The Aluminum Falcon

Thank you Ridgeshark for sharing this wonderful version... It really is great, as MrBrown describes.

captainsolo said:

I found some reports that even the '99 DVD had been color tweaked. Is this true?

Hmm... I haven't heard of this tweaking. My '99 DVD's color timing looks pretty close to a "For Your Consideration" VHS (presumably for some awards show judge), which I found a few months back.

On a side topic, would my "For Your Consideration" VHS be 1) of original color timing and 2) be of any value?

Also, for anyone who is interested, there are now seeders, including me, on thepiratebay torrent of an HDTV broadcast of the Matrix with open matte picture and non-green-tinted color timing. It's identical to the one on RuTracker except it's not in Russian. Anyone interested should grab it now.

Casablanca 2: SAVING ILSA

Very shortly after the ending of Casablanca, the plane to Lisbon crashes, killing Victor; however, Ilsa survives but is lost in enemy territory. Rick and a rag-tag group of friends, including Sam, Renault, Ferrari, and an actually-alive Ugarte, take some weapons and go rescue her. Rick gets the girl at the end.

This movie would be made using 3D CGI models based off of photographs of all the actors.

Citizen Kane 2: SON OF KANE

Charles Foster Kane's only son didn't die in a car crash. He was kidnapped by political rivals of Kane. Raised in Germany and brainwashed to be a Nazi, Kane's son becomes a Nazi ruler during WWII. He sees a report on his father's death and suddenly all memories return to him. Kane's son, in repentance for all his evil acts, single-handedly takes down the Axis powers by killing Hitler and making it look like a suicide. At the film's climax, Kane's son has a vision of Charles Foster Kane, now played by Danny Devito, with a digital CGI model Orson Welles head.

Phantom of the Opera 2: THE PHANTOM REDEMPTION

Based as a sequel to the relatively obscure movie version starring Robert Englund, the Phantom has a change of heart. The film continues on the premise that the Phantom inexplicably ended up in modern times, as shown in the end of the previous film. After failing to kill Christine with a falling grand piano in the opening sequence, he decides to turn "good." He meets a girl he accidentally blinded with the shards of the grand piano. He protects her from a gang and becomes a modern-day vigilante. The movie ends as the Phantom manages to induce a heart attack on the villain by the horrifying nature of his face.

Nien Nunb said:

Didn't Embassy put out a laserdisc too? I wonder if it's the same transfer as the VHS.

Embassy did put out a laserdisc, but it's a different transfer than the VHS. For awhile, it was the only way to get the true U.S. Theatrical Cut. I snagged in a couple of months back but never got a chance to watch it. I'll check the palette of that version this weekend for you guys.

RidgeShark said:

Hey, it's been a while.  I still have an old membership over at myspleen, so I'm checking in their forum if it would be alright to upload this.  Definitely don't want the tv cut to fade into obscurity.  I actually tried uploading this to CG a while back, but they didn't want it.

Oh wow. Hello RidgeShark! It's good to see you back on the forums. Considering the great volume of TV cuts that have been recently uploaded to myspleen, I assume the AOD one would be absolutely fine. It's good you're planning to share this. Thanks, man!

digitalfreaknyc said:

I'm running into a snag, though. It looks like there were some choppy parts in part 3 so I'm going to have to plug the holes with the official Blu-ray.

Oh that's unfortunate. Will you need to degrade the resolution of the parts from the Blu-Ray to match the HDTV capture better? I assume that the HDTV capture is at other 720p or 1080i so the BD may be a slight jump-up in quality.

nocomments87 said:

I still have the DVD files of the original 1927 version that you sent me on my hard drive. If there was a way to upload them, I'd be glad to. I can also start a torrent on Demonoid and get it shared from there.

Oh wow, thanks nocomments87, didn't expect anyone would keep the files after burning. I personally have no more use of the 1927 DVD-9s, as I made 4 movie-only DVD-5s from them. However, I have had to tell some people that the DVD-9s aren't available anymore, so it may be of use to some others...

Currently, I'm fixating on getting that 1935 version. Also, does anyone happen to have the triptych ending with the superior score by Carl Davis? I think that all the versions I've seen of the triptych have Coppola's score. Also, on the DVDs I distributed, the score was indeed Carl Davis's but no triptych picture... (only black and white center sadly).

digitalfreaknyc, that sounds absolutely fantastic! I remember you mentioned this and always wondered whether you would do something with the capture. That sounds like quite the set and quite the large torrent. I'll definitely vow to pitch in and seed once everything's done. A private tracker, like myspleen, sounds like it would be better.

So, each BD-25 will have two episodes and an extra? If so, that sounds like a great deal. The 2 extras you have planned so far sound good. Do you happen to have a commercial from AMC advertising the newly redone Godfather Saga? That could also make a nice extra.

Hello! As said before, the 2 PAL DVD-9s of the Brownlow Restoration were taken down, but someone uploaded an AVI on thepiratebay.

As I was researching this film a bit more, I found out that Abel Gance re-edited this several times: truncating it to new story lines. Most significantly, in 1935, he made a "partial?" sound version of the movie, entitled Napoleon Bonaparte. It's in French, of course, but I'm interested in his use of sound (Gance used it well in the 1935 remake version of J'Accuse).

Anyway, to come to the point, this 1935 version seems to be the only alternate Gance re-edited version released on home video. It was uploaded on a blog called Cinema of the World at worldscinema.com. HOWEVER, it was uploaded only to rarefile and filepost, which begs my question: does anyone have either a premium rarefile or filepost account to download this upload and then possibly repost it somewhere else? I realise it's a big task to ask but I don't want to pay a premium account for one download. In any case, you can find the page with the Napoleon Bonaparte 1935 links by merely googling "napoleon bonaparte 1935". It's the worldscinema link. PM me if you can't find it and want to help.

Asaki said:

RotJ now up on MySpleen.

Thank you so much for this re-upload, Asaki. I downloaded it. It really does look interesting.

The X9 can pull out a lot of the details in the JSC, though it also exposes the JSC's many limitations of analog resolution. Having no grain reduction is nice but it would be better if the resolution was high enough to actually make out the grain. I still like it though. Increased gamma and interesting color timing make it a good watch. Both the JSC X9 DVDs seem surprisingly saturated.

In any case, to all involved, in making the disc for both ESB and ROTJ, thank you! I believe that includes Arnie d., Darth Mallwalker, and Chewtobacca; kindly excuse me if I've forgotten anyone involved in the work-flow.

pittrek said:

Let's hope it's him

Agreed. "Let's hope," indeed. Has anyone sent a PM or message of some sorts to this laserman on the Star Wars Legacy Forum?

FANtastic Trailer, man! Q2, your work looks really fantastic and that trailer looks epic. I look forward to seeing the finished product. Nice trilogy title by the way, as well, too!

I loved your beta of this. It was really very inventive and fresh. I'm sure whatever color correction you'll do will look great, zombie84. Wish you well on this! I can't wait to view it.

This sounds like quite the experimental edit. Hope that all goes well with it: pacing all right and such.

Thanks for the schedule, Asteroid-Man. I look forward to seeing all you various works/edits. Out of curiosity, do you think a BD-25 can only support a 720p movie? Wouldn't it be able to use a 1080p version with a reduced bitrate? Anyway, it's your decision, but, in my experience, I'm able to fit about 2 hours in good full 1080p quality on a BD-25.

greenpenguino said:

You didn't watch Touch of Evil??

That's a brilliant movie as well. I'll probably watch that when I have the chance. I actually want to take the time to see the extended version (not the restored cut).

Bingowings said:

Magnificent Ambersons has been highly regarded for quite some time

Though it's been regarded highly by film societies and such, I'm not certain many people have heard of it as much as say... Kane. It also deserves more attention. I mean, it just got a DVD release. It definitely needs a BD and proper restoration.

...if anything I think The Third Man (lovely as it is) is a tad overrated.

Ah... :-( To each his own but I really feel that film has heart, emotion, and message.

Went on a Welles marathon Friday:

• Citizen Kane- It's been called the greatest movie ever. Is it? Possibly. I definitely love it: the devastating consequences of the American dream. I couldn't find any bad acting.... Great. I hated it the first time I saw it, but it's a movie that grows on you fantastically. Toland was a genius.
• Magnificent Ambersons- EXTREMELY UNDERRATED! I loved it so much. I watched a reconstructed version and it's so much more powerful than the theatrical cut. People would have respected this so much more if the studio didn't butcher it... as much as Kane I would say. The sets and dialogue are fantastic. I always wonder why Orson didn't cast himself as George (as he thought the character was based off of him); Holt was good but Welles could have been better if he made himself to look young.
• The Third Man- Fine. It's not a Welles' film but it was my favorite of the movies I watched today. For me, The Third Man is THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE BY HUMANs. It's so impossibly underrated like Ambersons. It's better than Kane in my opinion. The dialogue and story are so quick and fresh even today. The zither is an unusual but completely effective sound track choice. Post War Vienna is so haunting yet enticing. Cotten is perfect, Valli is stunning, and Welles is indescribably good. Cotten's and Welles's relationship is so well played as well as Cotten's and Valli's. All of the actors deserve great credit. "The Cuckoo Clock" line still sends chills down my spine. Most devastating ending in a film. The sewer followed by those last two minutes... send audiences reeling.
• Chimes at Midnight- Eh... I finished the day off with this. I watched a good copy by Studio Canal. The Shakespearean plot is good. I'm certain this is the best adaptation of the two plays. Strong visuals and good acting but somehow not as potent as the other films I watched. It definitely deserves a viewing. Welles sinks into Falstaff properly. The battle scene still stuns; if you're a student of film, you should at least watch that part.

Well, back on topic, I think I have a relatively sizable collection, not nearly comparable to others on this forum though. I'm not going to list all of them but just name some valuable ones. These are my official ones... I'm not bothering to count burned stuff: 

VHS- 49 (Matrix "For Your Consideration" Screening Tape and unopened "Jailhouse Rock" colorised)

LDs- 86 (Magnificent Ambersons CAV LD with full bonus features, first issue of Blade Runner theatrical version, Alien with 70mm mix, North by Northwest Criterion set, Lawrence of Arabia Criterion CAV, From Russia with Love CAV Criterion with commentary)

DVDs- aprox. 1,000 (Evil Dead II Tin, GOUT Trilogy, A Hard Day's Night MPI Version, MGM Army of Darkness HQ Director's Cut, Time Bandits Criterion, Tron 2-Disc Release) 

BDs- 312 (Evil Dead original 2-Disc issue, Dr. No and From Russia in Collectible Tins, Pulp Fiction Polish BD with visibly superior VQ to US BD, Big Blue)

Jonno said:

If it's actually authoring you're after, MultiAVCHD is well worth a look... It can generated a menu structure with a certain degree of control (using an interface which is admittedly rather fiddly) and most importantly doesn't re-encode compliant streams.

Worth a shot, it's free!

Thanks. I actually gave MultiAVCHD a shot, and it's all right. I just don't really have time to be working on menus and, for some strange reason, it stopped working on my computer... For that reason, I use one of the two programs above.

digitalfreaknyc said:

I always capture it with the highest settings with the Hauppauge.

Good. That's great.

I have no idea how many gigs it's going to be for the total thing. I'm going to assume around 20-30. That's going to take forever to torrent. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do with it, once I have it.

Ohhh... I see your problem. I'd be willing to seed a large torrent like that for about 2 or 3 weeks if necessary but I can understand the sheer trouble of trying to find something to do with it. If you do do something with it, I'm always interested.

Thank you for the response, Chewtobacca. You're quite informative. I knew I was quite the nube thinking that BDtoAVCHD would produce better quality...

digitalfreaknyc said:

I'm capping it. :)

I also capped the opening from Godfather 3 which was COMPLETELY different. It's a 15 minute flashback montage of the first two films, intercut with "older Michael" from the very end of 2.

Ooh! That sounds fantastic. YOU ARE A GODSAVE!

What quality are you capping it in, may I ask?

Forgive me again for being forward, but would you mind sharing it on a torrent on myspleen or something?

Hello all,

I've finally ventured into the world of authoring and burning BDs from MKVs. Of course, a natural question would be: what's the best authoring program?

I always assumed that TSMuxer produces an HD output exactly the same quality as the MKV. There's no quality degradation. Would I be right in saying this? It doesn't limit the output. Does it?

However, I recently discovered the program BDtoAVCHD. It can produce various outputs: DVD-5, DVD-9, BD-25, BD-50, etc. As I'm now using BD-25s, I set it to author with BD-25 mode. I was surprised when it produced from a 10 GB MKV: a full 23 GB BD. The bitrate was noticeably higher than the base MKV. Now for my main question: does an increased bitrate make a BD look better than the base MKV, or would there by no upgrade? I'm not sure how much you could get by upping the bitrate.

If the increased bitrate does make a difference, I'd be interested in making this the main program I use for authoring.

digitalfreaknyc said:

I just saw the commercial for the Godfather Saga on AMC, which will start airing tomorrow. The commercial did indeed say it was completely restored and showed them in HD. If they went through and remastered the whole thing then that CERTAINLY is news.

I caught a commercial and am watching this now. This alternative version is absolutely fantastic! I love all the deleted scenes and the introductions. Thanks for the info, digitalfreaknyc. I actually just started a thread right here about it.

REALLY excited for a new release with more restored deleted scenes!!

I would definitely love and pay for more deleted scenes. It's really a great alternate cut. If it's restored, it deserves it's own release. If it's not I really, really hope that someone caps it in the full quality HD for a BD or something. It would be a magnificent presentation. Sorry if I'm being demanding, but for anyone with the technology, please, please. It would be impressive... most impressive.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

(don't worry, I'm leaving the ones that aren't distracting).

Yay for non-distracting mouse drops! :-)

It's very minor stuff, but also very tedious.

Keep hanging in there, Puggo. Your tedious work is much appreciated by us here.