Space Hunter M

ray_afraid said:

So, despite early info claiming otherwise, it looks like the Criterion Showa Era set will include the Japanese cut of KKvG!
Copy and pasted from the official site:

www.criterion.com/boxsets/2648-godzilla-the-showa-era-films-1954-1975 said:

• High-definition digital transfers of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the 1956 U.S.-release version of Godzilla; and the 1962 Japanese-release version of King Kong vs. Godzilla

Will this be from the same source as this broadcast? Better? Worse?
Really excited for this set.

No, Criterion explicitly stated upon inquiry that the 4K restoration is decidedly NOT what is being used.

From a Blu-Ray.com thread: “Both the KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and GODZILLA, KING OF MONSTERS will include the Japanese and US versions. All fifteen films in this set are high-definition digital transfers. We are working closely with Toho on this release and the 4K remaster you’re referencing was not something that was provided to us for this.”

Have fun with the ugly 2014 BD version America.

With a glorious thanks to Akaiii, I have made a decent x264 encode of this and distributed it to MySpleen and Cinemageddon. I have synced all available audio mixes (plus isolated score) and a legitimate subtitle translation to create the definitive version of this marvelous film in the English-speaking world. I hope that this attempt is proliferated for years to come until the film is given a proper release in the aforementioned English-speaking world.

Akaiii said:

I have a .ts of this. If anyone wants a copy, throw me a PM.

Sent you a PM.

skoal said:

A reply, over 2 years later, awesome!

Still interested in this, what’s the FPS and running time (how was it converted from NTSC to PAL)? Thanks.

General
Complete name : H:\Photos and Videos 4.MP4 files\Twin.Peaks.Fire.Walk.With.Me.Fullscreen.Open.Matte.MS.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 2.32 GiB
Duration : 2h 14mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 470 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:03:32
Tagged date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:03:32
Writing application : My MP4Box GUI 0.6.0.6 http://my-mp4box-gui.zymichost.com

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2h 14mn
Bit rate : 2 144 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 10.1 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Original frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.216
Stream size : 2.01 GiB (87%)
Title : Twin Peaks
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=2 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=10 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=20000 / vbv_bufsize=25000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:03:32
Tagged date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:05:08
Color primaries : BT.601 PAL
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2h 14mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 164 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 154 MiB (6%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:04:54
Tagged date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:05:08

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2h 14mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 163 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 154 MiB (6%)
Title : tpfwwm de fuckery de.mp4
Language : German
Encoded date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:05:01
Tagged date : UTC 2019-04-09 05:05:08

skoal said:

Hi, excellent post, who has the VCL German DVD?

I have it now. I’ve synced the English audio to it and I’ll post an encode on MySpleen sooner or later.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxmgvfXYsnE

Also, this is still just a conventional framing for 4:3 instead of a pure, reckless open matte job like the VHS screenshots above. The verdict is still out for that version.

Moviescope said:

That’s the 1997 Bumper Edition. They’re looking for the 1996 Bumper Edition UK VHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTLhuuwjMKc

Yes. The 1997 tape already uses the restored network versions.

The 1996 tape was still the syndicated versions.

Moviescope said:

Any updates so far? You’re doing an amazing job BTW. It’s not often that someone would go beyond for a classic show like this. And it’s more fitting that’s it coinciding with the 50th anniversary as well.

Thanks.

I’ve since acquired What the Hex Going on?, Which Witch is Which?, Scooby’s Night with a Frozen Fright, and Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?.

1996 Bumper Edition UK VHS would fill following gaps:

Season 1:
5. Decoy for a Dognapper
8. Foul Play in Funland
10. Bedlam in the Big Top
12. Scooby Doo and a Mummy Too
15. Spooky Space Kook

And quality upgrades for:
3. Hassle in the Castle
13. Which Witch is Witch?

If anybody could rip this tape, it would be much appreciated.

When Hanna-Barbera put all the Scooby-Doo television shows produced from 1969 to 1979 up for broadcast syndication through Worldvision Enterprises in 1980, they removed the artificial laugh tracks from all the episodes that were present in the network versions.

These laugh-free versions became the dominant version on television for almost two decades, until the Warner/Turner merger in 1996. After Cartoon Network became the primary dumping ground for H-B’s back catalog, they had all the episodes remastered with the laugh track reinstated, thus restoring and presenting only the original network versions for the foreseeable future.

Josie and the Pussycats, the first of many H-B shows cast from the same mold as Scooby, has the opposite dilemma, with the current home video releases lacking the original network laugh tracks.

I’m undertaking a project to preserve the syndicated laughless versions and the experience of Scooby-Doo on television for almost two decades, with a high priority for the original Where Are You!, as the franchise’s 50th anniversary approaches.

I’m syncing whatever broadcast audio I can find to the 2004 HD masters of the show via the Amazon 1080p releases.

Current project status (10/24/20):

SDWAY S01E01: What a Knight for a Knight - 17 minutes from 1983 local syndication airing. Recording begins abruptly with Velma’s “Very funny…” I’ve restored the original Ted Nichols opening and closing to this episode.
SDWAY S01E02: A Clue for Scooby Doo - Nothing yet. A tricky episode. When Turner started airing the show on its cable networks, episodes 1 and 2 did air with the network laugh track intact, for some reason, so the copy will have to come from an '80s syndication airing.
SDWAY S01E03: Hassle in the Castle - Whole episode from 1995 TNT airing. I’ve restored the original Ted Nichols closing to this episode.
SDWAY S01E04: Mine Your Own Business - Whole episode from 1995 TBS airing.
SDWAY S01E05: Decoy For a Dognapper - Whole episode from 2000 UK “Volume 1” VHS.
SDWAY S01E06: What the Hex Going On? - Whole episode from 1995 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E07: Never Ape an Ape Man - Whole episode from 1995 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E08: Foul Play in Funland - Whole episode from 1996 UK “Bumper Edition” VHS.
SDWAY S01E09: The Backstage Rage - Nothing yet.
SDWAY S01E10: Bedlam in the Big Top - Whole episode from 1996 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E11: A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts - Whole episode from 1996 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E12: Scooby Doo and a Mummy, Too - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E13: Which Witch is Which? - Whole episode from 1995 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E14: Go Away Ghost Ship - Whole episode from 1996 TNT airing. (Boomerang still used the laugh track-free Turner master for some reason in the mid-2000s)
SDWAY S01E15: Spooky Space Kook - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E16: A Night of Fright is No Delight - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S01E17: That’s Snow Ghost - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.

SDWAY S02E01: Nowhere to Hyde - Whole episode from 1995 TBS airing.
SDWAY S02E02: Mystery Mask Mix-Up - Whole episode from 1996 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S02E03: Scooby’s Night with a Frozen Fright - Whole episode from 2000 UK “Nutcracker Scoob” VHS.
SDWAY S02E04: Jeepers, It’s the Creeper - Whole episode from 1996 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S02E05: Haunted House Hang-Up - Nothing yet.
SDWAY S02E06: A Tiki Scare is No Fair - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.
SDWAY S02E07: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf - Whole episode from 1983 syndication airing.
SDWAY S02E08: Don’t Fool with a Phantom - Whole episode from 1997 Cartoon Network airing.

I also have a handful of The New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes and a good deal of The Scooby-Doo Show season 2. Any help in hunting down more cable and syndication airings is deeply appreciated.

IcePrick said:

I hadn’t really given this much thought before, but was the Kevin Bassinson score commissioned by Golden Harvest?

I assume they did. Even though that’s where the export cut opened initially, I don’t think the Germans had any key in it like The Big Boss’s Peter Thomas score.

I wonder if Bassinson himself still has all the materials for the score itself, but I guess Fortune Star would still technically own the rights to it themselves.

I’ve finished reconstructing the export version of Jackie Chan’s Police Story in true 1080p using the new 4K restoration and the upscaled copy of the export cut on the Eureka BD. I’ve left the so-so grading of the 4K master alone since that’s beyond my capacity for editing in HD.

Used 480p downscales of both masters to do the editing in Vegas 10.0 and then made an Avisynth script that conforms to the edits made. Rendering a moderately sized x264 right now to make an .MKV with.

Audio tracks will be:

1. The original English dub
2. New Line Cinema redub (from VHS)
3. The Japanese TV dub (VHSrip audio from YouTube)
4. The French dub (from the TF1 DVD).

Still looking for the Cantonese version: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Help-wanted-in-finding-specific-Cantonese-POLICE-STORY-audio/id/62699

If anybody can hunt down and rip that VHS, I’d love to have the Cantonese track as an option, and subtitles wouldn’t take too long to sync up.

Police Story has three cuts:

1. The extended cut that only played in Japan
2. The theatrical cut that played in Hong Kong and the rest of Asia
3. The export cut with a new score by Kevin Bassinson that played in Western countries until the advent of DVD

The export version was originally edited in English, down from the uncut dub of the theatrical cut, but there’s also an elusive version with the original Cantonese dialogue.

The only release I know that uses it is the Virgin Vision PAL VHS:

Clips from what I assume is this tape appear in an episode of Son of the Incredible Strange Film Show documenting Chan’s films: https://youtu.be/U6m3kNFjdTs?t=20m54s
https://youtu.be/U6m3kNFjdTs?t=26m44s
https://youtu.be/U6m3kNFjdTs?t=38m32s

There’s also a music and effects-less Spanish dub that uses the Cantonese track as a base: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2woPQwdLpBo
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtn5dz

The extended and theatrical Cantonese tracks have already received good preservation efforts. The goal of this is to have all three cuts of the film with the original Cantonese ADR available as a listening option. I’m a huge fan of Kevin Bassinson’s synth score and would love to be able to watch the export version in the movie’s original language.

If anybody knows somebody who has a copy, who is willing to work out some kind of capture of it, I’ll be willing to pay whatever cost is needed to get this version preserved. I plan to sync it and abridged subtitles to either the SD version on the Eureka Blu-Ray or a reconstruction made using the 4K restoration.

Some sources for sub translations for the Heisei and Millennium flicks that AREN’T dubtitles are the Australian Madman DVDs and the Hong Kong Universe Laser DVDs.

The Universe Laser DVDs I’d be a little wary of because some look like they’re translated from the Cantonese dub back to English (the new Kraken subs for RoG are a HUGE improvement), but the Madman ones (namely vs Mothra) seem accurate.

The subbed copies that Janus/Criterion are using for their Showa titles are improvements over the Classic Media ones, too.

ScottZill said:

Space Hunter M said:

The only accurate translation for King Kong vs. Godzilla is the one from the German DVD.

The old VDK bootleg subs for most of these movies are either guesswork garbage or modified dubtitles, and King Kong vs. Godzilla’s familiar boot script is the most egregious example.

Which German DVD?

The 2013 Anolis Entertainment DVD.

Here’s an example of the subs from those translated to English compared against the bootleg subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE8kKYM7AcQ

The old ass version of MainConcept Encoder seems to have done the trick. Case closed.

Is there ANY concrete on-the-fly, real-time solution for capturing raw, interlaced MPEG2 with a standard USB device? I don’t give a shit about uncompressed .avi > re-encode options. I just want a way to essentially do what a standard shitty DVD recorder does but via a USB card.

ray_afraid said:

Space Hunter M said:

The only accurate translation for King Kong vs. Godzilla is the one from the German DVD.

Which version of the film is it?

It’s a 576-line upscale of the already shitty old '91 LD/the 2001 DVD (the Japanese version)

Subs are obviously German but even those translated back to English actually convey what’s being said.

The only accurate translation for King Kong vs. Godzilla is the one from the German DVD.

The old VDK bootleg subs for most of these movies are either guesswork garbage or modified dubtitles, and King Kong vs. Godzilla’s familiar boot script is the most egregious example.

I still need the Backstroke DVD’s Chinese subtitles. Might have to go with the ones you posted instead of the originals then.

There’s also a German DVD by VCL (probably from the same master as the second laserdisc you linked) that’s specified as 1.33:1.
https://ssl.ofdb.de/view.php?page=fassung&fid=1807&vid=111580

Been kinda itching to get this in the same AR as the original TV show. Does anyone know if the domestic VHS releases of Fire Walk With Me are open matte like in these screenshots? (e.g. not pan and scanned during shots like these to hide equipment/set edges):

Any update on this?

More Yoda tormenting Luke scenes.

dahmage said:

this might be a dumb question, but what are the two white circles behind the storm troopers in the image on the spline (and at the top right on back cover)?

It’s a James Bond gun barrel and the stormtroopers are about to (or fail to) shoot the gunman.

Wouldn’t it be 2.66:1, though?

And the Dolby Stereo box shows a monaural schematic.

The cantina band music but it’s only the first few notes and it never progresses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZ3rLoZdYw