Moth3r

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Also, to my consternation, BOTH versions fail to squish to the proper aspect ratio if I set the aspect ratio on the TV to 4:3 (i.e., it doesn't add additional letterbox in either case).

You need to set the aspect ratio on the DVD player to 4:3 to test this out.

However, there is SOME difference in the resulting files, because the icons that are created in DVD-Lab when I open up the .m2v files are different - one icon has larger letterboxes than the other. My question is, what is the difference in the .m2v files?  Is it just meta information stored along with the video, that some applications use? 

The only difference is the 16:9 flag. The actual encoded video is the same either way. (Unless the encoder is doing any resizing.)

Am I right in thinking the Region 1 disc has a 5.1 audio track?

Are there any obvious differences in picture between this disc and your previous HDTV -> DVD conversion?

The Evil Dead Treasures Collection that was uploaded to a.b.mm.horror was V1.1.

What provider do you use? I though it was only people who used the Easynews web interface that had problems with completion and required the extra PARs. I don't consider there is a need for a repost unless it was incomplete over several different providers.

I have the Evil Dead 2 discs from Myspleen; I was planning to upload them to the newsgroup in the next few days.

Yes, I noticed some serious motion errors. There's probably a way to reduce the strength of the stabilization filter which could help.

With regards to the contrast, I used the auto levels option for that demo. Manual adjustment would probably give better results. That said, the lack of detail in dark areas is not down to the script's adjustments - the detail was simply not there in the first place.

The most common cause of the type of jitter/stutter you mention is an incorrect framerate, i.e. 29.97fps instead of 23.976fps, with one frame in every 5 repeated.

This is how the clip previously posted looks when processed with the videoFred script. (Right-click, save as).

The term "bunny boiler" - used regularly in popular culture to describe a mad/psycho/mentally unstable woman - is a direct reference to Fatal Attraction.

This post may help:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/RE-How-to-obtain-fan-edits/post/336880/#post336880

Moved to off-topic for comedy value.

The guy from that site joined up here sometime last year to promote his sales. He then called me a fucking cunt and a complete and total wanker when I banned him.

I suppose another "straight border" vote would be redundant?

A little word on video aspect ratios:

Normally, AVI files are encoded for display at 1:1 Pixel Aspect Ratio (and without any black borders). Obviously in this case you wanted to demonstrate the alternative options for the final MPEG-2 encode at a DVD-compliant resolution. If this sample was encoded to MPEG-2 (with the 16:9 flag set) then it would display correctly, however as it's an AVI file then it does require the correct AR 'forcing' in your media player.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I also tried applying that impressive avisynth filter chain by videoFred (thanks for the link, Mothr!) to a segment of reel 1.  The results were disappointing - overemphasis of grain, especially.  But it is making me more aware of some things I can experiment with.

I finally managed to get that script working for myself. (If there's one thing I dislike about AviSynth, it's using someone else's complex script that requires you to chase all over the web for the obscure versions of the dll files required for the plugins to work. And those gurus at Doom9 complain if someone zips them all up into a convenient download because <voice="whinging nerd"> it violates the terms of the GPL  </voice>. )

I applied the script to your clip.avi sample you provided a while ago. I see what you mean about the overemphasis of grain, but the effect can be reduced by lowering the parameters in the sharpening section of the script. And it's extremely slow on my machine.

From what you said earlier I'm assuming you are not intending to use any processing as heavy as this. I would tend to agree with this premise - I have no objection to stabilization, levels adjustment and colour correction, but degraining and sharpening may be beyond the scope of "preservation". I can post some samples if you're interested.

Just add 1.017s of silence to the start of the file, then it will sync with the GOUT video.

Troy, Jay and Bill Gates.

Troy said:

Moth3r said:

And - it's a harsh fact, I know - but that is precisely what you are owed. The ability to read a forum on the internet and send private messages does not automatically entitle you to a copy of the latest fan edit.

 

Ok what does entitle you to an edit I ask?

Do your own.

You seem to be forgetting that distribution of material subject to copyright is illegal. Members who are sharing these projects are risking their own necks for the benefit of others.

Moth3r said:

Why do some people make whiny posts when they don't get what they want?

I get the impression you don't like me, have I done something to offened you?

I wasn't offended, just mildly annoyed. You started a thread in the Fan Edits and Preservation forum that is off-topic - the subject is nothing to do with fan edits or preservations. You just felt compelled to have a moan because you're not getting your own way.

You act surprised and hurt that no-one is willing to help you. And yet you accuse us of being selfish?

You also use words like "idiot" and "jackass" directed at ChainsawAsh, and you've got completely the wrong impression about the "spirit of the site".

Just because you are a mod dosen't mean you have to have ago at your members

True. But if I feel like "having a go", I will whether I'm a mod or not.

I also would be tempted to use a simple crop on the top and bottom to leave a hard clean horizontal edge.

Side cropping is a matter of taste - it is true that overscan will cover the edges on nearly all displays (even the official Region 1 GOUT has some garbage to the RHS if I recall). The only case where this is an issue is if using an upscaling DVD player, or HTPC, with a digital display set to 1:1 pixel mode (aka 'just scan', 'PC mode', etc.)

I assume that there has been some side cropping already, which is why the frame is now 654 × 480, however based on the sample frame a suitable crop/resize/border operation would be:

Crop(0, 10, 0, -12)
Spline36Resize(720, 310)
AddBorders(0, 85, 0, 85)

One could start by reading post 116 ITT.

From Spaced Ranger's analysis above, it looks like the cropping has extended the actual aspect ratio to around 2.75:1.

Therefore, the AviSynth resize step, assuming you are encoding in 16:9 anamorphic (why wouldn't you?) would be:

Spline36Resize(720, 310)
AddBorders(0, 85, 0, 85)

Yes AviSynth does have other resizing algorithms; you could try lanczosresize or lanczos4resize which are supposed to be sharper with a higher risk of artefacts, but to be honest I don't think there'd be any noticable difference.

Your raw frame would look like this:

And when played back on a 16:9 display, it would look something like this:

This should not be labeled as a fan edit, IMO. The project does however have merit as a Custom DVD - I have therefore amended the first post to remove any hints for torrent sites, etc. (I also got rid of that annoying animated GIF that seemed to be appearing for some unknown reason).

BTW the problems you mention with 16:9 menus were probably caused by an older version of DVD-lab Pro, which used to create 16:9 menus that were incompatible with DVD players set to 4:3 display modes. I haven't used DVD-lab Pro for a while now, so I don't know if that issue has been fixed.

The figures I suggested for resizing assumed you were going to encode to 16:9 anamorphic format.

nookupeous said:

...

Also, I had a rip of this on my PC awhile back, it was a scene release from 2004 so good luck finding it, but it was a xvid rip or something of a tape that's better quality than mine.  Here's the NFO to help your guys find it.  The torrents of this out there, I have no clue if there this copy only renamed or what, but I'm downloading to see if I can find a decent one.  This is the tape I have to offer, I can rip it if you guys like.

http://www.vcdq.com/index.php?page=nfo&id=22761

The rip you linked to is actually SVCD (over 6 CDs!), not Xvid. I doubt very much that it will still be available via torrents, no-one bothers with SVCD anymore.

My GIF above by Vaderios

Nice - but 4MB is too big for a signature image. Please change it.

Troy said:

Can someone please explain to me whatever happened to the PIF policy on the forum?

The forum never had a PIF policy. Some fan editors chose to initially distribute their projects using this method, that's all.

I have offered to supply discs, postage or anything they need...

That is not PIF.

If I am neither a high ranking member nor have a stockpile of other edits then I’m left with nothing.

And - it's a harsh fact, I know - but that is precisely what you are owed. The ability to read a forum on the internet and send private messages does not automatically entitle you to a copy of the latest fan edit. I'm not getting at you in particular, but I'm tired of receiving PMs from people expecting me to "help them out".

Why are some people selfish and/or greedy?

Why do some people make whiny posts when they don't get what they want?

I can put disc 1 of the Evil Dead II DVD Companion on the newsgroups if there's any interest. What is the official volume label? (The torrent is a collection of DVD files rather than a disc image.)

Use PgcDemux to extract the sbbpic stream you want from the old disc, and the video+audio from the new disc. (Hopefully they will be in sync.) Remux them all using Muxman, then use VobBlanker to replace the PGC on the disc (with menus) with the PGC you have just created that includes the subtitles.

Not that I've had any experience with it myself, but the obvious one would be the DePanStabilize/DePanEstimate combination, as used by both gforce's GOUT script and VideoFred's 8mm restoration method.