Spaced Ranger

SilverWook said:

... that letterboxed Ebay print ...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-Rare-Original-16mm-Reels-of-the-movie-American-Graffiti-/350623008295?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51a2c28627

Down to a $650 "buy-it-now" with a "make-offer" option ... better, but my wallet is still aching. :)

A quick check shows that the 1998 DVD ("Collector's Edition") and 2011 Blu-ray releases are near-identical cropped - so we can't expect any more real estate from the official source. That said, the Blu looks better (but the Blu may be GL-tinkered(tm) and not restored as it was shot & released in 1973).

<-- DVD (region 1) 1998

<-- Blu (r. A/B/C) 2011

ww12345 said:

Interesting about the tint/frame size difference...

I was thinking about that. If the blue tint was removed (using "Manual Color Correction" of a paint program to set the off-kilter RGB value of the B&W portraits back to it's R=G=B value, applied to the entire image), what would be revealed?

Well, what do you know? Really close to my previous "quick & dirty" color correction.

.

msycamore said:

Nice catch Spaced Ranger! The always satisfied Lucas...

Thanks, but only because I remembered that jingle from Brazil:
Lucas Films! You do the buy, we do revising! 

.

SilverWook said:

Any way to do a frame comparison with that letterboxed Ebay print? I know the images of it are pretty lousy...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-Rare-Original-16mm-Reels-of-the-movie-American-Graffiti-/350623008295?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51a2c28627

$800 ... ouch! My wallet is having sympathy pains!
The posted images weren't too bad (this one had most objects for lining up, but is poorly lit) ...

... and I was able to line it up to show the little addition vertically but noticeable loss horizontally:

The eBay film here was resized to match and is 25% transparent to let through some of the underlying DVD capture (still at non-stretched DVD-anamorphic).

Not necessarily definitive, but some interesting notes here:

Wikipedia - Fantasia (film) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_(film)

1969, 1977, 1982, 1985 and 1990 runs
Fantasia began to make a profit from its $2.28 million budget after its return to theaters on December 17, 1969. The film was promoted with a psychedelic-styled advertising campaign .... The release is also noted for the controversial removal of four scenes from The Pastoral Symphony over racial stereotyping. Fantasia was issued on a regular basis, typically for exhibition in art houses in college towns, until the mid-1970s.

Home media - Audio
Disney considered releasing a multi-disc 78-rpm record album of Fantasia's soundtrack in conjunction with the film's 1940 roadshow release, but this idea was not realized. The soundtrack was ultimately released as a three record LP set in sixteen countries by Disneyland Records in 1957 under the catalog number WDX-101. ... The Fantasia soundtrack album contains all of the musical selections but none of the commentary from the film. After stereo LP's became possible, Buena Vista Records released a stereo version of the soundtrack album.

ww12345 said:

My color correction is mainly done by eye - ... You've got a PM. :)

Thanks, got it.

Are you using a paint program itself or a dedicated plug-in for your sample corrections?

BTW, the film, when stretch out to full size, is slightly wider but noticeably shorter than the 1998 DVD (which may be different again in later releases):

And it looks like George Lucas' historical revisionism has grafitti'ed this movie, too (is this some kind of self-loathing?). He's tinted the entire frame because ... why? Who knows:

But not quite to the end of that right edge!

BTW ...
" 'American Graffiti' got tagged on Blu-ray, and I don't mean one of those artistic railcar pieces of 'art.' I mean misspelled words and phallic drawings, with the phrase 'DNR wuz here!' " - High Def Digest: American Graffiti: Special Edition (Blu-ray) review -- giving it 2 of 5 stars for HD Video Quality!
Anyone surprised?

ww12345 said:

I plan on scanning emulsion side (we'll see how that works) at at least 1080p resolution (we're adapting a camera to make it work), so it should have a pretty good picture. 

Sorry to be a little late to this party. I saw your color corrections and wondered if you'd describe your methodology.
I've been trying to work out an approach (with details beginning here on msycamore's THX 1138 thread) based on an analysis of the problem of film fading. The re-expansion of the faded color "compressed ranges" consistantly produces good results. It always amazes me just how easy and precise it is (an "eyedropper" helps for the colors' numbers):

Each chart shows the corresponding R-G-B compression spread and the settings for new beginning points of 0 on the low end, and 255 on the high. Other settings (gamma, midtones) can further fine-tune to counter-act the non-uniformity of the fade.

I hope you will also document, in detail, the equipment and software and approach of your custom transfers. With lots of pictures, too! :)

"Is this what you seek?" (pardon my mixing theatricals)

The Pastoral Symphony Uncut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up56LG_rIEw
Uploaded on Nov 25, 2010
The best quality copy of the fully uncut coy of Fantasia's infamous Pastoral Symphony segment. This has been censored since 1969 by violently cropping the offending scenes so the little black centaur(whose name is Sunflower btw) can't be seen.

Disney FANTASIA trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1cEg8NWRvw
Uploaded on Jan 24, 2007
the original extra-long trailer for the famed 1956 Superscope reissue of "Fantasia"
Il lungo "prossimamente" realizzato per la riedizione del 1956 in Superscope di "Fantasia" di Walt Disney.

These may not be useful for putting in a restoration, but they may help for determining "original" content, timing, and such.
They come and go, so keep checking back for returns and new ones.

AntcuFaalb said:

Here's a GOUT-related question: Assuming that we don't make any color changes beforehand, how much do the reds need to be lowered to fit in with the rest of the colors? That is, what change would result in them no longer being over-represented? Is it just the reds?

frank678 said:

This is pretty much THE question for me. I saw some posts where someone indicated they could repair the red channel out of the RGB channels. My understanding is that the red shift is an organic shift in the film - its not the red channel is damaged but the greens and blues have faded leaving the red over represented. Anyone know how correct that is? If so can the green and blue be repaired?

edit: had a go at a blind ajustment to blue and green curves to find a result = http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Calling-all-Color-Correctors-Can-this-source-yield-a-different-set-of-results-to-Gout/post/598240/#TopicPost598240

 

This theme, from the "Three-strip Technicolor: Please help!" and "Calling all Color Correctors: Can this source yield a different set of results to Gout?" threads, is one that echoes throughout the OriginalTrilogy forum -- that of restoring faded source material.

Restoring "by eye" (usually using hit-or-miss, narrow-fix filters that don't address the full problem) or referring to other "restorations" (accomplished with their own "by eye" fixes) is well intentioned but flawed. The science of film is what's needed and we already have the tools to examine and implement a scientifically guided approach.

Being in the middle of such research, I have done enough to formulate a workable approach, demonstrated in the "THX 1138 preservations (Italian Cut available, see 1st post)" thread (starting at page 48):
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/post/585765/#TopicPost585765
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/post/585922/#TopicPost585922
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/post/589761/#TopicPost589761

Therein is a more extreme example of "bad colors" (faded color) from a 16mm film source:

And the way to look at it is by it's color layers -- this one is the faded red channel:

The way to correct it is knowing that fade is ultimately contrast contraction, and the fix is to expand that condensed contrast back to it's original size:

The other 2 channels (green and blue) usually need such correction, too, and the result is the way it was before it faded:

Of course, the above explanation is simplistic and the "THX" thread goes into more detail about the non-uniformity of fade -- across the condensed spectrum and through the length of the source. But this is a starting point that should address all kinds of issues (skin too red, other reds weakened, etc.) in a uniform way. Hope this helps.

Away, with your whip-pen. I mean, you no Harmy.

How would Josef Goebles donate his inflation-adjusted $4 billion?

George Lucas Is Ready to Roll the Credits
“I’m a ’60s, West Coast, liberal, radical, artsy, dyed-in-the-wool 99 percenter before there was such a thing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/george-lucas-red-tails.html?pagewanted=all

George Lucas Confirms It: The Star Wars We Loved Never Existed
“Now everything is starting to come into clarity. Today is a bit like the day we learn that Santa Claus is your parents, socialism stops working when rich people’s money runs out, and a BA qualifies you for a $10 entry-level job that you could’ve gotten just out of high school.”
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/02/10/george-lucas-confirms-it-the-star-wars-we-loved-never-existed/

The Politics of Star Wars
“It was the idea that we had a President who genuinely saw himself as not subject to the rule of law. “Imperialist Presidency” gets bandied around a lot by both sides of the political spectrum, but everyone was worried that Nixon was setting one up. And what did Lucas write against this backdrop? He wrote a story about a democracy that had become an Empire, with a ruler who (all together now) “dissolved the council permanently”.”
http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2012/03/05/the-politics-of-star-wars/
(need it be noted that Lucas is a Barack "I can by-pass Congress" Obama supporter?)

[cue "Evil Emperor theme"]

Know this is elections time do you not? Hmmm?

From the Dark Side are credit default swaps. Yes.

Funnier than a room full of Yoda's it is!

Glenn Beck -- Meet Romney Fett!

(here's the bigger, clearer video on YouTube)
YouTube - GBR: Meet Romney Fett

captainsolo said:

Those clips despite being dirty and faded look wonderful. ... How are you compensating for the red shift?

You had it first right that this is "faded" but "red shift" is a misnomer here. The three colors that make up the film image haven't been shifted -- they are all still there, only not in their original strengths. The faded colors have been reduced in contrast, but not all at the same level, which gives the red effect. If we expand those individual color contrasts back to where they came from, the original picture is suddenly "restored" (as in this quick-fix comparison):

I go into more detail at "THX 1138 preservations (Italian Cut available, see 1st post)":

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/post/585922/#TopicPost585922

So this red print "may yet be of some use to us" ...

SilverWook said:

... This post in particular caught my eye.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/11368548-post37.html

"I can tell you this, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts has an unfaded Technicolor-process print of Star Wars, and good condition 70mm prints of Empire and Jedi. And that place is full of film students who all undoubtedly loathe what Lucas has done to the films. Get those prints to this mysterious scanner and we'd have HD editions of the original cuts of all three films by the end of the year."

I hope Harmy's paying attention ... looks like it's Fanboys road-trip time. (Be sure to bump into William Shatner ... he can score anything.)

@SilverWook
I think I smell a THX movie fan in the Formula 1 Races. :D

@msycamore
I hope this is not too late an observation. Further back in the thread was a posting of "the lost scene" videoed right off a movie projection screen. Although there was a hot-spot from the projector washing out much of the picture, it didn't look like the brightness fluctuated like the film-capture does. Am I misreading this or was the capture camera on auto-exposure (a no-no)? If no choice, are you looking into a brightness control filter (a big job, I would think, as this would be done shot-by-shot, every shot)?

I was thinking about ... yellow ... and had to look into that last shot. :)

The good news is that, yes, I was able to squeeze some yellow out of that shot. Naturally, I cheated, by looking at the actual movie to guide the color adjustments.

The bad news is that it was tough and the settings had to twist some to do the job. They're probably only good for this shot and, maybe, a few others. Try it! Applying it to "the lost scene" seems to produce a very dark picture.

Anyway, these are the settings that did the trick (ImageShack won't allow any more of my .ACV files so just copy in the numbers, below). [Just a note -- the default for the graph generation is spline. However, with points this tight, the graph becomes a squiggle (an obvious design bug) and needs more control points to counter-act that. A better selection would have been point-to-point. BTW, graph-type can be changed back and forth with points already on the graph, but I didn't want to change the approach mid-stream.] :

POINT . . . INPUT . . . OUTPUT
RED
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 34 . . . . . . 3
3 . . . . . . . 94 . . . . . . 35
4 . . . . . . . 177 . . . . . 214
5 . . . . . . . 216 . . . . . 253
6 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255
GREEN
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 112 . . . . . 96
3 . . . . . . . 242 . . . . . 174
4 . . . . . . . 250 . . . . . 199
5 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255
BLUE
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 80 . . . . . . 54
3 . . . . . . . 200 . . . . . 168
4 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255

"all that white made me see red"

The review was nothing memorable except for this line. Never thought I'd ever quote it. :) I searched beforehand as I too like references, but nothing came up. Also tried the quote in the present-tense "all that white makes me see red", breaking it up as "all that white" "made me see red", variations like "all that white" to "all this white"-- as memory is always vague on these kinds of details -- but still nothing. (If I stumble across it, I'll post the link.)

@ msycamore, Rogue-theX, Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

Thanks guys. Practical research ... ;)

@ msycamore

The color-fade restoration is lookin' good! A movie reviewer once wrote of a newly released film, THX 1138, "all that white made me see red". Well, the red is gone and we're back to white! :D

This really be should attempted on a calibrated CRT. My LCD monitor (blast that "viewing angle"!) just can't do a man's job for this kind of work. The overall look of these shots is too bright in the darkest regions. A quick fix (which might be good enough here) is a variation of "gamma adjustment" -- pulling down the low end (low curve thru POINT 2), while keeping the high end untouched (anchored straight at POINT 3).

Set the presently unused "RGB" (brightness) control of the Gradation Curves filter to this:

POINT . . . INPUT . . . OUTPUT
RGB
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 64 . . . . . . 46
3 . . . . . . . 192 . . . . . 192
4 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255

along with the original RED, GREEN, BLUE settings. All together, these make for an easier one-shot color correction than fiddling with only the individual colors for the same effect.

Review the video with this new fix added. If it looks like it needs more darkening (in lighter areas like this shot) while keeping in mind the even darker ones elsewhere, adjust the Point 2 Output Value lower for a better average effect.

It looks like VirtualDub will be the easiest to use for color correction with the "curves" filter I've found (it's a VDub filter, which is supposed to be usable in Avisynth, but the 3rd-party instructions don't apply or work with it).

Roughly following the curves of my paint program tests posted earlier, Gradation Curves (v.1.46b) by BBugBunny, A.K.A. Alexander Nagiller, duplicates it's usage and results nicely. The interface makes for easy interactive adjustment -- just like in a paint program:

With the variations of the transfer, this static correction does not produce consistent results ... even within a single shot. For the following video segment test, I tried for an adjustment that would center the variations around the color-corrective "sweet spot". All things considered, it looks pretty good (hope you like it):

Use this .ACV file, colorcorrection.acv (it's a Photoshop format "curves" file), for import into the VDub filter, for the above settings. It can be further tweaked in case of more capture drifting. If ImageShack doesn't like the file being there (not a picture), just manually input these points into Gradation Curves (as pictured above) with the pictured auxiliary setting (i.e. "RGB + R/G/B") and save it:

POINT . . . INPUT . . . OUTPUT
RED
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 59 . . . . . . 38
3 . . . . . . . 111 . . . . . 96
4 . . . . . . . 189 . . . . . 215
5 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255
GREEN
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . 21
3 . . . . . . . 32 . . . . . . 53
4 . . . . . . . 83 . . . . . . 123
5 . . . . . . . 204 . . . . . 189
6 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255
BLUE
1 . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . 0
2 . . . . . . . 80 . . . . . . 115
3 . . . . . . . 255 . . . . . 255

Yes, I choose that snapshot because of what the filters demonstrated ... both right and wrong. But I can't blame SpotRemover too much -- I used it's recommended settings without experimenting (it looked like another one of those complicated filter setups). In that setup, SpotRemover took the nose highlight to be a spot (appears to be a movement problem) and dealt with it. :)

I've used MVDenoise before so that was mostly an optimum script paste-and-copy. By itself, it does a nice job with the "noise" (with spots still in place):

Anyway, it's easy to leave in only those particular processings for your desired result.

TServo2049 said:

On the subject of telecine smearing, I actually don't know that much about telecine ...

Clunky telecine is just frame doubling at various points, enough times to create 30 fps. The better and more clever way (and most used) is doubling and mixing fields of those frames:

Of course, this is the theory. Some equipment is just plain sloppy in applying it.

Sounds like what SpacedRanger was talking about, though this transfer doesn't seem to have the exact issue he mentioned.

I since went back to my notes and remembered that there were full fields that were superimposed, too! My fix was to invert a same, clean field (found elsewhere in the mix) and superimpose that over the superimpose-corrupted field to cancel out the one field -- resulting in a (mostly) clean other field. Wild, yes? :) [A side effect of this process was compressed levels on the remaining field, which needed to be processed / expanded. I hated the idea of extra processing, but I never took it any further -- a working theory was good enough at the time.]

... the "early bird" frame seems to be visible from top to bottom, but its opacity isn't regular. ... Each of these smeary images shows up in the bottom field of one frame, and the top field of the next.

This was the "half field" superimposed fields of my previous post.

Maybe the PS78 transfer has this kind of issue, and there are no "discrete" frames to speak of. If so, perhaps it'd just be best to blend the identical fields together to make it 30p?

Frames should always be recoverable except, perhaps, if a telecine itself was telecined (I know that sounds ludicrous but I've seen webpages documenting some examples). In those cases, judicious blending is used to make the best of a bad situation.

George Lucas can have no secrets with the OT Detectives on the job! :D Good detective work, msycamore.

.

Color correction from the 16mm was creating color artifacts from dirt and scratches being adjusted (misadjusted), too. Cleaning would have to be done so that only the picture's colors would be corrected. That means spot removal and grain reduction. Although many use spacial filters to good effect, these destroy detail as well as noise. There is, however, another type of filter that uses the random nature of grain and dirt against itself without damaging static detail of the picture -- which is temporal filters.

I'm searching out and trying adjustments for these temporal filters (my favorite type of filters). I've used Fizick's MVTools (v.2) for Avisynth before and it's included function "MVDenoise" (temporal denoising with motion compensation) is a smart temporal filter. It watches the picture, frame to frame, to overlay those frames (even adjusting for the images as they move!), to have that random noise self-cancel (mostly) itself. Truly awesome.

Fizick also has a "DeSpot" filter (that & more at http://avisynth.org.ru/fizick.html) for the bigger "noise" of dirt and scratches, but it is far too cryptic for a user to expertly adjust (like many of these filters). It uses temporal and spacial filtering (thereby produces too many artifacts ... from all the misadjustments, no doubt).

Next, I came across SpotRemover for VirtualDub by khlopenkov. On it's face, this one looks more promising as it seems to be strictly temporal. The author has kindly posted a script for use in Avisynth and with "best settings". He even recommends using it in conjuction with MVTools. Is this fate? :)

Anyway, here's a first attempt to prep the 16mm for the previous color correction test:

Of course, all these filters have their own little artifactings, but these, at least, remove more bad than they add (and less conspicuously, too). If this looks like the direction you'd like to see this go, let me know. Naturally, I'll post the Avisynth script once it's finished (for Puggo to duplicate the results).

frank678 said:

I posted static shots which show the effect:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/NEW-possibly-2nd-Generation-77-78-Bootleg/post/584163/#TopicPost584163

 

Comparing one of those static shots (24fps) to a screen-cap from the 2006 "bonus" DVD (30fps):

The tape's smear appears to be too indistinct and large to match what a bad-telecine would be (a smaller and quite solid blur, much like in the DVD cap).

@AntcuFaalb - Forgot to mention in my first post that this is an awesome project you're undertaking. But just as valuable is the detailed description of your methodology. Much appreciated!

frank678 said:

If you have seen this bootleg can you say whether that process would be possible/desirable with this capture as is?

Haven't watched it; my bandwidth is the proverbial "98-pound weakling". :) My reply was strictly according to TServo2049's description of the anomaly (which is likely considering the "old VHS bootleg" context). I would say that the correction is desirable and workable (I've manually tested this in the previously mentioned RJSR circumstance). Also, the correction should be automatable in, for example, Avisynth, as such an anomaly would have been machine generated.

Darth Mallwalker said:

^Spaced Ranger in the scenario you describe, would it look something like this? So far I'm not seeing that in PS78v0.1. Fields look pretty-well blended there but I suppose it could be the result of DivX encode, as AntcuFaalb said.

Your frame doesn't quite look like what TServo2049 was describing. Your frame has part of one field is shifted, not double-exposed to give a "smeared" appearance. (Of course there's no motion here.) I've separated the fields of the frame. Switching between them shows what is happening to that one field:

This could be an alternate manifestation of the same anomaly, where the anomalous part is not double-exposing, instead superseding. A review of 5+ sequential frames (preferably with moving subjects or background, but not both) should make that determination.

On the other hand, this could be the result of AntcuFaalb's equipment-chain interacting to produce a new anomaly. Maybe TMTBC (Too Much Time Base Correction)? :)

AntcuFaalb said:

Also, is anyone interested in helping IVTC the median-of-five video?

TServo2049 said:

Can the image even be properly IVTC'ed? The problem is that this was done on the older kind of telecine which used pickup tubes. ... from watching old transfers like these, it seems like even if you were to pull the fields apart, they'd still contain the picture info from adjacent frames smeared together.

Actually, that is what happened with those kinds of telecines. I've noticed the very same effect when examining DVD releases of the 1950's science fiction television series "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger" http://www.oldies.com/collection-view/Rocky-Jones-Space-Ranger-TV.html -- filmed on B&W 16mm and telecined to "tape masters" for (later?) TV distribution. The DVDs are sourced from those tapes.

So, yes, when breaking down (24fps) frames into even & odd fields for (30fps) recombined telecine, previous fields were improperly superimposed onto the next processed fields, as the old machinery was not fast enough (nor better designed) to cleanly switch from one field to the next. Fortunately, only less-than-half of the previous field became superimposed on the next! This means that corresponding, uncontaminated halves of the same-frame fields can be joined to reconstruct clean fields for full-frame reassembly back to 24fps.

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Buy more. Buy more now. Buy, and be happy.

"It's all being buried with me," Lucas told reporters. "All copies of the two trilogies will be brought to my gravesite within one month of my death and laid to rest with me. .... I don't know why the fans are so mad," Lucas said. "I've been saying all along that they are my movies. ... When they have to hand over all their Star Wars toys, models, framed pictures, clothes, cups, and everything else to be buried with me, then they'll really flip-out." - George Lucas Announces Latest Star Wars Legality (2005)