RU.08

Maybe I have an alternate link that can be shared if you’re interested… 😉

This one’s not my project, but it deserves its own discussion thread. You can find the release on Blutopia (it wasn’t allowed on Myspleen). If you don’t have an account there you’ll have to get yourself invited, unfortunately I can’t help with that at this time as I’ve only just created an account myself.

Screenshots:

For comparison see:

• HDTV screencaps
• Bluray screencaps

Trailer:

Info (from Blutopia):

Aladdin.1992.35mm.1080p.Dolby.Stereo.v1.0

Sourced from a 4K scan of a 35mm 1993 theatrical print

(read this before asking any questions)
________________

Who's ready for a beautiful piece of animation, with all the grain intact?

Some cleanup was done on heads and tails (reel starts and ends) for this
one. Not all dirt and damage has been removed, but it's pretty clean and
nothing should really stick out (except one particularly scratched
section). The aspect ratio is slightly different from that of the
original blu-ray, that's because as much of the picture is being shown
as possible (no cropping has been applied).

This particular print was struck in 1993, so unfortunately it has the censored song lyric at the beginning
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/disney-censors-lyric-after-arabs-carpet-aladdin-1506078.html).

As usual, the colors are completely intact (the print is LPP) and reflect
how the film looks when projected. This encode is blu-ray compliant, so
you could burn it to a blu-ray disc without re-encoding.

This release is NOT synced to official BD, so any subtitles you have will require adjustment.

Audio track #1 (default) is the optical track from the print (Dolby Stereo).
It's very high quality, so we recommend watching the movie with this one
Audio track #2 is the stereo track from Laserdisc (Dolby Surround). Included pretty much only for completion

FAQ
(I copy-paste most of it into nfo of every release, but sometimes I add new answers)

Q: You said the file is sourced from a 4K scan, why don't you release a 4K version?
A: I won't go into details here, basically we think that it's too early to dive
into 4K encodes. Don't worry, the original scan files are safe and all movies
that we have will get a 4K release at some point in the future.

Q: Why do some of your audio captures contain obvious errors?
A: Sometimes the audio capture from the print is supposed to be the main track for
viewing - in which case we give it the attention it deserves. On the other hand,
very often the 35mm track is inferior to a Laserdisc capture of the same mix, because
of damage, missing parts and other problems that can't be completely fixed. Movies that
contain cinema DTS tracks also have the optical 35mm track included only for completion,
with minimal amount of work done with it.

Q: What does "open matte" mean?
A: A standard 35mm film cell can hold image at about 1.37:1 aspect ratio. This is
similar in shape to old CRT TVs, obviously not many movies were shown in theaters
like that. There were two general ways to get widescreen image from film - some
were shot with anamorphic lens, which basically "squeezed" image with 2.35:1
ratio to fit on film, and then theater projectors used special lens to stretch it
back out. The other way was just cropping top and bottom parts of the image,
leaving image in e.g. 1.85:1. Some filmmakers used "hard matting" technique,
which came down to attaching two black bars to the camera lens, restricting some
of the light from going in and thereby forcing a certain aspect ratio. Others
either didn't care, or simply decided against it, leaving the cropping to
projectionists at theaters. An "open matte" version in our slang means that the
image from the print is shown in its entirety, complete with parts that were
never intended to be seen.

Q: What does "LPP" mean?
A: LPP is a low fade film stock. It was introduced in 1982, and all movies
produced after that year have used this type of stock. "Low fade" means "really,
really low fade". The color on a properly stored LPP print will outlive all of us.

Q: Why do some releases have "LPP" in their name, while others don't?
A: We include the stock in the release name only for movies from before 1982,
that were reprinted on LPP stock.

Q: Why is it so dark/shouldn't black levels be higher/is the detail lost in dark areas?
A: Dark areas on 35mm prints hold very little detail, what is present there on the
negative (which most commercial blu-rays are based on) never makes it to theatrical
prints due to generational loss. Increasing black levels is a matter of preference
and doesn't actually reveal any detail. If you feel the movie is too dark, you can
simply increase the brightness setting on your TV/video player and achieve the
same effect. Keep in mind, that this is not necessarily bad - filmmakers made their
films knowing that dark areas would look really dark on the prints. What you're
seeing on blu-rays is often not what was originally intended to be seen.

Q: Why does this release has less detail than blu-ray? I thought it was supposed to be 1080p?!
A: Commercial blu-rays are most often sourced from negative scans, which hold more
detail than theatrical prints, and there is nothing we can do about it. The image on
prints, because of analog nature of print production process, is softer, has less
detail and is more grainy, but most of the time has better contrast and colors. Our
versions look just like they did in theaters, there are no missing scenes, added
scenes, changed sfx, changed color timing, DNR scrubbing or any other revisionist
changes.

Q: When will you release a cleaned up version of X/open matte version of Y?
A: When it's done. If it's being done at all.

Q: Why can't you release more often?
A: Because we don't have as much time and money for it as we would like. If you
want to see more from us, consider donating to the bitcoin address. Prints, hard
drives, and other materials we use cost money.
________________

List of our releases (chronologically):

Jurassic.Park.1993.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.v1.0
The.Matrix 1999.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.v1.0 (flawed, do not download)
The.Matrix 1999.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.v2.0
Star.Trek.III.The.Search.For.Spock.1984.35mm.1080p.Dolby.Stereo.v1.0
Raiders.of.the.Lost.Ark.1981.35mm.LPP.1080p.Dolby.Stereo.LITEMAKR.v1.0
Lady.and.the.Tramp.1955.35mm.LPP.1080p.Dolby.Surround.v1.0
Jurassic.Park.1993.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.Open.Matte.v1.0
Jurassic.Park.1993.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.Superwide.Open.Matte.v1.0
Jurassic.Park.1993.35mm.1080p.Cinema.DTS.v2.0
Ghostbusters.1984.35mm.1080p.Dolby.Stereo.v1.0
Aladdin.1992.35mm.1080p.Dolby.Stereo.v1.0

Very well done to the team behind this, the release looks and sounds amazing!

The hard drive has been sent from the scanner to a friend who is making a backup copy of the scans, then it’ll be forwarded to me. It’s going to take about 20 hours to dump my scans from it to another drive.

There’s no guarantee the Russian version will have the original colour timing. Russians distributors did their own thing, plus Tasma film might just add its own look as well.

KillThad said:

A guy on DeviantArt made some high-res textless versions of the posters.
https://phetvanburton.deviantart.com/art/A-New-Hope-Hi-Res-Textless-Poster-380226123

That version isn’t very good quality, you’d be better off using a lower resolution image and then enhancing it using waifu2x-caffe. Here’s an example:

Original:

Enhanced:

Will work a lot better of course if you feed it a better image to begin with.

Yeah, you’ll be able to use the actual scan later for all those screenshots which will look a lot better.

Yes donations will help, see the first post. Poita has to finish the ANH:SE scan first before moving on to this. 😃

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Phantom-Menace-on-35mm/id/56841

Jp4195 said:

I remember seeing a behind the scenes thing on Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty about how they got the original masters, scanned then and then broke it down into background elements, characters and others and ended up restoring them piece by piece I found it very interesting how they rotoscoped certian elements to clean them up and place them back into the foreground and background it’s like they really went all in on them but I do wonder why they just didn’t restore the prints in their entirety instead of breaking them down like they did, then again maybe because of the age of some of the movies it was better to do it that way

That’s absolutely unnecessary, have a look at the samples I’ve posted from Cindy and that’s from a 35mm print! What Disney did was convert what was hand painted animation into digital animation - all the “flaws” from the manual process were wiped away. And then they changed the colours and god only knows why, but they basically boosted them up to the levels of Aladdin and Lion King instead of leaving them how they were.

And not only that but they wiped out intended details in their “restorations” as well:

Yeah agreed, that’s why I said my comment! Come on people, I can’t count the number of times with my own projects that people show LOTS of interest but no donation. Do it for the late Michael Crichton!

I think there’s interest, just not donations. This movie was WAY better than Jurassic World!!

I got a message from the scanner regarding LATT, he’s found another IB Tech print. It was in a collection of badly VS prints and he said he will bench it soon. If it’s OK for scanning we can save the rental and scan it instead… although to be honest I think we may still need to get the other print and do at least a reel or two, but we’ll see.

Oh right, well we only get half resolution of blue and red due to the bayer mask anyway, which is how Cinderella was scanned, AND you lose resolution to the stuff outside of the picture area. Here’s an example of what resolution you would get if you did it at 2K:

Obviously that’s LATT LPP not one of my scans, but the principle is the same. The picture with is only ~1800 pixels at 2K and then you’re going to lose some more due to cropping, and to make it 1080p you’ll need to stretch it. For Academy films 1 2K scan would be sufficient for 1080p… but detail and grain structure are better preserved by scanning at 4K. 😃

You should consider sending potia a donation if it interests you! 😃 Scanning is very expensive.

Jp4195 said:

This sounds amazing but, how could you be sure you can get all those prints Id love to see some of these in 4K in all honesty but these are the ones I’m looking forward to the most

Lion King
Aladdin

Also not sure if it counts but id say Tarzan deserves a 4K treatment its such a beautifully animated film and definitely a classic of the Disney 2D animated films super happy that Hunchback and Hercules are on the list too since those seem to be overlooked sometimes also it’s probably too recent yet but LILO and Stitch would be amazing

I have a print of the Lion King. I personally wouldn’t consider CourtlyHades296’s list as definitive, there are titles on there that I have already passed on, and would only consider if there was strong support from others. I’m going to need donations to get more prints scanned next year, so far I’ve had 4 Disney films scanned (technically scanning is ongoing for all of those but one), and there’s a lot more to go! Did you want to make a donation?

Molly said:

I don’t think there’d be a point to 4K for anything past Little Mermaid (I think the CAPS films were rendered at 2K) but even 2048x1234, which should be close to the native resolution, should be an improvement, since it’d be the original theatrical versions, unlike the official releases.

A lot of people thought that way, however it isn’t the case. Aladdin and Lion King and somewhat closer to the 35mm colours, however BATB is nothing at all like the Bluray. Have a look at the screenshots I posted:

35mm:

Bluray:

We have access to some prints we don’t need to buy to scan, for example there is:

• Lady and the Tramp (IB Tech)
• Sleeping Beauty (IB Tech)
• The Sound of Music (2 prints available to us)
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks

All should be in excellent condition, we just need to pay rental and postage to get them. There is also Die Hard and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from another source both in excellent to mint condition.

Take THAT ET you weirdo! 😉

poita said:

On the upside, it will also stop all the alien transmissions affecting my brain whilst I sleep.

The “Grindhouse” ESB release wasn’t made from poita’s scan, it was made from TN1’s. Poita’s scans (from the previews he shared in the thread) showed significant improvement over it.

I have a feeling that Empire:SE will be more useful then ANH:SE from the point of view of restoring the O-OT.

Empire hasn’t been scanned yet, he was talking about the ANH:SE print. But the SE prints should all have similar detail unless they come from different labs around the world or something.

One film at a time Frank, one film at a time. 😉

Yeah I’m not sure what BrightestDayFan2814’s question was regarding either.

The SE scan actually has more detail in the shadows then I was expecting. I wonder how Empire’s detail will compare to the Eastman prints of the 80s?

Not just that, but Lucasfilm paid Lowy Digital to digitally dustbust the DVD scan because it was very dirty. I don’t know what the standards were in 2002 (I think) when they scanned it, but if they did what poita does and get the film professionally cleaned first then they don’t have to do anywhere near the amount of digital work to remove the dirt.

Here’s the R6 preview poita posted here along with the same scene from TN1’s upcoming “4K77” scan and also the SSE for anyone wanting to compare them:

https://mega.nz/#F!ArpT3SqZ!Cg8hlSg5yXWDNvCtYWRBVg

Note of course that the TN1 samples have been colour corrected and digitally cleaned whereas poita’s scan hasn’t.