Spaced Ranger

Jay said:
… any posts a member decides to wipe clean on their way out can be restored quite easily, so don’t bother.

Oh NO-O-o-o-o!! That means Wolfman Jack's little dance will always be with us?

American Graffiti reads:

THE GYM PARKING LOT
Steve and Laurie walk toward her Edsel. In the background Wolfman Jack is taking a phone call from someone.

MAN (voice over): Hello, Wolfman.

WOLFMAN (voice over): Who’s this?

MAN: This is Weird Willard.

WOLFMAN: Hold on a minute, let me get my pants off … you understand?

WOLFMAN: I got 'em down around my knees, man. Wear these tight pants. I can’t get 'em … All right, I’m gonna do my little dance now, man.

And the Wolfman goes into an insane rain-dance rhythm as we hear "Little Darlin’ "

That is a great idea … of alternate audio tracks (or even “angles” to switch in/out alternate video sequences). I hadn’t thought of that. Depending on what’s done, one could “dial-up” as much, or as little, Star Wars as perferred. But, of course, all within the parameters of your project.

Just came across this and it is excellent! I haven’t checked out the vids yet, but will shortly.

Definitely have a Star Wars crawl to explain your project in the context of Lucas lifting the whole cloth of Fortress as his plot-line and then bunching it up his own way for his movie … pretty much as in your OP.

Maybe include mention of Lucas’s direction as a 60’s/70’s filmmaker in California – “I’m a '60s, West Coast, liberal, radical, artsy, dyed-in-the-wool 99 percenter before there was such a thing”. It’s interesting to note that his film ideas (not very many) started out as anti-establishment statements. The ironic thing is, with his precious socialists finally in power, his old films now look like pro-Liberty statements against the truly tyrannical social/communism.

(No wonder he’s always moaning that “his big films” are not really his (too many other Americans injecting better ideals to make them work). He wants to get back to “small films”. But he has no other ideas to make and has stopped being a film-maker a long time ago. Poor George.)

BTW, how about including Star Wars sound effects and sound environments? (With the wall-to-wall music, it might put the picture even more squarely in the Star Wars motif.)

poita said:
THX was specifically timed after it was shot … the colour in the sample is 95% matched to the print. … The print we have is an IB Tech, it is battered but has zero signs of fading.

Didn’t realize the source was that reliable. Sounds great! I certainly wouldn’t want "a Lucas" done to THX 1138. Again. 😄

SleepyBear said:
I might have to agree. Never mind.

I haven’t tested with Blu-ray's own non-cleaned-up originals, but from the DVD (screen-caps snagged from TrekCore – _The Enemy Within image gallery), some excellent results can be obtained by eye (proof-of-concept in a paint program) with simple normalization (estimating & setting black to black [~016], white to white [~240], and grey to grey [~128]), judicious DNR, mild sharpening, and a little more saturation:

	standard DVD				“corrected” DVD

poita said:
Was planning on having another sample up …

I love these samples! Might it be a demonstration of particular technique(s) you’re using?

BTW, I was reading your recent comments in DrDre's Estimating the original colors of the original Star Wars trilogy thread, against the general concept of using on-the-set photo as color sources (unreliability). But in this particular case, what are your thoughts on using THX 1138's on-the-set photos, exemplified in my THX Help thread post? They looked really good (rich, bold, clean) and that would really make the movie look as awesome as it must’ve been on the set.

And let’s not forget that great comedian who, as a bit player in THX 1138, added a little something extra to the white limbo … Marshall Efron!

… oh, wait. Here’s a better picture …

He’s the man behind such greats as …
Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School
and of course …
The Great American Dream Machine
and who could forget …

Better Living Through Chemistry

.
Pie, anyone?

Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before (HD DNR to DVD “zap” compared)
TrekCore – HD-DVD on LEFT @ 50% . . TrekCore – DVD on RIGHT @ 100%
TrekCore – no matching from non-restored Blu-ray

Do you know the GPS co-ordinates? Then we can see what’s there now, from the online maps.

And that’s not all of it. Forbidden Planet needs fix-ups (apart from the-usual-suspects releases).

Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Forbidden Planet special effects also shows it’s “frayed edges”. For example, in this shot (Blu-ray), it is clear that the actors are walking outdoors on an overcast day (also see reflections from the rain puddles?) with a matte painting all around them [TOP picture]. Why does it look phony? First, the walk-way colors don’t match. Even when that is corrected (the matte painting matched to the live action) [MIDDLE picture], still visible are street/parking-lot construction joins (or whatever) going off in wrong directions. Erasing those biggest eye-distractions allows the shot to look more natural [BOTTOM picture].

No global color correction was considered in the above (which it needs anyway). Without any on-the-set or behind-the-scenes sources, here’s a suggested color correction . .

Mavimao said:
Who is he even looking at??

THX11384EB said:
… this thread was created for donations, and now that it’s been successful …

As I understand it, the immediate funding to get things rolling has gotten things rolling. But there still are more expenses to see the project through. That includes more funds for such things as high-capacity, high-speed hard drives (and double+ that for back-ups and work areas), professional software license fees, additional equipment & software as the situation demands, utilities (electricity and air conditioning aren’t free). But most important is a steady stream of choco-latte to keep poita going 24-7 !

That’s probably the best reason for picking up something like this very cool scope. I knew I should’ve been born rich!

Was there ever a comparison among the laserdiscs, or a general consensus of the best (or equal betters)? And, for that matter, how good (or how poor) were the DVDs compared to the laserdiscs? (I was sure there was a review where a laserdisc screenshot was compared to the DVDs and/or hi-defs, but can’t find it at this moment.)

JayArgonaut said:
Apparently MGM censored some of the later prints to remove the kissing scenes with Anne Francis.

According to IMDb, this was only of a national (“local”) showing. I would guess MGM would not make up special prints in such censorship/ratings situations. At most, they’d just “OK” the locals making cuts for the local rating. But I’d suspect that letting internationals do cuts for local sensibilities is a contract norm.

To me, the BD looks fantastic although there’s bound to be someone who disagrees. 😃

Ah, that would be me! 😃 But first …

SilverWook said:
The Blu Ray version looks pretty good to me as well.

I once made a proof-of-concept color adjustment of this particular shot just to see what might result from stronger contrast & saturation & reduction of the blue tint (Blu-ray on LEFT, BR “adjusted” on RIGHT) . .

Too much of the movie is not well graded, as opined in this DVDBeaver review:

DVDBeaver Review – Forbidden Planet wrote:
“I don’t mean to ‘rain on the parade’ but I think I may have had higher expectations for the image quality of the new release than it is representing. … but I am ambivalent to make any bold statements on the colors. It could be the lighting but the uniforms of Commander Adams crew shift from blue to silver and even brown in some scenes.”

Interesting link connection …

2001:ASO contributions-help thread ---->

Give A Little Bit . . (song by Supertramp) ---->

Superman The Movie . . (song plays on Lois’s car radio) ---->

ape, man, superman . . (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, philosophical novel by Friedrich Nietzsche) ---->

opening music to movie 2001: A Space Odyssey . . (Thus Spoke Zarathustra fanfare, by Richard Strauss) ---->

mind blown . .

Whoa … that sounds excellent! Rich, full, clean. Will be cool to hear it in 4-channel “surround sound” . .

Compare it to the somewhat lack-lustre Blu-ray. I DL'ed the YT audio at maximum quality, CBR 256K, and there is “no contest” . .
YOUTUBE: Franks Death - ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (HD) - @ 1m 54s

In case anyone missed this, a note from a couple pages back:

poita said:
… keep in mind I have not done a colour grade yet, and this does not match the print very closely.

. .

Can we get a countdown clock? 😃

GEFORCE GTX 1080 – NOTIFY ME: Be informed of when the product is available to order

Engadget: NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 GPU is faster than Titan X, lands May 27
“NVIDIA didn’t have too many technical details to share about either card, but it gave out a few stats: The 1080 pumps out 9 teraflops and packs in 8GB of Micron’s new GDDR5X RAM. The 1070, which is also faster than the Titan X, spits out 6.5 teraflops and also has 8GB of RAM …”

RE: Responsive Web Design

Some approaches are just broken-by-design. That is, they don’t deliver their promised utopias.

Programmers - Stack Exchange: Responsive Web Design vs. User-Agent Sniffing
“… in practice, I’m starting to get the sense that the CSS3 media query feature, and the whole “Responsive Web Design” movement, may not live up to its promise. … at this point, the resolution of mainstream smart phones is getting pretty close to Desktop-level resolutions. The ability to detect whether a user is viewing your website via a smartphone, tablet, or desktop, seems to be increasingly difficult if all you’re going by is screen resolution.”

poita said:
I had to use infinit as the file was larger than 2GB with the audio, and I needed something with resuming as my internet craps out all the time, so you will need to get infinit if you want to take a look at it.
It is free, https://infinit.io/?referral=poita and if you use my referral, we both get an extra half gig of storage which would be very useful going forwards for this project, …

With not allot of spare time, I probably wouldn’t make much of a dent in your license count-down, but I tried to install the Infinit app for you to get that extra 1/2 GB of storage. Only, the installer doesn’t install – just times-out, no activity, no errors, and then … nothing.

Infinit forums & Internet searching can’t find others with this problem. I guess I should feel honored (program bugs tend to jump out of hiding when I’m at the keyboard). It’s great when I’m paid to do it, but it puts a crimp in my normal productivity. 😃

Is just DL'ing the installer through your link enough to get you that extra storage?

A WOW! new thread! And WOW! things within!

Thanks for all those awesome samples! I think I must’ve died and gone to . . .

. . . okay, fellas, move over a bit, okay? It’s getting crowded around here!

Weekly Update – Opposing Viewpoints: CORRUPTED FORUM-STYLE FILES?

Jay said:
The layout will change based on the size of the browser window, independent of the device on which it’s viewed.

	"Oh. That’s very different . . ."

	"Never mind."

poita said:

Final scans have arrived and I am working on them now. … violent vomit bug …

Funny good news/bad news post. Not funny bugs. Even Indy says: “I hate vomit bugs, Jacques! I hate’em!” So, let’s do our part for poita!

Ottenere ben presto tutti ! <-- to help brush up on your Italian

I’d be appreciative if people could join in and help ID the sections where my routines fail …

Okay, you twisted my arm! I’ll do it. I’ll do it!
😄

Thanks, DrDre! This is great stuff! Your results are excellent but, more important, the process subdues “personal perception” twiddling … to move the faded film back to specs (all things considered).

I suspect that other functions in my paint program (gamma, mid-tones, etc.) are wrong (that is, made for different purpose) but serviceable in proof-of-concepts. On this laptop, it appears my last picture “inexplicably” went bluish in the dark shadows of a “neutral color” bunker after application of “mid-tones” (contrast).

Are such “standard” functions in your process pipeline? Or would generalized functions, created to be more spectrum symmetrical, be more suited to this task? (I was thinking of testing such.)

DrDre said:
The simple white balancing algorithm is almost an exact copy of the algorithm used in GIMP …

Well, it looks like I’ve re-invented the wheel! This is my general approach to manual color (& fade) correction. (Never attempted to automate it, but the approach is simple enough to work up something.)

My approach differs from GIMP’s:
I never discard picture information as GIMP does by cutting off pixels
pic2 – What should be black-ish and white-sh R-G-B’s are set by end-cut-offs of blank area to achieve those values (looks very close to your pic)
pic3 – What should be middle-grey-ish R-G-B’s are set by gamma to achieve those values
pic4 – Contrast is then adjusted (scene specific – can’t see this being automated as yet) and …
pic4 – Spectrum ends are under-max’ed by 16 pixels for foot-room & head-room

And thanks for the reference leads. Didn’t know Google was a Scholar, too!

That full-screen capture is from a laptop with a 15" dialog screen. Resizing any window on the same hardware should never affect the style (font size, layout proportions, etc.). It doesn’t on every other website I’ve seen, save some flash-movie pages. Websites that are “aware” of screen sizes, grab that information for formatting (if formatting is to be different on different devices). Browser-size information is useless because it gives no indication of the device it’s on.

But this does happen here, meaning the wrong information is being requested, for ID, for style/format. Also, there must be a default (a “standard” webpage) to fall back on if such information is not available or not accounted for. So that might be wrong, too.

These are real bugs. They must be squashed. Do Your Part !