Sambarker04

UPDATE (17/11/2025): I decided to do a 1080p version as well since I’m pretty sure many of you really wanted that version too in case you don’t have a 4K HDR monitor/TV. This version has the entire film being regraded to match the pre-2002 master, used on the LD, and the first two American DVD releases. I’m also using the original 1080p Thunderbean scan for the logos too.

v1.0.2 update:

Replaced the DTS-HD normalised conversion of the CAV AC3RF capture with a merged and edited direct capture of my CLV LD. There seems to be no patches to apply from my hearing.

Mod Wallet said:

Is Flushed Away Russian telesync the original DVD? Pretty sure I have like 5 maybe even 6 different encodes of it, but I wouldn’t mind a DVD ISO.

They’re mainly remuxes, a couple were only re-encodes due to both originally intended for SVCD as I can guess.

These are the bootlegs I happen to own on DVD, VHS or VCD on eBay years ago that I deicded to share here because, mainly they were gone from the face of the internet due to many links being dead for nearly 20 years after they have been released, or they have been disappeared due to piracy groups disappearing after Operation Site Down happened.

Here are the films that are included in my collection:

• Cars (2006) (Telesync) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (CAM) (Source: Asian Bootleg DVD)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (Russian Telecine; English audio) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Chicken Little (2005) (Russian Telesync; English audio) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Flushed Away (2006) (Russian Telesync; English audio) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Ice Age (2002) (Cam) (Source: Chinese Bootleg VCD)
• Madagascar (2005) (Russian telecine; English audio) (Source: Mainland Chinese bootleg DVD)
• Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007) (Cam) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Robots (2005) (Russian telecine; 5.1 Russian dub, English audio on center channel) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Robots (2005) (SVCD Telesync) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Shark Tale (2004) (SVCD French Telesync; English audio) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Shrek 2 (2004) (Telesync) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Spider-Man (2002) (Centropy? IMAX? Telesync) (Source: Asian Bootleg DVD)
• The Incredibles (2004) (Telesync) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• The Simpsons Movie (2007) (Dolby Digital Cinema Cam) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• The Simpsons Movie (2007) (German Telesync; English audio) (Source: Homemade DVD)
• Toy Story 2 (1999) (Indonesian subbed Telesync) (Source: Bootleg VCD)

Even though I already own official releases of those films too, obviously, make sure you do the exact same thing if you want those bootlegs, though I was already thinking of letting you find the film you got, and you can ask me for the film so I can give you the links to it.

There will be more updates once I grabbed more bootlegs, of course.

I would just like to thank everyone for supporting this preservation. I have never seen this project this massive, given the fact that this is friggin’ Toy Story! The reason why I’m saying this is because recently, Animation Obsessive has just recently showed screenshots of my project in their recent article on why the 35mm colours felt more special on digitially animated films. Check it out! (https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-toy-story-you-remember)

Is that my 35mm revival in this article? That’s very cool! Keep in mind that the original leaked ones I used in my project had film fade, especially reel 2, where it is way worse, so I regraded them to match the NTSC LaserDisc, especially since the colours are identical to the opening night bootleg if I recall.

Sambarker04 said:

UPDATE (09/11/25): Recently, noogai3 just came back to do Hi-Fi VHS rips, and Nightmare is one of them. In fact, I noticed that we got more audio than the LDs, so I decided to preserve that too. Though because the master audio (not the capture) is muffled too, and since there was a blip that noogai3 reported, I’ll sort something out.

Never mind then, I just found out that the cuts are exactly similar, so I wouldn’t bother using them. Besides, there’s clipping in there, so the LD audio is the best bet.

UPDATE (09/11/25): Recently, noogai3 just came back to do Hi-Fi VHS rips, and Nightmare is one of them. In fact, I noticed that we got more audio than the LDs, so I decided to preserve that too. Though because the master audio (not the capture) is muffled too, and since there was a blip that noogai3 reported, I’ll sort something out.

So, one day while I was searching around eMule to find some cool rare stuff to stuff, HDTV rips, cinema bootlegs and all, I came across this file called “Sky.Special.The.Simpsons.Movie.S00E50.WS.PDTV.XviD-hV.avi”. And I borderline jaw-dropped when I saw this. Being a British person and being familiar with Sky’s channels and The Simpsons, it is an amazing find I was able to get, and thankfully it managed to download, though when I watched it, I noticed that the file felt corrupt, even MediaInfo doesn’t seem to identify it. It only was only was able to read the first 3 minutes, until everything stopped. Even when I tried to convert it using avidemux, it doesn’t seem to work, repairing it with VLC or any AVI repair tool seems to hang, even remuxing to an MKV file only plays the first 5 seconds.

From what I can gather, this special, hosted by Iain Lee, and aired sometime before or on 24th of July 2007, two days before the film’s official UK release, according to a post on TPB, goes through the behind the scenes look on how they made the movie. From what I can remember from the first three minutes, it actually contains a deleted scene of the movie you wouldn’t find on the DVD, Blu-ray, animator sizzle reels or on promotional content, so I might think we might get to see more that he haven’t seen, yet even more amazing if it was ones we only got screenshots of. I did try to do it again by redownloading it to see if it was the file or the long inactivity of the file that caused it, but as of writing, no is online to let their file download to my computer. I knew I can’t try the torrent version because it is dead now, even people on Soulseek don’t seem to have it. I tried Google, no results. Internet Archive, nothing.

So, basically this is a call for help to anyone who was lucky to have a fully working file to PM me the link so I can release it on YouTube. In fact, as of now, I don’t know if it did surface on YouTube or not. If it did, it might just be an upload of the AVI file or just a VHS recording. Hopefully this will get the word out. If YouTube’s copyright system worldwide blocks the special, I’ll have to stick to Internet Archive and PM links for anyone who wants the AVI file.

UPDATE (03/11/2025): So I finally got the French LaserDisc and there are things I would love to show off here.

First is the French narrator credit from Vincent:

and a very interesting Dolby SR-D credit from the localised end credits of the film.

HAttackontheBun said:

TonyWDA said:

Aladdin carried a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with split stereo surrounds, on some of its original theatrical prints, and that was released the year prior. (In fact, it was Disney’s first feature animation title to be presented in that format.) If a local listing is advertising showtimes in Dolby Digital for The Nightmare Before Christmas, then Disney most certainly had a number of Dolby SR-D prints produced for the release, and it’s likely the same mix that ended up on the DTS LaserDisc.

Speaking of Aladdin, I hope someone is able to find a genuine 1992 print of that film with the Dolby timecode and rip the audio from that…

I know it’s off-topic but if I recall, ripping Dolby Digital audio might seem to be a tricky task to do, mainly because unlike DTS where it’s easy to rip it because of the audio only coming through CD-ROM discs, conversions in foobar2000 and the fact the processor can do digital outputs, the DD processor only outputs audio through analog outputs, so that means that there could be some complex do-arounds on it by just recording all 6 analog connectors at the same time to an audio recording software, unless there are any reverse engineering and DIY tools to directly copy each bit of DD audio in the print to save it to a direct ac3 file if it uses the same decoding as what the DD on LD and later DVD and BD would do. I do remember a couple times where someone would rip the DD audio, such as on the Russian telecine bootleg of Robots, and on a fanmade 35mm 2K scan of the Spanish trailer to the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace. If you do have access to the file, you will notice that the DD track, being in PCM format, has many analog artifacts in it, mostly analog noise and maybe inaudible buzzing from the analog connectors.

TonyWDA said:

Aladdin carried a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with split stereo surrounds, on some of its original theatrical prints, and that was released the year prior. (In fact, it was Disney’s first feature animation title to be presented in that format.) If a local listing is advertising showtimes in Dolby Digital for The Nightmare Before Christmas, then Disney most certainly had a number of Dolby SR-D prints produced for the release, and it’s likely the same mix that ended up on the DTS LaserDisc.

I see.

HAttackontheBun said:

Hey, I saw that Nightmare Before Christmas was released in Dolby Digital at the time of its original release.
https://file.garden/aBF0BwGECB9-W-tX/Screenshot from 2025-10-29 13-13-49.png

Interesting. From the 35mm cells I saw on eBay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/306451154000), it seems to be stuck in Dolby Stereo when it first came out, so maybe there was an error in the magazine, or maybe there were a series of premiere prints that use a Dolby Digital soundtrack. I don’t recall any first Disney/Touchstone/Hollywood/Miramax film to use Dolby Digital, especially since the rear channels in the 5.1 mix from the DD LD, DTS LD and the first two DVD releases were in fact stereo and not dual mono.

Callum N said:

Oh wow, that’s all incredibly informative, thank you so much! So basically the Dolby Digital found on the UHD is the 2005 mix, and that 2005 mix is continued on in the DTS-HD tracks found on the first Blu-rays released for the film, e.g the 5.1 DTS-HD track? I suppose my question after this would be (especially as I see a fair amount of folks hemming and hawing about it when asked it), as someone who clearly or at least probably knows what the best audios are in order, is the DTS-HD MA a definite improvement over the Dolby Digital tracks? The answer strikes me as obvious based on the name alone regardless of one’s audio knowledge, but obviously there can always be futzing about happening. Either way, you would expect that '05 mix to sound as great as the DTS-HD; regardless of the format, it seemed to be a fair slight quieter when played at the exact same volume as the DTS-HD. I might just have to sell off the UK 4Ks I got and try get the US ones to retain all the audios I want. You might have something on that also in terms of how loud the tracks are, and if so that’d be incredible.

Thanks. Though I should let you know that the US UHD release is the same as the UK one with the language options, so just to let you know.

Callum N said:

Excellent thread and work on this! You strike me as an expert on these matters, so I wanted to ask you what is meant to be the very original theatrical mix? I’m from the UK and I’ve got the UHD and Blu-ray, the former containing the Atmos track and English Dolby Digital 5.1, the latter a 5.1 DTS-HD mix. The DTS-HD mix, to my ears, sounds incredible, and its frustrating that - like many of the other Pixar films on UHD in the UK - it isn’t included on the 4K. The thing is, I’ve been informed that the Dolby Digital track found on the UHD is supposedly the original theatrical audio track. Maybe I don’t understand, or maybe Disney chose to neuter the audio, but I watched through the film with the DD track and it didn’t sound as robust as the 5.1 or how I would presume such a track as that would sound. So I guess my question is: what is meant to be TS1’s original audio? Is it a 5.1 DD or something else entirely? And if the DD is the original track, is it me or the disc that is resulting in a lesser sound? I have this same issue with a handful of the other Pixar UHD audios, like Monsters Inc., which also has a robust 5.1 on the Blu-ray and not the UHD which contains a 5.1 DD that is likewise meant to be the original theatrical audio. Thanks for any information you can provide!

Interesting. So to give you an idea, Toy Story was in fact originally screened in 5.1 surround using Dolby Digital sound, in fact the 5.1 audio was later preserved when the film came out on LaserDisc in the US and Japan, though it’s pretty obvious that films’ soundtracks at the time would be stored on either 6-track analog tapes or on 16-bit PCM tracks (as with the case for films mastered in CDS such as Terminator 2 and Edward Scissorhands), which is why the Dolby Surround downmixes from the digital PCM track on LD tend to be more crystal clear than Dolby Digital, especially since the film’s audio reels had to be re-captured twice for the DTS LaserDisc and the first DVD releases, since if you sync the LD DD mix or the DTS LD mix to the DVD DD mix or the LD DD, it would start fine until the end where it goes out of sync, especially since I would know analog audio reels were used not just because of it, but also the errors the DTS LD mix. I talked about it in the description, so you can check it out. DTS apparently was designed to be as close to CD audio as possible, hence their logo of “The Digital Experience” using a CD on their symbol and promotional poster. as there are less compression, and it uses 20-bit audio rather than 16-bit that DD and PCM use.

In fact, the DD track from the UHD you were talking about was NOT the original theatrical mix, it is the 2005 remix of the film that you can also find on the BD. I honestly have no idea why Disney or Pixar chose to do that, but my guess was that it was done to match their tradition of their films being mixed to 6.1 (or 5.1 EX) starting with the second film, which is why A Bug’s Life would later get the same treatment when it was first released on Blu-ray.
Here’s a screencap of the DD track from the UHD to give you an idea

To give you an idea (from left to right), these include parts that were added in the new mix. First is an LFE sample of Rex’s foot stomping, Woody’s microphone feedback from the rear channels, the kids cheering when they found out Andy got Buzz, and the footsteps as they head back downstairs. So, if you have the 2000 DVD release, or listened to the Flemish track or the audio description track on the BD, they contain the original theatrical mixes.

In honour of the loss of the legendary VTuber Gawr Gura (yes i know where she’s at now), I decided to make this fanedit for fun, mostly due to her love of this film. Nothing much to say. Here’s a screencap of what it looks like:

Photoshop has been applied for the masking of Gura’s reaction and VEGAS Pro’s masking for her face.

Video sources:

• [Ratatouille] Cozy movie watch time (archived and directly muxed by HoloPirates)
• NA Blu-ray (Main film; original English version)

Audio sources:

• NA Blu-ray (PCM track for whole film)
• UK Blu-ray (PCM track for closing logos)
  merged together into a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES Matrix track.

Subtitles:

• English SDH (NA Blu-ray)
• English SDH (NTSC FYC Screener DVD)
• CC (NTSC FYC Screener DVD)

Feel free to PM me if you want to see it. It’s honestly a chill watch too because of the movie’s atmosphere and Gura’s quiet voice, as she was sick during this watchalong.

UPDATE (18/10/2025): So I realised that the Dolby Stereo mix is a bit muffled when compared to the DTS track, and I can theorise that this is how Disney used to master audio digitally on their LDs back then, though the LD was released just a few months after their first THX LD with Aladdin, so it’s possible that THX was too late to find out what Disney was doing. So to fix this problem, I went ahead and equalised it using the raw optical audio from Thunderbean’s 35mm scan as a reference so you can get crystal clear sound, especially since I recall people claiming Aladdin’s 35mm audio is better than the LaserDisc, and apparently the same thing can be said for Nightmare, since the 35mm audio is way clearer than the LD. Also, as an added bonus, it will also include a Dolby Headphone track of the 1997 mix, since I feel like it, since I already did it with Toy Story.

MoviesGamesMusic said:

Could the 4K and open matte be combined to make the ‘best’ possible version available?

Not really. Thunderbean converted the framerate from the scanned 24fps to 23.976fps, and the color in the print is way too saturated and brightness limited to compare it to the 4K.

jakeandelwooduk said:

This is some awesome work Sambarker04, i’m still in awe at the Toy Story reconstruction, i’m thrilled you will include the open matte scan as a bonus, i love the open matte format.

Thanks. ☺️

Actually, I’ll stick to the 4K footage. Don’t worry. I’ll still include the open matte scan as a bonus.

ValenStudios said:

Hold on, open matte? Thought the film was hard matted going off the pan and scan VHS’ and such.

You think so?

UPDATE (13/10/2025): Good news, Greg Z happens to have the open matte scan, so I’m using that for this preservation.

So, while I was waiting for my Nightmare project to complete, I felt like I needed something to make this more like definitive. If you didn’t know, the 35mm scan was done by Steve Stanchfield and included on his “untitled” BDs, though sources I can find stated that it was Thunderbean, so I don’t know if Steve himself was part of the company, and since the reported 720p version I found claimed it was open matte, it doesn’t seem to be, and since the 1080p encode I have had a frame rate conversion unlike the 4K HDR version, and since the 1080p version showed more detail than the 4K, I felt like I need to find anyone who happens to own the untitled BD to PM me the original open matte scan so I can preserve it and use it for my project, and for anyone who was dying to see it like me. As an added bonus, I felt like I also wanted to find others too since it has been talked about in Blu-ray.com’s forums such as an open matte scan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, since even though screenshots of it exist, a remux of it hasn’t surfaced online to my knowledge. Though, thankfully, Robin Hood did have its open matte version preserved, which is cool. If any of you happen to find other movies that got an open matte 35mm BD release by Thunderbean, let me know. 😉

UPDATE (12/10/25): So for fun, I decided to add extras into this preservation because why not. The extras will contain my lossless captures of the bonus content from the Deluxe CAV release, since it contains content missing since the Special Edition DVD, my LaserDisc preservations of two of Burton’s shorts he did for Disney, since Disney unfortunately didn’t remaster them into HD and in best visual and audible quality, as well as exclusive ones, such as Danny Elfman’s demos from the extremely limited Danny Elfman and Tim Burton Music Box, the 2006 re-release of the soundtrack’s Best Buy-exclusive second disc, the Jill Jacobs workprint, a read-along of the original poem from an odd CD I found on eBay, promos for the Russian television premiere (featuring music from The Incredibles…for some reason) and a Russian dubbing featurette. There will be more in the future, so stay tuned.

ForestGWolfy said:

Sambarker04 said:

stretch009 said:

The 1080p 35mm scan has a AVC bitrate of 25mbps FWIW.

Thanks. I’ve been told the errors weren’t the case as well. In fact, I just received the version.

Unrelated topic but are there ither Disney 35mm scans you ar also working on like oliver and company, rescuers down under, little emrmaid (1989 original 35mm), pocahontas, hunchback of notre dame, hercules and tarzan ?

I don’t have copies of those movies, so I wouldn’t do it.