TServo2049

I have a Sony BD player that works very well, not at home so don't know the model number right now.

Why would it be red-shifted if it's an LPP print? Was the element used to make the print already shifting in the 80s?

Honestly, for all the teal overkill, the shot of James Caan cracking the safe actually vaguely feels like some theatrical prints I've seen of other movies of the same vintage. Granted, it's too cold and too teal, but the print I saw of The Warriors had cool blues and a general cold feel to the image in a lot of night scenes. (Though other scenes had warm colors - as I say, the biggest problem with these regrades is that they affect colors and elements that were NOT "cooled" in the original grading.)

Ah, FX optical leakage. I remember when I saw a Terminator trailer projected open-matte, and the picture was letterboxed but the animated electrical stuff went out into the black space.

Thanks for clarifying.

Wait, I thought all the Heisei Godzilla films were 1.85:1 to begin with? IMDb says it's 1.85:1, and I was always under the impression that it was that AR. Which would mean this is NOT cropped other than the slight modification to 1.78:1 (which IMO doesn't count - if it's cropped rather than vertically opened, the picture lost is usually in line with framing variations that would have occurred from theater to theater in the film's original run)

It wasn't until the Millennium era that they went back to 2.35:1.

And it was the Showa films that were cropped to 1.78:1 on MonstersHD.

I think Cameron used blues in Aliens, and in Terminator. I was just saying that 1.) While it was never a primary color like in modern regrades, teal was NOT an invention of the 2000s; all 80s prints I've seen have SOME amount of teal as a secondary/tertiary color in blue-cast/dark/night scenes, so video transfers with NO teal are probably not accurate; 2.) I'm not sure that the theatrical prints were as overpoweringly blue as the 1995 laserdisc.

The "blue" version looks a bit like some of the prints I've seen projected at the Castro. Yeah, maybe a little TOO cold, but I don't recall the prints I saw of Streets of Fire, Legend, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Lethal Weapon, The Running Man or Evil Dead II having skin tones looking AS red as the "red" version. Can you get skin tones closer to the trailer images? Sure, we just said they may not be theatrically accurate, but they still look close to skin tones I've seen in actual 80s prints.

Another characteristic I've seen in 80s prints - very often, fire looks quite yellow. Anybody ever notice that with 80s prints, or is this due to me seeing all these prints at the same theater through the same projector?

Man, I wish I could see a print.

I agree, a reconstruction would be nice. When I watched the original, it seemed to be deinterlaced with only half of the fields, giving it a jagged look. Also, I think a couple VFX fixes from the DE were left in.

(I'm specifically thinking of the shot of the Enterprise coming out of drydock, where the model's mounting pylon wasn't rotoscoped out in the original composite, and left a black "hole" in the drydock as it passed by. IIRC, FanFiltration's SLV has the DE recomposite where the pylon arm WAS roto'ed out.)

What does the color on the extended LD look like?

I'm not sure if the 35mm trailer exactly match the release print grading. To point to another Cameron example, the original trailers for Terminator 2 have ungraded nighttime footage with natural skin tones, while the clips on the Siskel and Ebert review, the YouTube 35mm screening clip, and a few film frames I've seen, all seem to show that the theatrical prints had those pumped-up blues we know from all the home releases.

That said, teal existed in the 80s. I've seen an original 35mm of Streets of Fire that has a very similar palette to that Aliens 35mm trailer. The Terminator theatrical trailer (which I've seen on two separate occasions) also has a similar color scheme. The problem is that the color balancing done in the digital realm works completely differently from the original photochemical timing. Even if the general color scheme looks similar, the balance of those colors in the digital realm, and the way certain colors can be completely timed out of the image, were impossible when the films were originally made/released. You just couldn't push everything towards teal/green and drop all blue out of the image - there was ALWAYS blue in the color timing back in the 80s.

That said, it also wouldn't surprise me if the '95 LD was somehow adjusted (Photochemically? After transfer?) to pump up the blues. Those deep, sometimes almost indigo blues remind me more of the 90s than the 80s (reminds me of Jurassic Park, Independence Day, and of course T2). Was that LD the theatrical cut, or the Special Edition?

WCBS, you mean? As in, the WCBS New York airing that was most commonly bootlegged and seen? Fighting the frizzies and all? That's awesome!

Is there a high-quality preservation in interlaced format? Any conversion of this to progressive makes it less smooth and video-like, unless it's converted to 59.94fps progressive using something like Yadif 2x.

I've pitched in, I encourage others to as well.

I don't know if it's just because it's a photo off a projection, but I really like the contrast in the space scenes. The video transfers sometimes seem too bright/neutral, I'm wondering if the original theatrical timing didn't bring out the fill lighting on the models as much as the video transfers do...

OK, if it's mono AND analog, maybe it's indeed a wash vs. the DVD. (I don't know why I didn't figure out already that it had to be mono if it was analog left...)

I really should check my 1997 DVD and see if the isolated score there is true stereo...

The difference between TMP and TWOK is that TMP actually had a video master made by Paramount. Pre-Director's Edition, the only video master of the extended TWOK was the ABC master.

As I said earlier, my theory is that ABC mastered the extended TWOK themselves.

My understanding: The cloud was intact on the VHS and laserdisc releases. It wasn't digitally removed until the IMAX "enhancements."

Still willing to share. I have all three re-burned single-layer, 1-hr -R's ripped to my PC, so I can finally share them somehow. I'll probably just do a WeTransfer to you two Wookiees, who can then pass it along to others.

Ok, that makes much more sense.

I was able to rip the disc to my set-top DVD recorded hard drive and split it into three 1-hour-mode single-layer discs, but since not even the framing in the additional scenes is the same, on top of the digital compression and time-compression, I guess there's no point in trying to do anything more with the This version?

I don't even know if Paramount has the ABC master. As I said, I believe the video transfer for the ABC cut was done by ABC - read my previous post on that for more of what I know (or at least have heard/deduced).

suntech said:

I noticed an occasional little stutter (the best way I can describe it is like this. If the scene shows some one walking it looks like they are playing it frame by frame at a high speed almost to be undetectable as the scene goes one frame at a time.) I have seen this before on low budget stations like they have a computer that doesn't have a fast enough hard drive and a older cpu so the system can not keep up with the program. does that make sense?

Yes, but we've already established that the stutter was most likely an artifact of the movie being time-compressed. You, SilverWook and I all saw it.

As to ABC - knowing it ran in a 3-hour slot, I am willing to believe it wasn't time compressed. But does the other copy also have blending?

I do know (in particular from my L.A. friend, who is 7 years older than me) that the TV networks' telecine equipment (ABC's in particular) were behind the curve for much of the 80s - I don't know whether it was still film-chain or if it was flying-spot, but whatever it was, it still had a tendency to pick up an "after-image" of the last frame of film, hence the blending.

Anything that was transferred to video by the network, as opposed to being received on tape from the studios, would have this problem. Even when studios started sending some movies out on tape (e.g., Star Wars), there were still movies, especially TV versions with extended scenes and/or alternate "TV-friendly" takes, being transferred from film at the network into the mid/late 80s. (Even as late as 1987, the TV edit of Ghostbusters as broadcast on ABC looked decidedly more "smeary" than the official home video transfer.)

TWOK premiered on ABC in 1985, so it would have still been in this era.

Right now, I'm trying something even more insane - I'm ripping the disc onto my DVD recorder (which has a built-in hard drive) and I'm going to split it up so I can burn it onto my own single-layer discs. That could actually work (though whether image quality of the end result will be worth it, I can't say).

Yeah, it's definitely time-compressed. I can't believe we never even considered that it would be - most movie airings are these days.

I still want to get a usable rip if I can, just so you can see it and decide for yourself whether it's not worth it.

OK, good news and bad news time. Good news: The Emprex drive ripped the first 4 VOB files. DVD Decrypter crapped out with an I/O error on VTS_01_5 every time I tried (and in fact, I couldn't get it to rip VTS_01_4 without an I/O error after the first time). Perhaps it's not DL compatible and can only get the first layer.

Also, VTS_01_1 will only play in MPC and SMPlayer. Trying to open in VLC, it doesn't load. Trying to open in VirtualDub, it just shows the disc menu and says "99% free". Trying to open in AviDemux, it says "Cannot find a muxer" or something. Windows doesn't have any bitrate/framerate/time info on that file either. The next three VOB files all work everywhere.

I have no idea if this is a bad burn - it will play to completion on both of my set tops (though it doesn't always detect on my bedroom one). Maybe it's just the combination of it being Memorex, DVD+R (instead of -R) and DL?

Time compressed, compression artifacting, picky disc, and what I can rip doesn't work everywhere. Not to mention that when I put the disc back in the Emprex, it never detected it again. Maybe this is just fruitless.

Maybe suntech can just burn his version from his DVR - I don't want to make my friend do this a second time, at 9:30 at night on a Monday, having to switch discs twice. Especially if it won't yield better results (due to being, you know, time compressed...)

SilverWook said:

What make/model of DVD recorder was used? Of course, the discs themselves might be the culprit.

Is there any weird jerkiness to the video? Like frames are being dropped? It's probably my crappy cable system, but I only see this on the SD subchannels.

If you can get your friend to capture the next broadcast on the 25th, maybe just use single layer discs this time?

That would require switching the disc twice to get it in 1-hour mode, and the showing is at 9:30 at night.

I'd rather try to make this one work.

On another set-top I have, it runs, but only after almost 60 seconds of whirring and clicking.

And yes, I do see compression with fast motion. A fair amount of smearing and artifacting - I think a good amount of it might have been on the tape and/or broadcast signal themselves.

And as to jerking, it's not just you - there is definitely jerking whenever the camera pans. I think this may suffer from "time-compression stutter" like I used to see on TBS (where instead of just blur from frame-blending, there would be almost regular "skips" due to frames/fields seemingly being dropped by the compression process) - I'm trying to run it in sync from the beginning to see if there's any drift. The music's in sync...

....aaaand as soon as we get to Saavik's Captain's Log, it suddenly drifts completely out of sync. Yup, I guess it's f***ing time-compressed. I should have known it would be, this is commercial TV after all. (And actually, the ABC airing may have also been time-compressed - explaining the blending and the inability to get a clean IVTC. I believe ABC was already time-compressing movies in the late 80s?)

So on top of everything looking compressed, if it's time-compressed it won't yield any better of an IVTC.

I found a crappy Emprex USB drive that actually detects the disc, so I'm going to attempt a rip. If successful, I will analyze how it looks.

suntech, do you pick up This TV from a cable system, or terrestrial antenna? Just curious.

My friend's disc came in the mail. It does look a little compress-ey, possibly due to being HSP, but that could also be due to compression on the broadcast end (even with OTA, digital TV signals aren't raw uncompressed video, are they?)

The worse news is that my computer's drive will not detect the disc. My set-top player will, so it's thankfully not a coaster. But if I can't read it on my computer I can't rip it, meaning that I'd have to ship the original disc out to whoever's doing the project instead of just sending them VOB files. I'll see if I can update drivers/firmware and get it to work, otherwise I guess I would have to mail out the original disc itself.

I watched that and asked him. He said it was "the same as VHS." He seemed to indicate it was the theatrical shot, he said it didn't cut away and there was very little panning.

He's sending the disc to me and I'll check, but I have a feeling this is some later franken-cut we haven't seen before. (That could also explain SilverWook hearing David's "You son of a bitch!" and seeing more Ceti eel footage?)

He also curiously said that the opening credits are "open matte". When I said that wasn't possible since this was an anamorphic movie, it had to be squeezed or letterboxed, he said "You'll see." So does this also have redone/video-generated credits a la the pan-and-scan Star Trek V? Did the ABC cut have the credits redone in 4:3 also?

OK, my friend had to go out somewhere today, so he recorded it on a DL disc in 1.5 hour mode instead of 1 hour because he wouldn't be home to switch out the discs. It was unavoidable, hope it doesn't affect the quality too much.

He said again that the elevator scene is a static shot. Does that mean this is some bizarre alternate TV cut we haven't seen before?

He had texted me during the Tuesday night airing saying it wasn't the TV version, but I will ask him again tomorrow as he's actually recording.

I hope they didn't swap the edit out after that one airing. He's just watching tonight, he will actually be recording the Thursday morning showing.