Spaced Ranger

Just a heads-up for those looking the get Taschen's The Making Of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for cheap!

Amazon - The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Amazon has been drifting their prices up & down (the new price was going down, but not too low, and suddenly jumped back higher; the used price is still going down). Don’t worry about used – Amazon has “classes”:

• New
• Used - Like New – An apparently untouched item in perfect condition. Original protective wrapping may be missing, but the original packaging is intact and pristine. There are absolutely no signs of wear on the item or its packaging. Instructions are included. Item is suitable for presenting as a gift.
• Used - Very Good – A well-cared-for item that has seen limited use but remains in great condition. The item is complete, unmarked, and undamaged, but may show some limited signs of wear. Item works perfectly.
• Used - Good
• Used - Acceptable

Go for new or used - like new or even used - very good and it’s a bargain! The low price now is $26+ for used - like new, but you must act fast. If you miss it, don’t fret. This goes up & down all the time, sometimes with $new = $used! Just watch for your price and be patient. The lowest I saw was $21+ for (I think) a “like new” before everything starting going up again. For free shipping, you must get something(s) else to get the total price up to their free-shipping threshold. (Plan that in advance. You can loose an item, even in your shopping cart, if someone else buys it first.)
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And don’t forget to keep watching the other 2001 thread! They are still taking donations … as much or as little as you like … anything will help!
2001: A Space Odyssey 35mm Preservation (Help Needed - original 1968 prints obtained)

Again, AWESOME, DrDre!

Can you specify any references that you used to base your approach on this, or is it all brain-storming?

(BTW, I love brain-storms!)

Mike T. said:
… to do what Colossus and the HDMI splitter have achieved …

Can you give any specifics – on which Colossus card (apparently, there is the first card and now a 2nd), what version software/driver it works with, and your splitter (there seems to be inconsistant results with those boxes)? Thanks!

Wow, those are nice finds! A short time ago, no one would dare utter anything like “HDCP decode” out loud. Carefully read those descriptions to see what it actually says and what it actually doesn’t say. I think I’m going to do a little reading myself …

Check out . .
How to capture HDCP-encrypted HDMI sources (Vudu, Netflix, Directv, Virgin Media, etc.) . . lots of info and feedback.

For example:

Interesting to note this, too. Testing with Opera, I max’ed the browser to full screen and suddenly the proportions of Original Trilogy went to normal!

So, even the “browser” problem is really improper or bugged reading of the device it’s on.

Another bug captured in the act!

Thank you! Thank you, my adoring fans!

Well, something just turned up!

Amazon.com - To Boldly Go: Rare Photos From The TOS Soundstage - Season One

This book seems to have many “restored” photos from faded print film. But there may be some pictures from still cameras using better film, and therefore useful for reference. Check out the few pages samples from the book.

Tobar said:

				I am your father.
	NO-O-o-o-o-o-o-o !
				I … am as old as your father.
	NO-O-o-o-o-o-o-o !
				Okay, okay. I … am you.
	Oh. Nice boots.

Well, most of this was my proof-of-concept on consumer media. We never heard anything more about that film auction. (For anyone doing that project, feel free to bounce over here and run with it!) Of course, that would by-pass the need for any reconstructive surgery.

I was going touch-up a live-model picture as Sunny Miami. You have no idea how much searching I did to find the purrrfect one! But thoroughness is a virtue. All to prove that “ridiculous cartoon boobs” (as someone once put it) are neither ridiculous nor cartoon.

Fortunately for the world’s eye-strain epidemic, I had to curtail further, uh, development, until I had the time to give it them her justice.

dahmage said:
Is there any real point to scanning the film then, not just the audio? especially considering its state? i have it on dvd.

Absolutely! Check-out the other thread Cinerama 70mm 2001 preservation. Is it possible?. It’s only 14 pages and packed with info. Unfortunately, some early pictures are missing, from when Imageshack reorganized and wiped away all posters previous uploads. We moved on to other upload sites, so there’s still lots of demonstrable images after a few pages.

The DVDs and Blu-ray are consumer releases and part of the problem:

Spaced Ranger said:
Then definitely check out DVDBeaver’s “DVD Review 2001: A Space Odyssey” … Every home-consumer release (Blu-ray, too) as been all over the quality-map! …
However, the MGM 1998 DVD … comes out looking color-closest to Criterion Collection’s “Kubrick’s Blessing” laserdisc releases (thanks to PDB & althor1138 for their captures). …

Generally, old film is superior (even faded). And the scanning at 4K can bring out detail the Blu-ray just doesn’t have. I hope the Kubrick estate scanned Stanley's personal copy of 2001 before they snipped it apart for inclusion of strips in the Taschen, premium, $1000 book-set.

Just a note about the vignetting here (this is from the Blu-ray release, with all the errors that entails) – it is not identical in all the original picture’s R-G-B layers. The above pictures have changed colors (or from bad color correction that just came through stronger) in the dark areas that were uniformly brightened.

Keeping that in mind, I made another test correction at, this time in the moon base conference room (nice, big light panels on the walls to easily check values all across the frame) . .

A dodge mask was applied to each R-G-B layer independently (instead of universally as previously tried). I worked up a spherical mask to better approximate the lens-distorted vignetting . .

. . and stretched it to fit the picture frame . .

Each dodge also was independently adjusted via histogram, for proportion of change of the vignette area, . .

. . and transparency setting, for strength of application. Adjustments were guided by an eyedropper to ensure that R-G-B color proportions remain equivalent across brightness-changed areas (like in those light panels). The result looks the best so far! Check out those brighter and uniform color, frame edges:

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Just an aside …

Ever notice that in this meticulously crafted shot, only one edge (the far center light panel’s top edge) that is straight? Every other edge in the room is crooked! Was that deliberate? You better believe it! Then why? Well, where else would you expect a government agency, which conspires and lies to keep the public it serves in the dark, to meet? In a crooked room, of course.

I know things take time to develop, but any new word on the film’s progress? I know I ought to sit down calmly and take a stress pill, but … 😃

FrankT said:

Apparently, the UK version of the Fantasia 60th Anniversary DVD has Deems Taylor’s dialogue from the 1991 video version. Can anyone clarify if that’s correct?

This from about 2 years ago – hope the inference helps:

Spaced Ranger said on 20-Jul-2014:

Doctor M said:

Fantasia (1940): … The laserdiscs were the last release to still have the Deems Taylor’s narrations.

DVD and BD (2000 and 2010) have the restored runtime, but with new narration by Corey Burton. …

Purist recommendation: 2001 60th Anniversary DVD (also available as a 2000 Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 box). …

Ultra Purist recommendation: If you want Deems Taylor you’ll want the shorter running laserdisc.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_(1940_film):
Fantasia has received three home video releases. The first, featuring the 1990 restored theatrical version, was released on VHS and laser disc on November 1, 1991 as part of the “Walt Disney Classics” line. … This version was also released as a DVD in 2000, outside of the U.S. … [emphasis mine]

Would this indicate that the non-Region-1 2000 DVD, with original Stokowski score and Taylor narration (besides it being on digital media, but not knowing included extras) would be a preferred recommendation over the laserdisc?

Doctor M said:

@Spaced Ranger - That’s the first I’ve heard of a DVD release with Deems Taylor. I’ll update the first page, but has anyone here actually seen the ‘outside the U.S.’ release?

titanic said:

I have a Greek PAL DVD of Fantasia under Walt Disney Classics banner, but it doesn’t have Deems Taylor narration!

solkap said:
Ugg. This whole attempt has just become one big headache. I’m done messing with it.

Too bad you were having trouble getting what you wanted (or problems getting it to work?). But glad you tried to work it out. If you didn’t, I’d still be using an older version and missing the finished features (seems faster, too) of this newest one! 😃

As shown above, I increased the menu bit-rate from 6000 to 8000 (probably not necessary), removed “shadow” from your text, & increased the size from 12 to 14, & set them to “bold”. (Originally, the text was too thin and small to render sharply.) See how very cool it looks now in motion (reduced 50% to an animated GIF @ 3frames/second, to be manageable in the forum) . .

I did notice when something with the video is changed (ex: deleting and adding a new subtitle file), it resets associated settings (ex: video frame display defaults back to it’s chapter-break position). I take that as a bug and will submit a bug report.

Thanks, vignette! So, wow, looks like I re-invented the wheel, Dawn Of Man style . .

[ I posted some of this on the 2001: A Space Odyssey 35mm Preservation (Help Needed - original 1968 prints obtained), but moved it here where it belonged ]

In the other thread, an observation came up on 2001's use of front projection. This article illuminates:

American Cinematographer: Front Projection for 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Herb A. Lightman wrote:

The surfacing material used for the giant screen was a special 3M fabric coated with very tiny mirrored beads of glass. … This special lenticular 3M material comes in rolls and an effort was made to surface the screen by mounting it in 100-foot strips. However, because of a slight variation in reflectivity between rolls, seams were frequently visible under projected light. An attempt to match strips exactly proved unsuccessful, so the material was finally torn into small, jagged, irregular shapes which were mounted in a “camouflage” mosaic, shape on top of shape, so that there was no longer any visible variation in reflectivity.

While examining such a shot in a Dawn Of Man sequence (specifically the sky area, which looked patched & tattered), I was reminded of something else I noticed long ago – the set and the projection didn’t blend very well. Naturally, I tried a quick fix. Masking off all of the projected area (an easy task to clearly see the color-difference boundary), the set was color corrected to match the projection. (It could have been corrected the other way around, but this was just a proof-of-concept.) The result was amazing! Suddenly it looked like an on-location shoot that went all the way to the horizon, just as they originally wanted.
TOP is the original Blu-ray screenshot, BOTTOM is the projection-masked-off color correction . .

Doing that reminded me what I noticed more recently – something that looked like an anamorphic-lens brightness roll-off, where the edges of the picture darkened in curvature. Again, a quick fix, to make a mask that would brighten the picture ever more towards the edges. A square gradient from black-to-white was made, pasted back against itself for white-to-black-to-white, and then stretched to fit the picture size . .

Next, to apply the proper lightening, the mask’s histogram was adjusted to produce no lightening effect in the center but to sharply increase it’s lightening towards the edges . .

In a paint program, this mask was layered onto the picture and specified as a “dodge” mask, to increase the exposure as mask-areas increased from dark to light . .

The result was excellent (even though the picture still needs more rounded illumination into the corners)!
TOP is the color-corrected picture, BOTTOM is the luminance compensation . .

So, could something like this be applied throughout the film (it all looked like roll-off)? With another screenshot, bright instead of dark, colorful instead of earth-tones, I tested it but it was too much. By adjusting the mask layer’s transparency to limit the effect (50% seemed about right), the noticeably dimmer walls at the edges now became more like the brightness of the walls in center screen (BTW, no color correction this time, just the luminance test) . .

More fixes for 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Forgive me, Stan, forgive me!) 😄

And, of course, there doesn’t seem to be a “default style” for “generic browsers”, so one would not get almost unreadable formatting like this on, for example, Opera v.12.17:

Wow! You’ve found it!! The legendary print that resulted when George Lucas, carrying his Star Wars reels, turned a corner and collided with Robert Zemeckis, carrying his Back To The Future reels! And the color looks amazing!
😄

poita said:
I first noticed the patchwork background of the front projection screen when viewing the film in 70mm, I haven’t seen the blu-ray, but I notice it every time in the cinema.

Here you go (a click-thru the website to the full 1920x1080 image):
Top Wall Papers website - 2001: A Space Odyssey - Dawn Of Man (1080p)

American Cinematographer: Front Projection for 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Herb A. Lightman wrote:

The surfacing material used for the giant screen was a special 3M fabric coated with very tiny mirrored beads of glass. … This special lenticular 3M material comes in rolls and an effort was made to surface the screen by mounting it in 100-foot strips. However, because of a slight variation in reflectivity between rolls, seams were frequently visible under projected light. An attempt to match strips exactly proved unsuccessful, so the material was finally torn into small, jagged, irregular shapes which were mounted in a “camouflage” mosaic, shape on top of shape, so that there was no longer any visible variation in reflectivity.

Would this suggest that the contrast of the prints was not high enough for the brightness to further obscure those pieces, as they saw it?