The Aluminum Falcon

Is anyone interested in preserving the original PCM mono track from the Once Upon a Time in the West LD? I’m not certain that it’s completely theatrically-original as the end credits have replacement music, but I think it’s still worth preservation as the BD’s mono is compressed.

I can provide PCM audio (unfortunately non-Bit Perfect) if someone would sync it. A Bit Perfect rip would be better though!

I wouldn't get the Fantasia print, especially if it's post-restoration. I'd save the money for some other project.

As to the query before about digitally recreated titles, I generally frown upon the practice. It's not authentic, and I'd only recommend it if there's no other option available (the film element is completely destroyed). However, if the print we are using/transferring/preserving is a foreign-language element (with foreign credits), I'd recommend a reconstruction or something of the English credits.

The Snow White recording sounds good! I'm very pumped. Admittedly, it's not a perfect film, but it's quite a monumental one. The recording's definite a good part of history; I know it was eye-opening to see the pre-restoration Pinnochio.

No, I'm fine. Did you re-check your data? I burned mine to a BD.

I know this has been on hiatus for awhile, but a few points of info:

Suspiria- I assume this is on hold, pending the Synapse and TLE restorations coming in the next year. Gives sources to work with much better than what is already available.

Inferno- Is the German BD definitely going to be the basis for the custom BD? The Arrow is grain-reduced and the Blue Underground has contrast boosting/revisionist color timing.

However, there is the French Wild Side release which has not received much coverage. It seems a bit bright, but grain structure is good. There are forced subs, which could easily removed. I have a copy and could post screen caps to compare with another edition. Any interest?

The Mother of Tears- There's a new German BD. Same issues, which may stem from the bad final DI.

Anyone, out of curiosity, have an LD-rip of the theatrical stereo synced to the US BD?

I was considering trying to attempt the project I propositioned in spare time since I have access now to both the US and JPN BDs.

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

So, I will use only HDTV as video source, plus the MGM logo at the beginning and end to match the blu-ray soundtrack.

That's fine, Andrea. Honestly, it is not worth that much time and effort to get that little bit of picture info back in. I'm much more excited to see the HDTV (which I've never seen before in 1080p but only heard good things about) with good sounding audio.

BUT... I want you forgive me for this fact, and so I thought to do, apart the normal restoration, an extra fan-edit version, using the deleted scene put at the beginning, plus replacing the credits with a custom version I found on the net - a wondeful one - in an additional BD-25, along with extra material... what do you think?

 Sounds interesting! If you think you have the time, go for it. Is the deleted scene in high enough quality? Do you need to upscale it?

Incidentally, I'm very excited for your edition of BATB and any other future projects in 2014. Happy Holidays!

Joan Fontaine

Best Jane Eyre ever. I suggest you all pick up the BD from Twilight Time.

Well, it seems like Steven Moffat is trying to tie up all the loose ends of his tenure thus far and start anew with Capaldi. Trying to tie together The Cracks, the Silence, and the exiled Gallifrey together results in a really convoluted story. I'm glad they didn't bring Gallifrey back yet (after just revealing it still exists in the 50th Special), but the fact that they needed to bring it back up again just seems a bit sloppy.

I suppose-- trying not to spoil too much-- that this story suffers from being primarily sloppy. New characters are quickly introduced as having a prior existing relationship with the Doctor, and, given a 60-minute running time, they are not fleshed out. A good deal of the events of the episode is glazed over with some oddly-placed narration. (POSSIBLE SPOILER) The Doctor allies himself unexpectedly with a former enemy, and it's only mentioned in a throw-away line.

This really seemed to emulate story-wise and ambition-wise the classic series episode: The War Games (possibly the single-best Doctor Who episode, IMO). However, that was a 10-episode serial. With 60 minutes, this fell flat on its face. The story feels incomplete at its end, and I'm not sure if the plot's been completely resolved yet (it's that convoluted). There's just too many ideas for what should have been a more straight-forward swansong to Matt Smith's tenure.

I feel bad that this is Matt Smith's send-off. Not too hot about Capaldi, as I'm not sure how well an older-looking Doctor will work the way the show is formatted nowadays. Unlike the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, he did not genuinely amuse in his opening moments. Then again, first impressions aren't always the most accurate...

Not excited to wait for Autumn 2014.

Tack said:

Emma Watson as Travers

 Thompson?

Oh yes please! That sounds fine if you don't mind uploading.

I'm no audio expert but what if you do a lossless DTS-HD track instead of both a PCM track and a DTS track? The PCM track would take up much more room than a DTS track I would think, and anyone who wanted a smaller DTS track could just get the core out from the DTS-HD track. Just food for thought since I'm pretty sure some on this forum have the ability to encode into DTS-HD rather than just PCM.

Thanks for your kind (and quick!) responses, guys. I would assume TM would have no problem considering his post above but if he posted his approval, that would be all the better.

An upload would be immensely appreciated. On myspleen, this would be adored.

Hate to bump but can anyone please share a copy of Trooperman's edit? I see that he's said its all right now a few posts above.

Jetrell, do you need an invite to myspleen? If you're having so much trouble, it might just make sense to make a new account.

EDIT: Check your PMs.

Have any of these managed to be shared? Considering the amount of custom BDs on the Spleen, I don't think these should be too big of an issue, long as waliking dork is asked. Really would be nice if they could be. Things seem to stand like this:

1. The Motion Picture- I'd be interested in an HD cap of the DC or the TC. A DC HD cap would probably be an upscale, yet it would be better than a compressed DVD, likely. A TC HD cap may not have as much DNR, but the BD is less damaged by DNR than contrast-boosting.
2. Wrath of Kahn- I'm going to be honest, this looks all right to me on BD, and the amount of DNR is really minimal. It still looks very film-like. An HD cap of the DC would be interesting, though, especially with its different color timing. As it's unrestored, I'm not sure of it will genuinely have more detail, though the HD caps of Apocalypse Now show more detail than the BD, so... go figure.
3. Search for Spock- Search for Spock would be surpassed by an unfiltered HDTV capture easily.
4. The Voyage Home- Same with the Search of Spock as this release looks pretty bad. I'd also be interested in a recreation of the international version. Maybe the LD could be transferred, Andrea? :)
5. Final Frontier- Would be surpassed by unfiltered HDTV capture.
6. The Undiscovered Country- I'd be interested to see the DC cut or the Home Video cut in HD. The BD is the worst of all the Star Trek movies, looks like the master was just 1080i. I think I prefer some of the alternate cuts to the theatrical one; which cut is the one on the HDTV cap that's just been found?

Excellent work, just excellent work. Your process gives extremely great results when you're working with high-quality HD masters (except in color timing). Your Matrix release's downfalls all stemmed from the fact that the HD version you were working with was contrast-boosted and tinted so extremely. Though I haven't seen the THX DVD in awhile, this release really seems to be the THX color except with the 4K downscaled resolution of the 35th Anniversary BD. Quality-wise, Anchor Bay did a really good job, and it's fantastic that you have something so nice to work with for a more cult movie.

The audio is really nice. I especially love the lossless effects/music track. This really seems like a great supplement to Anchor Bay's 35th Anniversary release.

Are you still going to work on a release based on the Criterion color timing eventually? This will probably always remain my go-to disc just for the fact that your script has restored the aesthetically-pleasing THX color timing more than any general color correction setting could. However, it would be interesting to have a supplement that had the theatrical color timing. I'm not 100% on the fact that the 35th Anniversary might have been accurate to theaters; the fact that it's inconsistent with the Criterion LD makes me think it's just the negative estimated to look like a print color-wise, from memory, by Dean Cundey.

Jetrell Fo said:

I'm just thinking out loud here about STII ..... technically, the theatrical version could be re-created using footage from the 2 disc DVD set.  Of course, that footage would have to be touched up a bit maybe to match the HDTV footage.

 Wouldn't it be more prudent to just use the footage from the BD but color-corrected to match? I'd definitely be interested if these were re-up'ed to a torrent eventually... myspleen maybe? :)

Is Day of the Dead still worthwhile for making a custom BD? dark_jedi, I know you released an uncensored audio version awhile ago, but, in the interim, the Scream release has come out.

Can anyone here attest to the Scream's superiority? I heard there were compression and color timing issues, but I have a hard time believing it could be worse than the grain-reduced Anchor Bay version... Thanks.

Thanks eurospec19 for the clarification! Is the final form going to be a 1080p BD25 or a 1080p BD50? Also, you're keeping the restoration's English audio for the fort scene right? Ironically, the Lee Van Cleef impersonator sounded better, to my ears, than the heavily aged Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach.

You're probably right. The VC1 encode of the Mondo looks good to me, to be perfectly honest. The fact that it's a new company gives me a hint of hope. A new AVC version might not be too much of an improvement. A new encode of FFDM would be very much appreciated, though, if it had less DNR.

I'm more intrigued by the Once Upon a Time in the West (about which no details have been released other than the street-date). It could be the Extended 177-min Italian cut (though that would only be in Italian) or hopefully an even higher quality version of the 165-min cut with correct closing music and no Harmonica rising sequence. Duck You Sucker sounds fantastic. It's not a favorite Leone of mine but 2K restoration with English mono in DTS-HD sounds so exciting.

Very excited to see this coming.

Sorry but I'm a bit confused what's happening here. How many projects are going on exactly? I count:

1) Chewtobacca's Script Restoring the US Cut

2) bavaleone's audio (Bit-Perfect rip courtesy of PDB) synced to the Italian Cut Mondo BD

3) eurospec19's hybrid cut with mono LD PCM audio (not Bit-Perfect or PDB's), emulating the US version (complete with English titles but with the added fort scene)

4) Lil Brutto's similar project to eurospec19's- sorry but are these two the same?

Anyway, just to add some more info, there's a new BD coming out in Italy from a publisher other than Mondo on December 5th. Word is that it won't have English audio again, but it remains to be seen whether it could have a new encode. Perhaps it is a brand new transfer. It's likely, though, that the restoration is the same.

Thanks for the info, PDB (and the rip :).

Small bump. Hope you can find those foreign language tracks. Unfortunately, the Anchor Bay releases are English only.

Very excited to see this project come to fruition. It looks wonderful.

As mentioned before, Dr. Sapirstein's release, like some of his others, suffers from encoding problems and watermarks. If though his color correction is indeed accurate, his color correction would not be for naught despite the relative low quality of his video. Andrea's color match method could be used to transplant the corrected colors to a compression artifact-free source, without any frame re-syncing or cropping needed.

Incidentally, the original jump cut in the ending is preserved in HD in Terror in the Aisles on the Halloween II BD.