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RidgeShark

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8-Apr-2006
Last activity
24-May-2023
Posts
140

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Post
#275077
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/275077/action/topic#275077
Time
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
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
#260791
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/260791/action/topic#260791
Time
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
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
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
#259241
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/259241/action/topic#259241
Time
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
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
#256065
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256065/action/topic#256065
Time
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
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
#254853
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/254853/action/topic#254853
Time
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....
Post
#254840
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/254840/action/topic#254840
Time
I'm getting closer to completion on the "Ash Recruits Henry the Red" deleted scene. As you know - this deleted scene looks like crap and I was attemping to clean it up "by hand" using photo editing software. I did clean up quite a bit of dirt this way, but it was taking forever. A few days ago I discovered an avisynth filter called "RemoveDirt" - and it's been wonderful. It quickly cleaned up the majority of the dirt that I had not yet gotten to. So now the cleanup is basically done. There's still some dirt since I'm using conservative settings on the filter, but I'm thinking it isn't really worth cleaning up what's left. This scene will always have the "VHS copy of a rough workprint" look to it, but it now looks more presentable.

Also - the music I added to this scene is from Evil Dead 2 - I hope you all like it. Feel free to leave any comments/suggestions.

Here is the basically finished version with color correction and both types of cleanup -
Ash Recruits Henry the Red

This is an earlier version of the cleanup before I discovered the RemoveDirt filter -
Earlier Version

I know it's not really easy to evaluate the differences between these versions due to the low-res of youtube video, but I think you can still tell a difference.

As far as the actual finished dvd - it's still far away. I need to evaluate a newer recording of the SciFi version in order to determine if the quality is higher than what I already have - if so then I'm using that recording for the exclusive scenes. Also - I've discovered some more differences between the Director's Cut, Theatrical Cut, and TV cut (mainly spoken lines) and it's going to take some time to incorporate them into my cut. After I have all that done - I need to figure out how to accomplish branching on a dvd. I don't think it will be hard to figure out, but it's still a hurdle. Anyways - looks like that's about it. I can't wait to be done with this monster of a project!
Post
#252526
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/252526/action/topic#252526
Time
Rikter - I'm glad you enjoyed my transfer of the tv version - and I know it's kind of strange looking to have that DirectTV info pop up during the Universal logo at the beginning, but yeah, no biggie.

trip42 - I bought the HD-DVD/DVD Combo version of Army of Darkness a few days ago and it will prove useful. The standard DVD version is pretty sharp (much sharper than Anchor Bay's 1999 release of the theatrical cut) and has a high bitrate. Unfortunately, this edition's colors are tinted very differently from any version/edition of the film that I have seen.

2006 Standard DVD Version on the HD Combo Edition


There's kind of a brownish tint throughout the whole movie, which makes this scene a little difficult to insert into the MGM Director's Cut edition, which looks quite different on the alternate take with Ash saying - "I'm not that good."

Alternate take from the 2002 MGM Director's Cut

Before too long I'll have the 2006 version of this shot color corrected to match the MGM version. The results so far look pretty good, but there's some more tweaking to be done. I'll be posting pictures very soon.

Maybe I should call this "The Primitive Screwhead Edition" ?

EDIT**

Well the color correction on the "Good, Bad - I'm the guy with the gun" is basically done. It is now a much closer match to the alternate take used on MGM's version.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/RidgeShark/Comparison.jpg
Post
#243974
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/243974/action/topic#243974
Time
I found out some good news from the scifi channel's website -

The SciFi channel is airing AoD this Friday, September 15th at 11 am and then again on October 22nd at 11 pm eastern time.

I will make a recording this Friday from DirectTV with my digital 8 setup - but if there is anyone out there with a better setup and can capture the digital satelite signal itself, then please do it!


Post
#241938
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/241938/action/topic#241938
Time
First off - My cousin is doing much, much better. When she first got to the hospital, the doctors were saying she wasn't going to live - but hey, she's walking around now. I'm still amazed about the whole thing. She's recovering at such a fast rate that it's unreal. I gave her copies of ocpmovie's classic editions, Deleted Magic, and The Thief and the Cobbler - as well as Doctor M's reinventing the wheel editions. As you might guess, she's a big OUT (original unaltered trilogy) fan.
Unfortunately she hasn't gotten to watch much of the videos since she's still seeing double and it gives her a headache to watch tv. We did try to watch Deleted Magic - her boyfriend and I took turns reading the Deleted Magic text out-loud and it was kind of funny. Although initially enthusiastic about Deleted Magic, my cousin fell asleep about halfway through. Anyways - thank you guys for the kind words. It meant a lot to me.

Reverend - unfortunately I read that message about a week after it aired. My DirectTV receiver is set up to tell me whenever Army of Darkness, along with other programs, comes on - but I guess it's not working. Anyways, thank you for the heads up even though I missed it. The good news is that I've been tinkering with my original recording of the SciFi version - and it's not so bad having the full-screen DVD fill in for the 1 min of footage I missed at the end. Ocpmovie sent me his older recording of the SciFi version so I could put to rest any fears I had that the ending was different from the theatrical version (thanks again ocpmovie!). What I discovered was that there is one line in the tv version that isn't in any other versions - it's when the flashing blue light in S-Mart appears - Ash says "So I left her there." After that, it's exactly the same as the theatrical version. My recording stops right before Ash says, "Mam, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store" - so my recording has everything that's exclusive to the tv version. I really don't think it's a problem to patch it up with the fullscreen dvd footage.

Anyways - I should have a dvd of the SciFi version out shortly. What I'm doing now is checking for interlacing errors since I did perform an inverse telecine on the whole movie. I'm sure some interlacing problems will escape me, but I've already fixed the major problem areas, as well as a few small ones. As the whole thing stands now, it is a mighty fine progressive presentation of the SciFi cut. Also - I haven't performed any color/brightness/contrast correcting - the reason for this is that I think it looks fine as it is. I'm also hoping that since I didn't tinker with the image (aside from the inverse telecine), this dvd might be considered useful to any others out there who might work on a fan edit of Army of Darkness.

Work on my fan edit is still slowly crawling along. I recently discovered that the Army of Darkness soundtrack contains all of the music that is missing from the Little Ashes sequence on the director's cut. Naturally I restored most of that music just so I could see how it plays - and it's been growing on me. I'm very familiar with the official versions, so it's strange when Army of Darkness suddenly has music in it that I'm not familiar with, but like I said - it's growing on me and I actually like it. I put a few different versions up on youtube so you all could have a look and listen at what I'm talking about.

The Original Director's Cut with No Music

Director's Cut with Restored Music


The SciFi version of this sequence moves a little faster than the director's cut, but it cuts out the shot where you can hear the little Ashes yelling "yeeeaaah baby!" - which is something I love. It is also missing a little music, which some of you might find preferable.

The SciFi Cut

Also - just for fun, here is the crazy Australian cut. If you don't like the Little Ashes sequence, then you will probably appreciate the way the editor butchered this version.

Australian Version
Post
#220053
Topic
Army of Darkness - The Primitive Screwhead Edition (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/220053/action/topic#220053
Time
Here's a dramatic "before and after" example of the cleanup I've been doing on the deleted Henry the Red sequence. Most of the cleanup has involved removing small bits of dirt and dust, which is time consuming but not really challenging - but as you can see, this frame right here was a monster -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/RidgeShark/HenrytheRed1.jpg

This is one of 8 frames with this type of marking moving all over Henry's face. It's tricky work, but the results have been pretty good. I'm not saying you won't be able to tell that I did some cleanup on these 8 troublesome frames, but it doesn't call attention to itself or distract. =)

Even with the cleanup, this deleted sequence won't look as good as the rest of the movie - but hopefully it won't stick out as bad as it would've.

Well - back to work.