Supermartyoh

Very interesting.... I knew all about Psycho's odd matting choices.

I remember reading somewhere that 2 Fast 2 Furious, while shot in Super 35 like its predecessor to make 4:3 full screen versions and crop appropriately to 2.35:1, had the SFX scenes done within the full 1.66:1 (I think) aperture, but everything else was hard matted to scope. What do you think of that?

Looks like i'll be checking the 4:3 DVDs along with the SE widescreens then.

I don't know if a JP dub exists (or existed at one point but got lost/destroyed), but U.S import films are kept in their original language on Japanese video releases while being (HARD) subtitled. I did a search on many auction websites and the like and nothing comes up for a JP release othert than imports of the U.K releases, but it could be very hard to find like the JP laserdisc of Song of The South. I only brought that up if you needed a (possibly) better source for the U.S credits and audio. 

Shame that no one smart enough to start a team preservation on here grabbed that 16mm print from a while back.

clutchins said:

Yeah, one of your people put out Movie 7 on nyaa the other week with the Big Green and Speedy dubs using that French master. It does look really good but I didn't know it was only that good for movies 7-11.

 AB Groupe could've requested new masters for 7-11 because:

-The original master tapes were lost

-Were cut/edited

-or got different masters just because

Companies do really weird things sometimes, so if its the latter, that won't surprise me.

I also heard somewhere on Kaishenzu (is that spelt right Molly?) that a Scandinavian company (Future Film?) released all the DBZ movies using Toei's Dragon Box masters. I hear they may (or may not) have the Japanese stereo surround in addition to the Swedish audio, along with 1-9 using the Big Green track pitch and speed corrected to the DB source. They may be field blended NTSC-PAL conversions, but some sources say they are in pure NTSC format and are region 0. I need to know if that's true because if so, we could technically have cheaper Dragon Boxes with proper transfers and maybe the original Japanese stereo, but a worse English dub than Funi's and hardly any extras.

Molly said:

o.o? I'm pretty sure everything went to DVD in 4:3 *somewhere* in the R1 region.

In R2 land, Warner Music Video released the Big Green Dubs of DB movies 1-9 (including the specials) in 4:3, and as far as I know are uncut aside from the Toei logos on some of them. However, seeing footage from one of them on YT, the video looks to be sourced off a PAL betacam master with rainbowing, but is in the correct PAL 25fps rate (unlike most R2-4 releases of other anime, which are shoddy NTSC-PAL conversions with ghosting). So a 23.97fps conversion would be possible if one found BG sources good enough.

clutchins said:

I own all the R1 4:3 DVDs, Pioneer and Funimation, and the transfers leave something to be desired.

Yeah, being sourced from betacam masters with dot crawl and rainbowing doesn't help alongside the poor compression. With my knowledge of the LOL worthy Speedy Dubs, I remember reading somewhere that Speedy released Malay-English dubs of DB movies 1-4 on VCD, but also released the edited ocean dub of DB movie 1 alongside, making it more confusing. I also remember reading that there are (or someone had) Chinese bootlegs of the DB and DBZ movies that have the Speedy dub. Molly, are you aware of any of this?

Could be a private offer was made?

Quick question. For films shot in Academy then masked to 1.85/1.66, is it common for some non-SFX shots to be hard matted within the camera?

GoboFraggle1983 said:

By the way, could you please PM me a download link (or a zip file) to your Chinese DVD of the U.S. version? The more sources, the better! :-D (Also, does your DVD have any other languages, perhaps a Chinese dub as well?)

Sadly, I don't have that Chinese DVD anymore because it was a library interloan DVD, plus I don't remember which one I got it from (its been three years since I've attempted a project like this). Odd they would've had such a release; the library prolly didn't know what DVD they were ordering because of the Smurfs movie mad rush when those CGI messes were out.

I'm pretty certain that DVD was a bootleg, because I seem to remember English audio only (only subs for 10 other Asian languages I don't fraken know), LOLing over the engrishy synopsis, and being shocked by the horrid encoding quality. Trust me, i wouldn't use that as it was just as worse as the U.S Shout! Factory port of the U.K release.

Would any Japanese DVD or Laserdisc be worth looking into? These may be the U.S versions, but I can't be certain. I also remember viewing the rare Televista DVD at one point and that seemed similar (read: VHS quality, severe macroblocking) to the Chinese bootleg DVD I worked with.

Video Collector said:

Wasn't the UK DVD awkwardly cropped top/bottom to make it 1.78 widescreen? Maybe I'm misremembering? (They used the same master for a Blu-ray release.)

 Actually, that one was cropped a little bit but not far off from the 1.66:1 negative ratio. Going by those screen grabs of the 16mm U.S print, it seems that the opening and ending credits are open matte (they were recreated for that release) while the rest of film itself is hardmatted at 1.75:1. 

Good thing you used the 2011 UK DVD, as that was pure 25fps PAL and could be sped down to 23.97fps without any ill effects. OP, did you ever consider using the UK Blu-ray? Was that a proper 24fps transfer or is it a 1080i PAL bump? I tried something like this once with the U.S Shout! Factory release and a Chinese DVD of the U.S version. But the SF disc was a nasty PAL-NTSC conversion with ghosting (now thinking about it, I assume those dimwits just did a sloppy port of the UK Arrow release), and the latter had massive amounts compression blocking that it was unusable, so I gave up.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

if this laserdisc is actually open matte and not pan&scan, it could be used for this project...

Like Superman 1-3, Quest for Peace was shot anamorphic and not Super35, so therefore all 4:3 versions are pan and scan.

Which brings me to another question, was there a Japanese or Asian DVD of the IC released over there? Depending if WB does not own the Asian rights and if another company does, it might worth looking into.

drngr said:

I've seen one poster who claims the AAC quality was atrocious for him, while most people seem fine with it. Up to 384kbps can be selected.

Unless I missed it, you haven't mentioned what your video sources are going to be. This is critical to deciding on the most appropriate solution, because if you're capturing from something like a cable box then 5.1 PCM does you no good. Most cable boxes will output only stereo if the HDMI handshake tells them that DD 5.1 isn't supported.

 I plan to capture BD bits from my PS3 where the ripping programs cannot "crack" the disc due to newer protection methods, ala recent Fox BDs (BTW, I have a View HD 1x2 splitter to undo HDCP and tis working so far as my AGP box is recording the signals from my PS3, BD player, and so on). Sorry I didn't mention this in my first post (wanted to get the main questions out of the way first), but my video sources are mainly MP4s and m2ts (H264 codec), as Windows Media Player can play any MP4 file (even 60fps) fine, while VLC is choppy with MP4s but can handle m2ts videos flawlessly. 384kbs AAC for the Hauppauge is pretty good, better than 111kbs on the AgpTek box I currently have. I'll be listening to that sample to determine if the Hauppauge has good enough quality for my needs, as I spruce up the sound anyway and increase the bass and such (of course, I also upsample the audio to 5.1 as a WAV).

Thank you for your help! I was getting nowhere with my questions on Amazon, and I'm glad I got a membership here to answer my questions.

captainsolo said:

The cheap studios sourcing titles from pitiful sources...these are all the usual suspects.

Yeah, those are MUCH worse than Spartacus, EFNY, and others from the major players. IMO (and I know others would agree), #1 on my list is the worst BD release to walk the face of the earth!! Trust me, I at one time rented that horrid mess from a public library to see if truly it was the "Worst Blu-ray of all time" like reviewers were saying. And yes, YOU BETCHA!! Makes Predator and Spartacus look like pristine transfers in comparison to that abomination.

SilverWook said:

The animated BTFF was released on VHS and even Laserdisc in the 90's.

Did they release the whole series or in "Volumes" in the U.S that were never finished due to low sales? Never seen the VHS, nor LD releases anywhere unless they were PAL only, or are these U.S releases so obscure amongst BTTF fans that they'd cost more to own than a mid range laserdisc player. I did however, hear it received a R2 German or Polish DVD release with dubbed audio only, but even those are scarce for some reason.

Being you all mention the trilogy's 30th anniversary:

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Anniversary-Trilogy-Blu-ray-DIGITAL/dp/B011Q0FSC2/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1437361371&sr=1-2&keywords=back+to+the+future+30th+anniversary

Here's hoping this new hog wild "30th-Anniversary-Special-Ultimate-Collectors-Premere-Moneywhore-Grabbing" edition of the BBTF trilogy will have transfers of the films without the DNR and processing passes, but who knows. Regardless, BTTF: The Animated Series may make this more worth getting since (despite its wonky drawings and such) it hasn't seen the light of day at all outside of mid 90s TV airings and VHS bootlegs.

BTW ilovewaterslides, I really like your avatar! I guess you're a company logo connoisseur like I am. Not going completely OT, just a complement!

TFC would be categorized as a "Directors/Producers Revision" like the Criterion releases of The Last Emperor (2.00:1 hatchet job by the cinematographer). 

However, another notable example of poor/DNR'd transfers would be the 2008 BD of Patton. Luckly, Fox (quietly with little fanfare) released a new transfer without the DNR pass applied, kinda like the June 2015 BD+digital copy release of Terminator 2. So it seems some studios ether are "trying" to get with it now with 4k BDs coming up, or they got someone different at the digital transfers department who decided not to apply any smearing filters to new BD pressings.

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Anniversary-Trilogy-Blu-ray-DIGITAL/dp/B011Q0FSC2/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1437361371&sr=1-2&keywords=back+to+the+future+30th+anniversary

Here's hoping this new hog wild "30th-Anniversary-Special-Ultimate-Collectors-Premere-Limited to 1985 copies" edition of the BBTF trilogy will have transfers of the films without the DNR and processing passes, but who knows. Regardless, BTTF: The Animated Series, may make this more worth getting since (despite its wonky drawings and such) it hasn't seen the light of day at all outside of TV airings and VHS bootlegs.

Thank you for the reply. Do you know offhand the bitrate and quality of the AAC audio coding the Hauppauge uses?

Regarding the Decklink Mini Recorder, are you referring to this one? http://www.amazon.com/Blackmagic-Design-DeckLink-Recorder-Capture/dp/B00CDIXCSO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1437337750&sr=1-1&keywords=Decklink+Mini+Recorder&pebp=1437359546888&perid=12EQE3Q9SFFAPA8PGPD8

If so, this one should work perfectly as that has the correct PCI lane my MB can accept. Since audio quality matters more than video (5.1 PCM sounds tasty!), I can settle for even 720p (as the TV I have is 720p only, that's what I have all my equipment outputting to) if the video quality is good or better than the AGPTek box I have.

Now, some questions regarding the Mini Recorder:

- It should come with some type of recording software, right?

- Are my PC's specs good enough to handle the card without "bottlenecking" anything? Are there any known issues with the card like causing BSoDs or something or other?

- Does it encode the recorded videos as m2ts, MP4, or RAW? (I guess the latter since PCM is also an uncompressed format).

Again, thank you for your help and knowledge! If all the cards play right, I may lean to the Mini Deck rather than the Hauppauge, since its in the same price range. However, since the Hauppauge has a easier setup, can do 1080p, and capture 5.1 even through HDMI (from what I'm hearing), but through DD streams only, this may be a tough call.

Yeah, the StudioCanal BD wasn't very good ether, but at least they didn't use an old 4th gen VHS master and scrub/crop it to hell like #1 on my list (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews44/gullivers_travels_blu-ray.htm). Also, wasn't the SC/Optimum BD sourced from a unconverted PAL 576i master bumped to 1080p? (seemed more like number 6 on my list) I don't remember any ghosting, but I think that the audio pitch was higher than the NTSC masters. Even the U.S MGM BD, despite its problems, was at least from a true HD source and bearable (even if the studio digital master source was 1080i and deinterlaced/detelecined).

The new Sparticus BD looks promising. If they say its a new transfer, I really hope its true and Universal dosen't slap the old disc/transfer onto the combo pack.

Did you try Any DVD HD with another disc to rule out if its your drive or the software acting up? Sounds like your drive is reading it, so if it reads another disc again fine then option one would be to play it in your BD player and look for any freezing later on in the movie. If it freezes on the player, the disc is bad/has laser rot (very rare though) so a new replacement disc may be in order. I've had a few of those and in a rare case, a rented BD of Toy Story that had major laser rot going on and no player in the world would load it.

Option two would be something to do with copy protection that wasn't stripped all the way, if your drive loads the disc and tries extracting the video stream but there are problems/freezing/errors. Is your disc from the original 2011 trilogy set, or a recent printing from 2014? I noticed a lot of recent (2013-) Fox discs have a different copy protection scheme that a lot of PC drives and media players have trouble with and most DC and RP software cannot get rid of completely, thus causing problems like such programs freezing up when ripping, causing "garbage" pixels appearing in the image of encodes, or in some cases, "making" bad sectors for protection purposes. If this would be the case, I'd try tracking down the disc from the 1st release and try that.

Like for some people, it depends on the film and in some cases, the crowds. With most old TV shows, they usually have interesting credits to sit through with memorable ending themes or interesting text designs (and don't come up so fast you cant read the fuckers). Current TV shows I don't care for because most:

-Have video-like credits on black text with bland text and names I don't have enough time to read (This is where the players pause button on DVD and BD releases help)

-And bland and generic themes that make you say "Not sitting through this, NEXT EPSIODE!"

If its a shitty movie or a decent flick that has a ear grating song during the credits, I'm out even if crowds are there. If its something I like, i'll stay not only for any surprises after the credits, but to watch all the punks and bozos that text and blab their asses out, or do something really stupid like shit on the chair or spew out "this movie is gay" remarks. In most cases, I usually wait till the VHS/DVD/BD release to get a real grasp on all details on the credits.

I remember when I was about 5 or so, my parents and I saw the 1st Rugrats movie at a Regal Cinema theater and, believe it or not, I made them stay through the credits to see if this company logo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdO90sxSBiU) appeared after the credits. Oddly enough, this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90U0dYQDft0) appeared instead and while I wasn't startled (this one was a known scary logo that made kids cry), all the kids in the theater were screaming and crying bloody murder over what they just saw. Then my dad was yelled at me because I made out whole family stay though the ending credits and crying kids with frantic parents. I was crying like mad not because of some logo, but because of getting yelled for this credits obsession I have (still to this day somewhat).

DuracellEnergizer said:

"In any case, I'd hope said children would have better manners than Supermartyoh's examples."

Thankfully, most of the kids I see in real life are NOT that bad. The reason I mentioned "little kids" is because you need to be 13 years or older of age to have a YT account and post stuff, but their parents let them on anyways even if they use their accounts with their parents info and age. Its not just kids however, its also a problem even with adult users, most of whom are raging fanboys along with some sex perverts. However, while many YouTube users are not like this, the number of morons rising from the woodwork to "socialize" and "troll" are staggering!

I have no bias nor hate towards any group of mentally disabled individuals, as I myself have high functioning Autism. Not all mentally disabled individuals are like the YT clowns I described, and many of them are nice people and can socialize and behave in society pretty well. I just listed the most "notable" morons that just troll for the hell of it, and kids who don't know better because their parents are cracked boneheads. Sadly, these are the ones that are showing signs of society's downfall. I myself, along with several of you, have gone through experiences of dealing with an arsehole in our lives, and I posted that list to share my experiences.

If this is in the wrong place, let me know and move it, or remove it and tell me where to repost it

http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-Gaming-Definition-Capture-Device/dp/B008ZT8QKO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1437109074&sr=1-1&keywords=hauppauge+hd+pvr

I know this and the Gaming Plus edition has 5.1 surround recording through digital audio (SPDIF), but can it also encode 5.1 from the HDMI audio stream?

Also, if it only downfolds and encodes stereo from HDMI audio, how is the quality and bitrate? Does it encode the audio on the m2ts's as DD, PCM, or AAC?

I ask because I have this http://www.amazon.com/AGPtek-1080P-Click-Recorder-Capture/dp/B00MQQKDYE/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1437109450&sr=1-1&keywords=agptek+game+capture

While the picture encoding quality is very good, the audio is horrible! Not only is it AAC at varying low bitrates, but it has that horrible compressed metallic ringing sound when a sound plays at high volume. I am aware there are video capture cards with 5.1 audio capture that go on the PCI slots, but most are for PCIx16 and my desktop is PCIx8 (I believe).

Case your wondering, my unit is a HP Pavilion s5610f Slimline Desktop with:

H-Apricot-RS780L-uATX Motherboard

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core 3.0GHZ Processor 

8 GBs of DDR3 RAM (upgraded from a measly three) 

64bit Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled (OEM)

ATI Radeon 3000 Integrated Graphics

640GB Hard Drive SATA 7200RPM

And I cannot afford that many upgrades (motherboard, etc) to it if I need to get PCIx16 slots in it, so if I have to I'll buy a new desktop for the same amount as upgrades would be. But for now the USB capture cards seem to be my only option.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Someone finally finds me LOL worthy ...

And my favorites are the poster clowns that say "Can u hlp me fnd XYZ: the movie 4 fre? i can't afford 2 by it becauz I lazy and liek to fuk everyday and don have job my email iz (insert username here)@yourmail.net tnx"

Now that's comedy! Better than what's on Comedy Central nowadays or some of those obnoxious YT channels.

Anyways, lets get back on topic? (if that's possible)

Does anyone got any?

YouTube trolls and morons. Mainly the ones who:

- Are 5-9yr olds (along with trendy morons) who steal others videos and scream bloody murder and say "ur gay" or "YOUR GROUNDED FOR 4545824384t5t43h5e4g65gr97g3973rg594 YEARZ GO TO YOUR ROOM!!" when asked politely to remove them.

- Post random comments or other weird shit.

- Make insult videos of other users dying or "getting grounded" with a known site for making Family Guy style animations.

- Starting "comment chain wars" about the ethnicity and gender of a user going by his/her avatar

- Little kids and morons asking for video requests and threating to "rape" users for not accepting them

The first two are why I closed my YT channel a year ago, and will never come back until all the grounded assholes and trolls freeze over in HIFL (get the reference), which will probably be never with the way the parents and education systems are going nowadays.