RidgeShark

For this problem (and possibly even the whole film), I highy recommend using animeIVTC.  It is hands down the best automated avisynth IVTC tool I've ever used.  Try the settings (mode=1, aa=0, killcomb=0).  The default killcomb setting is 1, but I'd steer clear of it as it ever so slightly softens fine image detail. The 1 setting is best for slightly noisy VHS sources that don't have any fine detail in the first place - it shouldn't be needed for a decent LD capture.

This sounds amazing.  Any chance you'll create a PAL Hercules?

I'm glad you're going with the slightly curved borders.  It should look fine on tv and will give the whole presentation a unique look while giving us the most picture possible.  Good call on that and not overprocessing the image.

I wonder how long it will take before a fan editor incorporates scenes from the motion comic into the live action movie.  Not too long I would think.

Looks like videoFred's script is poorly suited for this high-contrast 16mm print.  HDTVs usually enhance the contrast in video anyway, so it's probably best to leave the contrast and brightness levels alone.

Doctor M said:

I was surprised that I did not find the aspect ratios to be an issue.

They way people were talking about it, I thought the movie would switch between 16x9 and 4x3 or something.  I did not expect the difference to be black borders on the right/left.

Watched on a device with overscan, the difference is invisible.

I am very glad to hear it!  It was difficult to ultimately come to the decision to present the tv scenes like that, but they do seem to play well on most traditional tv sets, and if played on larger widescreen units, the black bars never seem to distract.  I took the time to reframe many of the SciFi shots - even performing a vertical pan & scan on the first shot of the SciFi-exclusive windmill sequence so that I could include the creepy deer antlers above the door.  This was a detail you never saw on the letterboxed workprint footage and it really grew on me.

Btw, I am aware that Comcast has Army of Darkness in its free onDemand pool of movies. I don't know which cut it is, but if it's extended, it would be a digital source, if not HD.

Thanks for the info.  If anyone can check it out, please let us know.

Puggo, I just wanted to say that I'm extremely excited about this project.  I have a feeling that the audio/video presentation of the Puggo Grande will be the most personal-feeling of any Star Wars video release and will likely be the one I choose to watch anytime I'm in a Star Wars '77 mood.  

I was wondering if you've looked into any resizing methods for converting the full-frame anamorphic print down to letterboxed anamorphic dvd video.  There are plenty of high quality options out there, but I would personally recommend Spline36Resize in Avisynth as the best for downsizing.  It retains detail beautifully and tends to produce an accurate, sharp image without using artificial sharpening.

Doctor M said:

So it looks like a v2 is going to happen then.  I guess there's no point in burning a disc of the current version now.

I have one request for your future release: have better explanations for the different versions.

While the current Overdose, Doctor's Orders, etc. is cute, I find it hard to remember the differences when getting ready to watch it.

Back in February, I did say that if enough people disliked the multiple aspect ratio presentation, then I wouldn't mind going the overcropping route for version 2.0.  However, there has been next to no real criticism of the film's presentation and so there's no real need for V2.0.  Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't thought about working on V2.0.  As you know from all of your fine work, nothing is ever really perfect for us fan editors and preservationists, especially when we aren't given an entire movie or its deleted footage on a silver platter.  Naturally there's a small list of improvements I'd like to make to the Primitive Screwhead Edition, but they're so minor that only me and maybe three other people would notice them. 

Now if the SciFi channel were to somehow get a HD transfer of the tv cut, then I would be all over it.  I think it's possible given that the tv cut of Ace Ventura was recently given a new HD transfer.  I mean, who saw that coming?  Hopefully all the studios will see the benefit of creating new HD transfers of old tv cuts like this one in order to maximize their profits from advertisers - after all, a longer movie means more commercial breaks.  So if this was to happen, then I would definitely create a V2.0 and I would probably add some flashier, more descriptive menus, and possibly create some special features.  But until then, I'm content to just help out with other Army of Darkness projects and spend most of my time finishing school.

There do seem to be some similarities between the description of Paulisdead's The Dark Knight, and the DVD listed on eBay - such as the change in the film's colouring/lighting.  However, from the description on fanedit.org, Paulisdead's edit opens at Wayne Enterprises, whereas the edit on eBay claims to have a "new opening" - which is Two-Face's escape from Arkham Asylum - along with other deleted scenes reinserted.  I haven't seen Paulisdead's edit, so I can't comment for certain on whether or not it has any deleted scenes reinserted, but from it's description on fanedit.org, there doesn't seem to be any.

Ziz said:

http://fanedit.org/297/

 

It's on Rapidshare.

Ziz - Looks like that's a different fan edit than the one available on eBay.

Mitch - I hope you get it.  I've been looking forward to this one for a long time!

Sounds great.  And whatever Adywan did to digitally recreate the missing frames for his deleted scenes supplement on Revisited - it would be amazing to see that process applied to the footage after you get it all cleaned up.

It's best to manually fix the damaged frames and to do a little bit of manual dirt cleanup first because once you've done that, you'll have a "pristine" reference video that you can then try all sorts of video filters on.  So lets say that you apply a filter on your manually cleaned reference video and it smooths over too much image detail - well, not to worry, because you can just start over again and try different settings or other filters on the reference file.  The major plus of this is that you won't have to keep going back and having to fix those badly damaged frames every time you want to try using different video filters/settings.  This will save you time and allow you to do more experimentation, which will hopefully get the video image to look as good as it possibly could.

pittrek said:

It's been done by NeatVideo, and then manual frame-by-frame removing the dirt.

I'll do another try :)

 

I highly recommend that you do as much manual dirt removal as possible before you start using automated video filters.

Given the Indiana Jones discussion going on in this thread, I thought you all would enjoy this anagrammed masterpiece...

It's from Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday Series - Anagrammed Movies 3.  Source