PDB

poita said:

Fistful of dollars is also available, I wish we had a better way to crowdfund for prints!

It looks like The Good The Bad and The Ugly print will be going ahead, anyone that can help cover the shipping fees, please feel free to do so :)

I just want to make sure before we pull the trigger so to speak that everyone is aware that even with the print scanned at 4K, the BD will probably have more true detail, and probably a wider dynamic range than the print,and that the print has the Italian mono soundtrack as far as I know. And even a great print of this age will have scratches and some emulsion lines and some splices.

What the print will bring us is as close to the true colour timing and framing of the film as we are ever likely to get.

To me though, it's greatest benefit will be to be able to regrade the BD to match the theatrical release.

 Fantastic poita! Is Fistful an IB also? How much in shipping do you need?

TheHutt said:

I was wondering - should I make an attempt to sync this track with the Mondo disc?

Or would this be unnecessary as there were other people who did it before me?

 I third it. I would love the track synced to the Mondo

I haven't downloaded it but I know kk650/kingkong made a regraded version where he fixed the contrast. From his description:

When the blu-ray came out, I was very disappointed about just how different the image dynamics were from the DVD I loved, the contrast had been boosted to ridiculous levels and everything had a strong yellow filter over it in comparison to the DVD. I have therefore gone ahead and regraded the blu-ray to closely match the DVD's image dynamics, greatly reducing the blu-ray contrast to match the dvd and removing the strong yellow filter to bring the colours back to how they looked on the DVD. I think the film looks much better now in this version, much more natural like it did on the DVD.

You can try that.

Hey hutt,

   Just muxed your mono to the 4K. I haven't been able to watch it all the way through but skimmed through a large portion of it. Great work all round! Without even reading your summary at the top of this thread, I know this had to require and incredible amount of work. But seeing what it did take, makes me appreciate the work all the more. Especially fixing the one gunshot at the river.

Thanks for doing this. Just incredible work. It makes me so happy to watch GBU back in the original mono.

Glad to hear its done Hutt!

drngr said:

I think if you're going to spend any time on this movie now, it may as well be on the open matte version since some feel that one has its own merits besides color. Meanwhile OAR can wait until there is 35mm footage to use.

 Is it worth re-matting the open matte to 2.39? Or is the resolution make it not worth it. The opening can be upscaled from the dvd.

DoomBot said:

I think it looks pretty damn good PDB!

 Thanks Doom

So I want to preface this by saying I'm not sure what I'm doing 100%, I'm no expert (like a lot of guys around here) but I'm trying to teach myself something new. I wanted to see if I could regrade RW/MM2 back to the more yellow of the DVD/LD/35mm colors (also want to try The Good The Bad and the Ugly but one thing at a time). I was going to use colourlike and Avisyth scripts but didn't feel comfortable with that so instead I tried Adobe Speedgrade and Davinci Resolve Lite.

I first attempted one single regrade for the whole movie but quickly found out that I would have to regrade scene by scene, shot by shot. So using Adobe Premiere I cut the opening chase on the BD into all its component shots and regraded them best I could to the equivalent shots from the DVD. Not sure if this is the smartest/easiest method but it is the one I came up with. Anyway, I wanted to see if I was on the right track, so I uploaded a sample for people to see:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/vb6sny

I think it is about 85% - 90% there. Just wondering if this was good enough to keep going or if I'm way off. Comments welcomed. For those with the DVD can you let me know if anything looks way off.

Thanks guys, I will try TSmuxer instead

poita said:

There has been an offer from a known forum member here, who lives in Italy to help with the transaction, so that is very much appreciated, it will make it a lot easier and safer.

 That's great. So basically it is looking like $2000 all in. That a tough mountain but I will help, what I can. It is unlikely to see an IB Italian every again.

Also technical question. I have been trying for days to send _,,,^..^,,,_ the night scenes from the 4K and Mondo. I was able to convert the 4K easily to loseless but the Mondo, won't load in virtualdub since it is VC-1. I keep getting missing codec. I have tried various solutions (fdshow, etc) but no go. Anyone have any ideas?

poita said:

I can try, but I don't think it will shift much.

I would say we could easily re-sell the print at the end of the process, although it is in Italian, which might limit the mainstream audience.

I don't know how much we would get back, but probably a reasonable amount, if not all. These things are hen's teeth.

 I'll help what I can POITA

I'm always interested in all of Team Negative projects and Return no less then the others 

Lil Brutto said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Details on the restoration of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" 

For the color they used one or two Technicolor copies of the era as a reference and they have consulted the assistant cameraman Sergio Salvati: he was the one who insisted on correcting color faded to yellow, arguing that this was the way in which Leone had wanted and thought.

If Sergio Salvati surmised that SL wanted his film bathed in such an extreme yellow, wouldn't IB Technicolor prints reflect this as well?

 That's right and that's why that print POITA found is a big deal. It should look like the 4K (but I don't think it will). Frankly, no one knows for sure till that IB Tech print can be bought (if it can)

I would be fine with a little yellow. The Mondo has it over the old MGM but this is just a radical change. I have a bigger problem with the greenish colors more then the yellow. The sky is all over the place on the 4K. White is all wrong. I mean look at the first frame:

Which is a shame because the scan's detail is beautiful.

And of course then there is the mono...

Andrea, I will get together the scene that djchaseb posted (page 2) earlier for you to work with. The one with Tuco driving the stagecoach to the mission at night and meeting the blockade. Are people on that Italian AV board upset over the colors or are they cool with them?

I have both also if need be

kk650 said:

DoomBot said:

Mondo and spoRv

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/78685

Very nice job you've done there Andrea.

I think it's definately worth doing, trying to recreate the look of the mondo release with the 4k remaster. I've been watching bits from my own copy again to remind myself of the look and it does look nice colourwise. Who know, maybe that is how its meant to look, blanket orange tint and all?

I'll continue with my more balanced/neutral colour scheme and Andrea can make a release more timed to the mondo colour scheme. The more choice the better for everybody I think.

 In total agreement

DoomBot said:

Mondo and spoRv

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/78685

 I'm glad to have both kk650's and Andrea's versions.  I like both for different reasons and both have valid points as to the color schemes (kk's DVD timed/Andrea's Mondo timed) I will just download both and Hutt's and any others. The answer at the end of the day is the IB Tech print.

Sorry about the pic, kk650. I just right clicked and saved as so I'm not sure why it came off darker. I added Andrea's regrade in the mix with the pics above. I'll add anyone else's too

This thread makes a little more sense for this discussion since the other one was more about the audio part.

Just got the 4k myself thanks to the deal that captainsolo posted.

Thanks for the pic Doombot and thanks for the comparison POITA. Photo or not, it still looks like the 4K's colors are off.

I love your regrade kk650, I think it strikes a nice balance.

Here is the grand tour of everything I could pull together quickly:

US LD International Cut (1990)/US DVD International Cut (1998)/US BD Extended Cut (2009)/Italian Mondo BD Italian Cut/Italian IB Tech 35mm Print Italian Cut/US BD 4K Extended Cut (2014)/kk650's regrade of the 4K/_,,,^..^,,,_'s regrade of the 4K

djchaseb said:

I'd love to see an actual IB print to see how it compares with what was done on the new 4K disc.  We are supposed to believe that the yellow is that extreme?  I mean maybe but to me it's a stretch.

 Well if you believe the restoration notes, this is the exact thing (Italian IB Tech) they used to color correct the 4K but of course that pic looks nothing like what we have seen so far from the 4K. Can anyone post a comparison of that scene to the new 4K?

poita said:

Well, it is an original release IB Technicolor print, so this print will be how it looked upon release. The audio is italian, and it is the full length original version.

Probably could do a payment plan with the seller, I have been looking for an IB of the original for a long time, this is the only one that has come up after looking at over 5000 lists in Italy (I'm not kidding).

 Wow so not only an IB Tech print but an Italian IB Tech print? I thought the LPP that appeared on ebay was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean there can't be more then a dozen of these in the world wide, if that.

Maybe it is worth asking the buyer if they are willing to do a payment plan. I have little to no money right now but I seriously want to see if we can make this happen. I can't see ever getting a hold of an Italian IB again. Do they indicate if there are any damage or splices? 

Thanks Andrea!

poita said:

I have found an IB Tech of the Italian original run of The Good the Bad and the Ugly, but it is USD$1800 + shipping, so it is outside my price bracket by a considerable margin.

Also this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067140/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

but it is even more expensive at 1900 Euros.

 Holy crap! I want that print more then anything on this Earth. I wish we could get a buy program together here. You think the owner would take a payment plan?

I'm glad to see that the sky is blue in that frame not the greenish/aqua of the 4K. This is definitely closer to the previous versions then the 4K. It has a little more yellow then previous version which is fine but is far from the ungodly colors of the 4K.

TheHutt said:

A little status update on my project "Creating a real mono sound for the MGM Extended edition of GBU":

The current completion is at ca. 40%. There is not only issue of splicing in the extended pieces, but also issues of asynchronity of the mono track (sometimes for single lines) which also get fixed.

And I gotta say, the old gunshots sound so much better!

 That's great Hutt!

As always amazing work, guys.

Lil Brutto said:

Here you go: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/78273

After comparing it looks like kk650's regrade is nearly spot on with the Mondo BD:

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/78278

Most impressive.

 Damn close and great looking!

Lil Brutto said:

PDB said:

What's the one scene that's missing from the DVD?

 Blondie holstering his pistol right after shooting the 3 bounty hunters after Tuco.

 Ah that's it. I remember now. That scene has present or missing in various cuts/prints/discs.

And you are right the earlier widescreen LD is mastered from a release print and has cue marks/cigs. That's why I like that LD. Quite a few LDs were made from release prints back in the day instead of an IP or O neg (really only done now days). Usually it was the studio archive print (Criterion did this a lot). Although they could have done a few changes back then (brightness, saturation,sharpness, etc), those LD are probably the closest you can get to the original colors without getting a print yourself.