RidgeShark

User Group: Members
Join date: 8-Apr-2006
Last activity: 30-Jun-2025
Posts: 148

Post History

Post: #286361
Topic: Jaws 2 - TV Airing preservation (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/286361/action/topic#286361
Time: 12-May-2007 4:29 PM

Ellen, adding wine to the fruit punch, and tells the waitress to smile and look cute.

I know that one's not on the DVD release. It's a pretty brief scene.

Post: #284196
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/284196/action/topic#284196
Time: 25-Apr-2007 4:01 AM

There's not much in the way of updates since finals are coming up. However, about a week ago I managed to create a high quality version of the original Army of Darkness opening by incorporating high quality footage from Evil Dead 2 and AOD itself. It looks pretty spiffy, but at times the ugly VHS quality rears its ugly head since there is no high quality footage available for some shots (mainly Ash's eyes as he tells his story). I'll be incorporating this alternate opening somehow. I still haven't messed around with the dvd authoring software, so I still don't really know how to make a branching DVD - I swear I'll figure it out though!

Sushicide - I am using some video from the standard definition side on the HD-DVD/DVD combo edition. I wish I had a way to use the high-def footage since the standard def side on the combo disc has a few problems - such as some artificial sharpening *gag* - but it will have to do since it's the best video available to me for things like the theatrical-only line - "Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun."

mcfly89 - Awesome work on the Waterworld composite edit. Earlier tonight I had some friends asking me if I knew anything about the extended television version of Waterworld and I started telling them about your project. Needless to say, we're all excited and can't wait to see it.

Before I disappear again - I just wanted to say that my entire AoD edit is basically done - including the color correction. Now I'm left with doing a lot of testing on the 5.1 audio mix to make sure it sounds alright. I'm mixing together so many different sources for the audio mix, so there's bound to be some problems. I'm definitely no pro at 5.1 audio, and it would be way easier to just do this in 2.0 stereo - but then I wouldn't be happy with it. Anyways, the audio testing will begin after my finals are over. Should be fun.

Post: #281627
Topic: Anyone else totally disregard these "anyone else totally disregard" threads?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/281627/action/topic#281627
Time: 10-Apr-2007 2:50 PM

I'm afraid I will have to totally disregard one of these threads, but this one's alright by me.

Post: #280920
Topic: .: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/280920/action/topic#280920
Time: 5-Apr-2007 2:07 PM

I'm a little late - but thank goodness the prank is over! Finding this out has really made my day

And beautiful work - I don't know how you all are able to extract such amazing quality from the different sources, but BRAVO!!!!

Post: #280504
Topic: Idea: My prank for April 1
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/280504/action/topic#280504
Time: 3-Apr-2007 3:37 AM

I never expected Care Bears Movie 2 to be brought up in this thread. That was the first movie I can remember seeing in a theater. Ah, memories.

Anyways, I liked the clip. Definitely something from an alternate reality - like Sluggo said.

Post: #280502
Topic: .: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/280502/action/topic#280502
Time: 3-Apr-2007 3:13 AM

It was a nice dream while it lasted.

http://www.horrordvds.com/vb3forum/images/smilies/cry.gif

Post: #275628
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/275628/action/topic#275628
Time: 6-Mar-2007 11:21 AM

Thank you for the information, Reverend. Looks like we're limited to the available Army of Darkness dvds.

I got my Dino De Laurentiis Communications image from the trailer on the R3 disc - unfortunately, the movie itself on the R3 disc doesn't begin with the logo. While the image quality of the logo from the R3 trailer is higher than what's shown on the Anchor Bay director's cut/bootleg edition, it still has it's own problems. If this is the best source for it though - I'm sure I could make it look better.

Insanity, thank you for the suggestion - and JHammondC, I'm sure you'll love that R3 disc. I remember when I first got it in the mail - oh what a day that was!

Post: #275538
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/275538/action/topic#275538
Time: 5-Mar-2007 11:59 PM

The director's cut originally opened with this image -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/RidgeShark/DinoDe.jpg

Does anyone know of any other movies that began with this company logo? I'd like to use a high quality source for this project.

Post: #275077
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/275077/action/topic#275077
Time: 3-Mar-2007 8:31 PM

I'm glad to see that there's still interest in this project - I can't wait to be finished with it and show you all the finished product. School has been taking up a lot of my time, but I still find some time to work on it every now and then.

Lately I've just been working on cleaning up the other SciFi exclusive scene - Ash and Arthur's first confrontation. It now looks just about as good as I can get it - and I am now 98% happy with it, like I am the Windmill scene. I tell ya - cleaning up those compression artifacts is extremely tricky. Video filters can certainly clean up the video, but it comes at the destruction of detail. Since the SciFi footage is merely standard definition, there's very little fine detail and most of it is easily smudged and smoothed away by your average video filter. Luckily, I've been using the avisynth filter, FFTD3D, by Fizick - FFTD3D Info . It nicely cleaned up a lot of the video noise and compression artifacts in the Windmill footage that I uploaded a few months ago - and now it's done a nice job with the Ash and Arthur scene. When used right, it can preserve most of a video's detail while suppressing video noise and compression artifacts.

Today I watched both of the filtered SciFi scenes on a 100" screen, being projected onto by a 720p projector - which was connected to an upconverting OPPO DVD player - and the results were very good. That isn't to say that the footage looks like it was mastered from HD or anything like that - but considering that the footage is originally from a highly compressed, standard defintion DirectTV source, it looks damned good and holds up nicely!

And mcfly89, thank you for showing what your recording of AoD looked like. I think it's fascinating to compare different recordings of this movie (yeah, I'm a nerd). Anyways, the corresponding images on my first post were from an earlier period when I had decided to kind of redesign the color scheme in the movie. I thought the movie would look better if it were more colorful and technicolor-ish - sounds crazy right? I just think of the movie as being more in-line with an earlier period of fantasy filmmaking - I honestly could see it has a fantasy film from the 50's or 60's. So I did kind of pretty-up the footage by altering the colors. I've long since abandoned that idea and I'm going to remain true to the original color scheme. The only problem is that each dvd has a different look.

The Anchor Bay Theatrical DVD and MGM Director's and European DVD's usually have a bluer/cooler look - while the Universal DVDs (original non-anamorphic, and new HD-DVD/DVD combo) usually have a warmer/orangish look to the footage. The TV version sometimes has a warmer look, but not always - the night scenes look more like the MGM DVD footage. So it's a bit of a toss up as to what the movie should actually look like. It's not a big deal - just gives a few options as how to present the movie.

Anyways, I don't have time to write a guide as to how I've done it all, but definitely look at that link in this post about FFTD3D - learn about it and avisynth. Also - as for how I'm getting the vobs into vegas - I open the dvd files in DGMPGDec (lots of options in this program, use it wisely) and then save the project as a d2v file, and then I convert that d2v file with VFAPI Reader into a usable, dummy AVI file than can then be used in Vegas. You can find DGMPGDec and VFAPI Reader at Video Help's Tools Section So that takes care of the video - dealing with the audio is one whole other headache.

Also - the Time Warp shot of Ash - as far as I know - isn't in any official version of Army of Darkness. It was just a nice little addition that OCP threw into his version. As far as I know, the version shown on WGN is exactly the same as the SciFi version.

Post: #273328
Topic: Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/273328/action/topic#273328
Time: 22-Feb-2007 8:05 PM

The clip is very, very impressive! I noticed a little blending of frames/fields when I examined the video frame by frame, but that's just a minor issue that's barely worth mentioning. When the video is playing, the motion looks very natural. I never thought that a bad NTSC to PAL conversion job could be converted back to NTSC with such good results.

Great job, Doctor M!

Post: #272571
Topic: Howard The Duck - special edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/272571/action/topic#272571
Time: 18-Feb-2007 2:11 PM

Thank you so much for this. My friends and I are very grateful.

I'll be seeding at the spleen for quite a while.

Post: #260882
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260882/action/topic#260882
Time: 9-Dec-2006 5:40 PM

Thank you Troy and djsmokingjam for the comments. I'm sorry that it's been a hassle getting it to download - I'm glad you liked it though.

Post: #260799
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260799/action/topic#260799
Time: 8-Dec-2006 5:00 PM

Just click the link - it'll take you to a different page - then right click on widescreen.vob and save it.

Is the link working for anyone?

Post: #260791
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260791/action/topic#260791
Time: 8-Dec-2006 4:12 PM

Originally posted by: Troy
I can't seem to get the clip to play. Its just the Quicktime logo with a question mark over it?

That's strange. A few min ago I downloaded the video to make sure it was working and it downloaded just fine. I tried playing it in different programs, including Quicktime and PowerDVD and it worked in both. Is anyone else experiencing any problems?

Post: #260711
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260711/action/topic#260711
Time: 7-Dec-2006 8:57 PM

One last post before I call it a day -

I'm not sure if this is going to work right, but I've uploaded something special for you all. It's the work I've done on the deleted windmill sequence that is exclusive to the SciFi version. There is no audio, just video. Also - it's a vob file (89.7mb), so you'll need to play it in something that can play dvds.

Click Here It'll take you to a website where you can download the file.

As you'll notice -

The framing isn't the full 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The video is anamorphic, but the framing is something more like 1.55:1. I did this to reduce the cropping I would have to perform on the full frame image. An added benefit is that the video is slightly sharper than it would be if I had cropped it further and resized it to fill up the entire frame.

In one shot - the image is the full 1.78:1 aspect ratio. I was able to add the edges from workprint and have the whole image look pretty decent. I've tried doing this with other shots but the results are usually less the satisfactory so I didn't include them.

In order to remove the SciFi logo from the video, I've had to employ some visual trickery. You'll notice a small blur on the bottom right hand corner of the video, but hopefully you will not find it distracting.

Anyways - I'm looking forward to your thoughts and opinions. The video should be up for 7 days.

Post: #260701
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260701/action/topic#260701
Time: 7-Dec-2006 7:43 PM

Thank you for the information djsmokingjam. The information from the Evil Dead Companion is very interesting. Some of it I've already heard, but still some stuff I haven't. Also - as far as alternate endings go - I'm really going to try to put both on the disc via branching. If possible - I'll edit them both into a different ending with Ash dreaming the S-Mart stuff and then waking up - so it will have a total of 3 endings the user can choose from. Still - I have a long way to go before I can make a functioning disc that branches decently.

Post: #260697
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260697/action/topic#260697
Time: 7-Dec-2006 7:09 PM

Strange - my recording has some different qualities.

The first pic is from my 2004 recording, the second is suntech's

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/RidgeShark/ScottsCopy.jpg

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q32/suntechC6/AOD.jpg

Post: #259704
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259704/action/topic#259704
Time: 2-Dec-2006 2:02 AM

I'm definitely using "Good, Bad - I'm the guy with the gun." When I first saw the Director's Cut, I was highly disappointed that this line was replaced with the alternate "I'm not that good."

Also - this information is present in my original bloated post.

Post: #259241
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259241/action/topic#259241
Time: 30-Nov-2006 2:19 AM

OCP's setup was probably similar to mine. The outputs on my Digital 8 camera - S-Video and RCA - also work as inputs. I just hooked up the the camera to the S-Video and RCA outputs on the DirectTV receiver and I recorded some high quality video and audio. Despite it being high quality, the video is still degraded from the original MPEG 2 signal being sent to the receiver.

EDIT - Also - I'm not sure if the ugliest footage on Anchor Bay's bootleg cut was taken from VHS or not, but there's no denying that it's a horrible looking transfer.

Post: #258856
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/258856/action/topic#258856
Time: 28-Nov-2006 4:24 PM

Looks like the SciFi Channel is airing their version again on Dec 5 at 11pm eastern time. Again, if anyone has the equipment to directly capture the MPEG 2 satellite stream, then please do so and send me a copy. I would be eternally gratefull and this project would greatly benefit from it.

The SciFi footage that I have is fairly decent, but it has gone through a bit more compression and processing than I would like. Consider this - the video that I recorded first started out as a digital MPEG 2 signal - in order for me to record it, the digital MPEG2 signal was converted to analog in my DirectTV receiver. Chances are the conversion to analog wasn't that great - the components in the DirectTV receiver are probably cheap to keep manufacturing costs down and profits up. So anyway - the analog conversion probably wasn't as good as it could be - and that converted analog signal got transferred to my Digital 8 recorder with an S-Video cable. My Digital 8 recorder records in MiniDV format - which adds all new video compression artifacts to anything I record from tv. So in the end, the SciFi Army of Darkness footage has been degraded quite a bit from the original MPEG 2 signal. I wish there was a way for me to bypass the analog conversion and additional MiniDV compression, but I currently do not possess the necessary equipment to capture the original MPEG 2 signal.

Even if I cannot obtain a copy of the digital MPEG 2 signal, that doesn't mean that the SciFi footage will look bad. I have spent months researching different techniques to filter the SciFi footage and I have recently reached a point where I feel happy with how the footage looks. Still, I know it could look better if I was working with a direct capture of the MPEG 2 satellite signal.

Post: #256994
Topic: ** The OCPMovie News & Releases Megathread **
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256994/action/topic#256994
Time: 15-Nov-2006 6:49 PM

Post: #256065
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256065/action/topic#256065
Time: 10-Nov-2006 4:17 AM

Troy - I appreciate you trying to help out, but I don't think you understood what I was saying. I was asking if anyone has actually seen the early workprint - the rough cut that is supposedly 2 hours long. Obviously it includes something over the 96 min director's cut. If you were to take the 4 deleted scenes from the workprint which are featured on Anchor Bay's or MGM's special editions in the deleted scenes section and edited them into the 96 min director's cut, then all you come up with is a movie that is roughly 104 min long - about 16 minutes shy of 2 hours. That includes all of those deleted scenes - the original opening with no S-Mart footage at all, the Ash and Arthur confrontation, the original windmill sequence (which is much longer than the version the SciFi Channel shows - the rough-cut version has extra stuff like more shots of Ash wondering around outside the windmill at night), and Ash recruiting Henry the Red. I believe that all of that is footage from that 2-hour rough cut.

So let's recap -

The Director's Cut - 96 min
Director's Cut extended with the 4 deleted scenes from the rough cut - 104 min
The Rough-Cut - supposedly 120 min

So all I'm saying is that I wonder what kind of extra footage was in the rough cut. I'm pretty sure it was just a bunch of pointless shots - like the extra shots of Ash wondering around the woods outside the windmill that aren't featured in the TV cut of the film - but just maybe there's something significant. I'm a huge fan of this movie, and I wish I could see every scrap of footage shot for it and include it on my DVD - I know that isn't possible, but wouldn't that be great? Anyways - I doubt anyone here has seen that rough cut, but I figured why not ask just in case?

Post: #256029
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256029/action/topic#256029
Time: 9-Nov-2006 8:02 PM

Going through all the officially released versions of this film and noticing so many differences has got me wondering about the workprint for Army of Darkness. Has anyone here actually seen a copy of the workprint for this film? I read somewhere that it was nearly 2 hours long. Were there any brief scenes or anything like that which didn't appear on any of the dvds? The special edition DVDs feature workprint footage of the original opening, the fight between Ash and Arthur, the original windmill sequence, and Ash recruiting Henry the Red - but was there anything else interesting in the workprint? - even brief trivial shots that aren't in any other version and lasted just for a few seconds?

If anyone has any information, then please post the information here or contact me.

Post: #254862
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/254862/action/topic#254862
Time: 4-Nov-2006 5:09 PM

It's all good. The R2 does look quite a bit sharper. I'll take some time later to really compare my R4 PAL version with your R2 screenshots. I just hope I won't feel the need to buy yet another version of this movie on DVD!

Thanks for the info!

Post: #254853
Topic: Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/254853/action/topic#254853
Time: 4-Nov-2006 4:22 PM

I believe the MGM R2 DVD has the same cut as the MGM R4 Australian DVD I have. That uses the alternate "I'm not that good" line - which isn't what's going into my cut. The only plus about this dvd is that it is in the PAL resolution and has a little more visual information on the bottom, left, and right. I've resized and converted the framerate on the PAL version and I'm using the PAL version's video when possible as it offers a little more detail even when converted over to NTSC.

Looking at your screenshots - the R2 version looks very bright with higher contrast - a whole lot more than the R4 version, which matches the brightness and contrast of the R3 version. Hmmm....