whether they swapped the order. Maybe one or both of these standalone trailers is the same as the attached set for TPM Version C?

If neither of the standalone combo trailers listed above is the same then the Anna And The King mini teaser and Titan A.E. ultra teaser are likely exclusive to the TPM feature prints. I have a bad feeling that the Fight Club and The Beach mini and ultra, respectively, teasers might be exclusive to TPM feature print versions A and B exclusively.

Fang Zei said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

Does anyone happen to know off-hand which DTS trailer(s) would have been the ones played before DTS showings of AOTC?

EDIT: actually the DTS disc for it should give it away so long as the names are not too short and cryptic

Like Mike and that first teaser for the Matrix sequels are two that I still remember from my opening day screening.

Total guess as to what else would be on the dts disc.

Minority Report, The Bourne Identity, and Men in Black II are other possibilities.

According to the DTS disc, for DTS theaters, either the regular DTS trailer or the DTS SONIC trailer were used.

For THX it seems that many seem to think that the first theatrical (as opposed to home video) premiere of the relatively new 2001 THX Cavalcade trailer was with Attack Of The Clones.

Yeah Like Mike trailer ‘A’ is for sure that was supposed to always run as well as the built into the first reel Minrority Report trailer ‘C’. They are the two with audio on the AOTC Cinema DTS feature disc.

I was a little unsure about The Matrix Revolutions since it didn’t come out for over a year later and if it was true figured it must have been the teaser so it is cool that you confirm that you saw The Matrix Revolutions teaser.

Apparently some say the film was supposed to only run with 4 trailer max limit opening week, although it is unclear if that meant max 4 in addition to the built-in Minority Report or max in addition to that plus Like Mike so whether it was supposed to be 4 or 5 or 6 total. Most seem to think probably the limit meant max 6 total but maybe 5 total and few think it meant 4 total.

Apparently Star Trek Nemesis, Men In Black II, Die Another Day, Austin Powers Goldmember were other options.

Probably it was Minority Report ‘C’ + Like Mike ‘A’ and then some mix of 4 of: Star Trek Nemesis, Men In Black II, Die Another Day, Austin Powers Goldmember, The Matrix Reloaded teaser. There also seems to have been a Star Trek Nemesis w/Men In Black II combo trailer not sure if that was supposed to count as one or two, maybe ones that showed that then also shows The Matrix Reloaded teaser or something?

The AOTC feature itself has Minority Report directly on Reel 1 itself at the start.
The Cinema DTS disc for it also lists:
sandrew (not sure if this is a trailer for a movie or something else, the other stuff all looked to be THX/DTS/various cinema snipes and stuff, maybe this is too)
lkmktrla
minrtrlc

So it seems that all proper showings of it on opening day were to show Like Mike trailer ‘A’ and Minority Report trailer ‘C’ and then perhaps sandrew (if that is a movie trailer). And then beyond that I guess various other things they felt like attaching like various ones mentioned above.

For AOTC special trailers (for DTS and/or THX) it turns out that it was most likely this DTSSONIC and perhaps instead or also one called vaguely DTS (need to look into this DTS labelled one more):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0jRA4b78s

And the THX trailers would have most likely been one or more of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSi0n4nDVDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9idIJ_LMn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05COcAUq3Z4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOgWbjzFgj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGo8Sg0VDEY

Does anyone happen to know off-hand which DTS trailer(s) would have been the ones played before DTS showings of AOTC?

EDIT: actually the DTS disc for it should give it away so long as the names are not too short and cryptic

Nothing too much, just more images, all in ProPhotoRGB wide gamut format so you need a color-managed browser/viewer to see them (and a wide gamut monitor if you also want to see the extra colors, some of them don’t really have any wide gamut colors in them but the DTS ones definitely do, two of them have tons of wide gamut extension and look way muted and color-altered in sRGB/REC709 display viewing compared to wide gamut viewing, note that is nothing to do with HDR as these are all SDR, just the colors are extended to more saturated shades than regular gamut can show):